theatlantic | When Frank Serpico, the most famous police whistleblower of his
generation, reflected on years of law-enforcement corruption in the New
York Police Department, he assigned substantial blame
to a commissioner who failed to hold rank-and-file cops accountable.
That's the classic template for police abuse: misbehaving cops are
spared punishment by colleagues and bosses who cover for them.
There are, of course, police officers who are fired for egregious
misbehavior by commanding officers who decide that a given abuse makes
them unfit for a badge and gun. Yet all over the U.S., police unions
help many of those cops to get their jobs back, often via
secretive appeals geared to protect labor rights rather than public
safety. Cops deemed unqualified by their own bosses are put back on the
streets. Their colleagues get the message that police all but impervious
to termination.
That isn't to say that every officer who is fired deserves it, or
that every reinstated cop represents a miscarriage of justice. In
theory, due process before a neutral arbiter could even protect blue
whistleblowers from wrongful termination. But in practice, too many cops
who needlessly kill people, use excessive force, or otherwise abuse
their authority are getting reprieves from termination.
