Not the 99%: How Police Unions Protect the Privileges and Pensions of NYC’s ’Finest’ | The Indypendent
It fit every Republican’s paranoid rant about government labor. A public-sector union turned out its members at a protest insisting that they be immune from prosecution for corruption. But because we’re talking about the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), the biggest union in the New York Police Department, there was no right-wing outcry in response to its demonstrations against the Bronx District Attorney’s office’s decision to go after “ticket fixing.”
The illegal practice of making tickets disappear for friends, family and politicians has long been tolerated by the NYPD and has only recently attracted prosecutorial interest. On Oct. 28 hundreds of officers packed the Bronx courthouse to protest the prosecutions and left their sense of public decency at home. The cops reportedly blocked traffic, sullied the courthouse with refuse, taunted nearby welfare recipients and grabbed journalists’ cameras to keep them from documenting the proceedings. Their flimsy message was that ticket fixing had gone on for a long time. (Ironically, when the NYPD defends its labor practices against PBA complaints, it often plays the “This is the way it’s always been done” card.) And despite having well-paid public relations personnel, the union still thought it wise to print placards stating, “Just following orders.”
It outraged onlookers and readers, who may be shocked to find out that 50 Bronx PBA delegates are reportedly demanding the resignation of PBA president Patrick Lynch because he didn’t fight hard enough against the Bronx DA. On the one hand, ticket fixing could be considered one of the more benign problems in the department, as indictments in the Bronx case also revealed police ties to more serious crimes: assault, grand larceny and drug trafficking. However, it opens up the frightening reality that the cops value their impunity, especially when there are probes into systemic racism in the department and a group of officers has already been charged with arms trafficking.
►http://www.indypendent.org/2011/12/21/not-99-how-police-unions-protect-privileges-and-pensions-nycs-finest