What is a powerful public union to do when it looks like a city's busted balance sheet is finally forcing some fiscal reform? Naturally, buy a house next door to the city manager's and launch an intimidation campaign aimed at getting him to avoid any real fixes. At least that's what the police union of Stockton, Calif., did in 2011—with great success.  The police union claimed that the home purchase was meant to diversify its "investments." But at the time, Stockton City Manager Bob Deis was asking the union to come to the table and renegotiate benefits that were contributing to exploding labor costs and budget gaps exceeding $40 million as far as the eye could see. Already, Mr. Deis had tried to stave off municipal bankruptcy by cutting the city's staff 25%, furloughing employees and trimming fringe benefits.  The police union in Stockton, Calif., posted this billboard during a 2011 labor dispute.  He warned in March 2011 that the city might have to lay off another 16% of municipal workers. Three months later the police union moved in next door. Officers then embarked on a noisy renovation. Not long after that, Mr. Deis discovered a bumper sticker affixed to his car of a boy urinating on a pair of dice (as it happens, Mr. Deis's surname is pronounced "dice").  The union also invested in billboards welcoming visitors to "the 2nd most dangerous city in California" and warning that "due to cuts in the budget, we can no longer guarantee your safety." Mr. Deis's phone number was plastered at the bottom of the signs.  The union's investments have paid off.  Although unsustainable retirement costs forced the city to declare bankruptcy last summer, Mr. Deis has ruled out modifying workers' pensions. As he wrote in these pages in September, "If Stockton didn't offer an industry-standard pension plan"—that is, one that allows officers to retire at age 50 with an annuity equal to 90% of their salary—"we simply would not be able to staff an already challenged police department. . . . The city is fiercely competing for qualified individuals."  Despite furloughs and scaled-back retirement benefits for new workers, Stockton had a record number of police recruits this year—1,300 for 17 slots.  In lieu of reducing pensions, Mr. Deis has proposed slashing $200 million in bond debt that the city issued in 2007, most of which went to pay for workers' pensions. The bond insurers are challenging the city's attempt to scalp them while leaving pensions unshaven.  The police union, by contrast, has repaid Mr. Deis by agreeing in its new labor contract last month to sell its house by November 2015 and to "exercise its best efforts to ensure that its tenants not interfere with the City Manager's quiet enjoyment of his home." Gee, how many other public officials receive contractual noise-guards?  Mr. Deis had once called the union "thugs," but after it approved the new contract he proclaimed that he was "extremely proud of them coming together and giving personally," and that he was looking "forward to locking arms with all of our employees groups." Perhaps he's suffering from Stockton syndrome, the condition in which public officials who are taken hostage by government unions begin to sympathize with their captors.  But strong-arming police unions aren't unique to Stockton. Last summer, a private investigator used by Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir—the law firm representing the public-safety union of Costa Mesa, Calif.—followed Mayor Jim Righeimer (who was serving at the time as mayor pro tem) home from a pub and called the cops on him for drunken driving. Mr. Righeimer, who had merely imbibed two Diet Cokes, passed the sobriety test. Costa Mesa's police union fired the firm after Mr. Righeimer went public about the incident.  The private eye Chris Lanzillo—a 43-year-old retired Riverside police officer—later told the Daily Pilot newspaper that the real reason he was at the sports bar was to entrap Costa Mesa Councilmen Gary Monahan and Steve Mensinger with a woman. Mr. Righeimer says the councilmen facing re-election were targeted because they supported pension reforms.  "There's this attitude that don't you dare touch our pensions or money," the mayor tells me. Mr. Righeimer adds that the harassment "comes right out of their playbook"—referring to a primer that Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir posted on its website encouraging unions to intimidate and extort public officials.  The playbook instructs unions to storm council meetings, create work slowdowns, and buy billboards advertising city crime rates. Oh, and never let a crime go to waste: "Every high profile crime that takes place should result in the association's uproar at the governing body for not having enough officers on the street, which could have avoided the incident."  The playbook also instructs officers to make clear that they "do not want wage increases" for themselves, "but simply to attract better qualified individuals and to keep more experienced officers from leaving." And they should focus their energy "on a city manager, councilperson, mayor or police chief and keep the pressure up until that person assures you his loyalty and then move on to the next victim." (The law firm, which removed the playbook from its website last summer, didn't respond to a call asking for comment. The Journal has included a link to the playbook online.)  Detroit's police union appears to have swiped a page from the playbook. After Mayor Dave Bing last year proposed cutting police pay by 10% and modifying retirement benefits, 400 officers blanketed Comerica Park (home of the Detroit Tigers) with fliers warning spectators to "enter Detroit at your own risk."  Meanwhile, police officers' rich benefits may actually be endangering the public. With unions claiming that pensions are inviolable, many insolvent cities have slashed their police forces—and crime rates have soared.  Homicides have tripled in Stockton in the past four years and risen by 60% in Flint, Mich., which has halved its police force since 2008 to pay for retirement benefits. Murders are up by about a third in Oakland since the city laid off 100 officers in 2010 to close a $30 million deficit. The police union had rejected concessions made by other unions.  Stockton, Flint, Detroit and Oakland are among the 10 most violent cities in America—and may stay that way if police unions insist on protecting their pensions at all costs.  Ms. Finley is an editorial writer for the Journal.  A version of this article appeared January 12, 2013, on page A11 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: To Serve and Protect—Police Pensions.
In The Wall Street Journal's Cross Country column, Allysia Finley writes that the union message from California is: Whatever fiscal problems a city may have, don't you try cutting a cop's retirement pay.