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Vermont pays $175,000 to man arrested for giving the middle finger to state trooper (www.vermontpublic.org)

submitted 4 months ago by FirstCircle@lemmy.ml to c/usa@lemmy.ml

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It all started, Greg Bombard said, with a broken coffee maker. That’s what prompted him to get into his car and head to Dunkin’ on a winter day in 2018.

It ended this month when the state of Vermont paid Bombard $175,000 to settle the lawsuit that ultimately resulted from that short drive.

The settlement covers Bombard’s arrest that day by a state trooper who said the St. Albans Town man flipped him the middle finger — and a second, related citation nearly six years later, on Christmas Day.

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[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Good for this guy, but there is nothing positive or uplifting about this story.

The police were not materially harmed in any way to encourage a change in behavior, the officer who was obviously just another giant asshole in a sea of assholes is enjoying a healthy retirement where he can sit and fondly remember how many dogs he's shot.

This never should have happened, this doesn't happen in every country with a police force, we don't have to put up with this as a cost of "freedom." We don't accept "a few bad apples" in hospitals or airlines, so why is one of our most important jobs run effectively with no oversight or independant review?

I used to think it was entirely corruption, but lately I think it's darker. I think a lot of people want to be persecuted by an authority. Maybe not having a danger to worry about makes humans idle and angry and that's why we have so much contention and anti-social behavior.

Or it might just be boomers running shit and laughing at 1-dimensional social media memes.