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‘We Can’t Guarantee Your Safety’: Head of LAPD’s Police Officers’ Union Warns

8 points by RickJWagner 5y ago

LinuxBender 5y ago
“We can’t guarantee your safety. It is really, really out of control. I said it to people before, it’s like that movie ‘Purge,’ you know, instead of 24 hours to commit your crime, these people have 365 days days to commit whatever they want,” McBride said. If true, that's worse than I remember LA. That said I've never imagined for a moment that law enforcement can guarantee my safety. At the best of times they might make a best effort try to help. In my youth, I was going in that career direction and LAPD specifically told me "We have positions opening every day" which is what turned me off that career path. I knew they didn't have the budget for that which meant they had a high churn rate. I figured if I was going to start in a war zone it may as well be a real one so I joined the military instead. This was long ago. It sounds like things have gotten much worse. Anyone from HN still in LA?
mint2 5y ago
Translation: “We won’t really try very hard at enforcing laws because you said mean things about us and we’d have to file paper work. Stop wanting us to hold officers accountable when they abuse people and we might start caring again” -police unions and officers
- samspenc 5y ago
  It could also be because elected officials, media and public opinion are making it harder for the police to actually carry out their jobs and ensure public safety. That's probably an unpopular opinion but someone has to state it and get hit with the downvotes :)
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  Cops have a life and death job. Sure, there are some bad ones. Guess what? Among criminals, there are many, many more bad ones. Some are serial killers. Some are physical abusers. Some hurt people just for fun. Cops are dispatched to deal with them all, on behalf of the public. So we should hold cops accountable, yes. But we owe the majority of them (the good ones) all the support we can provide. Because they don't get paid much, and they put their life on the line for you whether you recognize it or not.
  - bradknowles 5y ago
    The problem is that all the protection mechanisms that have been put in place for officers help the bad ones the most, and don’t do much for the good ones. So things like qualified immunity need to go away.

8 points by RickJWagner 5y ago

“We can’t guarantee your safety. It is really, really out of control. I said it to people before, it’s like that movie ‘Purge,’ you know, instead of 24 hours to commit your crime, these people have 365 days days to commit whatever they want,” McBride said. If true, that's worse than I remember LA. That said I've never imagined for a moment that law enforcement can guarantee my safety. At the best of times they might make a best effort try to help. In my youth, I was going in that career direction and LAPD specifically told me "We have positions opening every day" which is what turned me off that career path. I knew they didn't have the budget for that which meant they had a high churn rate. I figured if I was going to start in a war zone it may as well be a real one so I joined the military instead. This was long ago. It sounds like things have gotten much worse. Anyone from HN still in LA?

mint2 5y ago

Translation: “We won’t really try very hard at enforcing laws because you said mean things about us and we’d have to file paper work. Stop wanting us to hold officers accountable when they abuse people and we might start caring again” -police unions and officers

samspenc 5y ago
It could also be because elected officials, media and public opinion are making it harder for the police to actually carry out their jobs and ensure public safety. That's probably an unpopular opinion but someone has to state it and get hit with the downvotes :)
RickJWagner 5y ago
Cops have a life and death job. Sure, there are some bad ones. Guess what? Among criminals, there are many, many more bad ones. Some are serial killers. Some are physical abusers. Some hurt people just for fun. Cops are dispatched to deal with them all, on behalf of the public. So we should hold cops accountable, yes. But we owe the majority of them (the good ones) all the support we can provide. Because they don't get paid much, and they put their life on the line for you whether you recognize it or not.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  The problem is that all the protection mechanisms that have been put in place for officers help the bad ones the most, and don’t do much for the good ones. So things like qualified immunity need to go away.