So, who or what would you guess is the leading cause of police deaths, 2020-21? Antifa? Black Lives Matter? Critical Race Theory? Nope:
COVID is the #1 killer of LEOs in 2020 and 2021 with more than 300 confirmed/presumed cases, and 170+ under review. Please get vaccinated. Share in roll call and on your dept's social media @ODMP pic.twitter.com/g8iRsNwbto
— ODMP.org (@ODMP) August 31, 2021
Why, then, are there so many jamokes like these resisting something that could save their members' lives and the lives of those in the communities they're ostensibly there to "protect and serve":
Hours after the Food and Drug Administration fully approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine Monday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot made an emphatic declaration: "City employees are absolutely going to be required to be vaccinated." [snip]
The same day, John Catanzara, the president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the city's rank-and-file officers, made it clear that he did not intend to comply.
"It cannot be mandated," he told the Chicago Sun Times. "It's that simple." [Ed.: correction, you're that simple.]
"Our members don't want to be mandated to do anything like that," said Catanzara, who did not return multiple phone and email requests for an interview this week.
The battle brewing in Chicago is playing out in cities and towns across the country. Police unions in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Seattle; and Syracuse, New York, have pushed back against vaccination requirements, as has the union representing state police in Massachusetts.
You would think a police union would be interested in the well- being of their members, and you would be right -- if it meant a blue wall of denial that any police officer ever did anything wrong, illegal or even slightly untoward. But, when it comes to toeing the right- wing Republican line, all bets are off, because many of these police unions/ associations are effectively Republican front organizations. It's easy to imagine that, had the call for mandating vaccinations for police and other public sector employees been issued by a Republican, those same unions would see it as their patriotic duty to have their members get the shot. But, you can't do anything that might redound to the benefit of a Democrat, even if it means 300- plus of your members die just to own the libs!
Protecting and serving (Republicans)!
