Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

minnesotareformer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 606 posts

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#91

Post by voakbasda »

ryanianian wrote: post #64
brightball wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> prosecute which bypasses the DA 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.

The only candidates are those steeped in the systematic corruption. I have never seen an outsider even run.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#92

Post by nradov »

brightball wrote: post #50
bilbo0s wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We have a way. In most states the Attorney General can assign a prosecutor to pursue local corruption cases. The AG is an elected office accountable to voters.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#93

Post by BWStearns »

Friend of mine runs a drone photography business (think instagram people on vacation or house photography for real estate). The city requires he hire an off duty cop for $100/hr to “manage the set” and the minimum time per engagement for this rent-a-racketeer service is four hours. The shoots are usually about 30 minutes.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#94

Post by Filligree »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78
lr4444lr wrote: post #73

I'm not here to shill for the police, but in my former city, it was not unusual for certain kinds of businesses which had a history of being the source of rowdy behavior to be required by the community board to take certain measures to prevent that. It didn't mean they had to hire former police, but they had to show preventative measures were taken above and beyond state level licenses requirements if the board, whic…

I mean, you're basically describing hiring a bouncer. I've never heard of a bouncer being required, but that does make sense if otherwise they're calling the police all the time.

It makes sense even if they don't. Places like that have externalities, and they shouldn't be offloading their rowdiness onto people who live next door.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#96

Post by slipperlobster »

We have a bunch of off-duty police here in the southeast US that do traffic control for churches, HOAs, etc. Not the same as security, I guess, but tangentially related.

I always wonder how this is legally allowed. The idea of using taxpayer vehicles, training, equipment, etc. to control traffic while also leveraging the power of the badge to hold authority seems legally questionable, but IANAL.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#97

Post by thaumasiotes »

dd82 wrote: post #41
h2odragon wrote: post #33

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.

What? There's no overlap between Crassus' strategy and the VFD's strategy as described above. The VFD asked you to pay recurring fees just in case your house ever caught fire, and when someone decided that was unlikely, they made it more likely by setting fire to his house.

Note that in this strategy, if someone's house catches fire, that's bad for the fire department, and on top of that it looks like they just committed a crime. The fire department is in the business of threatening people until they pay for a service that the fire department hopes it will never need to provide.

Crassus' strategy is completely different; he operates an actual fire department whose services are not available to other people. If your house catches fire, he'll buy it from you.

Theoretically, Crassus could benefit from arson too, but he really doesn't need it.

Crassus is in the business of buying things that have very little value to the seller (who has no way of extinguishing fires) but have a much higher value to him (because he does have a way of extinguishing fires). Unsurprisingly, this is very profitable for Crassus. But what's the similarity?

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#98

Post by otikik »

_moof wrote: post #18

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.

> corrupt police shaking down small business owners under threat of losing their business license

I am almost certain that qualifies as "crime".

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#99

Post by say_it_as_it_is »

This isn't a story of racism but a story of power. It's not that white racists in power want to coerce non-white business owners but that people in power want to exercise that power to advance their own agendas. This same stuff happens to white business owners who aren't part of the inner circle.

Re: Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security

#100

Post by DonnyV »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #62
DonnyV wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you think this would solve the corruption problem? Cops aren't corrupt because they're dumb , they're corrupt because the institutions they are part of allow and reward corruption. Without some mechanism to change that culture, simply adding more members to it will only bolster it. College degrees don't have anything to do with it. > I bet a lot of college graduates would kill for a pension right about now…

Do you know any cops? I know quite a few. Most of them are dumb as bricks and very easily succumb to their base instincts. They also have very over inflated egos. Thinking they know more than their citizens they're supposed to be protecting. Do you know who runs these departments? The ones with the most over inflated egos who literally think that they are in a war with their own citizens. They are also the ones that easily fall for conspiracy theories. I know we want to think its elitiest to require a college degree to do a job. But I don't think it is. Its a filter to get less of these type of people.
Post reply on HN