The exquisite combination of Democrat leadership and public sector union bosses: East St. Louis police layoffs to let the criminals 'run wild'

It's happened in Oakland and in Cleveland. Now East St. Louis is paying the price for decades of unsustainable liberal policies.

Joseph Tracy said he’s tired of going to funerals. And now, he suspects he’ll be going to more of them... "It’s open field day now," said Tracy, the pastor of Straightway Baptist Church here. "The criminals are going to run wild."

Gang activity. Drug dealing. Cold-blooded killing. Tracy worries that a decision to shrink the police force by almost 30 percent will bring more of everything... The pastor voiced his concern on Friday at a raucous special City Council meeting at which East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks announced that the city will layoff 37 employees, including 19 of its 62 police officers, 11 firefighters, four public works employees, and three administrators. The layoffs take effect on Sunday.

Why were such dramatic steps needed? Take a guess.

City officials wanted police and fire unions to accept a furlough program that would have required employees to take two unpaid days in each twice monthly pay period. If accepted, emergency responders would have seen a pay cut of about 20 percent for the rest of the year.

Parks said the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement...

East St. Louis has been crippled by crime and poverty for decades... The police already rely on other agencies to handle some of the heavy case load. For example, the Illinois State Police routinely work on the city’s homicide investigations.

...Worries about East St. Louis’ crime rate got little sympathy from Councilman Roy Mosley, who gave a 10-minute speech on Friday blasting the city’s police officers.

"We don’t have the money," Mosley said. "You lay off when you don’t have the money. The money’s gone." ...Mosley complained that police officers take patrol cars home, park them in other jurisdictions, and misuse the city’s gasoline.

...The union plans to fight the layoffs and work to get the jobs back.

Mish puts the insanity in stark terms:

"...the union does not care how much blood is spilled as long as its senior officers get paid. Let's do the math. 19 layoffs out of a force of 62 is a massive 30+% layoff. Where is the sense of comradeship? Where is the share the pain fellowship? The union is willing to toss 30% of its membership to the dogs. That's what this has come down to."

Worse still: these are the same kind of out-of-control public sector union bosses -- like Andy Stern -- that control the White House and the Democrat Party.