Emilie Daedler | California Policy Center If you hope to reform policing in America, you have to reform the unions that invariably protect bad cops. That’s how Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin, though trailing at least 17 excessive-force complaints, ended up on duty on May 25, the day George Floyd died. And that’s how San...
By Dennis Hull | California Policy Center By the time we saw him kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin already had at least 17 excessive-force complaints against him, just one of which ended in disciplinary action. Neither the city’s progressive city council nor its black police chief could alter that tragedy...
A conservative response to police-reform protests Intense public protests and riots following George Floyd’s deadly encounter with a Minneapolis police officer in May have caught many conservatives off guard. Because of their overall support for police officers and their respect for public order, conservatives seem generally troubled by the public reaction. They have – at...
The tragic death of George Floyd has sent the country into yet another misguided frenzy. Following the death of George Floyd at the hands – or more accurately the foot – of a bad cop, much of the U.S. has descended into bonkersville. What talk-show host Michael Medved has labeled the “do something disease” –...
Investigating the relationship between stressed public finances and rising misdemeanor fines and penalties By Reiss Becker, David Vasquez, Zane Zovak BACKGROUND California Policy Center analysts have documented the state’s collapsing public finances over the past few decades – not just the rising level of public debt, but the subsequent effects of crumbling infrastructure, slashed government...
Sacramento During a speech to a conservative group about the state’s pension crisis several years ago, one member of the audience was upset that I focused so much attention on police and firefighter unions. He thought I should basically give those groups a pass, to which I replied that perhaps we should skip talking about...
“We’re not anti-cop. We’re anti bad cop. Bad cops have to be fired, just like bad politicians” – Leader of Black Lives Matter counter-protest, who was spontaneously invited to speak at a pro-Trump rally (watch video). There aren’t too many things that are easier to agree on than this sentiment. Even those of us who...
Sacramento — News reports last week suggest the city of Oakland may be ready to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the teenage woman at the heart of a sex-abuse scandal that rocked Oakland’s and other nearby police departments since 2015. All things considered, the city is fortunate. The reported settlement is just under $1...
Earlier this month the New York Times ran an editorial entitled “When Police Unions Impede Justice.” They make the point that collective bargaining agreements for police employees often make it very difficult to hold police officers accountable for misconduct. When you have nearly 1.0 million sworn police officers in the United States, you’re bound to...
In the wake of tragic and deadly attacks on police officers, those of us who have never wavered in our support for the members of law enforcement, but have questioned the role of police unions and have debated issues of policy surrounding law enforcement have an obligation to restate our position. Civil libertarians and fiscal...
“We thought were inappropriate to be employees of the city.” – Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks (ret.), in reference to the termination of corrupt police officers, Rampart scandal (late 1990’s) About a year ago we published an editorial asking this question, “How much does professionalism cost,” using as an example the tragic death of...
Itching to get rid of your crummy boss? Consider employing a private eye to tail him, tag his car with a GPS tracking device, and then attempt to nail him for drunken driving. If the mood strikes you, follow him to Las Vegas, or sic a voluptuous woman on him in a bar and secretly...
The horrific Boston bombings already have led to calls for more security cameras and more police officers, with some Democrats absurdly using this tragedy as a reason to stop the slight sequester-mandated cuts in federal spending growth. Never mind that police spending primarily is a local matter. The bigger questions that Americans have rarely asked,...
Many people were outraged this summer after a private investigator, with ties to a law firm that represents 120 police unions in California, made an apparently false police report that a Costa Mesa councilman stumbled out of a bar, appearing drunk, and was weaving all over the road as he drove home. When police showed...