Regarding personal liability of cops, at least in Chicago and Ohio, cops are NOT indemnified for punitive damages. They own them PERSONALLY, as was the case in which Officer Alvin Weems of the Chicago PD shot and unarmed, unresisting Michael Pleasance and lied about it. He was found liable for some portion of $3,000,000. He shot himself.
That's why, in Chicago at least, civil suits against police are typically settled with obscene haste, regardless of how ludicrous they might seem.
Of course paradoxically, they do seem to fight airtight cases against cops. Hence the civil judgment against the Chicago PD and Officer Anthony Abbate for the savage and cowardly beating of barmaid Carolina Obrycka. An added bonus was the finding in the case that the Chicago PD maintained a "blue wall of silence". Everybody KNEW it, now it's been confirmed by a court of competent jurisdiction. I predict that it'll be a gift which keeps on giving...
