61–70 of 606 posts
Already we've got two top-level comments who think this article is about crime. It isn't. It's about corrupt police shaking down small business owners under threat of losing their business license. ETA: Please give the pedantry a rest. Of course I know police corruption is criminal. That's not what the people talking about "crime" are talking about.
The new mafia game's shaping up nicely.
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Given the shortage of cops, I am not sure there is the appetite for this. Politically, cops shaking down businesses people associate with trouble seems more palatable than exacerbating the police shortage.
Here one solution that could fix shortage and quality in police departments. I see a lot of college educated people that can't find jobs. Raise the requirement for being a cop to need 2 to 4 years of college and hire all the college people looking for work. That will also fix most of the corruption problems. I bet a lot of college graduates would kill for a pension right about now.
> I bet a lot of college graduates would kill for a pension right about now.
Literally! They might but that doesn't make it a good idea. We don't need more police we need to change the role of police in our society.
The DOJ has to start actually doing its job and completely dissolving these corrupt police departments and rebuilding them. Thats the only way we're going to get rid of corrupts cops like this.
Given the shortage of cops, I am not sure there is the appetite for this. Politically, cops shaking down businesses people associate with trouble seems more palatable than exacerbating the police shortage.
There's no shortage of cops. There's a severe problem of misallocated resources. Their overtime budget alone could take every homeless new yorker off the streets, harden the city to climate change and create humane conditions for the influx of migrants from increasingly destabilized parts of the globe.
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It's still a crime if you're not prosecuted for it. That just means the DA's likely in on it and the criminality is systemic. Doesn't mean the activity becomes legal.
If it's not prosecuted, it's defacto legal. What we really need in this country is a way to prosecute which bypasses the DA since this type of thing seems to be becoming more common.
This is precisely why DAs are elected officials. It's supposed to work this way, in theory. The people vote in the officials who enforce the laws in the manner they wish. In practice, DA elections seem totally ignored.
The problem is lack of voting and civic engagement.
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It’s only a crime if someone is willing to prosecute you for it.
It's still a crime if you're not prosecuted for it. That just means the DA's likely in on it and the criminality is systemic. Doesn't mean the activity becomes legal.
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> I don't think this point gets plastered everywhere in the entirety of the world enough. That’s because most of the rest of the world doesnt respond to gun crime with arguments that the solution is to issue more guns.
Sadly, that ship has long sailed for the US. Second amendment and all.
The issue isn’t that the constitution cannot be changed. It’s that people are brainwashed into thinking it shouldn’t change.
The DOJ has to start actually doing its job and completely dissolving these corrupt police departments and rebuilding them. Thats the only way we're going to get rid of corrupts cops like this.
Not trivial, considering a substantial percentage of elected officials are dead-set against allowing the DOJ to actually fight this kind of thing. They only approve of law and order when the law and/or order is pointed at very specific types of criminals or protests.
I know of a local Volunteer fire Dept that went that way; started having the head guy and a couple of his big cousins go around and tell people how much the VFD needed support, and how flammable their house or business looked. Couple months after that started, the guy's house burned down. I heard the trucks came out twice, the second time there were more people responding and the police got into the guy's barn with a…
So basically Marcus Licinus Crassus strategy for money making is still alive, 2000 years later.