Cop Fights to Keep His Secret Mercenary Army [View all]

[jakeXT]

300 residents. 100 reservist cops who paid handsomely for their badges. One embattled police chief, trying to hide the names of his pay-for-play deputies. Welcome to Oakley, MI.

Oakley is a hamlet barely the size of a gnat on a Michigan map, but it has a cyclopean police problem. The 300 person town is farming out its law enforcement to 100 wealthy, mostly anonymous out-of-towners who pay big money to become reservist cops—complete with bulletproof vests and special gun permits. And while outrage has mounted over Oakley’s glut of faceless reservists, the top cop there continues to lord over a pay-to-play-police racket.

Now, state lawmakers and the feds are closing in with new laws and investigations focusing on town’s cop kingmaker to force him to out his secret posse.

But Oakley Police Chief Robert Reznick said there’s no way he’ll give up the names. ISIS, he claimed, maybe after his auxiliary police force. “These are brutal people who absolutely have no value of life,” Reznick told me. “Whether or not it’s far-fetched doesn’t matter. Why would you want to put them in harm’s way?”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/21/cop-fights-to-keep-his-secret-mercenary-army.html