December 13, 2016

Here’s What the Biggest Police Union Wants From Trump

A return to racial profiling and deporting immigrants: The Fraternal Order of Police has a plan for Trump’s first 100 days.

<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/19064481984/in/photolist-v3Esif-so2jNq-s72612-sqmWmt-rtvkpp-s8KKLj-s73kti-sqjSEz-so1QX5-s8MQEy-s8JTRS-so5RQE-s8QNVh-sqauwS-s8MYyu-so3YWs-snGEhy-sqa1D7-s6EBgK-sp5hbZ-s7BFzg-rsgghk-spZNaF-sp5eA8-A1kbjb-BfEGdM-smM9e3-s8pjTd-s8xhtP-s7BHNp-ANMkmE-smM8Y3-rs4UMf-smM64f-rs4YbQ-sp38PD-sp5dFT-spZPhk-sp392n-sp3bHe-so7x1S-rVFyZS-sd752s-rTVtF6-rgrWj4-sdfx2B-sdfAYz-rTVsoX-rTVu3Z-rVNr3K">Thomas Hawk</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Update, 12/19/16: The Fraternal Order of Police has since added a note to the bottom of the list of policies saying that the document does not represent the FOP’s agenda and is not a advocacy document. “It is an advisory to our members as to what may happen when the new Administration takes over,” reads the statement.

Donald Trump didn’t earn too many endorsements from unions during his presidential campaign, but one enthusiastically supported him. The national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which boasts more than 330,000 members and is the country’s largest police union, announced in September that it would be backing Trump because he “understands and supports” its priorities. (The organization declined to make a formal endorsement in the 2012 presidential election but in 2008 backed John McCain.) Trump’s rhetoric on safety and law and order seemed to align with the right-leaning union. “Our members believe he will make America safe again,” the group explained when it announced its support. About a week after Election Day, it offered the president-elect a list of its priorities for the first 100 days of his administration.

The policy ideas, released through the union’s official website with little fanfare, includes more than a dozen proposals. Many involve aggressively dismantling the modest reforms suggested by the Obama administration in a 2015 plan called President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, such as increasing the use of body cameras nationwide and implementing a national database on police use of force. The FOP also wants Trump to bring back racial profiling in federal agencies by lifting or changing the 2003 ban put in place by the Bush administration. The union suggests he should cut off some or all federal aid to “sanctuary cities” and bring an end to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), using its database to deport the individuals who had been protected by being included in it. Using police officers to participate in the deportation of undocumented immigrants was an idea Trump suggested in his immigration speech in Phoenix, Arizona, last August. Several large cities have indicated they will not use police officers or relinquish their status as sanctuary cities to help deport immigrants.

The Fraternal Order of Police’s resistance to change and embrace of Trump and his policies is directly at odds with police officers of color and other cops who believe law enforcement agencies need to reform to better serve all Americans. The Blacks in Law Enforcement of America opposed the FOP’s endorsement of Trump, writing, “Is this endorsement the result of a few individuals who may stand to benefit from [a] so-called law and order candidate who knows nothing about the Criminal Justice System and is opposed to necessary reform of the institution?” Civil rights groups have criticized the FOP’s priorities. “The FOP’s agenda for Trump’s first 100 days is abhorrent,” the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization based in Washington, DC, wrote on Twitter. Changing the way police officers serve their communities has been a high priority for many politicians and activists alike and some gains have been made, but if the FOP’s proposals can further influence the Trump administration, police reform may get a lot more difficult.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate