How Do You Have A Town Of 300 Residents... And 100 Police Officers? You Let Anyone 'Buy' A Job As A Cop
from the another-ISIS-threat-thwarted! dept
Oakley, Michigan has only 300 residents. Up until very recently, it also had 100 police officers. How does a town end up with a police force equal to one-third of its population? To answer that question, you have to go back to when it had a single police officer.
Oakley, Mi. is barely a town at 300 people, only one streetlight and, until recently, one police officer. The one cop was good at his job, reports Vocativ's M.L. Nestel, until he was forced to step down after getting caught stalking a teenage girl.A new chief, Robert Reznick, was installed. He immediately began hiring new officers. The one officer that had policed the town for several years without incident was replaced with twelve full-time officers. Then Reznick went further, allowing civilians to buy their way onto the police force.
Here's how the chief's program works: The wanna-be officers pay about about $1,200 for a uniform, bullet-proof vest and gun, and some make additional donations to the police department. In return, they get a police badge and the right to carry their gun almost anywhere in the state, including places that people with normal gun permits can't, like casinos, bars, stadiums and daycare centers.This proved to be very popular, even pulling in a couple of non-resident NFL players as auxiliary officers. Needless to say, running a pay-to-play police force tends to generate problems. Complaints were raised about the heightened police presence at a local event that had run peaceably (if rather rowdily) for years.
The concerns raised echo those stated by Oakley Bike Run President Randy Sutter back in 2011.
"We have successfully held this event in its current location, in this village for 13 years without a single major incident. In past years, the one Oakley Police officer provided the necessary presence for the entire weekend without a problem. This year, we were adorned with 15 police officers, uniformed and undercover, two police cars, a golf cart and a K-9 unit. The view down Main Street looked as if the village had been locked down from some deadly viral outbreak and at any moment the National Guard would be rolling in with personnel carriers to escort us all into a containment zone."Sutter went on to claim that the number of officers negatively affected participants' perception of event's safety and was causing harm to both his event and the businesses supported by the influx of non-residents.
2014's complaints included further instances of perceived abuse and misconduct.
Brandi Bitterman, a member of the family that owns the Oakley's Family Tavern, claimed her fiance was wrongfully arrested and harassed during bike weekend. The man, who was arrested at the Family Tavern, refused to provide his name.This wasn't Chief Reznick's first tangle with Bitterman and her bar. In 2013, Reznick was accused of harassing one of the tavern's bartenders.
Reznick has defended his out-sized police force and his actions even as council members have called for his dismissal. Since that point in early September, the police force has been shut down and revived several times.
The police force was suspended due to its lack of insurance coverage. It later put itself back to work -- without a council vote -- after purchasing $500,000 in coverage from a company willing to overlook numerous ongoing lawsuits against the department, as well as its large number of honorary gun toters.
Since that initial shutdown failed to take, the stakes were raised by a county court, which ordered the disbandment of Reznick's ad hoc police force. It also ordered the return of all equipment in use by the numerous auxiliary officers. Chief Reznick refused to comply with the order, resulting in many items being forcibly retrieved by outside law enforcement agencies.
Now, with several news agencies looking to obtain the names of the auxiliary officers "employed" by Reznick, an unlikely person has stepped in to block the release of this information.
Herschel Fink, a longtime First Amendment defender who has represented several Detroit area TV networks (along with some national outlets), is the man standing between the media (and the plaintiff of a lawsuit against Chief Reznick) and the list of auxiliary officers.
Fink, in defending this action, cites both the FBI and Chief Reznick in what has to be one of the most ridiculous defenses of self-serving opacity ever.
In the undated email, Fink cited an Oct. 13 bulletin by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that ISIS had called for attacks against law enforcement and government workers.So, why has Fink decided to argue against the freedom of information? Here's the answer, as noted by M.L. Nestel of Voacitv back in October.
"To release identifying information about law enforcement personnel under such circumstances would not only result in damages against the Village, and everyone involved in such a release, it would likely be considered as having been done with malice, opening the door to punitive damages," wrote Fink.
Another guy who bought himself a badge and gun from Reznick is a white-shoe lawyer named Herschel Fink, who serves as the editorial counsel for The Detroit Free Press. Calls made to Fink's office weren't returned.Fink is for free speech except when his position as a amateur cop is threatened. That's sickening and hopefully the Detroit Free Press will reconsider his employment in light of this hypocrisy.
Despite all the indications that Reznick's inflated police force is a bad idea for Oakley and its residents, the town may have no choice in the matter. Circuit Judge Robert Kaczmarek issued an injunction suspending the force until after last Tuesday's election. That election saw four candidates backed by the auxiliary police force elected, giving them a majority on the seven-member city council.
If you're looking for the nadir of terrorism-based rationalizing, this legal battle over the names of those "employed" in Reznick's rent-a-badge scheme is very likely it. No terrorist group would care about a loose collection of imitation cops who chipped in at least $1,200 each in exchange for some extra rights. If anything, they'd point to it as evidence of American corruption and hypocrisy -- and they'd be right to do so.
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Filed Under: foia, hershel fink, michigan, oakley, open records, police, rent-a-cop, robert reznick
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One law for me, another for thee
Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure any other large, heavily armed group who claimed legal authority to act as arbiters of the law, and who were ordered to disband by a judge and refused would not get nearly as 'nice' a reply as 'oh, okay, well we'll just re-claim some of the items you were ordered to hand in, alright?'
No, I'm pretty sure at that point, and if you were talking about any group other than a police force, some calls would be made, and a government agency or two would show up and the 'option to refuse' would be removed from the table at gun-point.
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That may present a fresh viewpoint.
Similarly, I bet that if the Hells Angels or Folk Nation or any other organized gang with criminal ties decided to buy into police powers, it may allow people to wake up to the ramifications of this practice.
This does very much remind me of the middle ages around the 14th or 15th century, when a well-to-do merchant could buy himself a handsome barony or bishophood complete with holdings, responsibilities and the ability to adjudicate as he saw fit. The practice had problems then as well.
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Terrorist Group
"a loose collection of imitation cops who chipped in at least $1,200 each in exchange for some extra rights " is a terrorist group.
I think terrorist groups will look at this with interest as something to copy.
Move enough supporters into a small town like this and you can become the law.
It's terrifying.
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Re: Terrorist Group
No, just organized crime (they pay some money to their Godfather in order to break the law without consequence). And loosely organized at that.
Even if they terrorize the village, there is no overarching political theme or purpose behind it.
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Re: Re: Terrorist Group
But there could be.
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Police = elite class
The difference, is that in one town, people can buy into the new class for a reasonable fee.
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Then when they are spouting rhetoric, bullying, and shooting at people it would be "crowd control" or "protecting themselves" rather than terrorist activity.
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If someone knows of a program like this in CT, please let me know.
Did they get patrol cars issued to them?
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soon to be a population of cops policing cops
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Re: soon to be a population of cops policing cops
Ah ha ha...
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Oh, hell, at this point, they've called for attacks against everyone. It's an act of colossal ego (and duplicity) on the part of Fink to arrogantly claim that he and his fake cop pals are special enough to merit individual attention.
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Gee, who could have ever foreseen this problem.
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Kaching!
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Cop-on-cop crime?
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1 = 0
Or rather, it might force a paradigm change in the legal system. More likely it will be managed by internal affairs where the less popular cop gets dressed down, or worked over, or disappeared, depending on what he allegedly did.
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Extra rights?
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Where do I sign up?
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I'd be surprised if Cushing isn't on some kind of watch list due to his pathological hatred of police officers.
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It has everything to do with dirt.
"I'd be surprised if Cushing isn't on some kind of watch list due to his pathological hatred of police officers."
You're upset because Tim's articles have been scoring high Google rankings.
If writers who dare to point out police corruption, brutality, and criminality end up being retaliated against by the same people they criticise, then it should be obvious that Tim's work is far from over.
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LOL
Tim Cushing hates cops. That's extent of knowledge gleaned from his "articles".
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If that is all you have gleaned from Tim's articles, then you have only yourself to blame for that.
It doesn't seem to me that Tim hates cops at all, but more along the lines that Tim hates gross incompetence and blatant abuses of power. As should we all.
You are the only one who seems to think that criticizing those who abuse their powers equates to an attack on the entire profession.
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But there is dark after dusk.
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The AC doth protest too much
Fixed for accuracy. Really, your inability to tell the difference, and repeated objections to having police misconduct and illegal activity made public suggests more than a few things, none of them good, about your motivations posting such blatant lies and mischaracterizations.
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Re: The AC doth protest too much
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Buy the respect we deserve
So let's all be officers: Buy the respect we deserve.
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Ah, for the good old days.
Whatever, keep on keepin' on. TD seems to find the most excrutiatingly oddball WTF stuff! Truth truly is stranger than fiction. One tiny little snowflake falling onto the top of a mountain results in an avalanche at the bottom that wipes out whole cities. It's amazing when things are allowed to get to their logical extremes. Wasn't *anyone* watching when this monster started to wake up?
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Re: Ah, for the good old days.
And by that I meant, "Wait. What? You're going to sell the position of police officer to just anybody? Are you out of your mind?"
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That said, I wouldn't mind too terribly if such a fate was visited upon Congress. That's one way to remove the incumbents,
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Count me out.
Anarchy is all fun and games right up to the point when the guy from the next valley over, who happens to have more weapons and manpower than you, decides he wants your land, your possessions and your women and children.
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Government is inevitable and inescapable for a whole bunch of reasons. The real choice we have is what sort of government it will be. Personally, I'd prefer to avoid the warlord model.
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Techdirt spends a lot of their time putting government corruption on display in order to weed it out, sunshine being the best disinfectant and all that. That often gets misconstrued by the readers as Techdirt being anti-government, which is of course nonsense.
America would fall to pieces within a week without the rule of law the government provides. The problem is that the government has become rotten. Burning it down and starting fresh is long overdue at this point.
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Isn't that what we did back in the 18th century?
Either that, or our culture will be taken over by Europe or the Islamic nation or weeaboos.
The problem is we tried representative democracy and a correlation between representation / taxation, and social equality.
And that got us here.
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There was a stark difference in the aftermath of the Hurricane that hit New Orleans in 2005, and the earthquake and tidal wave that hit Japan in 2011.
It seems that whenever the heavy boot of law is lifted in the USA, the result is widespread looting and rampant criminality. But in Japan, people remain law-abiding -- even when they don't have to.
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Based on what I've been told by friends in Japan during these sorts of incidents, I don't think there's a huge difference in behavior in this respect. The real difference is in the media: in the US, the media loves to talk about things like looting and violence. In Japan, the media prefers to talk about how wonderful everything is running.
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It was out press calling people looters in Orleans.
In the Japanese earthquake we didn't have the racial differences. Everyone looks Japanese with hints of Korean because that pretty much defines everyone in Japan. And while yes, the prejudice against Korean-descent people is rampant in Japan it's not strongly represented in their press.
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This may give them *national* carry rights...
There are examples of this sort of thing from elsewhere. I don't know if links are allowed here but google Colafrancesco papers for a police report on the same crap in California some years back.
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/colafrancescopapers.pdf
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Sign Me Up
definitely brings new meaning to rent a cop
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