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Who is the American customer for a service like this? I knew someone who did VIP protection (standard former military, protecting bank execs and families during

Who is the American customer for a service like this? I knew someone who did VIP protection (standard former military, protecting bank execs and families during travel), but the work was mainly international travel. The threat model appears basically to be urban street crime and maybe targeted harassment and political pressure. Unsure what else. If I could get this for airstrikes, I would totally buy it though.

avs733 5y ago
I'll likely get flack for this but it's white people. Out of touch white people specifically.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
throwaway15579 5y ago
In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. I called the police and they told me all officers were busy on more urgent/violent calls and wouldn't be able to respond. This was before COVID and the department is even more short-staffed now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- vkou 5y ago
  Short-staffed? SPD has one of the largest police presences, per-capita, of any American metro area, (while Seattle has middling crime statistics). They aren't short-staffed, as much as they are deliberately avoiding doing any work. They were also engaged in a lot of overtime grift over the past decade, which the city started to crack down on in 2019.
  - qvrjuec 5y ago
    I don't think your understanding is correct, see this article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattle-police-department-understaffed-heres-what-the-data-shows/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattl... This was also written in late 2020. There are now 1,080 deployable officers, down from 1,325 as seen here: https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department/department-fact-sheet https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department...
  - xeromal 5y ago
    And that's what this "security" force would solve.
    - vkou 5y ago
      The problem with police today is that there is no single problem with them. They are near-useless for solving crime. They are useless for preventing it. They are bad at dealing with situations that don't require a thug with a gun. Sometimes, they can't follow the law, while trying to enforce it. Other times, they enforce something that is not the law. Sometimes, they ignore dangerous, illegal behaviour. Sometimes, they employ incredibly excessive force to deal with not-dangerous, maybe-illegal behaviour. When they screw up, regardless of how badly they screwed up, it's nearly impossible to hold them accountable for it. Yes, you can cherry-pick one of those problems, and claim that uber-for-mob-justice will solve it. Will it make any of these other problems worse? Better? Worse for people who can't pay, better for people who can? I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but I am not particularly impressed by this.
      - xeromal 5y ago
        > Oh? They are going to figure out who stole my catalytic converter, and arrest the fence who bought it? I think the idea is to try to catch it in the act. The LAPD is notorious for being slow. I was in a hit and run accident where my car was completely totaled and I was in a daze and it took them an hour to come and I'm pretty sure the only reason they actually came was because a bystander was mad and claimed there was injuries after waiting with me for a while. If they wont' come to an accident in a good time, I doubt they come to a break in. lol
- crimandnakatoya 5y ago
  Ha, that's nothing. Two years ago, I walked up to a police officer in Seattle and pointed out an individual who was splayed face-first on the sidewalk a half-block away, in front of a food truck where a line of customers was patiently stepping over them. The officer shrugged and walked off in the opposite direction. I think that was the moment that I decided it was time for a change of scenery.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. Which is one of the big problems we have with current policing models. We throw folks trained to use deadly force at issues that are better suited to mental health professionals trained in de-escalation. I get it that many folks don't really care about their fellow humans except as threats/enemies/potential rivals for mates and resources. And I also get that, as in your example, many folks don't care about the well-being of other people (as in your example, a 'tweaker'. How do you know that? Were they shooting meth as they spray-painted the cars?), especially if they engage in anti-social behaviors. In fact, many folks would support it if we just killed/imprisoned anyone who makes them uncomfortable or unhappy. The issues that we lump into a black box called "mental illness" are poorly understood and even more poorly addressed in our society. Even worse, more often than not we dump the "mental illness" black box into a larger black box called "criminals". As Hubert Humphrey put it[0]: The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. I posit that our current policies and practices fail that moral test. Those who are most distressed/needy/lost are usually abused, shunned and thrown away by our society, rather than nurtured, helped and hopefully brought into society as productive members. Why is it generally the former rather than the latter? I'd say that it was a culture of selfishness, greed and a lack of empathy buried under several layers of soft-soaping like "personal responsibility", "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps", "poverty is a moral failing" and a bunch of other tropes. Sentient life is precious. We should treat it that way, IMNSHO. But we don't. And more's the pity. [0] https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from-humphrey-not-gandhi/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from...
  - Cyberdog 5y ago
    > Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. In the long term, I agree with you. In the short term, it would be nice if the people who we are forced to pay for the task of preventing antisocial behavior would stop the person who is causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, since broadly speaking nobody else has the right to do so. To put it another way, how much more damage does this person need to do before you consider it a crime problem?
podric 5y ago
I can see many use cases: - A woman going home late after a night out needing to walk thru a dangerous neighborhood - Elderly Asian person who needs to withdraw money from a bank - Urban photographer who wants to photograph abandoned buildings but is afraid of squatters/gangs - Woman who needs to go to a heavily-protested abortion clinic - Owner of a store that is about to get looted in a riot - Owner of a store who needs security personnel at peak shoplifting hours - Owner of a late night restaurant who needs security personnel at peak violent drunk people hours
- asdff 5y ago
  These aren't practical or realistic use cases, though, and many are already covered by the existing private security industry. An uber ride is cheaper than hiring private security to walk you through the hood. An elderly asian person is more likely to die crossing the road to a bank than be robbed at a bank. Urban photographers who wouldn't already be operating with a small crew are probably too broke to hire a bodyguard, nor is there some big wave or urban photographers being targeted currently. Chances are if that gear is your work its also already insured. The store owner probably already hires private security for not much more than minimum wage, and in the case of a looting, chances are the store owner would rather you go home and have insurance pay for the damages, than deal with the legal headache of their hired gun potentially killing someone in their store. Keep in mind when D.C. police who were defending the capitol building faced a mob, they allowed them to breach the building. I doubt private security is going to stick out their neck for your little shop more than D.C. police did for the U.S. capitol. You probably aren't hiring Blackwater mercenaries. The owner of the bar is paying their bouncers under the table already, the last thing they want is some pricey contract for a job they are already getting done just fine.
  - podric 5y ago
    An elderly asian person is more likely to die crossing the road to a bank than be robbed at a bank. I don't think you've been keeping up with the news of the wave of attacks targeting Asian elders. Many of them have been beaten and robbed on the way to run errands. in the case of a looting, chances are the store owner would rather you go home and have insurance pay for the damages, than deal with the legal headache of their hired gun potentially killing someone in their store. You're way overestimating the number of small business owners who have sufficient insurance to cover a looting event, and way underestimating the extent to which small business owners are willing to protect their store (e.g. Roof Koreans) Keep in mind when D.C. police who were defending the capitol building faced a mob, they allowed them to breach the building That actually demonstrates the value provided by an app offering on-demand private security. When cops failed to stop the insurrectionists, they faced minimal negative consequences. On the other hand, if your hired private security fails to stop looters, they can expect a negative review from you on the app which in turn threatens their career on the app. The owner of the bar is paying their bouncers under the table already I said late night restaurants, not bars. When was the last time you've seen a bouncer at a late night restaurant? I agree that some of the cases I brought up are a bit far fetched. That being said, here's a great use case that I'm sure we can both agree on for on-demand security: - Domestic violence prevention. In cases where a spouse feels threatened but does not have enough evidence for the cops to get involved, on-demand private security is the best option. A tragedy like the Adam Matos case would have been prevented had the victim used on-demand private security. The victim was threatened by Matos, her ex, and she called the cops, who didn't/couldn't do anything, which resulted in her and her family being killed by said ex within 24 hours.
xsmasher 5y ago
I live in an area where people dump debris (furniture, construction debris, yard waste) in the public park and on sidewalks every day. I would love to hire security to watch for dumpers and report them to the city's dumping hotline, along with descriptions and plate numbers. This would be peak gentrifier behavior, but a (hopefully) handful of bad actors are trashing an otherwise nice neighborhood and I'm at the end of my rope.
- asdff 5y ago
  you can probably do that right now with someone from fiverr
  - motohagiography 5y ago
    Just clicked for me that someone on Fiverr living somewhere very cheap could pilot an internet connected drone that can return to a charging pad and it would replace a lot of these use cases.
- chasd00 5y ago
  This is one of the things neighborhood watch programs are aimed to do.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  > I live in an area where people dump debris (furniture, construction debris, yard waste) in the public park and on sidewalks every day. >I would love to hire security to watch for dumpers and report them to the city's dumping hotline, along with descriptions and plate numbers. If that's really a serious problem in your area, you and your neighbors can set up a neighborhood watch/surveillance cameras/etc. to address that without hiring private security to do it for you. Or are you too good to support your neighbors and neighborhood with your time and effort? Want to have a good neighborhood? Be a good neighbor.
  - xsmasher 5y ago
    I spend seven hours a week cleaning up litter, watching for dumpers, and reporting garbage; that is the limit of the time and effort I can give. I have no more time but I do have money. Supporting my neighbors and neighborhood is exactly what I want to do - assuming they also want clean streets - so your criticism is really a stretch.

avs733 5y ago

I'll likely get flack for this but it's white people. Out of touch white people specifically.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

throwaway15579 5y ago

In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. I called the police and they told me all officers were busy on more urgent/violent calls and wouldn't be able to respond. This was before COVID and the department is even more short-staffed now.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vkou 5y ago
Short-staffed? SPD has one of the largest police presences, per-capita, of any American metro area, (while Seattle has middling crime statistics). They aren't short-staffed, as much as they are deliberately avoiding doing any work. They were also engaged in a lot of overtime grift over the past decade, which the city started to crack down on in 2019.
- qvrjuec 5y ago
  I don't think your understanding is correct, see this article: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattle-police-department-understaffed-heres-what-the-data-shows/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/is-the-seattl... This was also written in late 2020. There are now 1,080 deployable officers, down from 1,325 as seen here: https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department/department-fact-sheet https://www.seattle.gov/police/about-us/about-the-department...
- xeromal 5y ago
  And that's what this "security" force would solve.
  - vkou 5y ago
    The problem with police today is that there is no single problem with them. They are near-useless for solving crime. They are useless for preventing it. They are bad at dealing with situations that don't require a thug with a gun. Sometimes, they can't follow the law, while trying to enforce it. Other times, they enforce something that is not the law. Sometimes, they ignore dangerous, illegal behaviour. Sometimes, they employ incredibly excessive force to deal with not-dangerous, maybe-illegal behaviour. When they screw up, regardless of how badly they screwed up, it's nearly impossible to hold them accountable for it. Yes, you can cherry-pick one of those problems, and claim that uber-for-mob-justice will solve it. Will it make any of these other problems worse? Better? Worse for people who can't pay, better for people who can? I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, but I am not particularly impressed by this.
    - xeromal 5y ago
      > Oh? They are going to figure out who stole my catalytic converter, and arrest the fence who bought it? I think the idea is to try to catch it in the act. The LAPD is notorious for being slow. I was in a hit and run accident where my car was completely totaled and I was in a daze and it took them an hour to come and I'm pretty sure the only reason they actually came was because a bystander was mad and claimed there was injuries after waiting with me for a while. If they wont' come to an accident in a good time, I doubt they come to a break in. lol
crimandnakatoya 5y ago
Ha, that's nothing. Two years ago, I walked up to a police officer in Seattle and pointed out an individual who was splayed face-first on the sidewalk a half-block away, in front of a food truck where a line of customers was patiently stepping over them. The officer shrugged and walked off in the opposite direction. I think that was the moment that I decided it was time for a change of scenery.
nobody9999 5y ago
>In my neighborhood in Seattle I've seen a tweaked-out individual literally just walking down the street spray-painting cars at around 6pm on a weekday. Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. Which is one of the big problems we have with current policing models. We throw folks trained to use deadly force at issues that are better suited to mental health professionals trained in de-escalation. I get it that many folks don't really care about their fellow humans except as threats/enemies/potential rivals for mates and resources. And I also get that, as in your example, many folks don't care about the well-being of other people (as in your example, a 'tweaker'. How do you know that? Were they shooting meth as they spray-painted the cars?), especially if they engage in anti-social behaviors. In fact, many folks would support it if we just killed/imprisoned anyone who makes them uncomfortable or unhappy. The issues that we lump into a black box called "mental illness" are poorly understood and even more poorly addressed in our society. Even worse, more often than not we dump the "mental illness" black box into a larger black box called "criminals". As Hubert Humphrey put it[0]: The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped. I posit that our current policies and practices fail that moral test. Those who are most distressed/needy/lost are usually abused, shunned and thrown away by our society, rather than nurtured, helped and hopefully brought into society as productive members. Why is it generally the former rather than the latter? I'd say that it was a culture of selfishness, greed and a lack of empathy buried under several layers of soft-soaping like "personal responsibility", "pulling oneself up by the bootstraps", "poverty is a moral failing" and a bunch of other tropes. Sentient life is precious. We should treat it that way, IMNSHO. But we don't. And more's the pity. [0] https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from-humphrey-not-gandhi/ https://www.columbian.com/news/2016/nov/11/letter-quote-from...
- Cyberdog 5y ago
  > Despite the damage to the cars, that sounds more like a mental health problem than a crime problem. In the long term, I agree with you. In the short term, it would be nice if the people who we are forced to pay for the task of preventing antisocial behavior would stop the person who is causing tens of thousands of dollars in property damage, since broadly speaking nobody else has the right to do so. To put it another way, how much more damage does this person need to do before you consider it a crime problem?

podric 5y ago

I can see many use cases: - A woman going home late after a night out needing to walk thru a dangerous neighborhood - Elderly Asian person who needs to withdraw money from a bank - Urban photographer who wants to photograph abandoned buildings but is afraid of squatters/gangs - Woman who needs to go to a heavily-protested abortion clinic - Owner of a store that is about to get looted in a riot - Owner of a store who needs security personnel at peak shoplifting hours - Owner of a late night restaurant who needs security personnel at peak violent drunk people hours

asdff 5y ago
These aren't practical or realistic use cases, though, and many are already covered by the existing private security industry. An uber ride is cheaper than hiring private security to walk you through the hood. An elderly asian person is more likely to die crossing the road to a bank than be robbed at a bank. Urban photographers who wouldn't already be operating with a small crew are probably too broke to hire a bodyguard, nor is there some big wave or urban photographers being targeted currently. Chances are if that gear is your work its also already insured. The store owner probably already hires private security for not much more than minimum wage, and in the case of a looting, chances are the store owner would rather you go home and have insurance pay for the damages, than deal with the legal headache of their hired gun potentially killing someone in their store. Keep in mind when D.C. police who were defending the capitol building faced a mob, they allowed them to breach the building. I doubt private security is going to stick out their neck for your little shop more than D.C. police did for the U.S. capitol. You probably aren't hiring Blackwater mercenaries. The owner of the bar is paying their bouncers under the table already, the last thing they want is some pricey contract for a job they are already getting done just fine.
- podric 5y ago
  An elderly asian person is more likely to die crossing the road to a bank than be robbed at a bank. I don't think you've been keeping up with the news of the wave of attacks targeting Asian elders. Many of them have been beaten and robbed on the way to run errands. in the case of a looting, chances are the store owner would rather you go home and have insurance pay for the damages, than deal with the legal headache of their hired gun potentially killing someone in their store. You're way overestimating the number of small business owners who have sufficient insurance to cover a looting event, and way underestimating the extent to which small business owners are willing to protect their store (e.g. Roof Koreans) Keep in mind when D.C. police who were defending the capitol building faced a mob, they allowed them to breach the building That actually demonstrates the value provided by an app offering on-demand private security. When cops failed to stop the insurrectionists, they faced minimal negative consequences. On the other hand, if your hired private security fails to stop looters, they can expect a negative review from you on the app which in turn threatens their career on the app. The owner of the bar is paying their bouncers under the table already I said late night restaurants, not bars. When was the last time you've seen a bouncer at a late night restaurant? I agree that some of the cases I brought up are a bit far fetched. That being said, here's a great use case that I'm sure we can both agree on for on-demand security: - Domestic violence prevention. In cases where a spouse feels threatened but does not have enough evidence for the cops to get involved, on-demand private security is the best option. A tragedy like the Adam Matos case would have been prevented had the victim used on-demand private security. The victim was threatened by Matos, her ex, and she called the cops, who didn't/couldn't do anything, which resulted in her and her family being killed by said ex within 24 hours.

xsmasher 5y ago

I live in an area where people dump debris (furniture, construction debris, yard waste) in the public park and on sidewalks every day. I would love to hire security to watch for dumpers and report them to the city's dumping hotline, along with descriptions and plate numbers. This would be peak gentrifier behavior, but a (hopefully) handful of bad actors are trashing an otherwise nice neighborhood and I'm at the end of my rope.

asdff 5y ago
you can probably do that right now with someone from fiverr
- motohagiography 5y ago
  Just clicked for me that someone on Fiverr living somewhere very cheap could pilot an internet connected drone that can return to a charging pad and it would replace a lot of these use cases.
chasd00 5y ago
This is one of the things neighborhood watch programs are aimed to do.
nobody9999 5y ago
> I live in an area where people dump debris (furniture, construction debris, yard waste) in the public park and on sidewalks every day. >I would love to hire security to watch for dumpers and report them to the city's dumping hotline, along with descriptions and plate numbers. If that's really a serious problem in your area, you and your neighbors can set up a neighborhood watch/surveillance cameras/etc. to address that without hiring private security to do it for you. Or are you too good to support your neighbors and neighborhood with your time and effort? Want to have a good neighborhood? Be a good neighbor.
- xsmasher 5y ago
  I spend seven hours a week cleaning up litter, watching for dumpers, and reporting garbage; that is the limit of the time and effort I can give. I have no more time but I do have money. Supporting my neighbors and neighborhood is exactly what I want to do - assuming they also want clean streets - so your criticism is really a stretch.