Police Unions Defend Bad Cops Who Do Awful Things. Why Won't They Defend Broward County Deputy? - Hit & Run : Reason.com

Police Unions Defend Bad Cops Who Do Awful Things. Why Won't They Defend Broward County Deputy? - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
"Police unions routinely defend bad cops who do awful things.

• When Hector Jimenez, an Oakland cop, shot and killed an unarmed man in 2007, he got his job back. Seven months later, after he killed another man by shooting him three times in the back, he got his job back a second time. In both cases, the local police union intervened in Jimenez' favor.
• After 13 Cleveland cops fired 137 rounds of ammo into a car in 2012, killing two people, at the end of a car chase, all but one ended up staying on the job with help from the union. 
• The same was true for Philadelphia police officer Cyrus Mann, who was fired that same year after shooting three people within three years (he killed one of his victims, an unarmed man, by shooting him in the back) and later reinstated on the force after a union-backed arbitration process.
• Last year, when cops in Salt Lake City violently arrested a nurse for refusing to draw blood from a hospital patient without a warrant, the local police union stepped in to defend the officers' actions and attack those who criticized them.

In those cases, and plenty of others, police unions have defended cops who engaged in clear-cut abuses of the public trust placed in them. 
Whether it's a question of excessive force, unconstitutional searches, or the killing of innocent civilians, police unions routinely stand up for officers who have committed acts with tragic consequences. 
Union contracts "often provide a shield of protection for officers accused of misdeeds," Reuters concluded in a 2017 investigative report.
But the head of the union that represents law enforcement in Broward County, Florida, says his union won't be stepping up to help disgraced deputy Scot Peterson, who resigned amid the fallout from the Feb. 14 school shooting.
Why not? 
It's not because the union is upset with Peterson's conduct or because it thinks he has disgraced the courageous image of law enforcement. 
No, it's really just about the money.
"From a legal standpoint, we say he was not a 'dues-paying member,'" Jeff Bell, president of the Broward County Sheriff's Deputies Association told Reason..."
Read on!