1. New Poll: Voters Support Restricting Police Union Power So That Union Leaders Must Focus On Bargaining For Better Wages and Working Conditions for Rank-and-File Officers.
The Los Angeles Times recently reported on how “L.A.’s police union is spending big on city elections, seeking to boost [its] City Hall influence.” Specifically, this last election cycle, “the union [was] financially involved in five of the city’s 11 contests, committing more money than any other organization [, including] moving nearly $4 million into an independent campaign committee targeting the mayoral bid of Rep. Karen Bass.”
Across the country, in Texas, the San Antonio police union spent $878,754 to beat back a ballot measure that would have banned chokeholds and restricted use of no-knock warrants and another “615,000 … on narrowly successful battle to defeat [another ballot measure opposed by the union]”.
These examples are not outliers. In an investigation of police union campaign spending, The Guardian found “about $87m in local and state spending over the last two decades by the unions” across the country.
Within police departments, and among policing and politics commentators more broadly, there is a pitched debate over whether police unions should be permitted to engage in lobbying or electoral activity that extends beyond a public sector union’s primary purpose of achieving better wages and working conditions for rank-and-file police officers. For example, Texas Congressman Joaquín Castro has criticized “the authority of police unions to determine misconduct standards in their contracts, which are increasingly viewed as a barrier to holding police accountable for wrongdoing.”
To understand public opinion on the topic, Protect and Serve conducted a survey of 1,335 likely voters nationally using a web panel. We found:
62% of voters would support “placing a restriction on police unions that limits them from engaging in political activities and instead focuses on police unions on bargaining for better wages and working conditions for their members.”
By 37 percentage points, voters were more likely to support than oppose the restriction, reflecting a 51 percentage point margin in support for Democrats and 17 point margin in support for Republicans.
2. Dallas Police Chief Fires Two Officers In One Week
A recent Protect and Serve poll revealed that 86% of voters, including a majority of both Republicans and Democrats, support “the adoption of a zero tolerance policy for domestic violence committed by police officers, which means that if there is a credible finding of domestic violence, that officer will be fired from the force.”
That’s exactly what happened in Dallas this week. As Kelli Smith reported for the Dallas Morning News, Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia fired an officer accused of domestic violence:
“The chief on Monday fired Officer Javier Granados, who was arrested last year on a misdemeanor family violence assault charge … The woman who reported the assault told investigators she and Granados argued and he showed up to her workplace in Dallas, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit. The woman said she called police and waited for officers for more than an hour, and Granados left, the affidavit says. She said she went to a home in Dallas, and Granados showed up and closed a door on her finger, spat in her face and slammed her into a door, which caused her ear to bleed[.]”
Chief Garcia also fired another officer yesterday, the second misconduct-related firing by Garcia in a week. Again, from the Dallas Morning News: “Senior Cpl. Allison Brockford was terminated during a disciplinary hearing for driving under the influence while off duty and engaging in adverse conduct during the arrest, police said.”
The firings square with Chief Garcia’s sentiment that he “places tremendous value … on community engagement with the understanding that it is a shared responsibility and that police can not do it alone.” Similarly, Garcia recently expressed in an unrelated misconduct case involving another officer in the department—whom Garcia recently suspended for five days—“We can’t allow our community to see us this way.” “We have a standard at the Dallas Police Department. I will not allow an individual to stain that and to tarnish our badge and what we’re doing.”
3. Governor Jim Justice On “Damning Claims” Against West Virginia State Police Force: “The More We Dug, The Worse It Stunk.”
“Alleged hidden cameras in women’s locker rooms, casino thefts, cover-ups, kidnappings, druggngs and rape” are all part of the “slew of investigations against the West Virginia state police department” ordered by Republican Governor Jim Justice, as Maya Yang reports for The Guardian. Here are two examples from Yang’s reporting:
Hidden Camera In Women’s Locker Room Allegations: At least 67 women will be “filing claims against the West Virginia State Police for creating a toxic and hostile environment” after the alleged discovery of a hidden camera in the women’s locker room at the West Virginia State Police Academy. As Yang details, Governor Justice “confirmed that footage from the hidden camera had been deliberately destroyed”, but we do know that “there were at least 10 minors probably between the ages of 14 and 17 who were part of the state police’s Junior Trooper academy and used the locker room” during the period that the hidden camera was allegedly recording.
Kidnapping And Rape Allegations: According to lawsuits filed against the West Virginia State Police, one state trooper is accused of kidnapping and rape after a women alleges that she “woke up naked in her bed with blood, urine and feces all over her … her earrings were ripped out of her ears, her hair was pulled out, her teeth were damaged, and she had been raped vaginally and sodomized with some instrument”. Now a second woman has come forward alleging similar claims against the same trooper. While the civil lawsuits proceed, the FBI is handling the criminal investigation.