Trump gets invitation to invade cities from police unions
Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), The Daily Beast, and others report that police union leaders from Portland, Chicago, and Philadelphia were contacted by DHS, and invited their invading forces in. Police union leaders did not consult with local elected officials, and in at least some cases went behind the backs of their own police chiefs.
The original reporting on the Portland meeting looks like it is from OPB:
Portland Police Union Head Met With Federal Official Snubbed By City Leaders
Both Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese said they declined to meet with the acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security [Chad Wolf] when he came to Portland Thursday, a visit widely derided by local leaders frustrated over federal law enforcement’s use of force against protesters.
But the head of Portland’s police officer union says he took the acting secretary up on his offer to talk.
Daryl Turner said the invitation to meet with acting secretary Chad Wolf came one day before Wolf arrived in Portland.
Note the implication that Wolf communicated directly with the police union, separately from communication with city officials. This reporting implies the federal troops were already in Portland prior to the contact by Wolf, as he did not go to Portland in advance. But the other contacts were in advance. So if Trump says he was requested to send troops, this could be the excuse.
Other reports reference the OPB reporting, but add their own material. From Daily Beast:
Who Actually Wants Trump to Send in the Feds? Police Unions.
Although Portland leadership roundly decried the federal presence, the president of Portland’s police union met with the head of the Department of Homeland Security last week to discuss the agents, apparently without the knowledge of the city’s police chief. The president of Chicago’s police union made his own envoys, asking Trump for federal intervention.
Crooks and Liars snarkily adds Philadelphia to the list.
Guess Who Invited The Federal Agents Into Portland? The Police Union
And we know in Philadelphia that FOP union chief John McNesby is in touch with Trump. Mystery solved, Scoobies!
Additional reporting by The Daily Beast (same article as above) and by The Young Turks warns that Portland mayor Ted Wheeler was not controlling use of force by the Portland Police Bureau prior to national media attention, so his pro-protester stance now should be taken with a grain of salt. Protesters report Portland police working side by side with the DHS troops.
“They stand right next to each other and shoot us at the same time,” Portland activist Greg McElvey told The Daily Beast. “That’s usually the telltale. They disperse crowds at the same time, we see them talk to each other. Other than throwing people into vans, this is all stuff the Portland Police were already doing.”
Popular Mobilization, a Portland-based activist group, also accused Portland’s police of working alongside federal forces, and accused Wheeler of only playing progressive.
“Wheeler excoriates Trump on CNN and NPR but conveniently omits how his police force has similarly attacked community members with little to no accountability,” the group told The Daily Beast.
Background material
I started to add some background on police unions, and their involvement in police violence, but realized I’d never get this finished… Instead, let me just drop in a very short reading list. Caution: May elevate blood pressure. First, these folks have kindly written the history for me:
Blood On Their Hands: The Racist History of Modern Police Unions
Next up, the research on the connection between police unions and contracts, and police violence:
Police unions and police misconduct: What the research says about the connection
How Police Unions Enable and Conceal Abuses of Power
Here, notice how police unions...and police...apply pressure behind the scenes, to control local officials and policies:
Police unions become target of labor activists who see them as blocking reform
Police unions’ relationship to the larger union structure is a tangled web:
The AFL-CIO’s Police Union Problem Is Bigger Than You Think
A Major Obstacle to Police Reform: The Whiteness of Their Union Bosses
And a caution about police unions’ chokehold on even Democratic politicians — time for some Indivisible-style constituent suasion...
Democrats’ support for police union bill undermines their commitment to reform
So this new example of police union arrogance and overreach is par for the course.
Evading the law is not a valid contract item
It’s not just some curious tradition, or case law, or even legislation, that has been carving out exceptions to criminal and liability law, so that police can commit assault and murder with impunity — it’s their contracts, negotiated by police unions.
Here is a database of police contracts — these show the contract language that allows police to get away with violence:
Check the Police
What can we do?
Speaking as a former UAW member, police unions are not unions in any sense I recognize. They are a blight on the union movement. A little over a month ago, the King County (Washington) Labor Council expelled the Seattle police union.
Seattle police union expelled from city’s largest labor group
This indicates a first step — other unions can work to exclude police “unions” from umbrella organizations. This will likely have to start with membership — union leadership has more inertia.
If, at some point in the future, the actual rank and file police have enough turnover and replacement with people not steeped in the “citizens are the enemy” and white supremacy cultures, then the police themselves could de-certify their unions, and vote in other representation. This means other major unions should look at providing representation to police. This does not need to be a new union — many unions cover multiple trades. For instance, I was a UAW member because the UAW organized student workers — teaching and research assistants. It no longer matters what the union’s original area was — the obstacles workers encounter, and the needs they have, cross the boundaries of trades.
If we find elected officials siding with police unions, and providing cover for police violence, then it’s time to find challengers to run against these elected officials enabling police violence. Since there are Democrats in this mix, this means primarying them — the “and better” part of “more and better Democrats”.
But right now, we can push local news to investigate whether local police unions have been in talks with DHS. And we can contact our mayor, city council members, police chiefs — make sure they are aware that they may be undercut by the local police union, and warn them about the contract language to watch out for. If those officials already know, or were colluding with DHS themselves, then it’s time for that electoral challenge.