Police fight vaccine rules
Pockets of resistance across the U.S. could add to staff shortages in law enforcement.
Police departments around the U.S. that are requiring officers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 are running up against pockets of resistance that some fear could leave law enforcement shorthanded and undermine public safety.
Some police unions and officers are pushing back with lawsuits to block the mandates and other measures.
In Los Angeles County, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he won’t force his 18,000 employees to be vaccinated, despite a county mandate. “I don’t want to be in a position to lose 5%, 10% of my workforce overnight,” he said last week.
Hundreds of police officers in San Diego said they would consider quitting instead of complying with a vaccination mandate.
In Chicago, the head of the police union called on members to defy the city’s Friday deadline for reporting vaccination status.
Seattle’s police department this week sent detectives and non-patrol officers to emergency calls because of a shortage of patrol officers that union leaders fear will become worse because of vaccination mandates.
The standoffs are playing out at a time when many police departments are dealing with surging homicide rates and staff shortages unrelated to vaccinations. Cities and police leaders are weighing the risk of losing more officers to resignations, firings or suspensions over their refusal to be vaccinated.
Chicago’s mayor on Friday filed a legal complaint against the leader of the local Fraternal Order of Police, accusing him of “engaging in, supporting and encouraging work stoppage or strike” by saying the city’s more than 12,000 uniformed officers should ignore the order to report their vaccination status. On Thursday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said officers would not be sent home if they showed up to work Friday and refused to provide their information; instead, they would be put on unpaid leave after the weekend, because confirming compliance would take a few days. Refusal to provide the information, Lightfoot said, would constitute insubordination.
John Catanzara, president of the FOP local in Chicago, said about half his members have not been vaccinated and called a mandate “absolutely wrong.”
“They were willing to go into a no-pay status at midnight tonight and get sent home,” he said, suggesting during an appearance on Fox News that the city could not afford to lose police officers. “You know, the reality is we have a profession nobody else wants to do right now. They cannot get anybody to go into this police academy.”
Resistance is bubbling up even though first responders have been hit hard by COVID-19. More than 460 law enforcement officers have died of the disease, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks deaths that occur in the line of duty.
Disputes over government and business vaccination requirements have spilled over into a variety of workplaces, including one of the nation’s premier nuclear weapons laboratories and the NBA.
Workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — the birthplace of the atomic bomb — faced a deadline Friday to be vaccinated or risk being fired. A New Mexico judge denied a last-minute request by dozens of scientists and others to block the mandate.
In the NBA, the Brooklyn Nets are not allowing star Kyrie Irving to practice or play until he is vaccinated.
Meanwhile, in Italy, protests erupted Friday as vaccination requirements went into effect for all workers, from magistrates to maids.
The number of Americans being vaccinated has steadily increased over the last three months as boosters have become available and mandates have taken effect. The number of shots administered per day has topped 840,000.
No national statistics show the vaccination rate for America’s first responders, but individual police and fire departments have reported figures far below the national rate of 77% for adults who have had at least one dose.
Police departments in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver are among those under vaccination mandates or facing one. New York’s mayor has said he is looking into the idea, despite opposition from the city’s largest police union.
The union representing some 1,000 Seattle police personnel suggests that the mandate could worsen staffing shortages, which in turn could risk public safety. The union’s president, Mike Solan, said the city’s police force lost 300 officers over the last 18 months and anticipates another “mass exodus” in the coming weeks.
As of last week, nearly 300 of the 1,000 uniformed officers in Seattle had either not turned in paperwork showing they were vaccinated or were seeking an exemption, the mayor’s office said. But scores more are believed to have been vaccinated since then.
“People believe in personal choice, and we as a union have to represent everybody,” Solan said. “We’re not going to play the games of segregating between the vaxxed and the unvaxxed. It’s not about that. This is about saving jobs.”
Elsewhere in recent weeks, judges have rejected attempts by a group of Oregon State Police troopers and Denver police officers to block vaccination mandates.