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Minneapolis police chief takes on union, promises reformThe Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said as he announced the first steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency.
Arradondo said a thorough review of the contract is planned. He said the contract needs to be restructured to provide more transparency and flexibility for true reform. The review would look at matters such as critical incident protocols, use of force and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration.
He said it was debilitating for a chief when there were grounds to terminate an officer and a third-party mechanism worked to keep that person on the street.
"This work must be transformational, but I must do it right," Arradondo said of changes to the department.
He also promised new research and strategies to spot and intervene with problem officers.
"We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart," he said, adding that the department has to address issues of racism head-on.
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'Teach them what necessary force is': George Floyd's brother calls for police reforms
Lawmakers heared urgent pleas from George Floyd's brother who called for reforms and better training for police officers.
"Teach them what necessary force is," he said "Teach them that necessary force should be used rarely, and only when life is at risk."
He also reminded the panel that police were called because his brother had allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill.'
- Al Jazeera, (
Source, June 10, 2020)
'..Police unions in the US wield significant power and enjoy higher membership rates than many other unions, which have declined in recent years. Government officials and labor experts also tell CNN that police union contracts often make it tougher to remove officers that have been flagged for misconduct -- a key roadblock to reform.''A crowd of police officers in Philadelphia gathered outside their local union headquarters on Monday to show their support for one of their own -- a staff inspector facing assault charges after allegedly beating a college student at an anti-racism protest last week.
Like all criminal defendants, Philadelphia Police Staff Inspector Joseph Bologna is innocent until proven guilty. But it seemed like the crowd of more than 100 applauding officers already made up their minds, despite viral footage of Bologna hitting the student in the back of the head with a metal baton, sending him to the hospital.
Following the rally, the union that represents Bologna issued a statement, saying it "will not stand-by and watch Inspector Bologna get railroaded."
As public opinion shifts on issues of police violence and racial discrimination, and cities begin to rethink their approach to law enforcement, powerful police unions across the country are digging in, and preparing for a once-in-a-generation showdown over policing.
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..Police unions in the US wield significant power and enjoy higher membership rates than many other unions, which have declined in recent years. Government officials and labor experts also tell CNN that police union contracts often make it tougher to remove officers that have been flagged for misconduct -- a key roadblock to reform.
"They've become far too powerful. They form political action committees. They donate to district attorneys' race or state attorneys' race, state senators and representatives and so forth," Charles Ramsey, a former DC police chief and former Philadelphia police commissioner, said Sunday on CNN. "And then we wonder why you can't get anything done."
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'Corrosive' police cultureFor years, lawmakers from both parties passed police-friendly laws and empowered police unions in their cities. But in this moment, there could be limited opening for bipartisanship.
"We need reform in the area of the police unions to make sure that the chief can actually have disciplinary control over the force," said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is personally handling the prosecution of the four police officers involved in Floyd's death.
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Ronal Serpas, the former police chief in New Orleans and Nashville, said unions nationwide have successfully negotiated for control over disciplinary processes, creating a "corrosive" culture where problematic officers know their union will protect them from consequences.
"To change police culture, we have to change the way contracts are handled," said Serpas, who oversaw police reforms in New Orleans after years of corruption and after Hurricane Katrina.
Decades of collective bargaining has resulted in police forces where department chiefs have little control, and the unions have set the terms for internal investigations. Even if an officer is formally punished, nuances in the contract often help officers prevail on appeal, Serpas said.
For instance, some police union agreements have outlined how long police leadership must wait to investigate an incident, how they can ask the police officers questions and what they can ask, and how quickly the department must complete an investigation. Taken together, it puts the disciplinary power in the hands of the unions, which are set up to protect police officers' jobs.
Sometimes, police officers of color face discrimination within their own departments, and police unions have been complicit in allowing these inequalities to fester and survive, experts tell CNN.
As local governments look to pass new reforms, they'll need to rewrite many of these policies and claw back some of the powers they've ceded to the police unions, Serpas explained.
"The unions are doing what they are supposed to be doing -- finding ways to protect their employees," Serpas said. "They'll go as far as the local government will let them go."
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As the political winds change, police unions are set to face more scrutiny than ever. Some union leaders, like Edward Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association in New York City, say that politicians are changing their views about policing for political expediency.
"The elected officials who are now anti-police almost all of them have taken money from police unions," Mullins said. "They were all pro-law enforcement until they realized November is coming up. Now because the narrative is anti-police and they are becoming anti-cop, you really have to question that. If you're trying to make changes now, why did it take riots to get you to do something that should have been done a long time ago?" '
- CNN,
Police unions dig in as calls for reform grow, June 9, 2020
'..the military feel of police forces is that the Pentagon, since the 1990s but more so after the Iraq War, started giving or lending its weapons of war to police departments..''Much has been written on the militarization of American police, in particular in the years since 9/11 and also as a result of the war on drugs. The ACLU wrote a report on this in 2014, after a previous series of protests and calls for change to policing.
It's worth reading.
One large reason for the military feel of police forces is that the Pentagon, since the 1990s but more so after the Iraq War, started giving or lending its weapons of war to police departments -- more than $7 billion since the program started and $293 million worth of equipment in 2019.
Look up what your local police have gotten from the Pentagon right here.'
- CNN,
'Defund the police' vs. Fortress America, June 9, 2020
Context(Total Police Reform) - The Problem of Policing and Local Public Economics - '..The Ostroms stood against the consolidationist movement and in particular UNIGOV..'Minneapolis City Council vows to break up police .. 'Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.'WAR COMES HOME - The Excessive Militarization of American Policing