Baltimore taxpayers have shelled out $24.5 million over the past five years to settle misconduct cases involving city police officers. “The city of Baltimore is going to be on the hook for millions and millions more dollars,” said Sean Kennedy with Maryland’s Public Policy Institute. The city agreed to pay $600,000 to settle the first two lawsuits associated with the former gun trace task force. Seven former officers from that unit are now serving federal sentences for robbing and threatening city residents. “There are dozens of cases, and there could be more, especially as people come out of the woodwork, seeing that these people are winning large settlements,” said Kennedy. Its unclear how many additional lawsuits are in the state and federal courts but all of them come with a huge cost to city taxpayers. “Baltimoreans should have hope, because it can’t get much worse,” said Kennedy.

These examples of police misconduct and countless others have cost taxpayers across the USA billions of dollars. Since the money for such settlements or judgments come from the taxpayers rather than the police officers, there is little incentive for the police to stop engaging in that misconduct.