Posted on 06/17/2020 4:26:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
For my internet video this week, my staff showed me clips of violent cops.
It's not just Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes -- it's the other cops who just watch.
It's the Buffalo cops who floored a protester and simply walked by as he lay unconscious, bleeding out of his ear. It's a cop in Philadelphia, swinging his baton into protestors, the Atlanta police needlessly tasing two college students, the NYC cops beating a bicyclist and dozens of cases where police lied about what they'd done until body cams or cellphone cameras revealed the truth.
None of this justifies looting, arson and violence against other cops.
But I understand the rage.
Policing is the rare profession given where employees are given a legal right to use deadly force. Most officers use that power responsibly.
But America has 800,000 cops. If just a fraction is racist or sadistic, that's a lot of racist and sadistic bullies.
What can be done about that?
"The problem is repeat offenders. The system doesn't fire those cops," says Washington Post columnist Radley Balko. "The job of a union is to protect the interest of its members, really at any cost." So, bad cops keep policing.
The officer who killed George Floyd had 18 complaints filed against him.
A San Antonio cop was caught challenging prisoners to "take off your cuffs and fight for your freedom!" Then he did it again. Technicalities in his union's contract forced police to reinstate him, twice.
"There's a strong argument to be made that we need to get rid of police unions entirely," says Balko.
What's the union's side of the story?
Cops have a hard job. They must make split-second decisions and act as peacekeepers, baby sitters, marriage counselors and more. They deal with people at the worst time of those people's lives. It may be why officers have a high suicide rate.
"Unions are there for a reason," says Larry Cosme, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. "You have to protect these men and women."
After two New York City cops drove into a crowd of protesters, I asked Cosme to justify that.
"Crowds are throwing bricks at them! You get to a state of panic. You can't go forward. Can't go backwards. So you try to get out of the situation!"
He added, "The police should police themselves."
"But you don't," I said. "They're not held accountable. Especially union officers. They do it again and again. It gets erased from their records."
Cosme disagrees. "They are disciplined. ... If you don't have these protections, then no one's going to want to be a police officer."
But only about half of America's police belong to a union. Where cops are not unionized, says Balko, "there's no shortage of police officers."
Police unions also make police departments harder to manage.
In crime-ridden Camden, New Jersey, union cops took so much sick time and family leave that, most days, nearly 30% of the force just didn't show up. So, Camden fired all of them.
Camden rehired some, but only those willing to go along with new rules that made it easier to fire and discipline.
The result: Murder went down, and Camden saved money.
Per-officer costs dropped from $182,168 to $99,605. That allowed Camden to double the size of its force from "bare bones" to "near the highest police presence of any city."
Extra police allow for community policing -- more people walk the beat, talking to residents.
Unfortunately, today's protesters rarely mention police unions. Instead, they say: "Defund the police! Fund community programs, like job training."
But that won't stop crime. America has already spent trillions on job training and other government social engineering that rarely works. Initially, the programs are staffed by well-intended people who want to help. But over time, they become wasteful, ossified bureaucracies, like most government programs.
We need cops. Police presence does reduce crime.
But we need cops who can be held responsible for their actions.
Long a go my father was a union man. He came home from the service and went to work in a factory. He joined the union when a guy could get shot for union membership.
By the time he retired, he hated them.
He said: “The union is a hideout for bad workers.”
He was right, of course.
Police unions it seems cover for bad police.
Everyone knows there are bad police and still it is hard as hell to remove them even after numerous complaints.
Also the silence of good cops when they know of serious problems with some bad ones.
Still the vast majority of police are good so why do they fail to police themselves???
This is the same way bad teachers hold families and school districts hostage.
Look at all the unintended consequences Democrats have created “looking out for the working man”.
Yet instead of looking at the corrupt, sclerotic systems they’ve created, they manipulate the mayhem fostered by those systems and use it to blame their political opponents.
Like bad school teachers...impossible to get rid of them.
Attack on OUR thin blue line. It’s for a greater good. UNaccountable GLOBALISTS big blue helmets.
https://banned.video/watch?id=5ee6568dc7a607002f12cd99
CCW time. Anybody in Michigan? Click on the pics to see the faces.
https://www.oakgov.com/sheriff/Corrections-Courts/Inmate-Locator/Pages/Inmates-Released.aspx
1) Face 2) Words 3) Deeds
LE does not break into your house, rob you on the street, rape you, kill you, mass-kill, carjack you, kidnap your child, etc., etc. A bad criminal is much more of a threat to you than a bad cop or a gang of bad politicians.
How did we get here...DEFUNDING/DISMANTLING the thin blue line? SUPERCRIMINALS, GLOBALIST SUPERCRIMINALS and their PROPAGANDISTS.
Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask; by whom has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Biggest supporter of police unions? Democrats.
Who runs these cities where these “racial” events happen? Democrats
If minorities really wanted to fix the problems, they would vote the Democrats out instead of keeping them in place for decades.
Good article. Thanks for posting. A lot of bad collectivists (unions) out there...riding herd over people. HOORAY John Stossel.
Why do you think they call them “union thugs”?
They should make it easier to remove bad cops but let’s not pretend that police brutality is in anyway a significant issue in the black community. No one wants to admit it but the problem with blacks in America is their criminal behavior. The destruction of the black family unit is the source of the problem and glorification of crime.
Union members should be allowed to gather and vote on continued membership in the union, lest bad members give the union a “black-eye”.
If allowed, bad cops would be kicked-out by their peers and wouldn’t be able to hide behind the union rules.
Municipalities would be able to fire them.
Thanks Cletus.
After my post I figured I’d be roundly criticized.
Couldn’t agree more with what you said
All the govt employee unions have the same problem. Take away all of them. No Rat would vote for that. Include the teachers union.
The fourth one may be open to question.
Those who complain about police brutality and a host of other racial issues need not look any further, YOU HAVE A RAT PROBLEM! vote them out and you will see a difference. Those who are left to complain? here are the runner ups against better policing and fighting crime, family drug business interference, ho business or other illegal activities difficult, those who thrive on “racism” (al sharpton) and their so called racial activists funds are low.
Bingo.
We can talk about unions and police reform. It's not a bad topic. But it's a diversion from the real problem. The message to the black community needs to be -- Go Fix Yourself.
Fiddling with the police department is like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic -- it's not going to solve the problem that you want solved.
A raw number of complaints against a particular police officer is meaningless. A good friend of mine told a group of us that he has several complaints that are obviously invalid (and identified as such) in his jacket because you can’t ever just throw out a complaint. He specifically mentioned four cases where an incident happened when he was not only not on duty, but was on vacation out of state.
Validated complaints that at least should have resulted in disciplinary action are meaningful, but stuff that is either made up completely or a case of mistaken identity should not be counted.
Philip Brailsford is still a free man.
Rotten article: (1) Assumes that Chauvin and the Buffalo cops are guilty even before they have been tried and ignores everything that has been posted on FR to the contrary. (2) Withhout their unions to protect them, cops would be at the mercy of leftists who think that all cops are racist and that law enforcement is only for Nazis. When conservatives are influential enough to stop the war on good cops, then we can talk about their unions.
I have mentioned this before.
A union (any union) can be thought of as something like a law firm. It’s the union’s job is to protect the membership. Period. You wouldn’t blame a defense lawyer for doing his job. Neither should you blame a union official.
It’s the job of management to discipline workers, and sort out the bad apples. Folks who blame the union should instead be blaming weak management.
However, there is a fly in the ointment. It should be a level playing field. But it’s not. Legislators have made it too hard to fire someone for cause.
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