Union: ‘We don’t want to protect bad cops’

But due process remains critical, FOP leader says

The president of the nation’s largest police union said he was open to a plan for tracking officer misconduct as recommended in legislation proposed by congressional Democrats, but maintained that any agreement hinged on providing officers the right to defend themselves against potentially wrongful allegations.

“We don’t want to protect bad cops,” Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes told USA TODAY. “We all felt that there are a lot of areas that we could build on. Due process (for officers) is a very big point with us . ... We very much want to be at the table working at improving the criminal justice system.”

But Yoes said that increasing calls for dramatic funding reductions or the dismantling of entire police agencies do not promote needed “order” in a nation still reeling from weekslong protests following the brutal death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who was pinned under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.

“Picture a society that doesn’t have the police,” said Yoes, who took part in Monday’s White House meeting on law enforcement reforms. “There needs to be order in our lives.”

Despite the troubling images of excessive police force from Minneapolis to Buffalo, where an elderly man was pushed to the ground last week and seriously injured by officers, Yoes defended American police as well prepared and “better trained” than at any other time in the country.

“We have never in the history of law enforcement had a better trained workforce than we have today,” Yoes said.

The union chief rejected recent claims by community advocates and law enforcement analysts that collective bargaining agreements had made it increasingly difficult to discipline bad officers, ratcheting up tensions in some communities. Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer charged with second degree murder and manslaughter in Floyd’s death, had a long history of complaints from the public before his deadly encounter with Floyd.

Jonathan Smith, executive director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, said a proposed officer discipline registry represented an “important reform.”

“Far too often, an officer moves from Department to Department and their history does not follow them,” said Smith, who also served as special litigation chief in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. But Smith said it was a “red herring” for the FOP to condition the creation of a registry on provisions for officer defense.

“In every jurisdiction, police have a right to present a defense,” Smith said. “It is usually embodied in either a collective bargaining agreement or public service commission statute or rules.”

Smith said it was unclear whether sustained national protest would diminish the labor’s substantial power.

“My guess is that they have a direct line into the White House and the Justice Department and they are exercising their muscle,” Smith said. “They may have less influence with city councils and mayors in some cities.”

Yoes said the FOP, whose members number more than 300,000 officers, was quick to condemn the actions of Chauvin and three other officers charged in Floyd’s death, saying the nation was “justifiably horrified” by the death and the “appalling” conduct of the officers.

“We cannot allow this to define our profession, and the nation’s 800,000 police officers who are making a difference in their communities,” Yoes said.