Law enforcement unions across the country are warning members will not cooperate with orders mandating that officers be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis issued an order on Wednesday evening requiring all 110,000 county employees to receive the jab. James Wheeler, vice president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs said the organization was “blindsided” by the announcement.
Wheeler described the order as “hastily issued” and criticized the Board of Supervisors for not collaborating with law enforcement stakeholders “who stand to be impacted by this.”
Denver’s police union has likewise responded negatively to an order from Mayor Michael Hancock’s office requiring all city employees be vaccinated.
The San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association threatened mass resignations over Mayor London Breed’s vaccine mandate. The order “will result in law enforcement officers and firefighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” a union administrator posted to the group’s Facebook page on Thursday.
Timothy Williams, retired LAPD detective and police procedures expert, told KNX that city officials around the country would be ill-advised to ignore such threats.
“If the leadership is sitting on their hands and waiting to see what’s going to be done, shame on them,” he said. “They should be putting things in place so that if something like that happens, they have mutual aid in place so that the citizens will not be subject to lack of law enforcement.”
Mutual aid agreements among emergency responders allow for agencies to lend assistance to one another over jurisdictional lines in times of need.
Williams added that unvaccinated law enforcement officers not only pose a threat to the public and their own families, but colleagues as well—something police unions should be sensitive to.
He noted that 528 law enforcement officers have died on the job this year thus far.
“How many of these 528 individuals who died were preventable if they had taken the COVID-19 vaccination?” he said.