Comment by dcposch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dcposch | Hacker News Reader

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They did a more than just a reorg.

Disbanding and replacing a PD eliminates the old police union contracts.

Those lopsided contracts are at the root of the impunity and violence we've seen over the past week.

Many cities have made extraordinary contractual concessions, including:

- Secrecy clauses. Officer Bob might have 31 excessive force complaints against him, but the city is contractually forbidden from making that information public, or in some cases even retaining the records after X months.

- Arbitration for firing. Those clauses can be shockingly strong. The Philadelphia PD fired an officer for having Nazi tattoos. They were forced to reinstate him after arbitration. https://twitter.com/dburbach/status/1269638494466514955

Those clauses and more often add up to police that are effectively unfireable and therefore not under meaningful civilian control. Witness the head of a NYC police union taunting the mayor and openly flaunting the Right to Know Act / announcing that officers will be covering up their badge numbers.

Camden got a start fresh with no pre-existing police contract. For many cities, that's potentially worth a lot.

I don't understand why there isn't a professional license required for LEOs.

I'm a paramedic. If I harmed a patient once (let along 31 times), my card would get revoked and that would be that. A cop, meanwhile, is likely to face no consequences at all, and in the absolute "worst" case scenario, they would just get a job in the next town over.

Paramedics and police are at opposite ends of the union representation spectrum. Paramedics have no union and are thus treated like livestock. The police have the strongest unions in America and are thus largely untouchable.

They literally graduate from a Police Academy. Didn't you see the movie?

That academy doesn't result in a revocable license, managed by some external body (like the state Department of Health, in my case)

In many states there is.

> If I harmed a patient once

You're conflating allegations of harm vs harmed. Given your position is just assisting the person and not enforcing the law(which the person does not want the cop to do against them), you are magnitudes less likely to have allegations made against you.

Allegations aren't an objective historical fact. They can and are used to spite.

Apples and oranges.

I'm not talking about allegations. I'm talking about confirmed incidences of bad behavior that result in, at most, a short suspension.

The line in parent comment is:

> Officer Bob might have 31 excessive force complaints against him

A complaint is an allegation. It's not a confirmed incidence of bad behaviour.

Using Chauvin as example (17 complaints), From WAPO:

> A summary of the complaints against Chauvin posted by the department offers no information on why they were filed, and police declined to comment on the nature of the cases. Sixteen of the complaints were closed without discipline. The remaining complaint resulted in two letters of reprimand against Chauvin, according to the summary.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/29/officer-cha...

A letter of reprimand for excessive force should be the end of a police office's career in law enforcement (a similar incident would certainly be the end of my time as a paramedic).

It’s important to note these provisions are given to police in lieu of salary increases. Citizens and elected officials could choose to raise police wages, attract better candidates and not substitute legal concessions for salary increases. When cities are trying to cut costs, these “free” provisions can seem like a no brainer, as opposed to giving in to wage increases.

1. I don't begrudge the police union for negotiating for all this. It's their job, just like it's the job of my city to play hardball with negotiations.

2. Police are some of our best paid public servants.

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