MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-07-08 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Police Unions - this is off topic
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/robert-krolls-rise-from-barroom-brawler-to-minneapolis-police-union-boss-11594159577?mod=lead_feature_below_a_pos1
This is a fairly important artical that outlines a big problem with
police uninions and accountability, and dabbles into the complexities of
public finance of municiplaities, and the dangers of being a police
officer.
It is not in favor of my normal political stance, but it can't be
denied. My political goals of a safe, clean, well run city, are in
direct conflict with union contracts that regularly hide, if not reward,
excessive violence. I'd like to say that, in NYC, I think we have
largely handled this problem becuase until recently we have had 20 years
of extremely strong mayors who were able to coral the forces and
dynamiasm of the rank and file of the department, and force their agenda
on the department through compstat and other programs. OTOH, crazy
Bloomberg was stopping and frisking millions of people, which is crazy.
The bottom line here is that in addition to real leadership, riding a
police department is riding a wild bronco. You can't let the rank and
file make oversight decisions, or you end up with cases like Abmer
Lusia, and worst cases. And this does not serve the purposes of Law and
Order, any more than the fact that about 3 in 100 police officers
undergo assualts that lead to serious injury, and about 12 in 100 and
rising are assulted.
Why they took away cops billy clubs I don't understand.
The Article says Unions are largely Republican and then shows evidence
that over time, the majority of union political contributions are to
Democrats!
Slight - oversite on the authors part.
Anyway - see the original URL
Here is my text:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clout of Minneapolis Police Union Boss Reflects National Trend
Douglas Belkin, Kris Maher and Deanna Paul
18-22 minutes
At 10 p.m on May 14, 2004, during an arts festival in northeast
Minneapolis, a 24-year-old named Jackson Mahaffy was crossing the street
when he bumped into a dark, slow-moving SUV with two off-duty police
sergeants inside.
Robert Kroll and the second sergeant hopped out and began hitting Mr.
Mahaffy, according to interviews and court documents. Not realizing the
two men in civilian clothes were police officers, Mr. Mahaffys sister
and at least three others came to his defense. The officers attacked
them too; Mr. Kroll kicked one seated man in the face, breaking a tooth,
witnesses said.
Mr. Mahaffy, by then bruised and bloodied, was arrested and spent three
nights in jail. Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges, which
included assaulting a police officer. A civilian police review board
dismissed Mr. Krolls story that he had been attacked by anarchists as
having low overall credibility. Mr. Kroll and the other officer paid the
victims $17,000 to settle a civil lawsuit accusing them of excessive use
of force, among other things, according to Mr. Mahaffy.
That incident, and nine prior complaints of excessive force, didnt
derail Mr. Krolls career. Over the next decade, he instead rose to what
may be the most powerful law-enforcement position in the city: president
of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.
Like police union leaders around the country, Mr. Kroll has accumulated
power and protection, both for himself and for the citys roughly 850
police officers. Union contracts for police provide officers strong
barriers to being investigated, disciplined or fired.
In the arts-festival case, Mr. Kroll said we did nothing wrong, and
complained that he has been singled out for discipline over the years
because of his prominent union role. If you work hard for your members
there is a target on your back by the administration, he said in an
interview.
Now Mr. Kroll is in the national spotlight, trying to navigate a
law-enforcement crisis sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a Black
man, during an arrest in Minneapolis on May 25. The killing, captured on
a video that shows Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, pinning Mr.
Floyds neck to the ground for about 8 minutes, sparked world-wide
protests and the worst civil unrest the U.S. has seen in decades.
Visitors gather at a mural of George Floyd, near the spot where he died
in police custody in Minneapolis in May.
Photo: Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press
Mr. Kroll condemned the killing and didnt object when Minneapolis Police
Chief Medaria Arradondo immediately fired Mr. Chauvin, who has since
been charged with 2nd degree murder. But he wrote in a letter to union
members it was despicable that the mayor and governor, both Democrats,
had shifted blame for the ensuing violence to police officers.
The incident has sparked a national conversation about police
protections and calls to defund police departments. Former mayors and
police chiefs say the immense influence of the unions is a key reason
attempts to overhaul policing practices, in Minneapolis and elsewhere,
have failed. Many cities, lacking cash to boost police salaries, have
handed unions authority over everyday functions of police departments,
down to how shifts are assigned and overtime is meted out.
Tony Bouza, who led the Minneapolis police department from 1980 to 1989,
described his tenure as a constant and unremitting battle with the
union. I was never able to fire the alcoholics, psychos and criminals in
the ranks, he said.
Stephen Rushin, an associate law professor at Loyola University Chicago,
said there is plenty of blame to go around. Its easy to demonize police
unions, he said. The truth is cities signed off on all these agreements.
Mr. Rushins study last year of about 650 police union contracts found
that a majority of them, including the one in Minneapolis, provided an
appeals process that could shield officers from reasonable
accountability.
Police departments that had the highest rateof rehiring fired officers,
2006-17Source: University of Pennsylvania Law ReviewNote: Study of 36
large U.S. police departments, ofwhich Minneapolis wasn't included
70.5%67.76257.645.344.440.54037.631.8San
AntonioDenverPhiladelphiaHonoluluD.C. Metro.Suffolk Co.,
NYPhoenixOklahoma CityMiami-DadeCharlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.
In Pittsburgh, officers cant be compelled to testify before a civilian
review board, according to the union contract. San Diego police have
delay privileges, meaning officers under investigation have three days
notice before an interrogation, during which they can review evidence
and discuss the incident with fellow officers. In Detroit, as in many
other cities, officers can appeal disciplinary actions to an arbitrator
whose decision is binding and often results in lesser consequences.
The power held by union leaders like Mr. Kroll has grown along with the
ranks of police departments and their budgets. The war on drugs and the
terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, led to large infusions of cash and
personnel to law-enforcement agencies. Four out of five police officers
in the country belong to a union, and they have used that base to accrue
broad political power through campaign donations to lawmakers,
endorsements and frequently by playing conservative state legislatures
against progressive city councils, say labor historians, union officials
and politicians.
Police unions were nonpartisan into the 1980s but began to gravitate
toward the GOP about the same time Republicans started turning against
other public-sector unions while refraining from attacking law
enforcement. As the GOP portrayed itself as the party of law and order,
the relationship with police strengthened, said William P. Jones,
professor of history at the University of Minnesota.
Defund the Police: What It Means and How It Could Work
0:00 / 5:00
Defund the Police: What It Means and How It Could Work
Defund the Police: What It Means and How It Could Work
In the wake of George Floyds death, protesters across the country are
calling on officials to defund the police. WSJs Shelby Holliday examines
what the phrase means and how it might work. Photo: Ragan Clark /
Associated Press
Relations generally deteriorated between police unions and Democratic
big-city mayors. Meanwhile Joe Biden, the former vice president and
presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has seen his own carefully
cultivated ties with police unions fray.
Republicans support the rhetoric of being tough on crime, crackdowns on
immigration and drug enforcement, which aligns with the agenda of law
enforcement, Dr. Jones said.
President Trump signed an executive order last month urging police
departments to adopt stricter use-of-force standards and create a
database to track officer misconduct, but also reiterated a hard line on
law and order. We need to bring law enforcement and communities closer
together, not to drive them apart, he said.
Mr. Krolls own rise through the ranks was marked by praise from his
superiors as well as episodes of violent behavior.
Raised in a working-class section of St. Paul, Mr. Kroll earned a
reputation as a fearless and aggressive street cop who took his job
seriously. Between 1983 and 2004, he served as a military police officer
in the Army Reserve, where he earned seven commendations.
Hes an extremely smart guy, said Allen Berryman, a former Minneapolis
police union president.
But he also had a history of getting into off-duty barroom
brawlsincluding one in which he lost a piece of his ear, said Greg
Hestness a former deputy police chief who supervised Mr. Kroll.
Obtaining Minneapolis police disciplinary records is difficult. A public
summary of complaints made against Mr. Kroll from the departments
internal-affairs bureau includes 22 complaints and few details. Mr.
Kroll was disciplined for three of the complaints, according to police
records.
Lt. Kroll spoke in February in favor of a GOP-backed slate of bills
aimed at reducing violent crime.
Photo: Steve Karnowski/Associated Press
A spokesman for the police department said it releases information in
accordance with state laws.
Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Minneapolis-based
nonprofit which maintains a database of complaints against police,
tallied 38 accusations of misconduct against Mr. Kroll and seven
lawsuits. The organization collects police disciplinary records through
state freedom-of-information requests and lawsuits.
Through a union spokesman, Mr. Kroll declined to comment about these
accusations or about his altercations outside work.
Mr. Krolls version of how the 2004 incident transpired is much different
than Mr. Mahaffys. He said in a deposition and in an interview that
almost as soon as he got out of the car he and his partner were attacked
by as many as 20 people who looked to him like anarchists. He described
being knocked flat on his back and fighting for his life as the crowd
attacked him.
He said in his deposition that if he had his gun on him he would have
used it because he believed his life was in danger.
The citys police review board collected testimony from several witnesses
and recommended that Mr. Kroll be suspended without pay for 160 hours.
He appealed and the suspension was dropped. Mr. Kroll said city
authorities didnt escalate the case to arbitration because they didnt
believe they would win.
A spokesman for the police department declined to comment on why it
didnt pursue arbitration.
While his case was being adjudicated, Mr. Kroll was promoted to
lieutenant.
Two years after the 2004 encounter, he was elected vice president of the
union. He was elected president in 2015.
In 2007, five Black police officers, including the current chief, sued
the city, the police department and the then-chief in U.S. district
court, accusing them of a pattern of racial discrimination and creating
a hostile work environment. They accused Mr. Kroll, who wasnt named in
the suit, of wearing a white power badge on his leather motorcycle
jacket and using a homophobic slur against an aide to the mayor at the
time. The city eventually settled and paid the officers a total of
$740,000.
Mr. Kroll didnt respond to requests for comment, but has denied publicly
that he is a racist. A union spokesman said the allegation about the
white-power badge was fabricated and that Mr. Kroll denies the slur.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Can police reform take place without the cooperation of police unions?
Why or why not? Join the conversation below.
In July 2014 a former girlfriend of Mr. Kroll sued the city alleging he
improperly accessed her motor vehicle records 62 times over a seven-year
period ending in 2012. Mr. Kroll received a letter of reprimand in his
file for the actions.
For years, the police union in Minneapolis opposed the civilian review
board, say people involved in the process. In a court deposition in the
Mahaffy case in 2009, Mr. Kroll said the police department and the city
council considered the review board a monkey on their back that they
just cant seem to shed and they cant figure out.
In 2012, the police union successfully lobbied state lawmakers to
severely weaken the boards authority by barring it from making a finding
of fact or determination about an officers conduct following a
complaint. The board was dissolved that same year and replaced with a
hybrid panel of police officers and civilians.
Last August, Mr. Kroll, now 54 years old, had a series of disagreements
with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, over staffing and whether
to allow officers to wear uniforms at political rallies.
President Trump shakes hands with Minneapolis police union head Robert
Kroll at a Minneapolis rally last October.
Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
The situation earned Mr. Kroll an invitation from the White House to
appear at an October rally alongside President Trump. Mr. Kroll wore a
red Cops for Trump T-shirt and attacked the Obama administration for the
handcuffing and oppression of the police. He also praised Mr. Trump for
letting the cops do their jobs.
In an April interview on the Nothing Sacred radio show broadcast through
YouTube, Mr. Kroll said local politicians have fueled antipolice
sentiment in recent years.
There wasnt this disdain now that there is for police, he said. The
misconception is that in America if you want the Black vote you have to
come out against police, which is a false narrative to the nth degree.
Mr. Krolls background and swagger arent unique among police union
leaders. Unions often feel like theyre at war with the communities that
they serve, said Jonathan M. Smith, a former chief of the special
litigation section in the Justice Departments civil rights division
under President Obama, adding that police union leaders tend to be
white, vocal, old-school cops with a backward view of what the role of
policing is.
Brian Peters, executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace
Officers Association, said that police officersand police unionsshare
the goal of a safer Minnesota. He said the unions job is to provide
civil-service protections to its members. Attributing responsibility for
management and training failings to the union is a gross
misrepresentation of the role of the union, he said.
Many police unions attribute their negotiating tactics to a 1997 book
written by John Burpo, Police Association Power, Politics, and
Confrontation: A Guide for the Successful Police Labor Leader. Mr.
Burpo, who formerly led a group that represented law enforcement unions
in Texas, said he was inspired by left-wing union organizer Saul Alinsky
and has been hired by unions around the country to help negotiate better
contracts.
In an interview, he recalled presenting a city manager with
incriminating financial information and threatening to make it public
unless he acquiesced to a union demand for money; bringing the widow of
a slain officer to city council meetings to help police negotiating a
new contract; and creating television commercials focusing on Latino
gang violence to generate fear among residents to give officers a
stronger hand at the negotiating table.
The goal was always to push people who have power into a place where
they feel really, really uncomfortable, Mr. Burpo said.
Mr. Kroll said he had multiple copies of Mr. Burpos book and had
attended several seminars with him. It talks about having power through
the political process because whether you like it or not you are
involved in politics as many unions are, Mr. Kroll said.
Between 1995 and 2019, the Minneapolis contract between the police union
and the city grew to 128 pages from 40. It now includes more protections
such as a two-day waiting period before interviewing officers in
investigations of misconduct and other matters; mandatory paid leave for
officers involved in critical incidents; and erasing misconduct records
when complaints dont lead to disciplinary action. Union leaders say such
provisions ensure accused officers receive due process.
Cash-poor cities cant afford raises so they award unions power instead,
said Terrance W. Gainer, former chief of the United States Capitol
Police and a 20-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department.
In Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located, average annual wages
for police have been flat over the past decade when adjusted for
inflation, while theyve risen 8% for workers across the U.S., according
to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The rising tension in the aftermath of Mr. Floyds killing is already
reverberating at the bargaining table. Minneapolis Chief Arradondo
withdrew from labor negotiations with the union last month in what he
said was an attempt to restore faith in the department.
There is nothing more debilitating to a chief than when you have grounds
to terminate an officer for misconduct and youre dealing with a
third-party mechanism that not only allows for that employee to be back
in your department, but to be patrolling in your communities, Mr.
Arradondo said at a June news conference.
A union spokesman said Chief Arradondo is wrongfully complaining about
the employee contracts he and his predecessorsand the mayor and council
membersall agreed to, adding that It is flat-out false to suggest
disciplinary cases are routinely overturned.
Write to Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin-at-wsj.com, Kris Maher at
kris.maher-at-wsj.com and Deanna Paul at deanna.paul-at-wsj.com
-Replies in the discussion:
This is the problem. First, Public Service Unions are a bad idea.
They become unelected monopolies. Secondly they must have
independent oversight.
C
6 hours ago
We could solve the problem of bad cops and bad teachers without
eliminating their unions. Simply changing state law to narrow
the scope of collective bargaining would do it. Not allowing
negotiation over investigations of misconduct, the disciplinary
process and the appeal process would do it. Discipline officers
early in their career over lesser actions. Terminate for
repeated or egregious misconduct. Allow some sort of appeal
process without allowing outside arbitrators to reduce
disciplinary actions or to reinstate fired officers. In
addition, there should be a national registry of fired officers
so they can't as easily be hired by another police department.
D
17 hours ago
First, let me say that this was outstanding reporting.
Its hard not to type an essay response, however, I think
the reporting will largely fill in the gaps for people
searching for answers on what we are dealing with as a
society.
Mr. Kroll should not lead any organization, let
alone a police union, because he fails to adapt. And
thats putting it mildly.
At the end, society will work through these
issues and people gaming the system for their
own betterment and to the detriment of everyone
else will get weeded out. This might mean a
police force that will look very different in
twenty years because...people will not stand for
moral corruption in the fabric of our policing.
It is very short sighted for officers to
become political and elect the likes of Mr.
Kroll as their leaders.
That shows that perhaps they are losing
sight of why they are doing the job. A
largely thankless and dangerous job.
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