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Well, yeah.

If they had been suspended, they would have been contacted by IA, as you have mentioned in the past. As an employee, you’re supposed to cooperate, which is basically immediately relevant information. How many rounds fired, and in what direction? In this case, there’s zero immediately relevant information, so they would have moved to a legalistic response.

Which sounds like this: “I need to contact my union rep and my lawyer. And when are you going to issue me a new pistol?” I suspect that the reason for firing them immediately, without an investigation was to deny them union representation and city paid defense.

Strange to post about unions on FR, but NO ONE is looking out for the individual patrol officer other than his fellow officers. All the ills of society are laid at his feet, and when things go wrong, which they will, the guy who drew the short straw is hung out to dry.

Thanks for the calm deliberation. Sometimes it gets pretty wild. My sense of the case is that if the officers had been put on leave, then IA would have had time to interview them all. This interview couldn't be used against them at trial, but if any of them changed their testimony, then the interview could be used to impeach their testimony. This is what I term an unforced error and the prosecution probably wishes at this point that those interviews were available.

As for the civil side, the attorneys for the plaintiff's probably also wish a IA interview had been done. The IA interview would have all the reports and all the witnesses who were interviewed. In essence, IA would have done a lot of leg work for the plaintiff's attorneys. Now, the plaintiff's attorneys have to do depositions with nothing to compare the statements with.

The defense has had a huge burden lifted of it because with no IA interview, it can craft its case around whatever case the prosecution puts together.

The same applies to the defense on the civil side. While the plaintiff's attorneys will certainly do depositions of the officers, there is no IA interview to compare the depositions with. The whole point I was trying to make, is that the firing of the officers put an unnecessary obstacle in the path of the prosecution and the civil attorneys. I have tried to explain this without taking sides. You see how that worked out.

As for representation, generally the city will pay the legal bills of the officers. This might not happen here. What the Union leaders then do is to take a vote and arrange for legal defense of the officers anyway. That may be what has happened in this case.