I’ll cut against the grain here and say it’s ABSOLUTELY appropriate for taxpayers to pay the bill here.

It’s pretty toxic that people don’t want to take responsibility for their own government in a democracy. In this case, it’s especially bad, given the sheriff is elected by the people directly. But I’d go even further and say even where control is less direct, we need incentives for voters to take this stuff seriously.

Taxpayers should get a line item on their tax bills that specifically counts the amount of their bill that went toward settlements arising out of police misconduct, so they can see in numeric terms what they're voting for.

I'd say it would be more fitting that the individual people named in the suit had to pay the bill. But in that absence of that, having taxpayers pay the bill is the next best way to wake people up about the true cost of incompetent public servants.

I agree with a caveat: the offending agency’s budget should be impacted rather than the general fund. The cost of lawsuits ideally would be itemized in the budget and publicized to show which agencies have legal waste. Otherwise the drag on taxpayers is obscured which gives cover for yet more malfeasance and political opportunism.

You're on the right track - the services of government should be more accountable to the people, and the people should hold some responsibility for the actions of their government.

For police in particular, the unions prevent a lot of police accountability, and because of the power that police wield over the population, I am comfortable saying I support unions EXCEPT police unions. At best they should be ballot initiatives.

If I go further down my rabbit hole of systemic issues, I think citizens should be more involved in community policing in large populations.

I'm with you and have said this a long time. We* are responsible for the government that acts in our name and we should bear the costs of its abuse. The Sheriff did not have the power of arrest that he abused here when we has a regular citizen. We gave him that power and we are responsible for its misuse. That is not to say the Sheriff should not be punished and our criminal laws and criminal system are woefully inadequate for a myriad of reasons at punishing abuse. There is a term for what the Sheriff did - kidnapping. That is never gonna happen, but the civil litigation and damages is rightly against Sheriff Nick Weems not Nick Weems.

* We does not mean everyon every time - it means the people from whom an official vests their power.