Brickbat: Paid To Go Away
(Illustration: NPR News/Zzz1b/Dreamstime/Wikimedia Commons)
In nine years as a police officer in Kansas City, Missouri, Blayne Newton fatally shot three people and injured others, costing the city millions of dollars to settle lawsuits resulting from his actions. He has now agreed to resign from the city police department under a settlement agreement that will pay him $50,000. In June 2023, Newton fired 16 shots into a minivan, killing two people and wounding a third, even though he was not supposed to be on duty in that area at the time; the city later paid $3.5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit as a result of the incident.