Fired/Rehired: Police chiefs are often forced to put officers fired for misconduct back

[former9thward]

Source: Washington Post

Since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust, from cheating on overtime to unjustified shootings. But The Washington Post has found that departments have been forced to reinstate more than 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts.

Most of the officers regained their jobs when police chiefs were overruled by arbitrators, typically lawyers hired to review the process. In many cases, the underlying misconduct was undisputed, but arbitrators often concluded that the firings were unjustified because departments had been too harsh, missed deadlines, lacked sufficient evidence or failed to interview witnesses.

A San Antonio police officer caught on a dash cam challenging a handcuffed man to fight him for the chance to be released was reinstated in February. In the District, an officer convicted of sexually abusing a young woman in his patrol car was ordered returned to the force in 2015. And in Boston, an officer was returned to work in 2012 despite being accused of lying, drunkenness and driving a suspected gunman from the scene of a nightclub killing.

The chiefs say the appeals process leaves little margin for error. Yet police agencies sometimes sabotage their own attempts to shed troubled officers by making procedural mistakes. The result is that police chiefs have booted hundreds of officers they have deemed unfit to be in their ranks, only to be compelled to take them back and return them to the streets with guns and badges.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/police-fired-rehired/?utm_term=.2cb9a7c5b0ba&wpisrc=al_alert-national&wpmk=1

[stevenleser]

1. I am beyond words.

[melm00se]

2. This is where support

for unions will show.

Unions are there to protect its members and file grievances and for arbitration when the terms of the contract are not being upheld.

[Mosby]

3. the unions are protecting bad cops

[Igel]

5. All unions protect their own.

That's what they do. Among other things.

I find it completely disingenuous when a teacher's union calls for high wages on the grounds it's good for the kids. "We're steelworkers and demand a pay increase. It's good for the steel." Or farm workers, "We want higher pay. It'll be good for the tomatoes."

Unions protect their own. They enforce the contracts. They protect against official "findings of misconduct" that are mishandled. Sometimes the misconduct is real. Sometimes the boss just doesn't like you and needs a spot for his nephew.

[dsc]

6. actually having teachers be well paid professionals is good for kids

In a capitalist system we show we value things by how much money we spend on them. If you want good teachers, then you need to pay them.

[Jake Stern]

4. If a union protects violent and predatory cops then, no, I don't support them.

There's a world of difference between a union seeking arbitration for plant workers who are having their wages ripped off by the owners and police departments being forced to reinstate and provide back pay to a cop after being fired, post conviction, for sexually assaulting a woman.

[ret5hd]

7. The Union is essentially a pre-paid lawyer. The true problem lies in the last paragraph of the OP:

"Yet police agencies sometimes sabotage their own attempts to shed troubled officers by making procedural mistakes."

You think that happens by accident? I don't. The union is just doing the job they are supposed to do in these cases: represent the member. Federal law dictates that.

Who's not doing their job? The police agency. On purpose.
"Hey, we fired him, but the eebul union got 'im back? Waddaya gonna do? Yeah, we really hate that happened. Really."

[Jake Stern]

9. Would you agree with the reinstatement of a union Kroger worker who had been convicted of theft

because the company didn't dot every "i" and cross every "t"?

I don't agree that every instance where a technicality is messed up is deliberate on the part of the police. I stand behind my belief that the police unions serve only to protect and sustain criminal cops.

[LanternWaste]

10. That's the line we're fed. Some people swallow it easily without question

"The union is just doing the job they are supposed to do in these cases..."

That's the line we're fed. Some people swallow it easily without question, while others wait for objective evidence both supporting the premise and pointing toward absolutely no other factors involved in the mitigation.

[geek tragedy]

8. cop unions aren't unions, they're conspiracies to violate civil rights nt

[Dawson Leery]

11. ....and this is why law enforcement should NOT have unions.

[bluecollar2]

12. if you have never been a Union Representative

And have never read "Just Cause, The Seven Tests" you're not qualified to discuss the role of the Union in discipline and discharge cases.

You are however, qualified to make your arguments on a purely emotional basis.