You had to see this one coming a mile away after the Baton Rouge Metro Council agreed to cough up $100,000 in go-away money to several Black Lives Matter protesters who got themselves arrested during the aftermath of the Alton Sterling shooting, a decision that from a straight cost-benefit analysis was defensible but as a matter of principle was less so.

Yesterday the union popped off a letter to the Metro Council which was rather forceful in its disdain of the decision to settle the case…

On one level, it could be said that what the Metro Council did was smart – they waited until none of them were still up for re-election before paying it. Otherwise the police union might well have taken the side of the challengers in some of their races.

Everyone on the Metro Council save for John Delgado and Scott Wilson, who opposed it, and Ryan Heck, who didn’t vote, supported the settlement. Delgado and Heck didn’t run for re-election and will be replaced on the council next year.