The law often shields police officers from accountability -- and reinforces policing that harms Black people, homeless people and the mentally ill

A demonstrator holds an 'End Police Violence' sign during a protest after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd. Frederic J. Brown/AFP/via Getty Images

Seeking accountability in the brutal police beating death of her son, the mother of Tyre Nichols has filed a US$55 million federal lawsuit against the individual officers, the Memphis Police Department and the city of Memphis, Tennessee.

There’s no way to predict the outcome of this lawsuit. But civil suits are by now a familiar tool of grieving families on a familiar quest.