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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

#321

Post by s1artibartfast »

dontlaugh wrote: post #317
giraffe_lady wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Laborers need and want protection and laws too. The vast majority of what police actually do is serving labor.

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

#322

Post by edrxty »

NullInvictus wrote: post #310

You have to have been raised pretty sweetly to not have known this kind of racketeering was a 'thing' for a very long time. Pressure to hire cops is rampant. 'rent-a-cop' is not aimed at the fact that security companies apply aggressive mimicry to their people, but that these people are themselves often off-duty cops. Security companies are strongly "encouraged" to hire off-duty cops, and find themselves left out to…

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.

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

#323

Post by et-al »

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 order prohibiting strikers from carrying their service revolvers. Again, the SFPD ignored the court order. On August 20, a bomb detonated at the Mayor's home with a sign reading "Don't Threaten Us" left on his lawn. On August 21, Mayor Alioto advised the San Francisco Board of Supervisors that they should concede to the strikers' demands."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_San_Francisco_P...

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

#324

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

elcritch wrote: post #201
LiquidSky wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed pr…

One could say he was giving the owners a chance at recovering some value rather than nothing. Also, it’s probably a more apt analogy for modern US hospitals: when you’re having say a heart attack you can’t exactly “price shop”.

But the slanted history point of view is that he started fires, so he can buy the distressed property. hospitals don't have an incentive to give you a heart attack.

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

#325

Post by nradov »

NickC25 wrote: post #141
nradov wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a way. In most states the Attorney General can assign a prosecutor to pursue local corruption cases. The AG is an elected office accountable to voters.

However, the prosecutor often is beholden to local police departments to prosecute other unrelated crime. Most DAs don't have the ability to bite the hand that feeds them. If a DA comes out and says "hey, I'm investigating a racket that is put on by local cops" those local cops (and their union) will fight tooth and nail to remove that DA, no matter how effective their other investigations are. If that AG or DA is ou…

Local police departments seldom have any real influence over a state AG.

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

#326

Post by tomschlick »

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.

Those are likely reserve officers. Reserve officers are generally part time and are used for additional manpower for events or recurring security so that normal patrol officers aren't short staffed.

Generally the private entity pays the city, which then pays the cop. In many states private entities can't stop/redirect the flow of traffic legally so they hire off duty cops to do so.

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

#327

Post by diogenes4 »

stevenwoo wrote: post #309
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 Supreme Court is responsible for a lot of this, it has institutionalized immunity for law enforcement and prosecution and unlimited corporate money in politics so that it would require overriding that lever of power which doesn’t seem likely since democrats just rolled over when the gop wouldn’t allow Obama to appoint a Supreme Court justice.

I'm not one to ever defend the institution of policing or the court system that feeds and protects it, but cops do not have general immunity. They have qualified immunity from civil cases in some places. The primary friction from prosecuting police for criminal behavior has been and will continue to be DAs unwilling to prosecute (for various reasons, some reasonable, and some nefarious).

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

#328

Post by Karrot_Kream »

BWStearns wrote: post #193
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.

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…

Thanks for surfacing this. While your friend has better things to do with their time, I hope someone with the time and money to challenge this will try to run a drone photography business just to levy this lawsuit in Florida. If I lived in Florida I might be intrigued.

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

#329

Post by BLanen »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #75
_moof wrote: post #18

Already we've got two top-level comments who think this article is about crime. It isn't. It's about corrupt police shaking down small business owners under threat of losing their business license. ETA: Please give the pedantry a rest. Of course I know police corruption is criminal. That's not what the people talking about "crime" are talking about.

Are you kidding? The first sentences of this article sound like a textbook protection racket, which is one of the most seriously handled federal crimes in the US. Then it turns out this is city mandated, and of course since they're cops they operate outside of the law.

The "you're going to work with this guy" is obviously illegal, and part of the racket. I wouldn't be surprised if there was value exchanged there along with it.

You understand that protection rackets will 'work' with government officials, right? That this is part of it? And they'll try to codify their existence as much as possible.

And even if it was completely legal, its very obviously bad, and that's why its illegal in the first place and we try to combat such outcomes, which is part of the point of the article.

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

#330

Post by tomschlick »

the_why_of_y wrote: post #277
tomcam wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many of the places Wal-Mart has the most problems, both police and private security are sharply limited in what actions they can take against shoplifters. And places like California, Oregon, and Washington won’t prosecute for crimes under about $950. What do you propose Wal-Mart do in these localities?

> 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 they did, the prosecutors will dismiss the charges or give them a slap on the wrist (which is why the cops don't bother anymore).

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