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The union voted to increase dues for a “war chest.” It also hired a new chief negotiator: Ron DeLord.
After the city sued over a contract provision it claimed was unconstitutional, the union’s longtime president, Michael Helle, arranged attack ads targeting Ms. Sculley. In an interview, Mr. Helle bragged about “how much I got underneath her skin.” He said the ads, which often had unflattering close-ups of her face, preyed on her vanity. They accused her of being an overpaid, wasteful power-monger who thought cops made too much money.
Understand the George Floyd Case
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- On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after a convenience store clerk claimed he used a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes.
- Mr. Floyd died after Derek Chauvin, one of the police officers, handcuffed him and pinned him to the ground with a knee, an episode that was captured on video.
- Mr. Floyd’s death set off a series of nationwide protests against police brutality.
- Mr. Chauvin was fired from Minneapolis police force along with three other officers. He has been charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter and now faces trial, which is likely to begin the week of March 8.
- Here is what we know up to this point in the case, and how the trial is expected to unfold.
The union also scoured through her expenses and publicized payments that the union felt were questionable, he said.
Mr. DeLord’s book advises unions to comb through public records about any “enemy.” The New York Times found that unions nationwide deployed the tactic to intimidate city officials or overwhelm them with paperwork. In Denver, for instance, the union filed a public-records request in 2016 asking the city’s police monitor for voluminous records from its investigations.
“I’m sure they are sweating bullets now,” the union president wrote in an email to the union’s lawyer, obtained through a public-records request. “Let’s make them pay on this one.”
In San Antonio, after two years of fighting, a judge overseeing the lawsuit ordered the city and the union into mediation. The deal would limit the legal fund and make officers contribute to some health care premiums. Both sides claimed victory.
Yet Ms. Sculley, who later wrote a book about the city’s struggle, said in an interview she was disappointed that years of negotiations hadn’t achieved more.
While the updated contract has cut costs, it continues to give officers disciplinary protections that some city officials and residents feel impede good policing. In many instances, infractions more than a few years old can’t be considered during disciplinary proceedings — in effect, erasing them from review. And arbitrators, not city officials, ultimately decide whether an officer is fired.
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