By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
Police brutality has left deep wounds across the country— not just in the lives lost, but in the communities and families who have been shattered. The cost is not only a human one.
Each year, cities across the U.S. draw from public funds to settle police misconduct cases, placing financial responsibility on taxpayers.
“Police violence takes lives, inflicts lasting trauma and erodes trust between communities and law enforcement,” said Kelly Davis, managing director of advocacy and organizing at Campaign Zero. “Cities spend billions on legal settlements and on misconduct payouts over time— money that could instead fund schools, housing, mental health care and violence prevention.”
Established in 2015, Campaign Zero tracks police violence nationwide and develops evidence-based solutions to reduce harm by law enforcement. Its latest “Mapping Police Violence” analysis found that police violence reached its highest level on record last year.
In 2024, 1,365 people died at the hands of law enforcement, and Black people were 2.9 times more likely than their White counterparts to be the victims.
Davis noted that one of the most overlooked impacts of police violence is lingering emotional trauma that invades other aspects of individuals’ lives.
“This trauma can fundamentally alter how victims interact with family and peers, changing relationship dynamics that have become infused with fear and anger,” said Davis. “Without adequate trauma response tools or accessible mental health services in our communities, these emotions can compound harm to victims and others.”
Police violence is personal for Davis. Her husband, Keith Davis Jr., was shot by Baltimore officers in 2015 following a foot chase and later charged with a murder he said he didn’t commit. Davis Jr. was tried four times, spending over seven years behind bars.
In 2023, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan J. Bates dismissed all charges against him amid mounting concerns over police and prosecutorial misconduct.
“As someone whose husband was shot by Baltimore City police and falsely charged, these incidents force entire families into states of hypervigilance and fear,” said Davis. “The mental health toll manifests into anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms that can ripple through families and communities without adequate support or resources for healing.”
As the repercussions of police violence pervade through neighborhoods, the damage extends beyond mental health. It can disrupt housing, schools and local businesses.
“We see housing instability occur as victims face legal battles and lost income for hospital stays and medical bills that can financially ruin them. This can lead to evictions, which contributes to neighborhood decline and business disinvestment— especially in over-policed neighborhoods,” said Davis. “The schools suffer because of untreated trauma that manifests in lower academic scores and performance and higher dropout rates. The fallout from these police killings and excessive force by and large is trauma, and that trauma is just passed from one generation to the next.”
The bills that come with trauma
According to the National Police Funding Database, New York and Chicago are among the cities with the largest payouts for police misconduct. From 2010 to 2019, New York City spent $945.2 million on police misconduct claims and settlements. The city of Chicago paid $295 million between 2010 and 2018.
In Baltimore, a much smaller municipality, the city spent $12 million on police misconduct cases between 2010 and 2014. From 2015 to 2019, its taxpayers paid $24.5 million for police misconduct settlements.
One of Baltimore’s prominent payouts was to the family of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who died in April 2015 from a severe spinal injury while in police custody. The city agreed to pay $6.4 million to Gray’s family in September 2015.
Some states, including New York, are considering legislation that would require police officers to carry personal liability insurance. The approach aims to shift some of the financial burden away from taxpayers and onto officers themselves. Still, no such laws have been enacted.
William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr., the Baltimore attorney who represented Gray’s family, pointed to another, more common solution. Rather than mandating individual officers to obtain personal coverage, he suggested that municipalities themselves secure liability insurance to cover the costs of police misconduct. This strategy could mitigate reliance on public funds for misconduct settlements and help cities better manage financial risk.
“The benefit of getting insurance is that the insurance companies hate police brutality as much as we do because that’s a liability that can cause them big damages,” said Murphy. “What you get with insurance for the city is risk management.”
Murphy explained that insurance companies have a strong incentive to reduce police misconduct because it exposes them to significant financial losses. Insurance companies’ risk management services help cities identify and remove problematic officers while promoting policies and practices that prevent police misconduct.
Murphy called on the city of Baltimore to take a more proactive approach.
“The city has to be smart enough to get insurance. Insurance has been available as long as I’ve been alive, but people just don’t follow through and do what would be best for the city,” said Murphy. “As a result, we’re paying far too much money out of the general fund when we could be paying a fraction of that amount by getting insurance.”
