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Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

seattletimes.com

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Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#91

Post by freditup »

teddyh wrote: post #17
freditup wrote: post #4

I don't understand this story. Why wouldn't the police do anything? If I'm an officer who's motivated by helping others, it's a clear way to do that. If I'm motivated by a desire for justice, easy way to promote that. If I'm motivated by power, I can go take down the thieves and bring them down a notch. Perhaps one explanation is that the police get enough zany people calling in about enough zany things that they don…

The police are motivated by being safe – actually dealing with criminals is dangerous, so the police are motivated to avoid them. http://www.cracked.com/article_21830_cops-wont-help-you-7-th...

That's a great Cracked article, one of my favorites. But one guy's perspective on a couple of cops in one specific incident is hardly conclusive. If being safety is what motivates you, there are more sensible career paths than policing.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#92

Post by a3n »

tatterdemalion wrote: post #6
freditup wrote: post #4

I don't understand this story. Why wouldn't the police do anything? If I'm an officer who's motivated by helping others, it's a clear way to do that. If I'm motivated by a desire for justice, easy way to promote that. If I'm motivated by power, I can go take down the thieves and bring them down a notch. Perhaps one explanation is that the police get enough zany people calling in about enough zany things that they don…

Most police are motivated by none of these things. Policing is a job. Depending on how career-oriented they are, they want to be promoted or they want not to be fired. And chasing down petty criminals that they probably don't have enough evidence to charge is not helping their stats, which is all that matters in either case.

Although individual discretion probably has some influence, this seems more like a policy issue.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#93

Post by richard_cubano »

raldi wrote: post #56
x0x0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sf is the same -- the city is a dump, and people there tolerate a level of misbehavior from the street trash that is stunning. One of them attempted to kill my so by chasing her around a parked car with a screwdriver trying to stab her while a bunch of sf asshole pedestrians crossed the street to avoid getting involved. In the middle of the afternoon. We came from nyc and stuff like this -- and it's far from the only…

New York can also manage to win a World Series without allowing the city to be taken over for the night by violent, destructive mobs. That's because they have a much better funded, and well-run, police force.

It's not funding. It's the relative power of unions. In California, a cop costs $200k a year, when pensions and health care are factored in.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#94

Post by WildUtah »

x0x0 wrote: post #30
panarky wrote: post #24

Take care of the small stuff and the big stuff will take care of itself. The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime[1]. From the…

sf is the same -- the city is a dump, and people there tolerate a level of misbehavior from the street trash that is stunning. One of them attempted to kill my so by chasing her around a parked car with a screwdriver trying to stab her while a bunch of sf asshole pedestrians crossed the street to avoid getting involved. In the middle of the afternoon. We came from nyc and stuff like this -- and it's far from the only…

"attempted to kill my so by chasing her around a parked car with a screwdriver trying to stab her while a bunch of sf asshole pedestrians crossed the street to avoid"

If any of them had tried to help, the police that didn't care about your so would have been plenty eager to destroy the life of a middle class citizen for so much as jostling the attacker. There's no point in blaming them when they're terrified of what the authorities will do to a do-gooder.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#95

Post by ketralnis »

DanBC wrote: post #60
BadassFractal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unnecessary staw man, you're putting words in my mouth, I did not ask for a police intervention or criminalization. I'm happy for this situation to be resolved in whatever most humane and compassionate way possible. I'm in no position to propose solutions, as I don't have any expertise in this field. I would however love to feel safe when being outside of my apartment, instead of wondering if one of these dozens of v…

People with a mental health problem are far more likely to be the victims, not perpetrators, of violence. Most violent crime is not committed by people with a mental illness. While I appreciate the concern you show for the piss-poor inhumane brutal lack of treatment your country provides to those with a mental illness (despite spending more per capita on health) it'd be nice if you could do it without stigmatising me…

I appreciate what you're trying to say, but he's not talking about a random sampling of mentally ill people. He's talking about a person that's kicking a bunch of seats around and generally indicating a potential for violence. Whether or not we're talking about mental illness, we're talking about someone that's current being violent.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#96

Post by raldi »

richard_cubano wrote: post #93
raldi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York can also manage to win a World Series without allowing the city to be taken over for the night by violent, destructive mobs. That's because they have a much better funded, and well-run, police force.

It's not funding. It's the relative power of unions. In California, a cop costs $200k a year, when pensions and health care are factored in.

How much does one cost in NYC?

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#97

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #85
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79

I used to commute between Manhattan to Stamford. A 5AM train would take me up and an 8, 9 or 10PM would haul me back. Staying awake for the duration of the return journey was rare. This led to curiosities: going to sleep in Stamford and waking up, four hours later, in Stamford again (Sartre had nothing on this fate) because you slept through arriving and then re-departing from Grand Central. Or waking up phoneless. I…

I used to take Metro-North from New Rochelle down to Grand Central, and I miss it so much. Four trains an hour during the rush, always arriving within a minute or two of schedule. The 8:03 Amtrak between Baltimore and DC hasn't been on time in two weeks. As for the wide socieconomic spectrum--the only thing that ever bothered me about the crowd on MNR was the drunk suburban kids that'd take the 1am with me Saturday m…

[deleted]

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#98

Post by WildUtah »

richard_cubano wrote: post #93
raldi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New York can also manage to win a World Series without allowing the city to be taken over for the night by violent, destructive mobs. That's because they have a much better funded, and well-run, police force.

It's not funding. It's the relative power of unions. In California, a cop costs $200k a year, when pensions and health care are factored in.

That's not true at all. California cops can make $200k a year cash just with overtime and incentives. Including pension schemes and other benefits, it's common for mid-career CA cops to make upwards of $500k.

Consider that 25 year CHP officers can collect lifetime pensions at the highest pay, including overtime accumulated from previous years and cashed out. At a US inflation adjusted bond discount rate of 0-1% typical over the past decade and usual life expectancy tables, that adds up to 1.5-3 extra years of pay in pension benefits for each year of service. That's computed according to what you'd have to put into a 401(k) to pay for the pension; the state of California is putting somewhat less into CalPERS and hoping to get bailed out by private sector taxpayers or the Federal Government someday. (CA isn't doing as badly as MA or IL or some others on pension funding, though)

NYC is paying much more rationally and budgeting better than other big city and coastal governments which is one reason there are enough cops there to keep order.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#99

Post by bruceb »

bkeroack wrote: post #66
Chevalier wrote: post #15

I really hate to see blind hatred for the police on HN. It's a tough goddamn job, people, made all the more so by political pressure to improve statistics. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, police are forced to focus on serious crimes and solvable crimes and avoid minor and unsolvable crimes. Nobody wants it to work that way, but departments are hammered when they bring down crime stats. This story is pretty o…

Sad that you're being down voted. Apparently The majority of HNers only care about drug legalization and stories demonizing underpaid civil servants doing a thankless and dangerous job.

Where are people demonizing the police here?

Starting salary for Seattle Police Officer is $65K with full benefits and many earn over $100k with overtime. Unless you really mess up you will not be fired.

Criticizing the services you pay for doesn't mean you are saying all the people who do it are bad.

Re: Police allow car break-ins to become a Seattle growth industry

#100

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

adekok wrote: post #43

The Seattle police lost a lawsuit about the ability to use overwhelming force: http://crosscut.com/2014/10/20/law-justice/122409/judge-toss... But they won't use any force against known criminals who are right in front of them. Could the two be related? Especially because the "non-arrest" policy for break-ins appears to be recent.

Telling cops not to use overwhelming force is like telling white people not to use racial slurs, the good ones are 'oh ok' and the others, hoo boy.
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