tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post7795829137558390845..comments2024-03-15T05:45:01.402-05:00Comments on Grits for Breakfast: Reasonably Suspicious: Police unions, collective bargaining, and accountabilityGritsforbreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-7378753398668811722017-11-12T10:55:41.689-06:002017-11-12T10:55:41.689-06:00VERY GOOD WORK ITS AMAZING ARTICLE VERY GOOD WORK ITS AMAZING ARTICLE AWAIShttps://www.injurylawyerlife.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-75745768034330052382017-11-06T16:09:37.031-06:002017-11-06T16:09:37.031-06:00Grits, on the class C cases, my initial comments s...Grits, on the class C cases, my initial comments stand; if you have warrants for other class C violations, most officers will book you on the new traffic as well. That doesn't change the fact that 90% of all arrests are for higher level charges. If you want to reduce your chances of being arrested for lower level crimes, keep your court appearances up to date and comply with your promises to appear.<br /><br />In Wisconsin, you keep referring back to the very first days of the changes, those being when the other unions would be most likely to strike, etc. You keep missing the point that changes for public safety most certainly did take place later but believe what you will unless you are ready to compare their contracts pre-Walker and now. You can debate it as you see fit but everything I wrote remains more accurate. <br /><br />180 Day Rule: I apologize if your unfamiliarity with how it works in the rest of the state clouds your perceptions but in most places, officers cooperate with the letter of the law as demanded of them. In most cities, should they invoke their 5TH Amendment protections, they do so at the cost of their jobs, a far cry from the rest of the populace. What more do you want exactly?<br /><br />Lastly, while protected by a firewall requiring people pay to view the pension article (big surprise to limit discussion), the article specifically states that the committee of firemen and cops DO NOT APPOINT nor did they appoint pension board members, the committee vetted those who wanted to run for the open spots and the employees (including non-union members by the way, something a follow up letter explained) then voted on who would be a pension board member. In neither case did the unions appoint pension board members.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-42839996561168696082017-11-01T05:39:58.895-05:002017-11-01T05:39:58.895-05:00@11:30: PI cases don't remotely explain the d...@11:30: PI cases don't remotely explain the data. It's almost all traffic. Just not the case.<br /><br />In Dallas, the union previously appointed a majority of the pension board. Now it appoints a minority. I don't think what I wrote was misleading, but I'm glad you were able to clarify to your own satisfaction. Seems to me like a distinction without a difference.<br /><br />Your comments about Walker are just wrong, to the point of seeming intentionally misleading. He exempted police unions from his reforms, and said he did it in case he needed them to bust the other unions ("so there was no question that law enforcement would be available in the event of strikes or work stoppages"). The comments about who pays for pensions, etc., are obfuscations. That's not what the debate was about.<br /><br />You're also obfuscating on the 180 day rule, if in a more traditional and usual fashion. As a practical matter, officers don't cooperate with the criminal investigations and the admin rules control what little accountability they get. That's just reality. The Chinese Wall you posit doesn't mean much in practice in terms of improving accountability, it only serves to thwart it.Gritsforbreakfasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-56116432465546773872017-10-29T11:30:38.190-05:002017-10-29T11:30:38.190-05:00Grits, this is 5:26 again.
In (1), I was referring...Grits, this is 5:26 again.<br />In (1), I was referring to "drunk" as "public intoxication", not the higher level charge of DWI (Class B and above) and when class C warrants count or not themselves when listed, a very common practice for officers is to arrest people on their latest charges if they are found to have class C warrants. If they didn't show up for previous tickets, their promise to appear is questionable, the verified warrant serving as the basis for arrest. Otherwise, the listed offenses were provided by a municipal prosecutor who moonlighted in county JP courts for years, hence my "I wonder..." comment if this remained true. Cities like Houston have opened centers to reduce the number of arrests for PI but that is still a rarity across Texas.<br /><br />For the 180 Day Rule, if there are criminal violations, it doesn't apply in the slightest to those charges but each Civil Service police agency in Texas has variations on the specifics of how the rule is applied. Dallas and Houston are very similar because they have some of the same core lobbyists, the rule not working the same way you describe in Austin, nor are provisions interpreted the same way. In those cities, groups like AJC are not involved in negotiations either, the secretive nature impacting any attempts for political outsiders to toss in reform measures.<br /><br />Pension boards: I think we were addressing different points. The music was a little too high on the podcast for me to hear your colleague's comments when I first listened but you were referring to police officers serving on the board under the changed board composition while I was merely pointing out that UNION OFFICIALS do not nor did they serve on the pension board. The header on your article was "Unions now a minority at Dallas police pension board" which implies union leaders were on the pension board and after some research, I found that was not true before or after. Given the financial stakes involved, board composition is a hot topic across the country but Texas has built in protections more union friendly states do not have.<br /><br />Wisconsin: Before Governor Walker, most police in the state paid nothing toward their pension or healthcare, or very little, now they pay in albeit a smaller amount than some of the other groups. If that counts as exemption, I'm sure they would disagree with you, their retirement healthcare costs also increased tremendously since that article was written in 2012.<br /><br />Public Safety Taxes: Sorry, that was a Freudian slip, Tarrant County is the big user of such additional taxes and Austin is in Travis County. That's under Chapter 363(?) of the Local Government Code. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-40155269306465640482017-10-28T16:57:41.955-05:002017-10-28T16:57:41.955-05:00Also, Austin police are paid from the same taxes a...Also, Austin police are paid from the same taxes as the rest of the city budget. There is no public safety tax.Gritsforbreakfasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-22683862302302875522017-10-28T16:46:57.624-05:002017-10-28T16:46:57.624-05:00@5:26, thanks for your comments. Here are some res...@5:26, thanks for your comments. Here are some responses. <br /><br />First, open warrants and drunk driving would not listed as Class C arrests. Also, Class C assault and trespass aren't common reasons for arrests in that category - most of them are traffic violations.<br /><br />You say the 180 day rule issue was misstated because it "only applies to policy violations, not criminal misconduct." But we're talking about the department punishing the officer administratively, including firing for misconduct. So I'm not sure what you're talking about.<br /><br />It's true that, when an officer engages in criminal misconduct, both a criminal and administrative investigation are launched simultaneously. But as a practical matter, the administrative framework governs the process because officers don't have to cooperate with the criminal investigation. Technically, they're different. In practice, the issues are conflated.<br /><br />Also, in Austin's case the Austin Justice Coalition was in the room for negotiations from the very beginning. Your concerns about coming in at the end of the process simply don't apply there.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-city-hall/2017/09/21/now-minority-pension-board-police-firefighters-will-turn-trustees-know" rel="nofollow">Source on Dallas pension board makeup</a>.<br /><br />Finally, you're simply wrong re: Scott Walker. <a href="http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/apr/09/scott-walker/gov-scott-walker-says-wisconsin-gave-every-public-/" rel="nofollow">He did exempt police unions</a>.Gritsforbreakfasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-90628117262221494802017-10-27T05:39:38.002-05:002017-10-27T05:39:38.002-05:00PS: In Wisconsin, Governor Walker did not exempt p...PS: In Wisconsin, Governor Walker did not exempt police from changes. The police unions there made a political deal with the governor to minimize impacted changes, public support for police and firemen was strong enough that they fared much better than the teachers who very vocally fought tooth and nail against the governor. So public safety paid more for the somewhat lower benefits, groups supporting him sure were treated better.<br /><br />PPS: Some cities have long had policies regarding charging people with the highest level offense possible, marijuana offenses included, that prohibited officers from writing tickets regardless of what the legislature allowed for. If asked, many in the legislature made it crystal clear that cities did not have to write tickets for low level pot offenses, only that it was then allowed as a local choice, most areas of the state continue to resist treating these offenses like a speeding ticket.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-73204641279786412872017-10-27T05:26:55.232-05:002017-10-27T05:26:55.232-05:00I liked the podcast but had a few thoughts.
1) The...I liked the podcast but had a few thoughts.<br />1) The whole Class C arrest topic. Consider that looking at the numbers, Class C misdemeanors, often traffic tickets or minor breaches of the peace, comprise the vast majority of all charges/arrests. That is balanced by the fact that only 10% of all arrests made are this type, I wonder how many are not so much "contempt of cop" as much as a driver having no identification, a person who is drunk, a simple assault or Class C trespass, or the biggie, the suspect has open warrants. And given agencies are tasked not with bringing a person immediately before a judge but have 48 hours to do so, hand wringing about it might best be addressed by changes in legislation.<br /><br />2) Police Union Playbook: Even Scott doesn't think most unions follow key aspects of DeLord's dictates, his comments regarding not defending the indefensible for example. What might be overlooked is that until an investigation is completed or nearly completed, exactly what is indefensible is in the eye of the beholder. If the officer tells the union lawyer he did something and it later comes out that the officer did something else, how if the union supposed to know ahead of time? And like it or not, given Texas' very basic laws regarding threats, perceived or real, it is clear that all an officer has to do is reasonably articulate a fear to give them a wealth of protection. What some unions are doing in recent years, Dallas and Houston come to mind, is when an officer is engaged in clear misconduct off duty, they are increasingly unwilling to represent his legal interests unless he was working an extra detail in a police capacity, some employee theft cases coming to mind or in Houston a case of a cop shooting his neighbor.<br /><br />3) Police Contracts: Austin gets better pay in part due to the area having a public safety tax, a rarity in Texas. The 180 day provision is being misstated since it only applies to policy violations, not criminal misconduct, the biggest failing with regard to the time frame being when people don't complain when something happens but many months or even years later. For criminal misconduct, the statutory time limit applies, a department can fire an officer after 180 days for breaking the law, at least that is how arbitrators have ruled when presented with such cases. If a police chief errs on the side of caution against the best interests of the public, it might be better to find a more qualified chief to run a department. Then again, since most contracts under meet and confer are handled in secret, once the details are worked out, any post contract discussion period by reformists is going to be side swiped for fear of negating the entire negotiation. The time for reformists to educate public policy makers and elected officials in long, long before the hearing process tacked on at the end of lengthy contracts discussions.<br /><br />4) Union officials on pension boards. This might be a Dallas-specific thing because cities like Houston and elsewhere prohibit officials serving on one board from serving concurrently on the other (you can't sit on both at the same time). Cite for Dallas?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-68574956096972094252017-10-26T15:38:41.489-05:002017-10-26T15:38:41.489-05:00@12:02, first, you should check out the podcast it...@12:02, first, you should check out the podcast itself. The transcripts don't come with cool western swing music. :)<br /><br />Second, no one was "okaying" arrests for Class C misdemeanors, we were criticizing the process. Third, every stop is a detention, but not every detention results in an arrest. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. And the definitions of words still matter (for a while longer, anyway).<br /><br />Finally, the cops don't get paid per ticket, but they do get overtime if/when they show up for court. In Austin, the overtime pay is actually <a href="https://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2017/07/perverse-incentives-created-by-police.html" rel="nofollow">pretty outrageous</a>.Gritsforbreakfasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10152152869466958902noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-82714590241401034732017-10-26T12:02:18.627-05:002017-10-26T12:02:18.627-05:00I'll only read transcripts, podner, please.
...I'll <i>only read transcripts</i>, podner, please.<br /> Are you kidding about okaying endless Class C Misdemeanor tickets? What, do your cars have stickers, "unarrestable internet personality"??<br /> Any altercation is a chance to frighten/trick/terrify the citizen OR illegal into upping the ante, getting higher charges & accusations. They jail unjailable alleged crimes, all the time. They get paid for each "person" in jail. If the "person" doesn't react, the heavily-armed cop can just fake it, and insist he felt threatened. <br /> <b>Every stop is technically an arrest</b>, and they'll deny that. {Sonic: "that's not true"} Who knows how long you may be unlawfully detained, and they DO NOT CARE. They're required to take you to a Magistrate, yet who will not be available, say, until the next day. There's a lot of word play, hiding behind legalese. We The Poor People are not in the Bar/union OR Cops' unions, etc. We are merely targets. You could pay, to get out of it, earlier. <br /> Every such abuse (& more) is also a chance the "person" will just mail in the raised-revenue payment, go to the payment window and submit to this excessive, systematic injustice--hey, just acquiesce. <br /> You make an interesting point Harris & Montgomery do it, but I think also Galveston and anything including Katy, et al. Where do YOU guyz live? Austin? Over there by Austin, can't you just donate a can of fruit salad and get out of tickets? Over here, they're hateful, intentionally intimidating; and the judges--whether sitting, visiting, no-oath-on-file, guest, etc.---are worse. Their arrogance nearly always exceeds their competence. Yeah, TRY and get a court recorder. (We wonder if Harris Co./region is allowed rogue, since they pay Austin the highest revenues, or what? I mean, we have a record number of demagogueing grandstanding elected "Reps" who provide zero assistance.)johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02808884177035705472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8597101.post-16939504061767435702017-10-25T07:41:05.706-05:002017-10-25T07:41:05.706-05:00Please add your podcast to the Stitcher platform. ...Please add your podcast to the Stitcher platform. It's my favorite way to listen to podcasts. Thanks!Wise Texanhttp://wisetexan.netnoreply@blogger.com