Across the country, municipal governments have signed
contracts with police unions including provisions that shield officers from
punishment for brutal behavior as well as from legitimate complaints by the
citizens they are supposed to serve.
That may soon change, as public outrage over police
killings of civilians is ratcheting up pressure on elected officials to
radically revise police contracts that make it almost impossible to bring
officers to justice.
The most striking case in point is Chicago, which has
been roiled by a police scandal stemming from a cover-up in the case of a
17-year-old named Laquan McDonald, who was executed by a police officer nearly
two years ago.
The Police Department first claimed that Mr. McDonald
was brandishing a knife and moving toward officers when he was killed. A video
— probably available to the city within hours of the shooting but not made
public until last November, more than a year later — showed that Mr. McDonald
was moving away from the cops when they shot him 16 times, and that the police
were obviously lying.
But it was not until last month that the city’s
inspector general recommended firing several officers, some of whom have since
retired, for making false statements.
That recommendation was passed on to the police
superintendent, Eddie Johnson. Mr. Johnson, who lacks the power to fire the
officers outright, has filed administrative charges against five officers with an agency
known as the Chicago Police Board, whose members are appointed by the mayor and
confirmed by the City Council.
It is incredible that this is the first official
disciplinary action taken against the officers, 22 months after the killing.
And even if the board votes to dismiss the officers, they will be able to
challenge their dismissals in court.
As a task force
appointed by Chicago’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, noted in April, “The collective bargaining agreements between the
police unions and the city have essentially turned the code of silence into
official policy.”
This absurdly slow process is a direct outgrowth of
collective bargaining agreements that actually encourage officers to lie. The
agreements bar investigators from questioning officers within the first 24
hours after a shooting, giving them time to coordinate their accounts. They
micromanage investigations, limiting what interrogators can do. Beyond that, if
an officer lies during an investigation, he or she cannot be charged with
making a false statement unless the investigator presents the officer with a
new set of allegations that specifically address the lie.
The labor agreements also discourage citizens from
lodging misconduct complaints. Among other things, they prohibit most anonymous
complaints, a problem in a city like Chicago, where the department has a
history of brutality and even torture — and where citizens are understandably
fearful of reprisal.
As in other cities, officers in Chicago can challenge
disciplinary findings in proceedings overseen by arbitrators, who frequently
have a vested interest in pleasing the police unions so they can keep their
jobs. One earlier review of arbitration cases found that disciplinary sanctions
were “routinely cut in half by arbitrators.” The system makes it difficult for
citizens to get a full explanation of how their complaints are handled.
Justice Department investigations in other cities —
including Baltimore and Ferguson, Mo. — have uncovered poor police oversight
systems. To restore public confidence in the law, elected officials around the
country will have to stop reflexively truckling to police unions and demand
contracts that actually reflect the public interest.
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