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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

#311

Post by mschuster91 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #179
BWStearns wrote: post #93

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.

That sounds so far from the realm of being in anyway necessary, and not just outright racketeering that you/your friend should contact local media, the DOJ or both.

Or it's because too many drone pilots were more than obnoxious. I'm a drone pilot myself and there's no way some of the shots on r/drones are even remotely close to being legal.

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

#312

Post by mike_d »

senderista wrote: post #192

If you find these corruption allegations hard to believe, I lived on the South Side of Chicago in the late 90s, and cops there expected to eat for free wherever they went and blew through stop signs and red lights like they weren't even there. (I have never seen this kind of police behavior anywhere else I've lived, which includes downtown Seattle.) Oh, and I had a detective tell me once (after they'd found the guy w…

> I declined to press charges after I learned that.

You were the district attorney at the time this was happening? Why didn't you do more to stop it?

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

#313

Post by BWStearns »

gamblor956 wrote: post #243
BWStearns wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a good way to get your business license paperwork lost. Edit: not sure why the downvotes here. If you’re a small business owner you are trying to get through your day and your day gets a lot longer if you piss off casually corrupt city officials who can shut your business down by slow walking needed paperwork. This is a group that happily added 200% to your operating costs via ransoming your business license f…

I think that if what you were describing was true, a federal DOJ investigation would result in a lot of people spending time in federal prison, and your friend walking away with enough money that your friend can drone all he wants from a private beach in the Bahamas while you both sip mai tais. So yes, they can retaliate against your friend. And your friend can retaliate against them and the difference is that their…

While I normatively agree with you that that’s the way it should work, that isn’t how these things go. This kind of pseudo corruption is extremely common because it’s easy to make shitty arguments that pass first inspection (oh we need the police there for public safety, think of the children, oh a bird! look over there!). They drag it out into a years long appeals process where they grind the plaintiff down and eventually they settle for no wrongdoing and attorneys fees and change, and now you get your business license back and have a hostile local PD.

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

#314

Post by BWStearns »

mschuster91 wrote: post #311
FireBeyond wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds so far from the realm of being in anyway necessary, and not just outright racketeering that you/your friend should contact local media, the DOJ or both.

Or it's because too many drone pilots were more than obnoxious. I'm a drone pilot myself and there's no way some of the shots on r/drones are even remotely close to being legal.

So that’s regulated by the FAA and I applaud enforcement efforts on that front. A local PD scalping overtime isn’t going to know a class bravo from his asshole so I don’t see the connection. Local PDs don’t have the knowledge or jurisdiction for this stuff.

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

#315

Post by mrguyorama »

scythe wrote: post #238
mrguyorama wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, insurance doesn't have to cover it, because even in these cases where large retailers are crying about theft, it's still not the primary cause of shrinkage in their businesses! Grocers still lose more product to employee theft or just breaking stuff during handling. Even in California where there's some conspiracy theory about how "It's the DAs fault the police aren't doing anything", as if it's the police's resp…

At least one source gives shoplifting as the plurality of shrinkage at 36%, with employee theft close behind at 30%. But if theft isn't prosecuted, this would seem to affect incentives for both shoplifting and employee theft. https://lithospos.com/blog/shrinkage-in-retail-and-how-to-pr... Together this puts theft at a solid majority (66%) of shrinkage.

No, this puts "shoplifting" on the same level as "employee theft" and "literally just doing a bad job" in terms of losing $100 billion (this is actually a global number) last year. IE, brick and mortar retail reported losing about $35 billion to shoplifting.

Out of $6 TRILLION (Just in the US!) worth of brick and mortar retail sales in the same year, in an industry that claims 2% profit margins on the low ends.

All the fuss over shoplifting is just noise. Consider that the same survey which produced those numbers also showed that a full 16% of ALL merchandise sold in retail is returned, yet we don't have news channels blaring all over that we are in a crisis of unfit products.

It's a narrative, and a bad one, to blame greedy price increases on a STABLE total rate of shrink, one that has been roughly 1.5% for over a DECADE. The cost of shrink has been factored in to the price of goods forever.

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

#316

Post by mlinhares »

dirtyhippiefree wrote: post #209
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.

Your term for today is Selective Enforcement. They want you to think like that because it’s good for business…and since our prison population exceeds that of Russia or any other country (per capita), it appears that business is good…

Business is definitely good as the private prisons market makes a killing anywhere they’re allowed to operate. It’s as if there was a vested interest in having a huge carceral population for some reason.

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

#317

Post by dontlaugh »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #266
s1artibartfast wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moonlighting isnt the problem. Workers arent slaves and should be able to work elsewhere when they arent on the clock. Cities legally requiring people to hire moonlighting cops IS the problem.

Using the language of labor movements to describe police isn't adequate for understanding the constraints they work under. What makes a cop a cop isn't the work they do, but the power they have. To what extent they are free to apply this power, or sell it, outside of its normal sanctioned purpose is a critical question. And one completely separate from the issue of workers selling their labor to multiple parties. Wor…

Exactly. Police are part of the “special bodies of armed men” that form the state. They only exist to protect the interests of the ruling class, which in most cases is exploiting labour.

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

#318

Post by ben7799 »

kbos87 wrote: post #104

Doesn’t sound that different from traffic control details in Massachusetts. While I don't know the details of their agreements first hand, I believe they are required by law to be off-duty cops, they are expensive, and have something like a 6 hour minimum. What I can validate is that they are usually seen chatting with people or sitting in their car rather than doing a single thing to help streamline traffic or in th…

Came here to mention this. It's the biggest shakedown of all time in Massachusetts.

They are required to do all these jobs that most states don't require them to do. They are extremely expensive, like 10x what a construction worker costs to wave flags on the side of the road. And the police don't even really pretend to do the job most of the time. They are off on the side of the road drinking coffee and playing with a smartphone.

What I have seen is lots of contractors will try to do things on the sly to avoid having to hire the police detail. E.x. a tree cutting crew that is technically going to block the road even briefly. The police detail will cost more than the work crew costs, so the contractor will try to sneak it in, otherwise the customer avoids having the work done completely or can't afford it. Even if the tree cutting takes 15 minutes the property owner would have to pay an entire shift's pay for the police detail.

In the case of the original article though.. rowdy night clubs having to have police on board is no different than police being present in a school a large sports gathering.. it makes sense as those situations can be a powder keg waiting to go off.

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

#319

Post by s1artibartfast »

Daviey wrote: post #307
s1artibartfast wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes military and SEC are and should be free to moonlight. It is extremely common for military to have two jobs, especially the military reserve. The only provision is that they can't have conflicts of interest.

Are they allowed to wear their military uniform at the side gig and exercise privilege given to them in a private paying role?

Im not sure what the rules about uniforms are, and for the record, I dont think cops should wear uniforms when moonlighting either.

Military do retain many privileges in private roles.

For example, having a verified secret security clearance is often a big advantage in a second occupation in private industry.

With respect to police, I assume the "privilege" is being able to act as an off duty cop and make arrests. This is a ability the people have given cops because we want them to do it. It is a good thing if they arrest a dangerous person off duty.

This brings us back to the problem. We shouldn't have laws on the books requiring the employment of off duty cops. If a company really needs someone with police power, they should contract with the police department.

If they dont needed it, they should be free to contract with whom they choose.

A bouncer or traffic director does not need the ability to arrest people.

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

#320

Post by Clubber »

FireBeyond wrote: post #273
Clubber wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just like how, for Justice(hah) Thomas, same-sex marriage is a state's right/decision, but interracial marriage... isn't. Banning interracial marriage was deemed unconstitutional based on the 14th amendment. The 14th amendment doesn't have any text about same-sex marriage. That's why it's left up to the states. (10th amendment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution…

> The constitution has methods to amend it, that's what a living document means, not that some political party gets to decide what it means on a whim. What does it have to say about the Supreme Court legislating from the bench?

Can you give some examples of what you consider legislating from the bench?
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