Doyle Urged To Strip Fired Cops' Pay From State Law

State Senator Tim Carpenter, (D-Milwaukee), correctly asks Gov. Jim Doyle to support a provision in the State Senate's version of the budget that would end an outrageous state mandate:

The requirement that forces Milwaukee taxpayers to pay fired cops even after their convictions in court.

Legislators beholden to the Milwaukee Police Union pushed this Milwaukee-only statute onto the books years ago.

It is a patently discriminatory and meddling law that has transferred millions in lost city tax revenues for salary and benefits to police officers who have broken the law, been fired and were convicted in court - - but stretched out their sentencing dates through appeals, leaving them on the payroll.

While other honest cops were out on the street.

The so-called "Jude cops" alone have received an unjustifiable half-million dollars, and those payments won't stop until the end of November.

Court sentencing dates for the former officers who beat Jude, violated his civil rights and then perjured about it, could even push that payroll termination to a later, more costly date, too.

It's time that state law stopped sticking it to Milwaukee taxpayers, on behalf of rogue cops who hired and entrusted to protect, not victimize, a further-ripped-off public.