Welcome to Texas justice: You might beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride.
Friday, November 10, 2017
A primer for police union leaders on making "the guilty innocent" after a high-profile incident
In the October episode of Just Liberty's Reasonably Suspicious podcast, we included a segment analyzing Chapter 11 of a new book on police-union politics called "Law Enforcement, Police Unions, and the Future," coauthored by Ron DeLord, formerly of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas. That chapter is titled, "What every union leader should know about dealing with the media in a high profile incident," and opens with this quote from Malcolm X: "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent, and that's power, because they control the minds of the masses."
My colleague Sukyi McMahon added a little slideshow to the excerpted segment to jazz it up a bit. If you didn't hear it the first time, or even if you did, check out this version:
Coming up tomorrow: A discussion of Austin's police-union contract and why local advocates are seeking to end instead of renew it.
Perhaps a law to strip away the immunity of these officials from civil recourse whenever they engage in a violation of the public trust would help, but the playbook for police unions reads like a playbook for totalitarian propaganda. Is there any difference between the unions and the old Soviet era Pravda?
It's interesting to hear that police officers have a phalanx of lawyers protecting them for everything they do when in most cases, they are given a single lawyer for policy violations or criminal allegations arising out of their official duties, most unions unwilling to subsidize criminal cases that are not directly tied to on the clock work that is clearly in the scope of such duties. Houston has the biggest police department in the state of Texas and their union has a whole six lawyers to cover 5200+ officers, Dallas has 3100 officers but only three lawyers who also handle other clients, and other cities show similar numbers.
Perhaps a law to strip away the immunity of these officials from civil recourse whenever they engage in a violation of the public trust would help, but the playbook for police unions reads like a playbook for totalitarian propaganda. Is there any difference between the unions and the old Soviet era Pravda?
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to hear that police officers have a phalanx of lawyers protecting them for everything they do when in most cases, they are given a single lawyer for policy violations or criminal allegations arising out of their official duties, most unions unwilling to subsidize criminal cases that are not directly tied to on the clock work that is clearly in the scope of such duties. Houston has the biggest police department in the state of Texas and their union has a whole six lawyers to cover 5200+ officers, Dallas has 3100 officers but only three lawyers who also handle other clients, and other cities show similar numbers.
ReplyDelete