After spending 2020 calling police “systematically racist” and trying to get them defunded (mainly so they could get their fingers on that money, suddenly it’s 2021 and Democrat-run cities and counties suddenly need police to be their vaccine enforcers. And police aren’t having any of it.
Take deep blue Chicago for example:
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has foolishly put herself—and the safety of the people of Chicago—in a game of chicken, with at least half the police force ready to defy her vaccine mandate and be sent home from work by City Hall without pay, rather than comply.
“She wants to play a game of chicken. Well, we’re in a semi. And she’s in a Smart Car. And she wants to play chicken?” said Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara told me on Thursday. “That’s her decision.”
I figure Chicago’s little Napoleon in pants suits caves by Friday. As I type this on Thursday evening, Chicago aldermen are calling, saying she’s already blinking on her threats of “no vaccine, you’ll be sent home without pay.”
FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE: She blinked. She did cave. After her repeated threats, she won’t withhold their pay and send them home if they don’t comply with her vaccine mandate. Lori, that’s no way to play chicken or poker. Her chicken little game has come home to roost. Cops have had enough. Now she’s pouting, driving up the ramp of the chicken coop in her little clown car.
If she didn’t cave, victims of weekend violence would blame Lightfoot because she put her ego ahead of public safety. The smart play was to cave and call it something else. Her media friends can spin it. She can even call it victory, if she wants. But she caved. And that weakens her even more.
(Hat tip: Rick Moran at PJ Media.)
Unions for police and corrections officers are suing over vaccine mandates in Allegheny County:
Across Allegheny County, public employees are fighting vaccine mandates but none as hard as those in law enforcement, which has suffered some of the highest losses from the disease.
The unions representing the county police and the corrections officers have gone to court to block the county’s order that all employees be vaccinated or be fired.
According to the National Fraternal Order of Police, 743 police officers have reportedly died of COVID-19, but while the FOP is encouraging officers to get vaccinated, the union opposes mandates, calling vaccines a personal health decision.
Seattle police are bailing as well:
The leader of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), which represents over 1,300 officers of the Seattle Police Department (SPD), is calling the COVID-19 vaccine mandate the latest in a long list of betrayals by the city of Seattle.
SPOG President Mike Solan said city leaders could accommodate officers who don’t want the shot and keep the city safe, but they are choosing not to do that. With just days until the mandate takes effect, Solan said now is not the time to force a vaccine on officers as the police department already faces a staffing crisis.
“Crime is surging in this city. Our community is demanding more police officers to answer the 911 calls, and the fact we’ve already lost close to 350 police officers because of the politicians’ political betrayal,” said Solan.
Solan said that before George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May 2020, city officials called SPD a “model department” when it came to police reform. But he said the tables turned after Floyd’s death with some city leaders demanding massive cuts to the department.
Now, Solan wants Mayor Jenny Durkan to do what some other cities have done and allow officers who don’t want to get the shot the option to wear masks, get tested regularly for COVID-19, and not have their assignments changed.
“For some reason, this mayor is refusing that, which I think is unreasonable and is void of common sense,” said Solan.
It’s only illogical if you haven’t been paying attention. Every knee must bend to the holy demands of the Party and the State. Heresy against the narrative cannot be tolerated.
Los Angeles sheriff Alex Villanueva already announced that he was refusing to carry out the county’s mandate.
What happens to Democrat-run municipalities when the police refuse to carry out unconstitutional mandates?
Like many Democratic plans to immanentize the eschaton, they don’t seem to have thought a lot of the intermediate steps through…