Bloody Their Noses (Police Union reformers)

There have been many online conversations lately about the Vallejo Police Officers Association (VPOA) and their support of City Council candidates. What does their endorsement mean to candidates...and to us citizens? Some suggest their endorsements are benign, just an organization expressing their support. 

Ask yourself one question: why are Vallejo Police officers involved in Vallejo's elections at all (probably 99 percent of them don't live in Vallejo)? 

The answer: the candidates they support who win the election will vote on their next multimillion dollar contract, raises, benefit increases, etc. They will vote on things like giving the Vallejo Police Department a multimillion dollar office building on our waterfront. They will vote on whether to require officers to get drug tested after police shootings or any other reform the public wants. The VPOA is involved because they are trying to elect their next bosses, bosses who will vote the way they want them to vote. 

I will be repeating this often: when I first ran for City Council in 2005, I was asked by the unions, word for word, "If we endorse you, will you stay BOUGHT?" 

Yes, they asked that. Out loud. 

How some Vallejo Police Officers and the VPOA behave and what they do to get what they want is clearly laid out by Ron DeLord, a former Texas police officer and consultant to police unions. He wrote an article in 2008 in "American Police Beat Magazine" posted online called, "Time to Circle the Wagons." It's essentially the Police Union Playbook: how to confuse and scare citizens, buy local elections and votes, and how to threaten and intimidate "nonconforming" council members to shut them up.

Ron DeLord instructed police unions to buy local elections: 

"Police unions can avoid many of these issues by endorsing and supporting candidates who will not ask them to make such a decision {arbitration or a legal decision} or negotiate in good faith with the union over any change. You have to recruit candidates and be involved in each election. Every decision impacting police officers is decided by a political vote. How many votes do you have on the issue? If you lack a majority, how many do you need to                     get right side up?"

DeLord also told police unions to, "get dirty and fight to win" by getting personal with "reformist" council members and to "bloody their noses".

"The main event is a POLITICAL GAME and the legal game is the side show. Unless you beat them politically, you will never win even if the courts one day decide in your favor. If you discover you cannot win under the current rules, change the rules, and go outside the experience of the elected officials. Think outside the box. Get dirty and fight to win. If you are in this predicament, then your elected officials did not RESPECT the union or the officers. To get respect you have to bloody their noses and demonstrate that the union is willing to make it personal, because it is personal on so many levels."

In 2008, when we went into bankruptcy, they began bloodying noses all over the place. Below is a billboard the Public Safety Unions paid to put up in downtown Vallejo to try and make the City Council look bad; some citizens felt it served as a welcome mat home robbers and car thieves.

2008 Public Safety Union billboard on Georgia St. and Sonoma Blvd.

Kurt Henke, former Vallejo firefighter and president of International Association of FireFighters 1186, specialized in bloodying noses. He filed lawsuits against fellow city employees, a Human Relations Commissioner and several City Council members who were pushing back against him. They were clearly SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. A SLAPP suit is a lawsuit intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. In the typical SLAPP, the plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. (Wikipedia)

Henke lost. Bigly. He owed a lot of money in legal fees (judges don't typically take kindly to SLAPP suits), and his union was on the hook for them (they weren't pleased). But he just tried to get the City to pay for those legal fees as part of their contract. Because that's how Henke rolled. It almost worked, too. But I caught it in my first budget as a Council Member, buried in an obscure line item so nobody would notice. 

When we finally started the Citizens Public Safety Advisory Committee after much gnashing of teeth and threats by VPOA, they circled the wagons. A post on Topix said it all, the wagons were circled: 

"The Schivley-Schussel lynch mob will not have the cooperation of any public safety agency in this state. They will have to form their reviews by researching public documents only. The word has been passed on what is driving this committee. The wagons are circled. A complete waste of time."

I'm not sure when, but American Police Beat deleted the "Time to Circle the Wagons" article and I can't find it anywhere online. But thanks to Marc Garman and the Vallejo Independent Bulletin, you can see the full copy, below. And Ron DeLord, who began trying to appear to play nice-nice in the sandbox, told Reuters in 2014 that, "he had learnt to be more collaborative since 2008, but said of the “get dirty” message: I wrote it. I believe it.”

It's still happening today. In Vallejo. And the VPOA is counting their votes and hand picking their candidates as I type this -- so please, beware any candidate endorsed by the VPOA or Jump Start. Trust me, we've been down this road before, and it's ugly. 

Note: I edited this post to shorten it and keep the focus on "Time to Circle the Wagons". I'll share more about my bloodied noses in future posts.

Time to Circle the Wagons By Ron DeLord (2008) The world of law enforcement is changing, not just in the U.S. but globally. The cost of wages, health insurance, pensions, training and equipment are skyrocketing at the same time as the economy worldwide is entering a recession. Elected officials are being forced to trim their budgets, and the biggest budgets in any state and local government are police and fire. In many states the non-essential public services have been trimmed back as the economy slowed down. Now many governments have decided to see how much they can trim from essential services. In the poorer communities, there is not much fat left to trim. So who should be worried? The highly compensated law enforcement agencies, especially in areas of the country where the housing markets have collapsed, are the most vulnerable. These agencies have received wages and benefits that far exceed those enjoyed by the general public, including many of the elected officials. Some police unions have started to believe that they are bullet-proof from budget cuts. Just ask yourself what happened to the mighty auto workers, steel workers and coal miners. They were at the top of their game and collapsed. If your union believes nothing bad will happen, you are in for a rude awakening. It will start with a trickle such as civilianizing or contracting out more positions and using technology. The elected officials will tell the public, “Why should we pay a police officer $100,000 a year to do a job a non-sworn employee or private contractor will do for half the cost.” It is getting harder and harder to justify using sworn officers in many jobs that were traditionally police functions. The next move will include red light and eventually speed cameras to “free up” these highly paid officers for more serious police work. Do not expect the revenue to go back to the police department. Next the pressure will mount to create two-tier wage and benefit plans. Despite knowing the internal dissension that will be caused by having two officers working side-by-side, and each having different health insurance or pension plans, police unions are starting to accept or be forced to accept two-tier plans. The common employer pitch to the union is, “We can continue to fund your pension, but we must have budget relief by allowing the city to pay less for future officers. If you refuse, we will be forced to lower the pension for current officers.” The pressure to sell the unborn to save themselves is more than many union leaders can stand. And if all else fails to squeeze concessions out of the police budgets, the city will declare bankruptcy to abrogate its employee contracts like Vallejo, California did recently. While the city is far from bankrupt, the goal is to use tax payer money to tie the unions up in court and drain their treasuries. If you know what to expect in the future and you do not prepare yourself, you only have yourself to blame. Here are some simple rules when you are forced to say, “I never believed it would happen to me.” Rule No. 1 – The battle is in the Court of Public Opinion! The employer will be making its case to the public and media. It is a fight for the hearts and minds of the tax payers. If the public is in a foul mood over their personal finances, you will get little sympathy by arguing you deserve to be paid more than the high school principal. The message has to be directed to how the reduction in police services will impact their lives. It is all about the public! Rule No. 2 – The political fight is the main event and lawyers are a side show. If you are forced into the courthouse or arbitration, you may have waited too long to start the political machine. Police unions can avoid many of these issues by endorsing and supporting candidates who will not ask them to make such a decision, or negotiate in good faith with the union over any change. You have to recruit candidates and be involved in each election. Every decision impacting police officers is decided by a political vote. How many votes do you have on the issue? If you lack a majority, how many do you need to get right side up? Rule No. 3 – If you get caught behind the eight ball, and the employer is attacking you as a greedy and uncaring union you must identify the vocal critics and make them feel your pain. Somehow this seems to be where the unions get queasy and weak-kneed. It is often difficult to convince yourself or the members to picket some councilman’s business, put their home telephone numbers up on billboards, and in general make their lives a living hell. Union leaders who feel they are too professional to stoop to these tactics are the same ones who believe they can win by remote control using some lawyer. The bottom line: The main event is a POLITICAL GAME and the legal game is the side show. Unless you beat them politically, you will never win even if the courts one day decide in your favor. If you discover you cannot win under the current rules, change the rules, and go outside the experience of the elected officials. Think outside the box. Get dirty and fight to win. If you are in this predicament, then your elected officials did not RESPECT the union or the officers. To get respect you have to bloody their noses and demonstrate that the union is willing to make it personal, because it is personal on so many levels. Ron DeLord is the former executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas

APBWEB.COM Time to circle the wagons American Police Beat Magazine - The Leading Law Enforcement Publication. The Police Magazine for Cops.