In November a video tape was released showing a Chicago police officer shooting a young black man 16 times. The young man died and the police officer was arrested and will be tried for the shooting. Before that however the city council of Chicago paid the family of the young man close to 5 million dollars as a settlement over the event. This is just one of the payouts from the city for police misconduct which in total have been about $450 million dollars over the last 10 years. To cover the cost of these incidents Chicago has floated over 100 million dollars in bonds to cover these issues. This situation is not unique to Chicago. For example in Philadelphia more than 40 million dollars has been paid out over the last 5 years and New York City has paid out over 450 million dollars over the same period. Where does this money come from? Do these settlements result in citizens paying other citizens for the bad behavior of a few? Who really should be responsible for making these payments?
