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Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society, I honestly couldn't event imagine the stress. Imagine picking up a JIRA ticket at work and no

• slavboj 5y ago
  You're also describing pizza delivery and convenience store cashier, but they don't have the legal ability to beat the shit out of their customers because someone wasn't fast enough / was too fast getting their wallets out.
• smileysteve 5y ago
  And if you make the incorrect commit in the moment -- or don't check with compliance, then a person is dead, you're on trial by the public; and possibly at risk for jail time. [Addendum: And you're being promoted based on arrests, while sharing frustration with management about compliance, and likely seeing other cowboy coder style actions]
  • ssully 5y ago
    You might be surprised to see the rate at which police are charged and convicted of a crime while on the job. Hint: The number is incredibly low.
    • RankingMember 5y ago
      Yep, most around here just get put on "desk duty", essentially a "hey let's wait for this to all blow over then we'll get you back out there" play.
  • jellicle 5y ago
    You're probably 1000x as likely to be fired for a bad commit than you are to be fired as a cop that has made a poor policing decision. After all, you don't have a union.
  • revscat 5y ago
    However, qualified immunity would protect me from being held responsible.
• deleted 5y ago
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• ct0 5y ago
  My opinion of cops has changed as i've gotten older. I used to think they had nothing better to do but bother me, the youth, but in hindsight they have too much to do and are expected to always be on, alert, and accountable. Something that takes a lot of courage. I respect them more, especially after the extremely divisive events of the past 2-3 years, riots, attacks, etc.
  • hanselot 5y ago
    What riots? I thought they were peaceful protests? The TV man said so.
  • YinglingLight 5y ago
    The force that wishes to sow division within the US is also the force that wishes to create a Federalized 'Police' Force. "These cities whose mayors have coincidentally punished and gutted it's own police force need help, let's create Gestapo v2.0!"
  • sneak 5y ago
    If they were always accountable, this story wouldn’t have run.
  • sidlls 5y ago
    I have a different view. I saw a lot of friends lose their fathers and mothers to the system thanks to dirty cops. Being white in a poor (understatement) neighborhood was an enlightening experience. The police are very powerful voices in local governments. They have too much power. I consider the number of police officers to be inversely proportional to how civilized a place is.
    • caeril 5y ago
      > the number of police officers to be inversely proportional to how civilized a place is. On a police-per-capita basis, that would make US East Coast urban areas substantially less civilized than either Middle America or the West Coast. https://www.governing.com/archive/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html https://www.governing.com/archive/police-officers-per-capita...
• nradov 5y ago
  Law enforcement can be dangerous but it's only #22 in occupational death rates. Lumberjacks and roofers are far more likely to get killed. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...
  • Disruptive_Dave 5y ago
    Potential for death is a very limited way to measure dangerous occupations/activities.
    • 9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
      This comment is supported by data. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5516a4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5516a4.htm > Floodwater contact with the nose, mouth, or eye was reported by 51% of firefighters (254 of 500) and 30% of police officers (258 of 864); 52% of police officers (473 of 910) and 63% of firefighters (330 of 524) reported rescuing citizens from flooded areas.
    • fighterpilot 5y ago
      Not sure why you're downvoted. Chronic stress should be considered. Police have a much lower life expectancy than regular people. This could be either selection bias or the impact of chronic stress, and it has little to do with dying as an immediate proximate consequence of the occupation.
      • Disruptive_Dave 5y ago
        It's also just a very un-nuanced way to think about anything. It reminds me of a scene in the show Scrubs where one friend is discussing the difficulties of being a child of divorce. The other comments how he always found it interesting how children with divorced parents think they have the market cornered on issues/problems (paraphrasing here, obviously). Think about all the children who grew up with parents who should have divorced but didn't, thus extending the misery of living in that environment. Living every single moment with PTSD, physical pain, anxiety, and so on shouldn't be diminished because it isn't as romantic and easily captured as death is.
• yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
  Imagine just doing your best to help your local community by building some online community notice board, only for a rabid horde to start picketing your house, shouting ALL PROGRAMMERS ARE BASTARDS!!!
  • throwaway2048 5y ago
    The problem is lots of police members don't do their best to help their local communities, and the ones that do stand behind that ones that definitely don't.
    • vinnymac 5y ago
      Most people I know can't distinguish the difference between an anonymous hacker and their IT department. Many roles are vilified by society due to ignorance, not just the police. I hear about the good software developers are doing in the world, much more often than I do the police. That certainly has an effect on everyone's perceptions of these roles in society.
    • thera2 5y ago
      I'm glad to hear you conducted a thorough survey with the millions of good police officers out there and found out they support the bad apples. If only everyone had access to this unprecedented data you have collected, we could finally put this matter to rest.
      • throwaway2048 5y ago
        Who needs statistics when you can see the police acting like this in your own day to day life? That's the reality for a huge amount of people. Bad cops are extremely rarely seriously punished, and its ever rarer for other cops to finger them for it.
  • depaya 5y ago
    Imagine using your online community notice board to murder a member of your community, and when your community tries to hold you accountable your fellow programmers, politicians, and members of your political party around the country circle the wagons and shout PROGRAMMER LIVES MATTER!!!
• Hamuko 5y ago
  >Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society I'm guessing "our modern society" refers to the United States and not modern society as a whole. As far as I can tell, in my country, only two police officers have died on the job between the years 2000 and 2016. There also seems to be a wide disparity in people who get killed by a police officer. It seems more like it's just inherently more dangerous to be American, whether or not you're a police officer or not.
  • slowhand09 5y ago
    Will you tell us what country that is?
    • Hamuko 5y ago
      Finland. Population of 5.5 million people, around 1.5 million registered firearms (2016).
• JoshTko 5y ago
  Police work is far less dangerous than common perception. Similar danger as an average construction worker.
  • gpm 5y ago
    Right, but it seems like many of the cops have the same perception. Could be a case where better awareness of the statistics would actually improve the problem. Also though, danger resulting from your own stupidity, from other peoples stupidity, and from other peoples malicious activities, hit different psychologically IME. I'm willing to bet consturction workers get a lot less of the third and a lot more of the first. Maybe something that better training could help with a bit, but probably not fix. Also selecting people who are well suited for that sort of environment.
  • jlack 5y ago
    I would think it varies depending on where you are policing.
• buildbot 5y ago
  Yep, always live in fear, always be ready to kill anything you are afraid of. Sounds like safe people to be around…
• zapataband1 5y ago
  Pizza guys are more likely to die on the job. Shout out to the real troops. ACAB.
• uhtred 5y ago
  In civilized countries where guns aren't ubiquitous most police call outs won't be for something that can kill them. It's bizarre to me that it's just normal in America to expect someone to have a gun. Also, let's not pretend a lot of them aren't doing it for the power trip.
  • smileysteve 5y ago
    I'm of the belief that the US model of policing is incompatible with an expected armed society; This can be seen in police shootings vs armed militias at protests.. If police approached every suspect as if the suspect were open carrying a high powered semi auto pistol, they'd be much less likely to approach suspects as they do. They'd be much more respectful, keep a vehicle between them, and focus on de-escalation as opposed to confrontation. And in a country with 44% of suspects owning a fire arm, to confront someone is the wrong move.
  • ethagnawl 5y ago
    > Also, let's not pretend a lot of them aren't doing it for the power trip. ... and the ability (in many/most? places) to retire after 20 years with ~50% pay. SO many of these people give zero fucks about the communities they're policing because they don't actually live in them and, generally, aren't incentivized to do so. They take these jobs because it's the best of a limited number of options. They then adopt a siege/deployment mentality and bulldoze their way through 20 years of service in order to retire early and open a bar, fuck off to Florida, hang out on their boat, etc.
• bestcoder69 5y ago
  https://fee.org/articles/by-the-numbers-how-dangerous-is-it-to-be-a-cop/ https://fee.org/articles/by-the-numbers-how-dangerous-is-it-... If that’s the case, objectively, many other jobs deserve more respect first.
• yardie 5y ago
  We know different cops. The only cops I've met are mildly racist and intellectually lazy. Sure they were occassionally nice to have a beer with. But then they'd start talking and leave no doubt they aren't one of the good apples. Imagine getting a JIRA ticket thinking, "fucking Java bug, again. Only way to fix this is to yank the power cord out." Honestly, delivery people have to put up with way more shit and don't have weapons, the law, nor even a union that has their back. That's a tough job.
  • joejerryronnie 5y ago
    I’ve had a completely different experience than you. Cops who I’ve known have been pretty normal, compassionate people. They routinely tell me the most important skill in effective law enforcement is your ability to communicate.
    • deleted 5y ago
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    • Jtsummers 5y ago
      This gets toward the heart of the issue here. (Also, same issue when discussing public education.) Reasonable people living in different places or with different skin colors (as a specific differentiator) in the same place have vastly different experiences with the same individuals or police forces. This creates a fundamental conflict in the discussion/debate because both sides are speaking about it (usually) as if their experience is the experience. Live in many southern US towns and you'll see very different treatment of people based on race which has a natural result that white people view cops as reasonable and polite (their experience) and black or Hispanic people view cops as unreasonable and oppressive (their experience).
    • yardie 5y ago
      Something tells me you don't get detained enough by the police because you "match the description"
      • joejerryronnie 5y ago
• plank_time 5y ago
  The paranoid mentality that any call could kill you is the exact reason why so many unarmed black people are shot. If you can’t carry out a day’s work without the unreasonable fear that you will be shot, and any action makes you “fear for your life” so that why you emptied your clip into a car, then you shouldn’t be a cop. Cops needs to have cooler heads and this should be measured and verified before allowing them to carry weapons. I’ve heard that ex-military make the best cops because they are used to dangerous situations without panicking. I fully support this because they know that they aren’t GI Joe.
  • blacktriangle 5y ago
    Except "so many unarmed black people are shot" is a lie. A larger per-capita percentages of unarmed whites are shot than blacks.
    • jdmoreira 5y ago
      Could you point me in the general direction of a source? I would like to find more about this.
    • MereInterest 5y ago
      The data do not support your statement. Using the search term "per capita police violence deaths" on DDG in private mode, the links below were results #2 and #4. (Results #1 and #3 were comparisons by country, and are not included here from irrelevance. This is not a case of cherry-picking results.) https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/07/16/the-research-is-clear-white-people-are-not-more-likely-than-black-people-to-be-killed-by-police/ https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/07/16/the-research-is-cle... https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings-rate-ethnicity-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123070/police-shootings...
      • tzs 5y ago
        Blacktriangle was specifically talking about unarmed people shot by police. Your links are about shootings that include both armed and unarmed people.
• deleted 5y ago
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• CapitalistCartr 5y ago
  A couple weeks ago, I needed to shut a business down to add capacity to their electrical service. I arranged it to be late in the day, but once I got involved, I discovered it was an unexpected type of meter can and I can't turn off the power. So I have all the breakers off, no load, undo the load-side wires to the meter, live, and make it all up, also live, the last half hour by flashlight. There's enough power to incinerate me, but I know how to do my job well. I'm probably at greater risk from physical abuse of my body over decades, back and knees. Most jobs are less safe than programming.
• joejerryronnie 5y ago
  Also imagine that your profession has become so highly politicized that many people actually hate you based on some misguided ideology vs how you have actually comported yourself while on the job. While I respect law enforcement, you couldn’t pay me enough to work in that field. Although . . . big tech is also becoming highly politicized so many of us may find ourselves in the same boat to one degree or another.
• lmilcin 5y ago
  I don't want to say policing is not hard, every first responder has hard job because they are not sent to people who are completely fine -- usually the situation involves some kind of crime or distress or both. But, the dangers, though present, are IMO largely overstated. There are 700 thousand officers in US and on any given day some of them must necessarily come into trouble. The statistics list about 360 officers getting killed in line of duty, annually. That is 1/700000 chance of getting killed every day, over 30 year career that would amount to 1 in 70 chance of getting killed on duty or about similar as dying from all other types of accidents, including car accidents. Is that small? No, I don't think so, that is nothing to sneeze at. But is still a lot less than dying from some easily preventable diseases. So if you are Police officer and keep eating shit food it might be that the shit food is actually more dangerous to you than your job. Going through Covid is statistically more dangerous than lifetime of being police officer. At least as an officer you are doing this (hopefully) for public good and you know and accept risks. It is also less than probability of dying on some other types of duties. The difference being, that policing is typically done when something already interesting happens with potentially a lot of cameras present on scene, then being investigated. If you go to be a police officer or fireman or military, you understand your choices and the dangers you are facing. It should not be a surprise, nor it should be a reason to kill any person not to your liking, on sight.