After an investigation by the FBI and the Houston Police Department determined that veteran officer Tam Pham had participated in the deadly breach at the United States Capitol this month, he left the department quickly.
He was put on administrative leave and resigned without resistance from the group that would normally advocate on behalf of a police officer accused of wrongdoing.
The Houston Police Officers’ Union fiercely defended its officers, even in cases that put police conduct in question – including one last year, when officers shot and killed a man with a history of mental health problems who was on his knees.
The union president at the time called the resignations of four officers in September “unjust and deplorable” and said the organization would represent them at its arbitration hearings.
The union’s response was markedly different in the case of Pham, who faces two federal misdemeanor charges related to entering the Capitol.
Anyone who violated the Capitol “should be charged and given any punishment attributed to it,” said Douglas Griffith, who is now the union president. “It doesn’t matter if they are policemen or not.”
Pham has not yet filed an argument. His lawyer said Pham “is deeply saddened to be associated with the domestic terrorists who attacked our Capitol” and “strongly believes in the rule of law”.
Griffith said that what separates what Pham is accused of accusations that other officers faced in unrelated incidents is that the Capitol riot “was an attack on our democracy” that led to the death of an officer and other serious injuries. Five people, including a Capitol police officer, died in events related to the attack.
“As a police officer, I would expect that if I saw some policemen being attacked, I would be standing between them,” Griffith said in an interview. “I would not participate in this type of activity.”
New York City, Seattle and Virginia police departments are investigating whether their officers participated in the pro-Trump riot. In doing so, police unions face the dilemma of whether or not to defend the policemen who participated.
In Chicago, for example, the union president initially defended the crowd before backing down. And in Seattle, the union head is under administrative investigation after falsely claiming that Black Lives Matter was responsible.
Kalfani Ture, a former Georgian police officer who is an assistant professor of criminal justice and policing at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, said the growing number of police officers suspected of participating in the riot creates an interesting paradox for police unions, which have protected police officers evil of accountability.
“When we see a policeman losing his life, when we see other policemen injured, when you see these figures attacking other policemen, how do you justify that?” Asked Ture.
Ture said police unions are breaking up with his own because of the death of the Capitol policeman and the injuries sustained by dozens of other police officers.
“If it weren’t for the optics, if it weren’t for the loss of lives, if it weren’t for 50 policemen, both from the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police, being wounded – seriously injured – to the extent that it took them out of duty, if not for all of this, I would not be surprised if the various police unions “said,” No one was really hurt. It was just an exercise of his First Amendment rights that essentially leaked out. “
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John Catanzara, the president of the Chicago Police Fraternal Order store, initially defended the crowd that invaded the Capitol at the behest of President Donald Trump.
“There was no arson. There was no burning of anything. There was no looting. There was very little destruction of property,” Catanzara told WBEZ, Chicago’s main public radio station, in an interview on the evening of 6 January. “It was a bunch of angry people who feel that an election has been stolen, somehow, somehow.”
Photos and video of the incident show that protesters crushed the police, smashed Capitol windows, overturned tables and looted offices. A 19th century marble bust of President Zachary Taylor was disfigured with what appeared to be blood. Residues from pepper sprays, tear gas and fire extinguishers – implanted by both protesters and police – were also evident in the aftermath.
Catanzara, a staunch supporter of Trump, told WBEZ that he believed, as Trump has falsely claimed repeatedly, that the election was stolen, but he admitted that there is no proof. Catanzara said what the rioters did was “very different from what happened across the country all summer in the Democrat-run cities, and nobody has had a problem with that.”
After it was announced that a Capitol Police officer had died, Catanzara apologized, saying he “showed a lapse in judgment” in the WBEZ interview.
“I would certainly never justify any attacks on citizens, democracy or the security forces,” he wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.
He did not mention the policeman’s death, but said he was sorry and that “after watching more videos and all the consequences, my comments would have been different”. Catanzara, who faces resignations, declined the interview request, but told NBC News on Thursday that he does not plan to resign.
His comments drew harsh criticism from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Patrick Yoes, president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, who said Catanzara’s comments do not represent the views of its 356,000 members.
“There is no doubt that, in addition to the tragic loss of life, these criminals have left a great deal of damage in the building that is the heart of our democracy and have threatened our elected officials, Congress officials, as well as our official brother and sister” , said Yoes in a strong statement that mentioned police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after being hit on the head by a rioter wielding a fire extinguisher.
“The National FOP rejects this gross misrepresentation and sees the incident as it was – a violent mob of looters and vandals, visiting fear and destruction in one of the most sacred spaces in our nation,” wrote Yoes.
Officer Mike Solan, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, is increasingly facing resignations union and police department after he falsely suggested that Black Lives Matter activists played a role in the Capitol violence. At least five Seattle police officers are being investigated for possible involvement.
Mayor Jenny Durkan and former police chief Carmen Best asked Solan to retract his words and apologize or resign. Solan did not respond to requests for comment.
The Seattle Police Accountability Office is investigating Solan’s tweets, including one on January 8 saying the “far right and far left are responsible for that sad day” to determine whether they violated the department’s policy.
The New York Police Benevolent Association called the riot a “despicable attack”, in which an unidentified police officer reportedly participated.
Jack Glaser, professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said the pro-Trump rioters “undermined or actually revealed the reality of most of these groups, which is not really about law and order, but more about racial hygiene. . “
The union, which represents about 24,000 grassroots officers, endorsed Trump for re-election last year. The union did not return several requests for comment.
Glaser said he suspects that “protesters’ violation of basic democratic principles is sufficient to make unions feel they cannot support it.”
“I think what we see here is that the violence on the part of the hooligans, the insurrectionists, in the name of the thin blue line – some of them carrying the American flag modified with the blue lines – I think it was an offense to policing professionals and what was seen as a supportive alliance, “said Glaser.” It really eliminated the pretense of these symbols. “
Ture agreed, citing the “profoundly large” contradiction between support for law enforcement and actions on Capitol Hill.
He added that the unions that defended the officers involved in the attack would struggle to separate themselves from images of people carrying Confederate flags and other racist insignia associated with white supremacists.
“If you had participated in this campaign,” he said, referring to the attack, “you cannot easily dissociate yourself from this type of intolerant prejudice, this evil terrorism.”