steelman
Former Member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2014
- Messages
- 5,052
- Reaction score
- 258
Soooo....the story gets even more grimy than I thought possible. And many people were aware he wasn't the upstanding person he portrayed himself to be.
How does someone in his position(s) operate unchecked like this for so long? Even if he was the most arrogant person on earth, it seems that generally everyone looked the other way for years and only very recently did his activity come up for question.
Any case he was ever responsible for bringing against someone is very questionable.
The quick answer to your question would be police unions.
Much like other employee unions, they tend to protect bad behaviour and make it almost impossible to fire a rogue employee without a huge amount of headaches, including lawsuits. In this case especially, the police union hobbled the chief of police to the extent that all that could be done about Gliniewicz's transgressions was a day or two of suspension here and there. The police union basically played the role of an enabler.
That same scenario plays itself out everyday in this country, nationwide. That's why there are so many of these bad seeds embedded and hidden in with the good ones.
The sad part of it is, these departments already know which cops are dirty and unfit to serve, but they are reluctant to "fire" any of these guys due to the flood of lawsuits and legal expenses that are sure to follow. It simply isn't worth the hassle involved. Only when something a "bad cop" does is caught on video, or witnessed by numerous people, does it make it much easier get rid of the bum. Even the police unions don't want to try and fight an uphill battle like that.
Much like many of the unions in this country, they should be dismantled and eliminated. They no longer serve the purpose they were originally intended for 50 years ago, which were for things like child labor, overtime work without pay, unreasonable amount of work hours, and whistleblower backlash. Now all they do is milk companies for their profits, require outrageous salaries for blue collar level labor, and demand benefits that are extravagant and unreasonable. That's part of the reason why a pickup truck cost $6,000 in the 60's, and today cost $40,000.