USA TODAY International Edition
Justice, police unions finding common ground
New partnership amid volatile police- community relations
As the Justice Department weighed its strategy for responding to the crisis that engulfed the Baltimore Police Department this year, police union officials found themselves in a most unlikely place: a conference table in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, talking with the very people who would shape the federal government’s plan.
Rarely in the past six years, when over 20 local police agencies have drawn the department’s scrutiny for excessive force and discrimination, had union offi- cials — traditional adversaries in federal civil rights inquiries — been included in such a way.
The meeting — which included the police union’s national president, Chuck Canterbury, Maryland Fraternal Order of Police president Vince Canales, Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police president Gene Ryan and Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union — signals the emergence of a new relationship between federal authorities seeking to restore public trust in local law enforcement and union leaders who have closely guarded the rights of rank- and- file officers.
Much of the change, analysts say, represents a recognition that labor’s involvement is key to the success of federal efforts undertaken by the new leadership at Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
If Justice “wants to see real change, it has to involve the unions, too,” University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris said. “If they don’t involve the unions, at the very least, ( any) agreement created may not be as good. At worst, the unions may feel no involvement or obligation and may work to undermine the agreement’s success.”
Vanita Gupta, a former ACLU lawyer nominated last fall to lead the Civil Rights Division, which had been without a permanent chief for over a year, said unions were among the first groups she sought out after taking office.
“Coming in after Ferguson, there is a much greater focus on the part of everyone,” Gupta told USA TODAY.
Chuck Wexler, executive director of the law enforcement think tank Police Executive Research Forum, said greater union involvement underscores a “recognition among labor leaders that something has to change.”
“This is our Tylenol moment,” Wexler said, referring to the drug- tampering crisis that threatened the painkiller brand in 1982.
When the Fraternal Order of Police celebrates its 100th anniversary next month, Pasco says, “it is more than symbolic” that a new attorney general, Loretta Lynch, will be in Pittsburgh to give the keynote address.