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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

Would police unions vote to strike to support a trooper who stole a laptop?

If so, then I think you've got police problems, not police unions problems.

Back in 2019 the police in Fresno stole a bunch of rare coins during a search of a house where the warrant did not cover anything like said coins, valued at $125,000, by reporting that they seized $50,000 when they actually took twice that much in cash and the coins. The 9th Circuit ended up deciding that while it was obviously morally wrong, qualified immunity applied because there's clearly established case law that stealing property that was specifically targeted for a search does violate the Constitution, because there's no analogous case regarding property stolen by police that the police did not know was there and are not covered by the warrant, there's no clearly established violation of the 4th Amendment even though it is literally an unlawful seizure of property. Supreme Court denied cert, allowing the decision to stand. I wish I was joking.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17...

Please, please tread on me.

Despite how the USA barely pretends to be egalitarian, there is 100% an importance totem pole, with billionaires and businesses on the top, then politicians, the police, the military, religious leaders all somewhere in the middle in some order, and then the rest of the population on the very bottom. Any fight between these cohorts will be decided based on where they are on the totem pole, not based on the law, the Constitution, or what's right.

Qualified immunity is a stain on American jurisprudence and an insult to the idea of America as a free society.

Demand of people who want your vote in the coming elections that they support a legislative correction to this judicial activism. This country was founded in large part because 250 years ago the British sent soldiers into American cities and American homes, with powers to detain, arrest and deprive of life and liberty with no accountability. If a colonial was wrongly treated they would force adjudication in favorable courts back in Britain, effectively making their soldiers immune from accountability.

The fact our judicial system has saw fit to independently replicate this injustice that none of us voted for is a crime against the very notion of what it means to be an American. Hold your leaders accountable.

It's an AND. The union is why administrations can't get rid of the problem employees.

In Seattle, the police are "quiet quitting" (traffic ticketing is down 8x over ~10 years ago) and literally committing fraud and getting away with it (an officer on his second time falsely applying over 24 hours of work in a day, just had to return the pay for that week. There's STILL not computerized time tracking...)

Unions strike primarily for collective bargaining purposes.

They use the bargaining to set contract terms that restrict how people can be fired.

A union member who gets in trouble can leverage union resources and representation to protect themselves.

One of my family members did a term as a union rep. He was getting really frustrated with some of the little claims that union members wanted to use the union to protect themselves from, but it was part of the job. Fortunately for him there wasn’t a serious incident like this to deal with during his term.

> … claims that union members wanted to use the union to protect themselves from ...

One could argue that as litigious as US society has become, it makes sense to find out what resources are available when you’re the target of a grievance.

Further, since we are also a society of specialists, one should consult a specialist when one is the target of aforementioned grievances.

It wasn't really that complicated. It was a lot of stories about someone getting caught doing something like time card fraud or even unarguable sexual harassment and then desperately trying to avoid consequences for their own actions.

I'm in a union. My dad has been a union rep (different union), so I know a bit.

There is no way my colleagues would go out on strike to protect me if I stole anything. And that's absolutely right. Nor would I expect my union to go into bat for me, after anything like that was proven; nor for anything immoral.

Mad.

Unions are there to make sure you're treated fairly, not to shield members from consequences when they act immorally/illegally.

I agree with you on moral grounds, but I have some stories.

> Nor would I expect my union to go into bat for me, after anything like that was proven

Sure, but one of the jobs of the rep is to prevent it from being proven that you are guilty.

Also, there would be no need to strike, because the union has negotiated the bureaucratic processes that will be followed when you do something wrong. Following the usually slow process will let you look for ways to escape, including the company not properly filing paperwork within the allotted time.

Source: union steward's stories.

Police Unions engaged in collective action beyond striking to support other police who shoved a senior citizen to the ground and gave him brain damage, so stealing is nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_police_shoving_inciden...

That's seemingly contradicted, or at least cast in doubt by your own article:

>The Buffalo police union, the Buffalo Police Benevolent Association, was angered by the suspensions of the two officers, and it retaliated on June 5 by withdrawing its legal fees support for any other Buffalo officers for incidents related to the protests. [...] All 57 police officers from the Buffalo Police Department emergency response team resigned from the team, although they did not resign from the department.[45] According to the police union's president, the mass resignations were a show of solidarity with the two suspended officers.[46] However, his account has been contradicted by two of the resigned officers, who stated they resigned because of a lack of legal coverage. One of these officers said "many" of the 57 resigned officers did not resign to support the two suspended officers.[47]

Either the officers resigned in protest, or the union withdrew legal support in protest and the officers resigned as a result of that. Either way, the resignations were a result of union support for the criminals in their ranks.

That only seems to confirm what I wrote?

Why do you think the union withdrew legal support here, given that the union supported the officers?

No, but they go on strike when negotiating their collective contracts, and put terms in the contract that govern how failures like this are investigated and punished.

Apologies if I misread/misinterpreted you, but police can't (generally) strike in the USA. Most states have a specific laws against police and firefighters from going on strike. Federal law enforcement cannot strike

edit: a source (I assume lawyers.com is reputable..) https://legal-info.lawyers.com/labor-employment-law/wage-and...

It's not legal, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

See "Blue flu" for cases where cops coordinate a strike using sick leave. Another way they strike is by simply not doing their job. They'll just sit in their cars all day and won't respond or will severely delay response to dispatch.

AFAIK, those cops never get a ATF style house cleaning.

Oh no, they still strike. It's just one of the other definitions: "to engage in battle. to make a military attack."

Who's gonna arrest them? Who would enforce a civil judgement against them?

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