Undercover cop beaten by colleagues during protest wins $23.5m payout [View all]

St. Louis cops severely beat a black man, Luther Hall, during a street protest in 2017. But Hall was not there to protest: he was in fact another cop observing the event undercover. A jury awarded him $23.5m in a lawsuit that the defendants did not even respond to, so unwilling are they to explain themselves.

"Mr. Hall had to endure this severe beating and while that was happening, he knew it was being administered by his colleagues who were sworn to serve and protect," Circuit Judge Joseph Whyte said. … The attack happened on Sept. 17, 2017, days after Stockley was acquitted in the fatal shooting of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith on Dec. 20, 2011. Hall was walking back toward police headquarters when his uniformed colleagues ordered him to put up his hands and get on the ground, then beat him.

These cops were exposed as violent racist goons by happenstance, and only one of the officers involved got jail time. The payout is a perverse result of making police otherwise unaccountable for misconduct: we now have cops beating each other up and getting massive payouts on the taxpayer's dime.

https://boingboing.net/2024/04/18/undercover-cop-beaten-by-colleagues-during-protest-wins-23-5m-payout.html