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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

#551

Post by exclusiv »

School-Cotton wrote: post #483
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 widely believed in New York (I’m not knowledgeable enough to know whether it’s true, but it’s at least widely believed) that the police have been on a “soft strike” since 2020 and have been refusing to deal with anything but the most egregious situations, for political reasons.

Anecdotally, my camera system alerted me and I witnessed someone enter my neighbors vehicle. I got my neighbor and we got the dude out of the car and I asked him unkindly what the hell he was doing and if he had stolen anything.

When police arrived much later the perp actually showed back up down the street and I pointed him out. It was a struggle to get them to go see who he was and investigate, even though I had photo and video evidence of the crime.

Later that night, that same guy broke into another neighbor's house and they came in much hotter, with shotguns to clear the house and they were able to arrest him not far down the street.

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

#552

Post by datavirtue »

a-french-anon wrote: post #499
pkulak wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, just so I understand, bad guys all have guns. And you wish you could have one too, for protection against said bad guys. But why is a firefight preferable to a mugging?

There's that little something called "dignity". You know, trying to do something about your situation instead of rolling over and praying for the meanies to be lenient with you.

This. I used to live in an area that was overrun with a biker gang and had friends who had slight involvement with them and ended up getting intimidated into giving them their nicer positions like furniture and TVs. Classic bully shit but a grown adult coming into your house and taking your shit.

I had a retail shop in the community and also lived next to a bar and a property where they would congregate and some would roll into town and stay there. Very tense environment. When I first moved there I had no idea that it was like this.

At that point I armed myself and made the decision I was not going to take any crap off anyone.

Thankfully, no one gave me any shit but I have plenty of more stories from my time there.

The only choice for me was to arm myself. The cops were scared shitless and were unreliable for other reasons. One of the gang members had already opened up on one of the cops with an AK-47 in front of my store. He lived because it jammed.

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

#553

Post by s1artibartfast »

greyface- wrote: post #448
SoftTalker wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops are different in that they are always on the job. If they see a crime happening, they are obligated to intervene even if they are off duty (probably with some reasonable exceptions, e.g. they aren't going to be writing parking tickets). The moonlighting cop is still a cop even if off-duty, still has arrest powers and is authorized to use deadly force even while working the second "security" job.

Police in the United States have no legal obligation to intervene in crime, on duty or off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County

Yep, people are always surprised to learn this in my experience.

The government doesn't offer a guarantee of safety, or even a guarantee to try its best. Responsibility ultimately lies with the individual to protect themselves.

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

#554

Post by SoftTalker »

greyface- wrote: post #448
SoftTalker wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops are different in that they are always on the job. If they see a crime happening, they are obligated to intervene even if they are off duty (probably with some reasonable exceptions, e.g. they aren't going to be writing parking tickets). The moonlighting cop is still a cop even if off-duty, still has arrest powers and is authorized to use deadly force even while working the second "security" job.

Police in the United States have no legal obligation to intervene in crime, on duty or off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeShaney_v._Winnebago_County

You're correct, I should have said "they can" not "are obligated to." They don't lose their police powers just because they are off-duty.

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

#555

Post by School-Cotton »

lacoolj wrote: post #546
School-Cotton wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal law enforcement (FBI etc) has a tiny amount of manpower compared to local police. In theory the national guard could have been called in but that would be a huge escalation and I doubt the elected officials wanted to go there.

I feel like blowing up the mayor's house is a pretty big escalation

Yep, not trying to say they made the right decision, just trying to understand the reasoning.

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

#556

Post by arp242 »

diogenes4 wrote: post #451
nilespotter wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking me to believe that this man feels a certain way and committed a racist murder based on a general tendency? Even if I grant you the ridiculous premise that this tendency is real, that line of thinking isn't close to sound. I see I'm getting downvoted here by the typical good dogs, but this has always bothered me about the incident. The racism was presented to us by the media with no explanation, and most…

You don't have to believe anything, but if you don't see the racism that pervades our society you're utterly blind.

There is a difference between recognizing that racism exists, and saying that racism is at the root of a particular problem (rather than "merely" something that also exists).

This is one of the big problems with this kind of stuff, because as soon as racism merely exists it becomes completely taboo to offer any other sort of explanation as the root cause.

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

#557

Post by arp242 »

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #348
thedaly wrote: post #49

> Santamaria was later required to come up with security plans outlining the number of officers needed per night. The officers insisted on getting paid cash, she said. She feared if she didn’t oblige, she’d lose her license. > Eventually, another officer helped schedule off-duty work: Derek Chauvin. He worked security at her club for 17 years. > ... > She sold the club in 2019. When Santamaria saw Chauvin pinning Geo…

One theory I read is that Floyd and Chauvin were part of the same counterfeiting ring operating out of that club, and Chauvin murdered Floyd in order to keep him quiet. (Recall that Floyd was originally arrested for suspected use of a counterfeit $20 bill.) I think maybe part of the idea was that nightclubs are interesting to counterfeiters because they deal with so much cash. (Racism still plays a big part in the Fl…

Chauvin was obviously in the wrong from pretty much every angle, but the chances of the a person actually dying under those circumstances are actually fairly small. If it was an intentional pre-meditated murder then it was either an incredibly piss-poor plan or some 4D chess master move.

That said, it's certainly possible he simply wanted to be a dick to Floyd, possibly just for incredibly petty personal reasons, or something like that.

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

#558

Post by kwere »

rovolo wrote: post #261
lelanthran wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh my goodness, that FBI behavioural profile on the second link. "We're looking for a suspect who's depressed... alcoholic... and HOMOSEXUAL" I count a total of 14 traits that they looked at[1]. Why is that one, and only that one, significant in your opinion? [1] Including the trait of being white. And male.

"White male, age 17–25" is an entire trait. "Homosexual" is a *part* of a trait: "Alcoholism, childhood hyperactivity, homosexuality, depression, borderline personality disorder, and suicidal tendencies". It's significant because of the other descriptors it's grouped with in that trait. It would be weird to have "homosexual" as a trait on its own, but it's obviously weird to group it with these other descriptors in a…

doesnt that sound like looking for [generic loser] to pin down and move onto other cases?

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

#559

Post by kwere »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #505
mardifoufs wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, how do they actually figure out who is behind a forest fire? Or even suspect that it was a criminal act in the first place. Finding who is behind a burnt house is one thing, but a whole forest is a lot of terrain to cover for proof!

You don't. Just grab some shlub and do some whitch doctor bullshit to convict them.

just play nice cop for an hour and people with that profile will confess JFK killing

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

#560

Post by boppo1 »

datavirtue wrote: post #552
a-french-anon wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's that little something called "dignity". You know, trying to do something about your situation instead of rolling over and praying for the meanies to be lenient with you.

This. I used to live in an area that was overrun with a biker gang and had friends who had slight involvement with them and ended up getting intimidated into giving them their nicer positions like furniture and TVs. Classic bully shit but a grown adult coming into your house and taking your shit. I had a retail shop in the community and also lived next to a bar and a property where they would congregate and some woul…

>When I first moved there I had no idea that it was like this.

What advice would you give someone moving to an unfamiliar area to avoid this?

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