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Few police union presidents across the country have had their foot in their mouth more than current Cleveland Police Union President Jeff Follmer.
Widely blasted for calling Cleveland Browns player, Andrew Hawkins "pathetic" for wearing a T-shirt supporting the families of Tamir Rice and John Crawford, Follmer has continued to make misstep after misstep.
The chief of police just publicly distanced himself from Follmer's comments on the Browns and made it clear that Follmer doesn't actually speak for the department.
Furthermore, the department has now had to clear up a mess made by Follmer after he has repeatedly stated that the officers who killed Tamir Rice have already been cleared—when they haven't.
So, one, it would seem, would have reason to celebrate at the recent news that Jeff Follmer was voted out of his role as union chief and only has a few weeks left, right?
Not so fast. His replacement, Steve Loomis, was actually in the position before and has a reputation for being, if you can imagine, even more heavy-handed than Follmer.
In his previous stint as Cleveland police union president, Steve Loomis was consistently chided as being disrespectful, oblivious to facts of police abuse, and downright unapproachable by the media.
In light of the fact that the Justice Department has just levied its harshest sanctions against the Cleveland Police Department for patterns and practices of abuse and misconduct, the last thing that is needed is for the new union boss to make matters worse between the police and the community. Sadly, Loomis has already said he doesn't even accept the report from the DOJ as fact.