Prometheus 6

Paying a punished LAPD officer
When the department disciplines an officer with suspension, the police union replaces any lost wages.
May 22, 2008

So let's get this straight. A Los Angeles police officer does something so bad that he or she is suspended without pay. But the officer gets paid anyway. The punishment comes down to this: The check comes from the Police Protective League instead of the LAPD, and the officer gets what amounts to a few days of paid vacation. This is discipline?

Praise is due Police Commission member Anthony Pacheco for raising the issue Tuesday. The commission ought to take a look at how the union's practice of offering suspension insurance to its members affects the department's discipline system. The surprising thing is that, for seven years now, officers supposedly suspended without pay have been paid, with no one so much as raising an eyebrow. 

Come to think of it, this whole thing has a familiar ring to it. It's a little like a City Council member or other elected official or candidate breaking campaign laws by "mistakenly" accepting contributions in excess of legal limits. The City Ethics Commission might slap a stiff fine on the politician -- who will pay it off with even more money raised from donors.

The union argues that its payments simply ensure that an officer's family doesn't suffer when the breadwinner is punished for misconduct. It's not fair, they assert, to take food out of the mouths of innocent kids just because their parents did something wrong. That's a terrific argument against ever punishing anyone anywhere -- and a particularly juicy one from a union whose members lock people up.

The union's insurance policy isn't workers' comp. It doesn't pay off when the member has to skip work because of illness or injury. It's nothing like a lawyer's malpractice insurance, which compensates the victimized client, not the attorney who loses work because of professional misconduct.