To Serve and Protect

I've been hearing a lot from my Minneapolis friends about the stubborn resistance of the Minneapolis Police Officers Federation to any sort of reform after the torture and death of George Floyd at the hands (or, more accurately, the knees) of one of their officers.

Union president Bob Kroll has vowed to fight to reinstate the four officers fired and now charged in the homicide, and has repeatedly insinuated that Floyd deserved his fate.

There is a long history of racism in the Minneapolis Police Department. The union is still fighting to force the city to reinstate two officers fired for festooning the fourth precinct's Christmas tree with racist items in 2018.

Serving and protecting the bad apples is not limited to Minneapolis by any means.

Two years ago, the Milwaukee Police Department tweeted out congratulations to two of its retiring officers, John Balcerzak and Dennis Wallich, having served a combined 61 years on the Milwaukee Police force.

If you are about my age and live anywhere near Milwaukee, the name John Balcerzak should ring a bell.

In the wee hours of May 27, 1991, Balcerzak and his squad partner, Joseph Gabrish, responded to a 911 call from three women who found a 14-year-old boy naked and bleeding; the boy had a fresh hole drilled in his head. The boy was Konerak Sinthasomphone, who had managed to leave the apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer while the serial killer and convicted child molester was out getting alcohol from a bar.

Dahmer (white) arrived on the scene before Balcerzak (white) and Gabrish (white). Sinthasomphone (Hmong) was unable to speak English for himself, so Dahmer told the officers that the boy was his 19-year-old boyfriend. The women (black) pointed out that Sinthasomphone was bleeding, but the officers told them to "butt out," wrapped Sinthasomphone in a towel and took him back to Dahmer's apartment. Where, by the way, the body of Tony Hughes lay rotting in the bedroom from three days earlier.

Failing to check either Dahmer's or Sinthasomphone's IDs, Balcerzak and Gabrish left the boy with his murderer and drove off, joking with the police dispatcher about those silly faggots. Dahmer would go on to kill Sinthasomphone and four more young men before a fifth intended victim managed to escape and flagged down two police officers (who were not Balcerzak and Gabrish).

Balcerzak and Gabrish were fired over their professional malpractice, but their union got them reinstated to MPD on appeal. Balcerzak was even elected president of the Milwaukee Police Association in 2005.

This has been a very difficult time for unions around the country, but not for police unions. When Scott Walker and his Republican army swept to power in Wisconsin ten years ago, they targeted every state employees union with the exception of their supporters in the police and firefighters unions. Lest you think this was purely a law and order issue, you should note that the prison workers union was not safe from Republicans' full-bore assault.

In light of this year's sustained Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, Democrats may not be as loath to follow Republicans' playbook on union-busting as you might think.