In the past five years, as demands for reform have increased following police violence in cities like Ferguson, Missouri, Baltimore and now Minneapolis, police unions have become one of the biggest obstacles to change. The greater the political pressure for reform, the more often unions are wary of resisting it – with few municipal officials, including liberal leaders, able to overcome their opposition.
They aggressively protect the rights of members charged with misconduct, often in arbitration hearings they fought to keep in camera. And they have also been remarkably effective in pushing for wider change, using their political clout and influence to frustrate efforts to increase accountability.
While unionization rates have dropped by half nationally since the early 1980s, to 10%, higher unionization rates among police unions give them resources that they can spend on campaigns and litigation. block reform. A single New York police union has spent more than a million dollars on national and local races since 2014.
In Saint Louis, when Kim Gardner was elected supreme attorney four years ago, she decided to curb the high rate of police violence in the city. But after proposing a unit within the prosecutor’s office to independently investigate misconduct, she came across the powerful local police union.
The union lobbied legislators to rescind the proposal, which many supported but never voted on. Around the same time, a lawyer for the union led a legal fight to limit the prosecutor’s ability to investigate breaches by the police. The following year, a union leader said that Ms. Gardner should be fired “by force or by choice”.
Politicians tempted to cross police unions have long feared of being labeled as criminal by the unions, or of more serious consequences.
When Steve Fletcher, Minneapolis city councilor and frequent police critic, sought to divert money from recruiting agents and into a new violence prevention office, he said, police stopped respond as quickly to 911 calls from constituents. “It works a bit like a protective racket,” said Fletcher of the union.
A spokesman for the Minneapolis Police Department said he was unable to comment.
Several days after Minneapolis prosecutors charged an officer with the murder of George Floyd, the president of the city police union denounced political leaders, accusing them of selling its members and firing four officers without due process.
“This is despicable behavior,” wrote union president Lt. Bob Kroll in a letter to union members obtained by a local reporter. He also called the protesters a “terrorist movement”.
Kroll, who has been the subject of at least 29 complaints himself, also chastised the Obama administration for its “police oppression” and praised President Trump as someone who “had put the handcuffs to criminals for us. “
In other cases, unions have not directly resisted the reforms, but have made them difficult to put in place. Federal intervention is often one of the few reliable means of reforming the police. But in Cleveland, the union has helped slow down the adoption of reforms mandated by federal consent decree, according to Jonathan Smith, a former Justice Department official who oversaw the government’s investigation into police practices in the area. country.
Smith said union leaders had warned base officers that the changes should not be taken seriously, such as the requirement to report and investigate cases where they pointed a gun. “I have heard this in many departments,” said Smith. “‘ Wait. Do the minimum you have to do. “” He said he thought the reforms had since taken root.
Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Union at the time of the consent decree, said that he and his colleagues considered some of the prescribed rules to be counterproductive.
“Whenever a child points to a gun, they must investigate the use of force,” said Loomis of his young colleagues. “Now guys don’t point their guns when they should point their weapons.”
Robert Bruno, professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois, postulated that many police officers see themselves as figures of authority who associate compromise and weakness. Other experts said that it was rational for the police unions, which are often viewed with suspicion by other members of the union movement and see themselves as separate from it, to tirelessly protect their members.
“A major role for police unions is essentially an insurance policy,” said Dale Belman, professor of labor relations at Michigan State University, who consulted for police unions. “The feeling of many officers is that it is very easy to sacrifice them. Something is wrong and boom. “
This only became more true in the age of ubiquitous cell phone cameras and social media. And the feeling of being under siege only reinforced the demands of union members to protect them.
In Baltimore, where the city and the Department of Justice reached a consent decree in 2017 to reform police behavior, the union described a police service in chaos, with severe staff shortages and morale low. Those who remained said they did not feel supported by their commanders.
“They are ready to throw the police under the bus to appease the media and do not support us even when our actions are appropriate,” said an officer interviewed in a report released last year by a group helping the department to put in place implementing reforms.
It remains to be seen how unions will respond to city and state reform initiatives since the death of Floyd, including a new ban on chokeholds in Minneapolis. But in recent days, unions have continued to show solidarity with officers accused of abusive behavior.
Buffalo police union president said union stands “100%” behind two officers who were suspended on Thursday after they appeared to be pushing an older man who fell and was injured in the head. The union president said the officers were “just following orders.”
The 57 officers from the emergency response team, a special squad formed to respond to the riots, had resigned from their positions on the team to support the suspended officers, according to The Buffalo News.
Unions can be so effective in defending their members that cops with a pattern of abuse can remain intact, with fatal consequences. In Chicago, after the 17-year murder of Laquan McDonald by agent Jason Van Dyke, it became apparent that Mr. Van Dyke had already been the subject of multiple complaints. But a “code of silence” on professional misconduct has been “incorporated” into the work agreements between the police unions and the city, according to a report by the task force.
New York police unions have been among the staunchest opponents of the Albany reforms, including calls to reform strict state restrictions on officers’ disciplinary records. In a rush to make these documents public in recent days, city police unions joined statewide police groups on Friday to urge the legislature to keep the law in effect. .
“No rational political discussion can take place in the context of the fire of police vehicles and store windows looted,” reads in an opposition note from police groups.
The city’s patrol officers union, which has approximately 24,000 active members, and another representative of the sergeants, strongly criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office in 2014, riding a wave of dissatisfaction about incessant police services.
Mayor promised reform, but after deadly shooting of two uniformed officers in Brooklyn by man who alleged police murder of Eric Garner, de Blasio faced revolt almost declared by officers ground.
Patrol union leader Patrick J. Lynch said at the time that the mayor had “blood on his hands”. Many officers turned their backs on Mr. de Blasio at the funeral for the officers killed. And a few days later, many more indulged in what amounted to a de facto slowdown in work. Arrests have dropped, as have fines for minor offenses.
Lynch stayed with officers even when there was ample evidence of misconduct, defending the officers who killed Amadou Diallo in 1999 and another who in 2008 pushed a cyclist to the ground during a race protest. The union provided lawyers for the officers involved in the two cases.
When liberal politicians tried to push reform proposals forward, union officials used highly provocative rhetoric and fierce campaign tactics to attack them. Last week, the head of the New York Sergeants’ Union posted a police report on Twitter revealing personal information about the daughter of Mr. de Blasio, who had been arrested during a demonstration.
In St. Louis, commercial director of a local police union, Jeff Roorda, wrote an unflattering poem about Ms. Gardner, the local prosecutor, in a union newsletter that said, “You are a disaster, Misses Kim / Your heart is dark and vile / You prefer to charge a police officer / That all the murders you could report. “The union also ran social media ads against an alder who also argued for reform, Megan Green, calling her a” communist cop-chopper “and superimposing her head on Mao Zedong’s body.
Mr. Roorda declined to comment.
Sometimes strident leadership seems to engender even more strident leadership. In 2017, the Chicago Fraternal Police Order elected a new president who denounced an investigation by the federal Department of Justice into the murder of Mr. McDonald as “politically motivated” and committed to fighting it the “anti-police movement”. This president was ousted this year by a candidate who had mocked the consent decree that followed and criticized his predecessor for not resisting the mayor.
While statistics compiled by Campaign Zero show that Chicago murders and shootings have dropped following a series of reforms after a federal survey, supporters fear the union will undermine them in negotiations contractual. Police unions have traditionally used their bargaining agreements to create barriers to the discipline of officers. A document by researchers at the University of Chicago found that incidents of violent misconduct in the offices of the Florida sheriff increased by about 40% after members of the House acquired the right to bargain collectively.
“By continuing to elect people who defend these values, it further deepens the disconnect between the community and the police,” said Karen Sheley, director of the Police Practices Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “It makes it much more difficult to continue reform efforts.”
As police criticism becomes stronger and more common, union members have elected more aggressive leaders. In Minneapolis in 2015, Mr. Kroll defeated the long-standing union president by a margin of almost two to one after the city installed a police chief determined to reform.
“I believe Bob Kroll was elected out of fear,” said Janeé Harteau, the police chief at the time, adding that Mr. Kroll’s message to the police was, “We are the only ones supporting you. Your community does not support you. Your police chief is trying to get you fired. “
Mr. Kroll did not return calls for comment. John Elder, the spokesman for the police department, said the current police chief and Mr. Kroll had a solid relationship.
Harteau said department has introduced new rules requiring officers to protect the “sanctity of life” and to intervene if they see a colleague use improper force, but Mr. Kroll’s union has undermined changes by protecting agents who violate policies. Data on shootings and murders of police in the city seem to have changed little despite the reforms.
“I have a hard time knowing if they have become more extreme or if the world has changed and they have not done so,” said city councilor Fletcher about the union. “Anyway, they are deeply out of alignment with the moment.”