Who pays for the lawsuit? When do cops actually have skin in the game?

Qualified immunity is a joke. They have absolute immunity with the exception of when it is too politically hot and the cops were stupid enough to leave a trail that worked to convict them.

Policing in America is effectively a state-sanctioned mob. I get the need for the law to have teeth in its enforcement, but when the law doesn't apply to those that enforce it then the system is inherently broken.

Until this current regime, my assumption was a simple hierarchy of oversight up to the federal level but the current regime itself has no oversight and is absolutely fine with the system as it is.