When you want a cop to go away, you want the cop to go away and not sue you,” said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of the Bloustein Local Government Research Center at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and a retired government official who monitored local government spending. “The cost of settling is cheaper than the cost of litigating.”
If a cop faces discipline, he or she can often quietly resign and secure a promise from the town not to bad-mouth them to a new employer.