I was a member of a municipal firefighters union. The biggest problem is that the union, whether they like the person or not, agree or disagree with their actions, is charged with protecting each member equally. Ironic huh?
I know in my union we had several cases that led to terminations that the union got overturned, some extremely reluctantly, due to ineptness of city and department leadership to properly document facts and/or follow the progressive discipline plan laid out in the contract.
If you look at the employment backgrounds of these officers committing these crimes you see time and again, Officer X has 6 complaints of excessive force in X years, Officer Y has 8, etc. These guys get away with this because of administration issues and attorney's who are good at finding loopholes in the contract.
They continue to commit theses heinous, racist, deadly acts because they feel empowered to do so. Until cities and the unions get on board together to get rid of the bad officers and poor leadership this will continue to happen.
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