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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

#461

Post by makeitdouble »

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

A minor gripe: asking protesters of a utterly shitty, but long standing, complex and entranched situation, to come up clear, simple and compelling alternatives is generally unfair.

In particular the political process should work in reverse: people voice issues, and their governing bodies come up with viable solutions. That's their job.

> police quality is higher in Europe

It can be utterly shitty too. The difference could be that they're not armed with military grade material and protestors aren't willing to let things slide, even as pretty gruesome confrontations happen (people killed, losing eyes, limbs etc.)

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

#462

Post by gonzo41 »

et-al wrote: post #323
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…

The SF Police Department bombed the mayor's house in 1975: "In early August 1975, the SFPD went on strike over a pay dispute, violating a California law prohibiting police from striking. The city quickly obtained a court order declaring the strike illegal and enjoining the SFPD back to work. The court messenger delivering the order was met with violence and the SFPD continued to strike... The ACLU obtained a court or…

So the moral of that story is. Terrorism works. Grim

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

#463

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

matchbok wrote: post #420
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people are so privileged they think the police do nothing They do plenty of things. And I'm glad I'm privileged enough that I never suffer them doing things. No, I started the conversation out talking specifically about "the things they do what we would actually want them to do". This is because, were they gone, we wouldn't have to worry about them doing "the things they do that we never want done to ourselves…

You must live a sheltered life to think this. Viewing an entire group of people as evil or inherently bad. People like you are the reason why progress in the area is so hard. You don't understand the reality of the job.

You actually need the sheltered life to not think this. You've only had the smallest interactions with them, in the circumstances where you had the slightest little misfortune to get a traffic ticket or where they were feeling generous that day.

It's bizarre. "Why can't that internet weirdo see that the police are awesome and society would fall apart if they were gone?" only works if you've not paid attention to what the police are doing because you get to be 50 miles away when they're doing it.

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

#464

Post by rpmisms »

giantg2 wrote: post #383
edrxty wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty eye opening to watch every bill pushed through in the name of firearm safety turning out to have massive exemptions for off duty and retired cops. They're such a powerful political force that it's outright expected they should have a disproportionate ability to deliver force even after they're retired .

Most of the reason for cops being security and being excluded from most firearms safety bills is because rhey already have a credential that was more strenuous to achieve than what the proposed bill is. That training, whether effective or not, is also seen to mitigate risks around litigation when they work security due to how our courts work (how things look can be more important). Although there are other laws that…

In many cases (especially magazine capacity laws, the stupidest of all restrictions), cops are exempt while nobody else is exempt. They're simply a caste above you.

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

#465

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #459
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Really appreciate the words of encouragement here! If you want to encourage me further, you should give details about the flaws and challenge me to address them :-)

sure. I'm not at all thinking my flaws are insurmountable, but I think the problem is you are unlikely to get enough data to draw many conclusions, at least in places that aren't incredibly dense and crime ridden. I'm thinking of the suburb outside of LA I live in. It's somewhat spread out, and some areas have small amounts of violent crime, while some neighborhoods are incredibly rich and most neighborhoods are gate…

Sure, if an area is low crime, I'd say your policing strategy doesn't matter a ton, assuming your cops don't engage in police brutality or corruption. Probably in a low crime neighborhood, competing departments would focus on friendly interactions with the public and making really sure that none of their officers look bad in viral videos.

I know I mentioned randomization, but I don't think uneven distribution is necessarily a problem. Ultimately, a voter who looks at 3 different logos on the ballot is going to think back to interactions they had with the cops, and what their friends tell them about the cops, in order to figure out which logo to vote for. Different voters are going to see different distributions of police presence, but that's probably fine. In the same way people tend to vote for the incumbent candidate, I would guess that voters will tend to vote for the logo they see the most in their neighborhood, assuming that logo seems to be doing an OK job.

Another way to approach it is that each competing department could have a different service area, and the service areas grow or shrink every election based on election results. This could be done algorithmically by splitting the city in to precincts and finding an assignment of precincts to departments that approximately conforms to the election results, while also keeping service areas for any given logo contiguous through time and space as much as possible (minimize travel and switching costs).

All this stuff could work for schools too btw. It achieves the "skin in the game" aspect of charter schools while reducing the ability/incentive to shuttle problem students elsewhere in order to juice your school's numbers (potentially, depending on implementation).

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

#466

Post by dclowd9901 »

PumpkinSpice wrote: post #333
edrxty wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty eye opening to watch every bill pushed through in the name of firearm safety turning out to have massive exemptions for off duty and retired cops. They're such a powerful political force that it's outright expected they should have a disproportionate ability to deliver force even after they're retired .

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…

Must also be something there on propping up the select few for secondary sales.

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

#467

Post by dclowd9901 »

freen wrote: post #426
cvccvroomvroom wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason why I left California. You can't buy a Canik's as a non-LEO. Also, criminals get whatever guns they want and carry them while law-abiding citizens can't do anything except wish not to be mugged or murdered with strong objections. It's completely absurd given how violent America is.

They buy the guns from the cops.

At 4x retail. Don’t think that isn’t part of the reason it’s set up that way.

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

#468

Post by shiroiuma »

mcpackieh wrote: post #404
Aeolun wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a general tendency of all excessive violence always(ish, I can think of one exception) happening to be against colored people?

If you can only think of a single example of the police being excessively violent against a white person, then you are woefully under-informed. I'm not surprised though, I blame the media.

You can probably draw some broad, population-level conclusions from statistical data that shows more police violence against minorities, though some can be explained by other socioeconomic factors as well. In general, I'd say that American police are simply violent to everyone.

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

#469

Post by [deleted] »

b5n wrote: post #403
mcpackieh wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. “Acc…

It's worth considering that this is the same attorney general who recently doxed all law abiding concealed carry permit holders, applicants, and others (including but not limited to home address, phone, DL number, etc.) many of whom are victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault.

[deleted]

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

#470

Post by shiroiuma »

et-al wrote: post #323
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…

The SF Police Department bombed the mayor's house in 1975: "In early August 1975, the SFPD went on strike over a pay dispute, violating a California law prohibiting police from striking. The city quickly obtained a court order declaring the strike illegal and enjoining the SFPD back to work. The court messenger delivering the order was met with violence and the SFPD continued to strike... The ACLU obtained a court or…

They should have declared them terrorists, brought in the national guard, and shot them on sight if they didn't peacefully submit to arrest.
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