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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

#361

Post by PumpkinSpice »

lobf wrote: post #358
PumpkinSpice wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite part is that California has a roster of handguns approved for sale. The pretext for its existence is consumer safety (it is entirely separate from bans on stuff like assault weapons or large magazines), but the actual effect is that you have a very limited selection in stores, and most of the designs are very dated. But if you're a police officer? You get an exemption! Apparently, the state has no regard…

What does buying a gun have to do with safety?

It started as a program where you had to pay the state a pile of cash to have them carry out a number of tests, like repeatedly dropping the gun to see if it goes off on its own. They kept adding stuff, culminating in microstamping requirements that no manufacturer could or wanted to comply with - so only a small subset of pre-2007 semi-auto pistols could continue to be sold.

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

#362

Post by mcpackieh »

lobf wrote: post #358
PumpkinSpice wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite part is that California has a roster of handguns approved for sale. The pretext for its existence is consumer safety (it is entirely separate from bans on stuff like assault weapons or large magazines), but the actual effect is that you have a very limited selection in stores, and most of the designs are very dated. But if you're a police officer? You get an exemption! Apparently, the state has no regard…

What does buying a gun have to do with safety?

California's Unsafe Handgun Act is ostensibly intended to protect consumers from cheaply manufactured handguns that might malfunction or otherwise be unsafe to operate.

Here is California's Attorney General explaining it:

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...

> “California’s commonsense gun safety laws save lives, and the Unsafe Handgun Act is no exception,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Accidental shootings are preventable. The fact that children under five are the most likely victims makes these accidental gun deaths even more tragic and inexcusable. As weapons become faster, more powerful, and more deadly, this risk only increases. Flooding the marketplace with unsafe semiautomatic pistols that do not meet necessary safety requirements poses a serious threat to public health and safety, especially for children and young adults.”

> The UHA was originally enacted over two decades ago in response to the proliferation of low-cost, cheaply made handguns that posed consumer safety risks. Under the UHA, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) compiles and maintains a Roster of Certified Handguns that meet certain public safety requirements. Generally, a handgun must appear on the roster to be sold by a California firearm dealer.

> When the UHA was first enacted, revolvers and pistols were required to have safety devices and pass drop safety and firing tests at independent laboratories in order to be added to the roster. [...] The UHA has since been amended, adding additional safety requirements for semiautomatic pistols including that a new semiautomatic pistol must have:

> A chamber load indicator that indicates if the pistol is loaded; A magazine disconnect mechanism that prevents the pistol from firing when the magazine is not inserted; and Microstamping capabilities that allow law enforcement to trace a shell casing to the pistol that fired it.

So this law is ostensibly intended to protect people who buy handguns and those around them. But cops are exempt, because... cops never drop their guns?

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

#363

Post by 1-more »

slipperlobster wrote: post #213
1-more wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah when you need to effect road closures for sure you're costing the municipality something and should have to pay something for that. The congestion easing on otherwise-normally-functioning roads certainly feels shady.

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

#364

Post by the_why_of_y »

tomschlick wrote: post #330
the_why_of_y wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And places like California, Oregon, and Washington won’t prosecute for crimes under about $950. For comparison, in Texas, the misdemeanor limit is at $2,500. https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.31.htm

It's still a class A misdemeanor though and they will arrest you for it. Also it becomes a felony if any theft has been committed more than 3 times: `(D) the value of the property stolen is less than $2,500 and the defendant has been previously convicted two or more times of any grade of theft;` In those other states its hard to get the police to even respond to shoplifting calls let alone make an arrest. And even if…

> It's still a class A misdemeanor though and they will arrest you for it.

Just like in California.

https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/Prop47FAQs.pdf

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

#365

Post by Ichthypresbyter »

rjmunro wrote: post #149
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.

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…

There was a discussion about this on another HN thread today. [0]

As you've said, the contact is with the police force not with the individual officers, who get paid the same as they would for any other duties.

There was a whole court case [1] about when the police could charge for this sort of coverage, which codified the current arrangement that, at football matches, they can charge for the officers in the stadium but not for the ones outside it.

In the UK, while police are allowed to have outside jobs, any outside employment must be approved by the force, and as a matter of policy security work is banned. Similarly, security guards aren't allowed [2] to be special constables (people who work as part-time unpaid police officers).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37912396 [1] https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/115.html [2] https://www.met.police.uk/car/careers/met/police-volunteer-r...

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

#366

Post by quacked »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #353
yterdy wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, for the record, this embodies what most people meant when they said, "Defund the police." Not, "Get rid of the institution of law enforcement." Instead, "Lower funding so that the remainder is forced to be put towards necessary tasks which the police are actually effective at," reducing their ability to engage in the kind of paid apathy or harassment the GGP describes, and freeing up funding for preventative soc…

You can't lower the funding. 1. They self-fund. All confiscated cash is for keeps. If they're not allowed to keep it by state law, they're welcome to call in feds who will do the bust and give them 80% as a finders fee. 2. They extort cities into not "defunding". They don't want it, and they play hardball. > nd no one in their right mind, even on the ACAB side, wants police to go away entirely. No one's ever accused…

I just told you about a case of a murder in a suburb that was solved. Murderers are caught all the time in the US. Are you claiming that because police don't solve 100% of murders in the US, we should consider police fundamentally useless?

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

#367

Post by VirusNewbie »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #357
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…

>It's astonishing the degree to which the public tolerates such forms of ineptitude and subversion – it has a direct impact on everyone's bottom line. The George Floyd protests were huge. I don't think it's a simple matter of the public being too complacent. I'd say that insofar as the protests were unsuccessful, it's because their energy wasn't being directed strategically. There was so much discussion of "defunding…

I think your idea has many flaws, but I am very surprised and happy to see novel approaches here, and it absolutely represents my favorite part of HackerNews.

Probably the reason policing is sub optimal is due to the fact that it is funded by the city, so more prosperous areas can pay more, and recruit the best cops, while the areas with less income often can't pay as well, (or enough to offset the risks).

Compare this to schooling, where it's largely funded through the county, so the county often pays less in the nicer areas, knowing the job is easier.

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

#368

Post by llbeansandrice »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #357
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…

>It's astonishing the degree to which the public tolerates such forms of ineptitude and subversion – it has a direct impact on everyone's bottom line. The George Floyd protests were huge. I don't think it's a simple matter of the public being too complacent. I'd say that insofar as the protests were unsuccessful, it's because their energy wasn't being directed strategically. There was so much discussion of "defunding…

> without anyone offering a clear, compelling alternative approach to public safety and deterring crime.

This really just betrays that you were not paying attention beyond the tagline.

Multiple cities have already implemented trial programs to replace police services with mental health and EMT professionals to wild success.

Denver has the STAR program [0] and I'm aware of a similar program in New Orleans and I'm sure other cities.

I simply don't think anyone who gets upset at the "defund the police" over the pithy tagline is arguing in good faith.

> Alleged failures of capitalism often strike me as failures of the competition metric rather than failures of capitalism per se.

Proponents of capitalism seem to have never encountered Goodhart's law. [1]

[0] https://www.denvergov.org/Government/Agencies-Departments-Of...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

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

#369

Post by hollerith »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #367
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's astonishing the degree to which the public tolerates such forms of ineptitude and subversion – it has a direct impact on everyone's bottom line. The George Floyd protests were huge. I don't think it's a simple matter of the public being too complacent. I'd say that insofar as the protests were unsuccessful, it's because their energy wasn't being directed strategically. There was so much discussion of "defunding…

I think your idea has many flaws, but I am very surprised and happy to see novel approaches here, and it absolutely represents my favorite part of HackerNews. Probably the reason policing is sub optimal is due to the fact that it is funded by the city, so more prosperous areas can pay more, and recruit the best cops, while the areas with less income often can't pay as well, (or enough to offset the risks). Compare th…

Are you sure? The one county I investigated has 14 law enforcement agencies and 12 school distrcts:

https://www.marincountyda.org/local-links

https://www.marincounty.org/residents/community/school-distr...

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

#370

Post by slim »

senderista wrote: post #199
rjbwork wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't know that they worked together. Surprising. It came out fairly shortly after the incident that they were at least known to one another on some level through that security job.

When I learned that I was suspicious that Chauvin was settling some personal score (and that explained why Floyd seemed to believe that Chauvin was going to kill him), but I don't know if any evidence for that came to light. Possibly an under-investigated angle, I'm not sure.

if you recognize someone from a previous job, even if he committed a crime, would you kill him if he did not represent any danger ?
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