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

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

#131

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

quacked wrote: post #105
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about corrupt police shaking down small business owners I don't believe that there's ever been any other kind of cop. Certainly not outside of fiction. By prefixing the adjective "corrupt" though, you're certainly buying into it. Have you never read the headlines where the entire police union tries to extort the entire city? "If we don't get enough cops on the street, bad things will happen". Hell, even more e…

What kind of society are you envisioning that can address antisocial behavior without detaining or investigating anyone?

I am not envisioning any society in particular. Instead, I would ask you a question. It's a little contrived, so bear with me.

Imagine a situation that you could plausibly find yourself in where you would feel the need to contact the police. It need not be a 911 call, though those are fine too. Imagine how that would go down... the time of day you contact them. Where you would be when it happened. How you would describe the situation to them.

In this scenario, what is it that they do to help?

Whatever you think happens in that situation, everything I've read over the decades I've been reading about this lead me to believe that there is nothing they would ever do to help anyone reliably/consistently.

If your bike was stolen, well fuck you. Why do you even bother to report that. They will neither recover it, nor ever punish the person who stole it.

If your home was burglarized, the same. With your car, they'll take the report at least so you can claim insurance, but they will be surly and do so only begrudgingly because if they fail to take those reports to any great degree, there will be a political shitstorm that eventually catches up with them.

Are you in fear of your life? They might show up and shoot you. Your dog's in even more danger.

Did you see one on the street and ask for directions because you were lost? In Baltimore, that can cause them to point guns at you, scream obscenities, and run you off (and this is considered by some to be a particularly fortunate outcome).

The least risky encounter for most of us, is when we're being ticketed, when they're just doing revenue collection.

From what I can tell, the outcomes I describe aren't atypical. They've always got more important things to investigate (big drug busts), so the crimes that you and I care about are ignored, and they don't seem to act as a deterrent in any meaningful way. You just have several social filters on your brain that allow you to maintain the illusion otherwise.

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

#132

Post by klyrs »

monocasa wrote: post #113
codingdave wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a way - file a civil suit. That won't have the possibility of sending people to jail, but does have the possibility of financial damages being awarded that are higher than you'd see in a criminal case.

Which is what qualified immunity stands in the way of.

Just spitballing here... report it, and file a class action against the DA if they don't prosecute?

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

#133

Post by nyc_data_geek1 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #85
nyc_data_geek1 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What shortage of cops? Come to NYC, you'll see a seemingly infinite number of them parked on sidewalks/in bus lanes/bike lanes, hanging out in the subway on their phones, directing traffic where perfectly good traffic lights exist, harassing street vendors, etc. All while funding is being cut for actual public goods. There's no shortage of cops. There's a severe problem of misallocated resources. Their overtime budge…

New York is a very well paid police department as New York is a rich city. Other cities are not as wealthy and thus do not pay as well. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/us-experiencing-police-...

A shortage means not enough to achieve the desired outcome. In the example of New York, the very wealthy and heavily policed city, even a very cursory google search will show you the NYPD's own clearance statistics reporting, and the many articles written about the same, that show while police spending has increased, violent crime clearance rates have decreased.

Police do not function to keep us safe (nor are they legally obligated to protect us), their sole purpose is protecting capital.

Perhaps if we asked police to do less, paid them less, and eliminated their impunity to function as an occupying gang, they would be less violent and people would hate them less, and they'd be able to hire more easily.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/crime-without-punishmen...

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

#134

Post by codingdave »

monocasa wrote: post #113
codingdave wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a way - file a civil suit. That won't have the possibility of sending people to jail, but does have the possibility of financial damages being awarded that are higher than you'd see in a criminal case.

Which is what qualified immunity stands in the way of.

IANAL, but doesn't that require good faith? Shakedowns carried out by off-duty cops don't seem to be acting in good faith.

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

#136

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

unethical_ban wrote: post #122
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DOJ has to start actually doing its job and completely dissolving these corrupt police departments Hoover's DOJ? I wish I could believe that your comment was ironic. If it is, then touche, you got me. It's really good.

Comment classification: Nihilist/Cynicist Root Cause: Examining the way the world is, rather than how it should be, as per the parent comment's point.

I do not have magical powers that would cause the FBI (or any other component of the DOJ, come to that) which would cause them to act in morally positive ways by simply imagining "how it should be".

If there is a "how it should be" when it comes to the DOJ, which seems very doubtful, there exist no humans on planet Earth who could implement it. Even more so, it would be impossible to know how to implement it without thoroughly and profoundly understanding the various failure modes. In other words, you're even doing the "examining the way the world should be" wrong.

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

#137

Post by nanidin »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #110
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…

Yeah, and that's where the crime angle to this comes into play. Are the businesses really the "source of rowdy behavior", or is it actually the people who frequent those particular establishments? And if the latter, shouldn't that be the city's responsibility to deal with those people to make sure they aren't able to continue to repeatedly act in a disruptive manner requiring a police response? Why are they making th…

There is a Walmart in my metro area that is responsible for like 80% of all police calls within their municipality. This is the same Walmart that leeches off society in other ways like paying sub-living wages so that employees need to rely on social safety nets to survive. I'm not sure if they have to hire private security, but this is a prime example of a business that should be securing itself or changing location.

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

#138

Post by bombcar »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #131
quacked wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of society are you envisioning that can address antisocial behavior without detaining or investigating anyone?

I am not envisioning any society in particular. Instead, I would ask you a question. It's a little contrived, so bear with me. Imagine a situation that you could plausibly find yourself in where you would feel the need to contact the police. It need not be a 911 call, though those are fine too. Imagine how that would go down... the time of day you contact them. Where you would be when it happened. How you would descr…

If that's all they do, who is arresting the murders?

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

#139

Post by yieldcrv »

robertlagrant wrote: post #120
Ajedi32 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and that's where the crime angle to this comes into play. Are the businesses really the "source of rowdy behavior", or is it actually the people who frequent those particular establishments? And if the latter, shouldn't that be the city's responsibility to deal with those people to make sure they aren't able to continue to repeatedly act in a disruptive manner requiring a police response? Why are they making th…

Bouncers are there to keep your customers safe, so they don't go elsewhere and never come back. You don't need to mandate bars have bouncers. They want bouncers.

(so they dont lose their alcohol license)

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

#140

Post by bombcar »

tehwebguy wrote: post #121
throw0101b wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police have formed gangs: * https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/la-is-investigating... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynwood_Vikings

The police are a gang

The police are a gang with the express purpose of preventing another gang from coming into existence.

For if you remove the police, the residents will eventually establish their own "gang", which eventually becomes the police.

Any sufficiently organized crime is indistinguishable from government.

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