What if the Milwaukee police union were illegal?

In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story about Milwaukee’s new police chief, tadalafil purchase I was struck by a couple sentences about Milwaukee’s police union:

Several key aldermen, however, openly favored Capt. James Harpole for the job.So did the police union, which has tangled with past chiefs. Union president John Balcerzak is already warning of low morale, based in part on the “ever-increasing rise in internal investigations.”

This made me ask myself a couple of questions:

1.) Who gets to pick their own boss?

2.) Considering some of the events of the last few years, there is probably a reason for the “ever-increasing rise in internal investigations”.

3.) Doesn’t the mere existence of a police union help perpetuate an “us-versus-them” mentality between the police and the citizens they’re supposed to be putting first?

Basically, my question is if there was no police union would Milwaukee be better or worse off?

3 comments November 19th, 2007