Police Union Asks Members to Stop Working Dolphins Games Until All Players Stand for Anthem
Outrage fest over national anthem continues.


The police union for Broward County sheriff's officer became the latest to demand an NFL team do something about players refusing to stand for the national anthem. Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit through the national anthem at a San Francisco 49ers pre-season game has extended to other players, other teams, and the regular season.
Kaepernick said his decision not to stand was a form of protest against police brutality and the special privileges police officers, and presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton, get when they are accused of committing crimes.
Predictably, police unions were not pleased. The Santa Clara police union warned the 49ers police may not show up for the over-time shifts they volunteered for at the stadium if the team didn't take "corrective action" against the second string quarterback. The police chief urged the union to "put the safety of our citizen first." The lease for the 49ers stadium, like many across the country, requires the team to hire a minimum level of police protection.
The police union in Cleveland made similar threats after a player posted a photo of a cop being attacked and did not make an apology the union considered sincere enough. "You're a grown-ass man, and you claim you were too emotional to know it was wrong?" the union president reportedly told TMZ. "Think we'll accept your apology? Kiss my ass."
The police union in Broward County argues that the Dolphins should require players to stand for the national anthem. "I respect their right to have freedom of speech," Jeffrey Bell, president of the local International Union of Police Associations, told the Miami Herald. "However, in certain organizations and certain jobs you give up that right of your freedom of speech temporary while you serve that job or while you play in an NFL game."
Bell's acknowledgement would better apply to police officers, who are government employees and public servants, than football players, who largely work for privately-held companies under the terms of a mutually agreed upon labor contract and their own individual contracts. Consider that police officers are never really off-duty. Their police powers, and some of their responsibilities, follow them 24/7. Their jobs involve enforcing the will of the duly-elected governments in their jurisdictions, the same ones that they negotiate with on what we are supposed to believe is equal footing to any other group of citizens that might band together to make demands of the government. But they are not—even the progressive hero Franklin D. Roosevelt understood the innate inequities of extending the privilege of collective bargaining to public union workers.
Public unions distort the accountability mechanisms in place in government, and sometimes succeed in eliminating them all together via their contracts. Police unions illustrate this when they appear to operate outside of the legal chain of command in spats like the one over football players standing for the national anthem, leaving the question of to whose authority exactly police officers are subject to an open one. But what public unions are doing here is not an exception to the way that they operate vis a vis public policy and government accountability and transparency, but the rule.
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Replace the pigs with private security. Problem solved.
They
Can't.
They are contractually obligated to hire *from the city* (not hire police directly) LEO's to provide security. At overtime rates (plus a 'managemement fee') and the cops are paid by the city. Which, coincidently means that those OT hours count come pension time.
Thanks, didn't know that. I guess if the pigs get too whiny there might be some pressure to revisit the terms of that contract.
Hmm, sounds like the cops might be contractually obligated to be there then.
Blue flu.
This is all kabuki theater. They know which side their bread is buttered on. They won't dare bite the hand that feeds them.
Jill Stein kindly requests that you not shoot the piano player.
"Pay attention to meeee!" explained the troll.
Safe spaces for trolls NOW!
"I respect their right to have freedom of speech," Jeffrey Bell, president of the local International Union of Police Associations, told the Miami Herald. "However,
"However" is the new "Not!"
I respect their right to have freedom of speech...
BUT
"But I don't respect their right to actually exercise their freedom of speech."
I'm pretty sure South Park already solved this problem so let's all just move on.
The real fix will be flagging players for kneeling.
"There are two fouls on the anthem. Personal foul, taunting America, #7 of the 49ers. Personal foul, taunting America, #20 of the Seahawks. Not standing for the anthem. These penalties offset. We will now actually kick off."
The consequence of offsetting penalties is to replay the anthem.
The ultimate punishment.
My judging of a rendition on the National Anthem consists solely in it's duration.
Play the entire anthem, including verse 3:
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
(potentially triggering - apparently there's a theory that the "slave[s]" referenced in this verse were American slaves who escaped and joined the British army.)
First world problems. Did the lion have a name?
This is how the terrorists win.
I think what Kaepernick is doing is wrong in one sense: I don't have a problem with people protesting the government, I've done that myself. The "myself" is the key part. When I did it the only chips I put on the table were my own. I didn't try to pull my employer into the crossfire. Kaepernick is protesting at an NFL event while wearing his team's uniform, which sucks them into the controversy against their will. He could do that in another venue, given his wealth and celebrity.
That said, the police union is completely wrong to tell its members to refuse to perform the duty they swore to perform. We all know they pick and choose which citizens are "important" enough to protect; it's interesting that they're pretty much coming out and admitting it here.
They scheduled their little political fanfares and flyovers during clock hours. Perhaps one solution would be that the employer could not require work uniforms until the job starts. Alternately, the employer could stage their personal ceremonial displays earlier, so as not to interfere with job performance.
Or if the employee finds the fanfares too odious he gets another job.
The employee would sue for requiring political expression completely unrelated to job performance creating a hostile work environment, and win.
Modern employment is such fun.
Yeah, that's the most likely real-world scenario. Sigh.
I was simply speaking of my own personal ethics: if I choose to sail into a shitstorm of any sort I don't have the right to drag anyone else along (even if they're assholes). But I'm a strange man, or so I'm told.
If the coach or manager of the team wants to tell him to stand for the anthem or sit out the game, he can do that. If they aren't doing that, then the team is letting him drag them into the crossfire.
I agree; if the team does nothing then they are accepting whatever fire they catch. I only speak of his initial act.
I don't know - they're kind of sucking everyone into their display of faux-patriotism through the national anthem and military sponsorships.
He is sitting on a bench. Not throwing tomatoes at the singer.
It could be worse.
At least no one has called this 'Anthemgate' yet.
Oh goddammit Twitter.
Is that a power metal band?
LOLWAT
He's rich! He's not allowed to protest!
I don't mind that he protests, I mind that he's a mush-mouthed idiot in his explanations of why he's protesting. FFS, if you're going to stage a protest, you best understand the situation and exactly what you're against and what you want to happen.
But there'd be a hell of a lot fewer people protesting and, more importantly, a lot fewer opportunities to make a career out of protesting.
And apparently playing on an NFL team isn't one of those jobs. Otherwise, he would have been punished for it.
The police aren't going to understand this very well, because the police do give up that right while working. And rightfully so. (Not in practice, though)
Oh, sure. They'll just give up a day's easy OT. I assume the Union is buying everyone's Christmas gifts this year.
Because they're forced into this by the players' outrageous actions, they deserve the overtime pay they'd otherwise earn! - the union, probably
Are people still talking about this? It's been more than two weeks, which is at least a week longer than the average American's attention span.
The longer this collective freak out goes on, the more I sympathetic to Kaepernick position I find myself becoming.
Bunch of babies.
Oh good, my home county.
Trust me when I say that the players are safer without the BSO "protecting" them.
"...the players are safer without the BSO 'protecting' them."
The Boston Symphony Orchestra?
I'm not so sure. If you've ever been hit by a trombone or a bassoon, or been smacked across the face with a cello bow, you'd think twice about messing with anybody that has a few dozen classical musicians backing him up.
har dee har har
Broward Sheriff's Office.
Everyone should just focus on doing their jobs.
RE: Police Union Asks Members to Stop Working Dolphins Games Until All Players Stand for Anthem
Outrage fest over national anthem continues.
Why is it I'm not surprised the police are against non-violent protest?
Can someone out there help out here?
Much easier to get to shoot people when there are violent protests happening.
Marquis of Fantailler
That would not be shooting people when a violent protest happens.
That would be called target practice.
Still very little talk - or photos - of Kaepernick's superhot Muslim and BLM gf.
What I wonder is, how does he fit all that hair into a helmet? I suppose all that foliage does act as anti-concussion padding. And the doofus does need to conserve any brain cells he has left.
He doesn't need to fit his hair in the helmet - he doesn't play anymore...
And it will continue until J.J. Abrams is brought in to re-boot it.
Which should be read as "Fuck guys! What do you think is going to happen to your overtime and pension-stuffing schemes if these people realize they don't actually need us? We fought hard for this income enhancing opportunity but once its gone it ain't coming back."
Am I the only one who thinks its odd to protest the national anthem by literally bending the knee, rather than standing? Bending the knee is a much more subservient position to take? What's next? A full-on kowtow?
In this case its because the players are already standing so he takes a knee because he can't afford to sit on the ground without risking ripping the ass out of his uniform.
Turn away from the flag and stick your fingers in your ears.
Or give the middle finger during the anthem.
Safe spaces. Speech restrictions. Benefits that bankrupt government. What's the difference between cops and SJW activists, again?
That's really cool. I would be interested in seeing more graphs of different information you pull from these logs.
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