Why does this not surprise me? From the New York Post: Six Long Island cops claim their commissioner is putting politics before the badge.
The
Long Beach crime fighters say they’ve been targeted by the seaside
town’s Democratic machine for supporting GOP candidates in local
elections last year.
Long Beach Police Commissioner Michael
Tangney, a longtime Democrat, demoted the cops, cut their overtime,
switched them to midnight tours and even filed false internal charges
against them for “political payback,” the veteran officers claim in a
$39 million lawsuit.
“It’s just the way politics work in this town,” Tangney allegedly told one of the officers while demoting him.
Officers James Canner, 44; Karl Hayes, 42; James McCormack, 55; John
Radin, 53; Benjamin Tayne, 47; and Jose Miguez, 39, claim they turned
to their union for help, but that then-president Stefan Chernaski,
another Democrat, ignored them.
Chernaski filed his own $27.5
million claim last year against a then-Republican administration,
claiming harassment. He settled for $25,000, and got two promotions and
a $20,000 pay hike when the Dems swooped into power.
Chernaski
had never worked as a detective, yet was put in charge of the detective
division, bumping aside Canner, a decorated officer who supported the
Republican opponent of Tangney’s wife, Darlene, in her Nassau County
Legislative race last year.
When Hayes learned of his January
demotion from supervisor of investigators to sergeant, he “began crying
hysterically for three to five minutes,” according to Brooklyn federal
court papers. The stress of the demotions and suddenly being put on the
midnight shift caused McCormack, a lieutenant who headed the traffic
division, to retire, the suit alleges....
The town’s Democratic Party boss Michael Zapson sneered, “The fact that
the gravy train is over for them, I’m not surprised they’re upset.”
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