Harless to get job back

Something I found on the Six O' Clock news.

http://s979.beta.photobucket.com/user/JSlack7851/media/MVI_53841.mp4.html

Can't get this to come up on my phone...what's it say?

My preliminary comment based on the thread title is: Are you F-ing kidding me?

Harless is a danger to the civilian populace. He needs to be watched. Constantly. He needs to know that he is being watched. Constantly.

If the good citizens of Harless' city set up a Harless-Watch, I'll volunteer to help.

Also, is it possible that we could start a legal action to have his RKBA be suspended as he is clearly NOT a person suited to possession of a firearm? Could he be adjudicated as mentally defective?

thebigsd said:

Can't get this to come up on my phone...what's it say?

My preliminary comment based on the thread title is: Are you F-ing kidding me?

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Me thinks you get the jest w/o watching. Unions ... no unions for public employees is the answer

Without date references its kinda hard to tell if this latest video is current, or something that is 2 years old.

http://www.cantonrep.com/carousel/x2105837634/Fired-Canton-officer-Daniel-Harless-wins-back-his-job

http://fox8.com/2012/11/14/fired-officer-could-get-job-back/

Both articles dated with today's date....

Anybody got a link to the 15-page arbitrator's ruling? If I find it, I'll post it.

It seems that he can be returned to work if he is determined to be medically fit. I'd say that his mental health is lacking for a police officer. I hope the medical board sees that too.

davidmcbeth said:

Me thinks you get the jest w/o watching. Unions ... no unions for public employees is the answer

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I think you meant gist. But jest kinda of works as well because this idiot getting his badge back seems like some kind of horrible joke.

thebigsd said:

I think you meant gist. But jest kinda of works as well because this idiot getting his badge back seems like some kind of horrible joke.

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It also tells you the mentality of the people in the decision-making process who would give back that badge.

Citizen said:

It also tells you the mentality of the people in the decision-making process who would give back that badge.

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It sure does. It is just a matter of time before this "D" bag kills an innocent; if he has not already. :banghead:

Wasn't it an arbitrator who gave him his job back (conditionally on his ability to be found fit to serve by a doctor)? That leads me to believe that the department fought his reinstatement and the union fought for it. Unless more information comes to light, I blame the union and the arbitrator, not the department.

eye95 said:

Wasn't it an arbitrator who gave him his job back (conditionally on his ability to be found fit to serve by a doctor)? That leads me to believe that the department fought his reinstatement and the union fought for it. Unless more information comes to light, I blame the union and the arbitrator, not the department.

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You are correct on who fought for who however, not correct on who to blame. The arbitrator based his decision on past discipline within the department along with the discipline record of Harless. Essentially, Harless had a near perfect record on paper. The department also had individuals that had committed worse violations and received less punishment than firing. I've yet to figure out what those violations could be, but they helped Harless in this case.

Based on that, the arbitrator essentially had to grant Harless his job back. If the city had properly documented all his infractions and had properly punished others for worse infractions, the firing would have stood.

I predicted this outcome when this mess started.

JediSkipdogg said:

You are correct on who fought for who however, not correct on who to blame. The arbitrator based his decision on past discipline within the department along with the discipline record of Harless. Essentially, Harless had a near perfect record on paper. The department also had individuals that had committed worse violations and received less punishment than firing. I've yet to figure out what those violations could be, but they helped Harless in this case.

Based on that, the arbitrator essentially had to grant Harless his job back. If the city had properly documented all his infractions and had properly punished others for worse infractions, the firing would have stood.

I predicted this outcome when this mess started.

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And it is of course the union's position that those WORSE offenses should ALSO not be punished with termination. It is the union's opinion that NOBODY should be terminated REGARDLESS of the nature of the offense. Hence we have the potential for BOTH Harless and possibly even greater psychopaths wandering the streets carrying guns and making up and enforcing whatever "law" they manage to conjure up in the twisted precincts of what passes for their "minds".

The Canton Police Department has effectively reduced itself to the level of a Somali militia. Thank god Canton isn't adjacent to Lake Erie, otherwise we'd probably start hearing about pirate attacks...

More and more I am becoming convinced that citizens need to start swearing out criminal complaints--even if they go nowhere--against these egregious actions by agents of the State. What Harless did amounts to assault with a deadly weapon. He clearly threatened, without justification, shooting a citizen--and had the present ability to carry out that threat! Furthermore, he should be charged with conspiracy. He said that his partner would go along with the lies while his partner assented with his silence. The overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy would be the assault.

I swear, if an officer ever does me like this, I will move heaven and earth to press criminal (not just civil rights violations) against the officer. I may fail, but that officer is at least going to have to go through the legal jeopardy.

We can only hope that the doctor(s) evaluating Harless find that he is mentally unfit to be a LEO. He clearly is mentally unfit. If he is reinstated, he surely will shoot someone. If I lived in his city, I'd be starting a Harless Watch when he returns to duty. His every action needs to be scrutinized.

Deanimator said:

And it is of course the union's position that those WORSE offenses should ALSO not be punished with termination. It is the union's opinion that NOBODY should be terminated REGARDLESS of the nature of the offense. Hence we have the potential for BOTH Harless and possibly even greater psychopaths wandering the streets carrying guns and making up and enforcing whatever "law" they manage to conjure up in the twisted precincts of what passes for their "minds".

The Canton Police Department has effectively reduced itself to the level of a Somali militia. Thank god Canton isn't adjacent to Lake Erie, otherwise we'd probably start hearing about pirate attacks...

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Th union has a contractual obligation to defend Harless. I was a union worker in my previous workplace, The Union's job IS NOT to assist in the firing or discipline of any of it's members, their obligation is to defend the tenure of their members, who pay the union out of their paychecks for that very purpose. In fact If the Union refuses to assist Harless then Harless can sue the union and the union could be found civilially liable if they don't assist in arbitrating for someone who they should've fought for. This is called a "Duty of Fair Representation" the union shall represent members in their collective bargaining unit. This applies in virtually all unionized workplaces. In this case the city screwed the pooch by not being fair in the discipline of officers.

Think of this like a criminal proceeding, your lawyer is not supposed to help put you away. his job is to get you the best possible outcome. How many of these anti-union people who say "the unions just protect rotten employees" ever say "those damn criminal defense lawyers, all they do is represent guilty people and get them a lesser sentence"

One of the brochures handed out by my union at my previous place of employment stated "If enforcement of any rule has been lax, this constitutes prior labor practice and the employer may not begin cracking down on such activity without prior written notice of intent to enforce those rules"

For example, my job required wearing a tie in written rules, as well as a white long sleeve shirt and black polished shoes. However my supervisor had allowed all the employees to wear short sleeve shirts, did not enforce the tie rule, and employees regularily came to work in sneakers. if he suddenly decided he wanted the dress code enforced he'd have to post written material 1 week in advance in the break room.

Now it seems from what the news media is reporting that the Canton police department had allowed similar episodes from other officers and didn't fire them or cite them. they fired Harless purely due to media attention. therefore the abritrator was right to restore his employment. The city of canton must begin enforcing their rules even when the cameras aren't rolling. then they can fire Harless if he screws up again. same concept. employees of similar tenure and status must be treated equally.

* Just in case this is misintrepted, this is not a defense of Harless, only an explanation of why I think the system worked as it was supposed to.
The real problem isn't harless, it's that the city only seems to care about misconduct if a video of said misconduct goes viral. The city of Canton is fully responsible for Harless getting his job back as they did not operate according to their CBA

EMNofSeattle said:

Th union has a contractual obligation to defend Harless.

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I have no contractual obligation to respect the union.

I do NOT respect them.

Police unions work DIRECTLY contrary to the interests of the public at large by in EVERY case advocating to keep abusive, criminal and indeed DANGEROUS cops on the streets.

They didn't "defend" Harless in the manner of a defense attorney. There was NO doubt regarding what he did... MULTIPLE times. Their position wasn't that those who'd done worse should be punished in ADDITION to Harless. Their position was that NONE of them should be punished.

There's a WORLD of difference between:

"My client, Jeffrey Dahmer didn't rape, kill (not necessarily in that order) and eat those men. It was somebody else."
and
"My client Jeffrey Dahmer raped, killed and ate those men, but he shouldn't be punished for it because he works in a candy factory and that's a hard job with a lot of stress."

The REAL purpose of police unions is to create a two tier society of citizens and above them an unaccountable caste of police with unlimited power, beyond the reach of the laws which bind the public at large.

Deanimator said:

SNIP The REAL purpose of police unions is to create a two tier society of citizens and above them an unaccountable caste of police with unlimited power, beyond the reach of the laws which bind the public at large.

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And, where already created, reinforce.

JediSkipdogg said:

You are correct on who fought for who however, not correct on who to blame. The arbitrator based his decision on past discipline within the department along with the discipline record of Harless. Essentially, Harless had a near perfect record on paper. The department also had individuals that had committed worse violations and received less punishment than firing. I've yet to figure out what those violations could be, but they helped Harless in this case.

Based on that, the arbitrator essentially had to grant Harless his job back. If the city had properly documented all his infractions and had properly punished others for worse infractions, the firing would have stood.

I predicted this outcome when this mess started.

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Having been a union official in a federal LE agency, I can't begin to tell you how often I heard that same refrain, about how "the union saved" some scumbag's job. In every single case, it was exactly like this: management had always skipped out on their management duties, and let someone slide by with good evaluations and no discipline, right up to the point they wanted to fire them because of bad publicity.

Also in almost every single case, we could present proof that managers doing the same, or even worse, had suffered no discipline or only mild punishment.

The union's job is not to protect bad employees. Do they? Some do. Mine never has, but we stood accused all the same. And usually it was the same officials who had failed the public in their responsibility to manage employees, who would then cry, "It's not my fault! The union....!"

Why would we protect the rights of employees who should be fired? Because if we don't, we can't complain when they want to fire a good officer who has done the right thing, and pissed off management by doing so.

Over the years, I guesstimate about a 4:1 ratio of good officers proposed for termination because they did their jobs without bowing down to political pressure, versus bad officers proposed for termination.

Every single time, the union tells management the same thing: "If you will just follow the rules and the law, we can't stop you from firing anyone."

To hear management tell it, you'd think the union was in charge of hiring and firing. If we truly were, I can tell you we'd start at the top.

Sorry to say this, but that is crap.

This man behaved criminally. There is no need for a lousy record. There is no need for warnings. There is no need for escalating levels of discipline. Cops should be fired and jailed the first time they commit an act as egregious as this one. No matter what happened prior, the only right thing to happen in this case is for Harless to be gone. Shame on the union and shame on the arbitrator. Also, shame on anyone for defending those who shamelessly defended Harless.

eye95 said:

Sorry to say this, but that is crap.

This man behaved criminally. There is no need for a lousy record. There is no need for warnings. There is no need for escalating levels of discipline. Cops should be fired and jailed the first time they commit an act as egregious as this one. No matter what happened prior, the only right thing to happen in this case is for Harless to be gone. Shame on the union and shame on the arbitrator. Also, shame on anyone for defending those who shamelessly defended Harless.

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Still waiting to see what criminal act he committed. No charges = no criminal act.

And yes, police do get charged. Norwood Officer Bobby Ward was just fired after an assault conviction because he threw a female prisoner into a wall tha was handcuffed. The charges were filed because the pressure was placed. I saw no one, as in no orgazation, push for any charges on Harless. Therefore, sorry, can't say what he did was criminal and therefore all we have is an officer acting unprofessional.

I'm not defending Harless. I'm defending the system. And KBCraig said it 100% dead on...

Every single time, the union tells management the same thing: "If you will just follow the rules and the law, we can't stop you from firing anyone."

If management followed the system, the unions have no case. Remember, a union is NO DIFFERENT than you being arrested for criminal trespass and hiring a lawyer to defend you. So if you do get arrested, I guess your lawyer is scum for defending you.