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

minnesotareformer.com

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

#211

Post by rc_mob »

slipperlobster wrote: post #96

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.

my 1000 house HOA pays county police over 100k a year to have an officer park his car in the area for half of every week

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

#212

Post by slipperlobster »

rc_mob wrote: post #211
slipperlobster wrote: post #96

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.

my 1000 house HOA pays county police over 100k a year to have an officer park his car in the area for half of every week

Our 2,000 home HOA luckily is large enough that city police just park in our parking lots by design - no fees required! grimace

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

#213

Post by slipperlobster »

1-more wrote: post #170
rjmunro wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, I believe that if you organise a large event that needs police coverage, you pay the Police force to provide on-duty officers. This seems a lot less open to corruption because it would be based on a standard price list that was public, and the officers received the same as they would doing any other duties. I know that's how it worked at some events my Dad organised in the 90s. I can't find anything about…

For a lot of the above-board police charges in the US the prices have gone up a lot. Anecdotally, I remember this thread where cycling race organizers talk about how the biggest cost for road races is always police. That's to be expected, but a lot of them mention that those costs have gone up a lot recently https://www.reddit.com/r/Velo/comments/us0ciu/cost_to_put_on...

That's wild. Personally, I see that (cyclists hiring police officers for route clearing) as a _valid_ implementation of this. Churches/neighborhoods hiring off-duty police officers daily just ease congestion? Seems like a stretch to use publicly funded resources, to me.

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

#214

Post by rednerrus »

arthurofbabylon wrote: post #175

Already, police do this exact shakedown on cities. There are numerous incidents (anecdotal) of US police threatening city officials to reduce enforcement during election cycles, demanding increases in police force budget. Broadly, the US needs to eliminate corruption. There are many broken feedback loops right now from the grand (lobbying and campaign finance) to the minuscule (niche price fixing, bribery, police-ran…

[flagged]

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

#215

Post by heisenbit »

yohannparis wrote: post #164
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 don't think you read the article, they were not force to provided better form of security to keep their licence, they were force to hire MPD during business hours. At high costs, under weird pretence of minimum numbers of hours, and most of the time were gone doing MPD work while being paid by the business... This is mafia behaviour.

Mafia knows better than to leave such an obvious papertrail.

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

#216

Post by beeboobaa »

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…

Sounds like victim blaming.

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

#217

Post by shipscode »

chasd00 wrote: post #15
shipscode wrote: post #5

Why not just train staff and carry guns?

I'm a 2A fan but if i were a worker and asked by my boss to do this i'd say no thanks. Going toe to toe with an armed criminal isn't in the job description, if it were i wouldn't be interested in the position.

Dying at the hands of an armed criminal is a much better requirement in a job description I guess.

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

#218

Post by vkou »

codingdave wrote: post #168
monocasa wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of, but not in a way you'd expect. It presupposes that they don't know what's good faith or not without explicit cases on the subject in that jurisdiction. So qualified immunity squashes new cases that haven't been exactly covered, but also typically doesn't create new case law on that subject meaning that police can continue doing that 'possibly' bad behavior.

Oh, man... That is a disappointing way for things to work. So how would one go about pursuing a complaint in a way that would get case law to exist for a specific scenario?

Start by getting 5 supreme court justices willing to overturn old precedents on board.

The last time this was discussed was in 1982, with an 8-1 decision that strengthened qualified immunity.

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

#219

Post by shipscode »

_moof wrote: post #12
shipscode wrote: post #5

Why not just train staff and carry guns?

The article is about the MPD forcing businesses to hire off-duty cops or risk losing their business license, rather than an actual security problem requiring security guards.

Why not just change the policy to allow staff to carry guns instead?

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

#220

Post by selimthegrim »

kemayo wrote: post #156

This is a pretty shady looking protection racket -- "nice business you've got here, be a shame if something were to happen to it". With the difference from traditional gang/mafia activity just being that they'll get the government to remove your business license, rather than burning the place down. Similarly, I once got a speeding ticket while driving through Kansas, and was instructed by the ticketing officer on how…

This happened to my dad with an Indiana State Highway patrolman on the toll road on the way to Chicago. (We are from Ohio)
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