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The Blue Wall of Silence Is Starting to Crack

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  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
    A 2007 lawsuit said the president of the Minneapolis police union wore a 'white power' patch on his motorcycle jacket and discriminated against officers of color

    What could possibly go wrong?

    • A group of black Minneapolis Police officers, including the current chief, sued the department in 2007 over discrimination within the department.
    • The suit alleged differential treatment of black police officers when it came to overtime, promotions, and even discipline.
    • In the complaint, plaintiffs said that the current president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, Bob Kroll, openly wore a "white power" patch on his motorcycle jacket.
    The graphic footage of George Floyd begging for help as Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin pinned him to the ground for at least eight minutes, eventually killing him, has dominated the national conversation.

    Floyd's death has resulted in the firing of Chauvin and three other officers on the scene. It has also sparked citywide riots and led to police and politicians around the country — in unprecedented language — condemning the actions of the Minneapolis officers involved.

    One voice that has been relatively absent from the outrage, though, is the usually outspoken Lt. Bob Kroll, the head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.


    Yes, we really need a NATIONAL Police Union!

    Considering how in this environment simply giving someone the "okay" signal can be viewed as supporting white supremacy, I'd have to see the "white power" patch in question.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    A 2007 lawsuit said the president of the Minneapolis police union wore a 'white power' patch on his motorcycle jacket and discriminated against officers of color

    What could possibly go wrong?

    • A group of black Minneapolis Police officers, including the current chief, sued the department in 2007 over discrimination within the department.
    • The suit alleged differential treatment of black police officers when it came to overtime, promotions, and even discipline.
    • In the complaint, plaintiffs said that the current president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, Bob Kroll, openly wore a "white power" patch on his motorcycle jacket.
    The graphic footage of George Floyd begging for help as Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin pinned him to the ground for at least eight minutes, eventually killing him, has dominated the national conversation.

    Floyd's death has resulted in the firing of Chauvin and three other officers on the scene. It has also sparked citywide riots and led to police and politicians around the country — in unprecedented language — condemning the actions of the Minneapolis officers involved.

    One voice that has been relatively absent from the outrage, though, is the usually outspoken Lt. Bob Kroll, the head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.


    Yes, we really need a NATIONAL Police Union!


    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

    For which I hope they pay dearly.
    If H.R.1 passes they'll have absolutely nothing to fear from that.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    They had no trouble throwing all those union workers set to build the Keystone pipeline under the bus.
    For which I hope they pay dearly.

    Leave a comment:


  • CivilDiscourse
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    They had no trouble throwing all those union workers set to build the Keystone pipeline under the bus.
    The attacked the project....the union was collateral. That's different than attacking the union directly.

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post

    EGGzackly --- and Democrats can't attack either the Teachers Unions or the Police unions because .... well... what you just showed!
    They had no trouble throwing all those union workers set to build the Keystone pipeline under the bus.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by Sparko View Post
    EGGzackly --- and Democrats can't attack either the Teachers Unions or the Police unions because .... well... what you just showed!

    Leave a comment:


  • Sparko
    replied
    58jogp.jpg

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    MORE reasons Police Unions are a really bad idea - either National, or otherwise...

    After a blitz of police killings, reformers focus on the power of their unions

    [ bolding and embiggening for emphasis mine ]

    Pressure for police reform is mounting after the guilty verdicts against former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin and a new burst of police killings, and reformers nationwide are increasingly focused on a key component of law enforcement culture: police unions.

    Across the nation, unions and their leaders have strongly defended officers against accusations of excessive violence, often directed against people of color. Cities are dangerous places, they say, and that justifies a warrior-like approach to policing.

    But in a series of interviews, Berkeley scholars said police unions have successfully used a range of tools, from the fine print in labor contracts to millions of dollars in political donations, to shield officers from accountability and promote hardline policing practices. While discipline is often secret and officers rarely lose their jobs, they say, cities have paid tens of millions of dollars in settlements with recent victims.

    In New York City, a powerful union leader threatened a work slowdown after a white officer was fired for killing Eric Garner, a Black man. In Chicago, a union leader expressed support for the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S Capitol. And in Missouri, one major union embraced legislation to allow the use of deadly force against protesters on private property and give legal immunity to drivers who hit demonstrators blocking traffic.

    “I think the unions are a big problem,” said retired U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, who spent the last part of his career overseeing reforms at the Oakland Police Department. “They feel their strength comes from protecting their members, and so they do everything to protect the members no matter what they do.… In their view, there’s no such thing as a bad apple that they have to pull out of the barrel.”

    Henderson is now a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley School of Law, and he recently worked with law Professor Catherine Fisk and other top legal experts on a framework for reform in California law that would increase transparency and public oversight of police labor negotiations and disciplinary processes.

    If unions are “not effectively challenged by management, by elected officials, by numerical and perhaps racial minorities within police departments for fear of retaliation,” Fisk said in an interview, then the unions’ muscular exercise of power “feeds on itself and becomes ever more extreme.”


    Unions ARE "the Blue Wall".

    Leave a comment:


  • Sparko
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

    You quoted my words. Did you not understand them?



    What archaic usage of words did I employ in my reply that Sparko quoted?
    Stop your silly constractulating.

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
    You quoted my words. Did you not understand them?



    What archaic usage of words did I employ in my reply that Sparko quoted?
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    Where did I say that you did? You really need to stop making things up.
    smiley waiting-impatient.gif

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Here's an interesting take on Abolishing Police Unions....

    Abolish police unions, and the law can finally treat officers like everyone else | Washington Examiner

    We can disagree, Left and Right, on how to handle the debate about racial justice spurred by the killing of George Floyd. But we should all be able to agree on at least one step forward: abolish police unions. I would argue, strongly, that it wasn't racism (whether institutional or structural) that killed Floyd because, sadly, as the case of Justine Ruszyzk shows, death by cop doesn't just happen to black people. Cops in Minneapolis have throttled at least 44 people into unconsciousness in just the past five years, that might have something to do with it. As to why that has happened, I insist that it's because we don't, yet we ought to, hold the police to the same general standards of care and attention that we do everyone else.

    As Alex Tabbarok points out, union contracts mean that police, if arrested for some reason, enjoy privileges that the rest of us most certainly don't if we're arrested. As Sam Sinangwye points out (and he's a researcher into this very problem), in places where union contracts provide more privileges, then police violence is greater. It's useful to provide a reminder of what President Franklin Roosevelt said about public sector unions: There are “insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.” The biggest problem here is we're talking about the police — the very people who are supposed, at least, to be no more than (and absolutely no less than) citizens in uniform.


    A police officer has a job that can be far more dangerous than a buger flipper or a car salesman, or a machinist.... his job is inherently dangerous to himself, but he also can be a deadly danger to people around him - accidentally or on purpose.

    As the article states, police officers have "rights" that none of the rest of us have.

    While I'm not full-bore in agreement with abolishing police unions, I certainly think they need to be scaled back a bunch.
    And it's quite possible that that's only possible by abolishing a current union and replacing it with something else entirely.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Meanwhile, the Police Unions are getting pushback after decades of abuse...

    San Antonio Activists Take On Police Union Contract

    A ballot measure in San Antonio would strip the police union of its collective bargaining rights. NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Oji Martin, co-founder of Fix SAPD, which wants voters to approve it.

    For some time now, activists seeking change around this country's criminal justice system have made police abuse a top priority. Increasingly, activists and officeholders have pointed to police unions and their contracts as a major roadblock to those changes. A group in San Antonio called Fix SAPD is now trying to change that dynamic in their city. A ballot measure in today's citywide election would, if passed, repeal the union's collective bargaining rights. Oji Martin co-founded Fix SAPD, and she is with us now to tell us more from San Antonio. Oji Martin, thanks so much for joining us.

    OJI MARTIN: It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

    MARTIN: I think I should mention that we do not believe that we are related, even though we have the same last name. So with that being said, this is a relatively new group started just this past year. Could you just tell us a little bit about how Fix SAPD got started? Like, what was the germ of the idea?

    O MARTIN: Yeah, so it started directly after the death of George Floyd. Like so many other Americans sitting in my home, I was just watching the television screen wondering how could this happen and what can we do about it? And it began with the kitchen table conversation with my brother that led to us doing more investigation on a Washington Post reporting that San Antonio was No. 1 in the nation for rehiring fired officers. And a deeper dive into it, we saw that there are some issues within our current police union contract that have resulted in that high percentage of rehired officers that have been fired previously by the chief.

    So we decided to talk to our neighbors, talk to our family and friends and basically were able to get people excited about this issue of fixing the accountability problems in San Antonio by repealing collective bargaining for police officers here in our city. That was really the only way that we could have impact on the contract itself.

    MARTIN: And collective bargaining - for people who don't know, that means what? That just means that the union represents the employees and negotiates around issues like what - overtime wages, disciplinary procedures, things of that sort?

    O MARTIN: Correct. So with collective bargaining, the police union here in San Antonio represents the police officers of San Antonio Police Department. And they are able to negotiate on benefits, wage, compensation, all that stuff. But something else that they are able to negotiate on is discipline. And for most people, right off the bat, if you ask them this, should accountability be negotiable, it is no. Accountability is non-negotiable. Great. Negotiate on your benefits, your pension, your health care. All that is fine. But when it comes to holding bad apple officers accountable for their actions, that is non-negotiable. And that is what we are trying to do here in San Antonio, bring accountability to the forefront and make sure that it is something that we consider in any contract that is signed moving forward.


    It targets, of course "collective bargaining", which I have pointed out is the biggest problem with PUBLIC SECTOR unions.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
    Your real objective ... is to harangue that individual....
    Still laughing at this -- anybody else detect a bit of irony?

    "define this" "define that" "that's not the what the dictionary says" "that's not what that means" "archaic definitions are not allowed" "only MY definition of the word" "you have reading comprehension problems" ....



    Leave a comment:


  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Meanwhile, leaving the drama behind....

    DC Police Union says reform has hurt the department, but data suggests otherwise

    The D.C. Council has taken steps to create more accountability in policing with recent police reform legislation, but the city’s police union says some of those changes have made it harder for officers to do their jobs.

    Gregg Pemberton, chair of the D.C. Police Union, said that while he agrees with a majority of the provisions in the bill and does not oppose the release of some evidence in certain use-of-force cases, the release of officers’ names to the public is cause for concern.

    “Officers whose names have been released have become the subject of some pretty serious threats,” said Pemberton.

    He also believes changes to the disciplinary process eliminate the system altogether, leaving many officers reluctant to engage and resulting in rising crime.

    Pemberton said since the new bill went into effect, 313 officers have retired or resigned. Overall, he said that leaves fewer than 3,600 Metropolitan Police Department officers. A drop below 3,300 officers would be what he calls “catastrophic” for the city.

    “We don’t like the idea that the city council wants to put their own employees in that environment in the name of accountability,” added Pemberton.

    Pemberton’s numbers, though, don’t line up with figures D.C. police released to WTOP.


    Yet another situation where the union is in conflict with the civilian officials who fund the police, and the police get caught in the middle.

    Leave a comment:

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