Compensation that shouldn’t have been needed

Stuff reports:

The parents of a 22-year-old Kiwi man killed by a sheriff’s deputy while suffering a mental health crisis will get US$19 million (NZ$30.27m) from US government state and local agencies and changes to how officers are trained, under a newly announced settlement.

There’s many great things about the US, but trigger happy cops is not one of them. This was a totally unjustified shooting. In NZ cops shoot as a last resort. What happened in the US would be almost unthinkable to occur here.

But one good thing about the US is that at least in this case their civil laws allow for decent compensation. Nothing will make up for losing a son, but $30 million compensation sends a message this was serious misconduct.