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Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

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Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#461

Post by TuringNYC »

dionidium wrote: post #451
khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

> Furthermore, state law prevents Baltimore (and only Baltimore) from annexing suburbs to increase the tax base St. Louis is the other major independent city. The state doesn't restrict its ability to annex suburbs, but it hardly matters. It doesn't happen, anyway, and it almost certainly wouldn't in Baltimore, either. Who wants either city's problems?

One case where I can see a suburb welcoming an annexation is when pension problems get out of hand. There are hundreds of small municipalities which have promised policemen, firemen, and others huge pensions. Many of these pensions are underfunded and only survive by "borrowing" from the budget and/or "borrowing" from future generations' pension assets.

It is unclear whether the PBGC (https://www.pbgc.gov/) will bail out the small municipalities. But i'd bet that Illinois, California, LA, NYC get bailouts. In such a situation, it would make sense for a municipality to join in with a "too-big-to-fail" entity.

I'm not a local government expert, but i'm seen enough bailouts to think these are decent guesses.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#462

Post by shuckles »

mjx0 wrote: post #448
TheCaptain4815 wrote: post #386

[flagged]

Would you care to elaborate what you believe this problem is, and how you've deduced it?

The poster wants to imply the population is black Americans even though similar ethnic groups in other countries don’t have nearly the same violent crime rates. Either there are structural factors at play or black Americans are somehow a specific distinct population from people of that diaspora around the world. This is where the analytical skepticism of people who insinuate these ideas tends to fall apart.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#463

Post by dgfitz »

khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

I’ll cite sources if needed, but googling “Baltimore corruption” will explain the financial issues facing the city.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#464

Post by pb7 »

kevviiinn wrote: post #432
pb7 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked up "police state" and got this: >a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens' activities Can you explain how the US is all of those things?

The police unions have a crazy amount of influence over politics where the basically just cry if they don't get their way and threaten to not go after criminals, it's happened in multiple states iirc Basically every step of the way, whenever some sort of reform comes up they fight it tooth and nail while simultaneously grabbing every bit of extra power that they can. These powers include things like surveillance and…

I agree police unions are awful and cause more harm than good. Everything you say is true (to some degree) but I don't think this qualifies the country to be a police state. I'm not afraid of the police coming to my door because the police have a problem with me. I don't like them but I don't fear them and neither does anyone I know. There is still a due process and even though even one incident is too many, most times the police acts out of line they are punished even if it takes a while (again, due process). The punishment is usually far, far too lenient but at the very least, for the sake of this conversation, shows that they do not have the ultimate power.

There is a lot that can be done about the quality of policing in this country but we are really far off a police state. We are simply a state with an incompetent perpetually afraid power hungry police, likely due to the prevalence of guns. It's tragic as is.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#465

Post by matthewdgreen »

maeil wrote: post #454
khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

> Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? That is for American politics to figure out. This is an American political issue and blaming Korean car makers is absurd.

Once you’ve had a gun pointed at you from a car, taken down the license plate, then been told there’s nothing they can do because the car was stolen —- you’ll realize that car theft isn’t some individual problem. We’ve had the tech to solve this problem for decades, but car manufacturers decided to save a few bucks.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#466

Post by matthewdgreen »

ravensfan69 wrote: post #139

I live in Baltimore, in a pretty "good" part of town where most of the young professionals and Hopkins hospital staff live. I know 4 different people who've had cars stolen in the past 24 months. In 3 of these cases the perpetrators were teenagers, and in 2 of these cases they brandished guns. Only one of these thefts were Hyundai/Kia-related, and the thief punched my buddy in the face during the theft. Many others I…

Car theft is a compound problem. Some cars are stolen because their security systems are garbage. Others are stolen at gunpoint. I don’t understand why the existence of one problem means we shouldn’t try to solve the other.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#467

Post by cdogl »

quad_eye_oh wrote: post #427
bee_rider wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should also be noted that locking people up puts them in contact with a bunch of convicted criminals. Making weed illegal put a bunch of otherwise harmless people in a situation where they wanted to do illegal business. The liberal position—don’t make relatively harmless stuff illegal—is one way to reduce the amount of crime. Sure, lock up people who do violent crimes (I mean, get them out of society while we try…

I think some of this political conflict is over what constitutes a harmless or victimless or nonviolent crime. In the past year I've seen different people claim that hemp consumption, property crime, and even intimidation with a firearm were nonviolent and that their perpetrators were merely marginalized individuals who need social assistance rather than prosecution. I think GP's point is that even property crime is…

Hemp consumption _is_ non violent. I agree with your overall sentiment but that inclusion made me squint.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#468

Post by KennyBlanken »

khm wrote: post #437

Baltimore has a police force out of their control (it's in state hands) but they still have to pay for it. This has resulted in massive retention and recruitment issues, and some of the cops who did stick around were on the take -- specifically the Gun Trace Task Force, home of the locally-famous Jump Out Boys. Baltimore is an independent city, so it can't rely on county assistance for anything. Furthermore, state la…

In almost every republican-controlled state legislature they are pushing bills to do the same thing to their major cities, trying to put large metropolitan city police forces under state control.

It's a weird move from a party that claims to be about "small" government and local control.

They're so busy trying to "own" the libs that they have forgotten, or simply don't care, that those cities are usually generating tax revenue that supports the outlying rural areas.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#469

Post by cdogl »

flextheruler wrote: post #438
mindslight wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental problem is that the misguided attempt to criminalize drugs destroyed respect for the law for generations. Once you're at risk of being locked in a cage for decades for engaging in behavior that would otherwise just be called running a small business , then robbery isn't a huge leap. Especially after your industry ends up creating its own parallel justice system because the usual courts have been made…

I don’t have a problem with some drugs being state regulated and I know it would reduce violence but the harder drugs should never be state sold we already have huge issues with alcohol which is a very hard drug. Acting as if lone actors serving narcotics or prostitutes are regular small business owner is an insult to legitimate entrepreneurs

Aside from the legality, what’s different between a liquor store owner and a weed dealer? You may disagree with their breaking the law, but commerce is commerce, and this is victimless except with regard to the rule of law.

Re: Baltimore sues Hyundai, Kia over spike in car thefts

#470

Post by zarzavat »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #465
maeil wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where is Baltimore supposed to get the funding to meet this increase in demand for city services? That is for American politics to figure out. This is an American political issue and blaming Korean car makers is absurd.

Once you’ve had a gun pointed at you from a car, taken down the license plate, then been told there’s nothing they can do because the car was stolen —- you’ll realize that car theft isn’t some individual problem. We’ve had the tech to solve this problem for decades, but car manufacturers decided to save a few bucks.

The easy accessibility of guns in America is not the fault of Korean car manufacturers either. What you describe is not something that people in most developed countries have to worry about.
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