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Afroman found not liable in defamation case

nypost.com

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Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#161

Post by dec0dedab0de »

Drakim wrote: post #134
throwa356262 wrote: post #125

Serious question: how come the police have not paid for the damage they caused?

If the damaged party tries to sue the police for the damage they caused, the police can get the case instantly dismissed underqualified immunity.

Qualified immunity just protects the police, and other government officials personally. If there is grounds for a lawsuit then he could still sue the government that employs the police department.

I think in general, if it is a legit warrant, it is very difficult to win a lawsuit for damage. Though with that video, and how high profile this has been, he might be able to win something. though IANAL, and I'm just going off my gut.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#162

Post by Capricorn2481 »

debo_ wrote: post #105

Is the NY Post some kind of National Enquirer analogue? This article reads like it was written by a grade school child trying to emulate the voice of an villainous news reporter.

Yes, it's a pretty over the top paper. Feels like you're reading TMZ for stuff that didn't happen.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#163

Post by mmooss »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #110
mmooss wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Not very smart itself. How sad to reduce the whole thing to ignorant stereotypes It's hard to call it an ignorant stereotype when it is the explicit policy of some police departments not to hire smart people. And to go to court to defend that policy. https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story...

> some police departments

There is one story about one police department. Does the sheriff's department in the OP do that? Does it apply to these particular people? If you don't know, it's ignorant and it's a stereotype.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#164

Post by ceejayoz »

chneu wrote: post #159
NikolaNovak wrote: post #136

I have a potentially silly question, and obviously naive - but why so many drawn guns? Fun music videos aside, what was the background here? Were they coming in on a Massive gang fortress? Or are all the stereotypes of American police forces true and they just come guns a-blazing all the time? I mean, that wasn't even police officers with hand guns, they have army-like guys with massive automatic rifles, and they see…

American police are trained to be afraid. They escalate situations constantly. They're trained that every traffic stop is LIKELY their last. I've had a gun pulled on me twice for traffic stops when I went to grab something. I'm white.

[flagged]

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#165

Post by wl »

throwa356262 wrote: post #125

Serious question: how come the police have not paid for the damage they caused?

They chose not to do so. And the courts are no help, because generally speaking, you can't sue the government unless there's a specific law allowing you to do so (sovereign immunity). The police as individuals are generally immune from civil suits unless they violated some clearly established right (qualified immunity).

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#166

Post by ngc248 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #26
looofooo0 wrote: post #2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oponIfu5L3Y This is the video in question, police again falling trap to the Streisand effect.

Also probably a rare case where there are a few Streisand effect's all packed together, where the cops at each step made it worse for themselves. If they never did the raid in the first place, no music video, no "embarrassment". They could have cut their losses, and not made a big deal about it and probably way less people (including myself) would have ever heard about it. Instead they decided to sue, which made even…

Mega-streisand effect ... they stacked together so many of em

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#167

Post by voxic11 »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #161
Drakim wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the damaged party tries to sue the police for the damage they caused, the police can get the case instantly dismissed underqualified immunity.

Qualified immunity just protects the police, and other government officials personally. If there is grounds for a lawsuit then he could still sue the government that employs the police department. I think in general, if it is a legit warrant, it is very difficult to win a lawsuit for damage. Though with that video, and how high profile this has been, he might be able to win something. though IANAL, and I'm just going…

The government has sovereign immunity which is why you usually have to sue the people involved rather than the government directly.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#169

Post by Capricorn2481 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #133
sneak wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Justice didn’t prevail. Afroman had to spend THOUSANDS defending himself in this bullshit civil lawsuit, and his countersuit got thrown out because police have qualified immunity. This is after they raided his house, bashed in his door, broke his cameras, stole his money, and then didn’t charge him with a single thing (and only returned part of the money). There is no justice here.

One of my local (several states away) bakeries announced a "Afroman lemon cake macaron" today. His legal costs are gonna be tiny versus his YouTube/Spotify revenue out of all this. (And I wouldn't ignore the value he probably applies to being proven right in court, either.)

Which is great for him. The point being this happens to other people who aren't famous, and maybe don't want to spend their time asymmetrically fighting for themselves on social media.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#170

Post by martin_a »

legitster wrote: post #160
NikolaNovak wrote: post #136

I have a potentially silly question, and obviously naive - but why so many drawn guns? Fun music videos aside, what was the background here? Were they coming in on a Massive gang fortress? Or are all the stereotypes of American police forces true and they just come guns a-blazing all the time? I mean, that wasn't even police officers with hand guns, they have army-like guys with massive automatic rifles, and they see…

It's a country with a lot of guns. Police do regularly get shot at when raiding. And police departments get sent videos of every officer death from around the country and regularly watch them for "training purposes". So it makes sense that they are in a constant state of paranoia.

> It's a country with a lot of guns. Police do regularly get shot at when raiding.

Call me naive, but I think this could be solved by stricter gun laws. Yes, bad guys might have guns, but that's the case everywhere around the world.

But being afraid that everybody could have a gun and use it against you while doing your work must clearly change something in your behaviour as a police officer... Why not calm down the whole situation by reducing the number of guns then...

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