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I don’t know your case, but it’s also possible that the police won’t make an arrest because police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosec

I don’t know your case, but it’s also possible that the police won’t make an arrest because police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosecutor is elected, and then loudly proclaim that the DA is undermining the rule of law. This article is about a different kind of “police pullback,” but the underlying phenomenon—cops won’t work when they’re challenged—is the same. https://www.propublica.org/article/what-can-mayors-do-when-the-police-stop-doing-their-jobs/ https://www.propublica.org/article/what-can-mayors-do-when-t...

syzarian 4y ago
This has happened in Minneapolis. Since George Floyd police in Minneapolis have effectively stopped doing their job. When one of their own is treated by the law like anyone else would be they retaliate by refusing to work. Police feel entitled to be free of genuine consequence for their actions. For example, police commit more domestic violence on average than non-police and rarely get arrested for it.
- pandaman 4y ago
  When they are treated like anyone else i.e. people who do not enforce the law they act like anyone else i.e. don't enforce the law, why would you expect anything else?
  - anoonmoose 4y ago
    because they took the job
    - pandaman 4y ago
      They took a job that had different conditions. It used to be that the police could arrest people and use force (why everyone else could not).
      - syzarian 4y ago
        One should expect to live in a society in which police are not immune from breaking the law. When they mete out non judicial punishment then they should be held accountable for it in the same way I would be held accountable.
        pandaman 4y ago
        Depends on one's definition of punishment. I for one don't consider any use of force to be a punishment. The police's use of force to apprehend a suspect in crime or to prevent a crime in progress is not a punishment, IMHO. I'd rather live in a society that agrees with this so I don't live in SF or Minneapolis.
        syzarian 4y ago
        Obviously no one is saying force should never be utilized by the police. Are you unable to understand or imagine a police force functioning in such a way that they use reasonable force to apprehend suspects and don’t beat with impunity those that are already in custody? Police in Minneapolis murdered a suspect and the response to the offending officers being convicted by a jury was to stop doing their job and you appear think this is a reasonable response. It is disheartening that you appear to be so willing to go along with with whatever police do all in the name of safety. Do you really view the world in such a way that you can’t comprehend having a police force that does it’s job without beating suspects who are already in custody?
        pandaman 4y ago
        Obviously we are listening to different people because people say just that in this very same thread. Also I don't see Escadrones de la Muerte being a problem in Minneapolis or anywhere in the US for that matter, so what extrajudicial punishment you are taking about if you don't mind my asking?
        syzarian 4y ago
- mc32 4y ago
  Also politicians pass laws that citizens need to abide —they have specific carve outs for themselves allowing them to skirt laws (such as trading on insider information for members of Congress).
  - softjobs 4y ago
    Or government-sponsored healthcare. But no #M4A for the proles, because that's SOCIALISM.
- pydry 4y ago
  This would probably be a lot more rare if the Camden NJ option of "fire and replace the whole department" were invoked for underperformance and/or corruption.
- mjfl 4y ago
  So there's a tradeoff. Are you saying you would rather live in a high crime state, with tech founders being stabbed to death, than let them have their way?
  - syzarian 4y ago
    It should be expected to have a police force that enforces the laws while not allowing police to mete out non judicial punishment. It’s possible for police to do their job without needing to beat whomever they want, whenever they want, without fear of prosecution.
    - mjfl 4y ago
      then do it. Will you and other citizens get in uniform?
      - syzarian 4y ago
        In case you aren’t aware, people can only hold a couple of jobs and one time and it’s ok for them to critique policies and actions of people in jobs they don’t have or ever intend to have. I can criticize a politician’s performance even though I don’t ever intend to become one. There is nothing illogical or hypocritical about this.
        mjfl 4y ago
        in a democracy, if you point the finger at something and come to a bad conclusion, and then demand a ridiculous, unworkable solution, it is my duty as a fellow citizen to inform you and other voters that you are extremely wrong! That's what I'm trying to do. There's actually no super policeman hiding out there that can do what you say, and guarantee that across a population of over 300 million people there will never be violent interactions between the police and the citizenry. It is insane to suggest that.
        lukebitts 4y ago
- daltont 4y ago
  Seem that such corruption starts very innocuously. I remember police officer acquaintances saying being a cop means you can always use that fact to never get a speeding ticket. I never felt that they were shady people I think they are likely decent people with a difficult job, but something about that fact did sort of bothered me. I would like to think that a police officer driving very dangerously or even drunk would not being to get away with it that easily.
  - tough 4y ago
    There was a famous ghost rider in the cannonballs in the 70s or 80s', which would always win the race and never stay to socialise. After a few years of having retired, he came out being a cop.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
junofan 4y ago
It’s great somebody wrote an article that says that. But let’s not pretend that’s what’s going on in San Francisco.
fallingknife 4y ago
Given that in SF the liberal prosecutor was, in fact, undermining the rule of law and de facto legalized stealing, I'm inclined to side with the cops here. Cops don't prevent crime, they only catch criminals after the fact. If the DA doesn't charge them, then all arresting does is give them a day off. I wouldn't arrest people either if I knew they wouldn't be charged.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  >Cops don't prevent crime, they only catch criminals after the fact. >I wouldn't arrest people either if I knew they wouldn't be charged. These two quotes seem to be at odds with eachother. A cops job is only to arrest criminals, if they are prosecuted should not be their concern. Good thing the psych eval for cops has questions that relates to this, and someone with your sentiment would not be selected for training.
  - paisawalla 4y ago
    "A cop should risk his life to effect an arrest, even if that act will be immediately undermined by the prosecutor and will have no measurable difference on society." Are you saying they shouldn't value their own lives, but instead behave as instruction-following robots.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
      Cops aren’t really risking their lives. Statistically they’re more likely to die of Covid than they are of trying to arrest someone. They have armor in their uniforms, carry multiple manners of debilitating a person from multiple ranges. This puts them at a massive advantage compared to your average homeless person or impoverished criminal, who likely can’t even afford a gun.
      - paisawalla 4y ago
        1. The average person doesn't have your grasp of probabilities. 2. You're still asking him to take a small chance with his life.
refurb 4y ago
Or another take is - why bother arresting people if you know they're going to be released right away and likely never charged? It shouldn't be surprising that the DA’s office and police need to work together.
- notacoward 4y ago
  > why bother arresting people if you know they're going to be released right away Because prosecution was never supposed to be the primary goal of policing. See Peel's principles. https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/welcome/crimj408/history_04.html https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/welcome/crimj408/history... Prevention is deservedly mentioned first. Prosecution is not mentioned at all, though the last point could be read as a veiled rebuke of those who believe it's a primary goal. "The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it." There's plenty for police to do in preventing, protecting, and investigating, even if no prosecution occurs. The problem with US policing (and the associated justice/prison systems) is that these original principles have been completely replaced by a punitive and largely anti-community attitude or approach. And it doesn't work. Just as higher medical costs don't correlate very well with better health outcomes, intensive policing and imprisonment as they're practiced here do not lead to better public safety. Sometimes it's not enough to do more of what you're already doing, and a paradigm shift - by it's nature something that can feel very scary and might even produce worse results in the short term - is necessary.
  - mach1ne 4y ago
    Knowledge of prosecution is part of the prevention though - some would say it is the most important part, since police can’t physically be everywhere preventing crime. If you just remove prosecution from the equation of policing, without making any other changes, you won’t be left with a better system but a worse one.
    - notacoward 4y ago
      > Knowledge of prosecution is part of the prevention though Agreed. To be clear, I think a blanket refusal to prosecute is a terrible idea. I was responding to a specific question - "why bother arresting" - in a context where arrest would have been easy and at least locally beneficial. > If you just remove prosecution from the equation Nowhere close to anything I suggested or implied. I was merely pointing out that successful prosecution is not the only or even primary purpose of policing. My interlocutor's implication that we can only continue policing with a focus on prosecution or give up on policing at all is a pernicious false dichotomy. We can police differently. Prosecution is a part of that, but only when alternatives have been tried and failed.
paisawalla 4y ago
As a developer, I would get pretty upset and demoralized if someone came and periodically reverted all my commits. Imagine if I actually had to risk my life to make those "commits"? It's not hard to see why they stay in the car and keep driving if the arrests don't even lead to prosections.
- smcl 4y ago
  If we're going with the developer metaphor, it's more like you're making a bunch of low quality PRs that aren't adding any value to the product and the maintainer is choosing not to merge some of them. I don't think it's a suitable metaphor though.
  - jwestbury 4y ago
    How does Rubocop fit into this?
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    It's more like you're a pre-2012 glibc contributor who's making a bunch of high quality PRs that would add significant value to the product but Ulrich Drepper is choosing not to merge most of them for no good reason.
    - smcl 4y ago
      That's a extremely naive way to look at police. But if you think the police do "high quality" anything then you're probably not the kind of person who could be persuaded otherwise.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  Frankly, if your commits were being loudly criticized as harming/killing people then you have no right to sulk off and stop doing your job because they were reverted. And it also doesn’t excuse you to feel entitled to remain employed while you stopped doing your job. If you felt that way, quit so someone who is willing to do the work can get hired. Additionally, being a cop is a pretty safe job! It’s not even top 10 most dangerous jobs. Most injuries are because of the cops own traffic violations or, more recently, Covid.
analyte123 4y ago
Do they still refuse to work if someone defends themself against an attacker?
PoignardAzur 4y ago
That articles raises all sorts of "selectively including information to push a narrative" red flags. Eg, one police officer interviewed says: > “I made two arrests two days in a row one week, and both turned into paperwork clusterfucks,” the former officer said. “When you’ve accumulated two or three use-of-force complaints in a week, you’ll say: ‘I just need to stop. I need to stop doing this.’” The article later interprets it as "police officers opposed to the consent decree that McGinn negotiated [engaged] in underpolicing". Which is technically accurate, but also... The article implies this is political retaliation, as in "we'll let people commit crimes, that will teach you", while the interviewed officer's reported experience is "when you get reprimanded and asked to fill time-consuming paperwork every time you do X, at some point you stop doing X". (Or you keep filling the paperwork, and therefore spend less time patrolling and responding to calls.) Don't get me wrong, police brutality is a thorny problem and police often actively resists solving it. But when there's a tradeoff, if you act like the tradeoff only has one side and the other is that the people whose jobs you're trying to regulate are lazy corrupt assholes, you're not going to make a lot of progress on solving the problem.
- m000 4y ago
  These "use-of-force complaints" didn't file themselves you know. Citizens actually spent their own time filing them (in addition perhaps to being subjected to the use of force), so you can't just dismiss them as an one-sided/asymmetric nuisance. And while the officer's stance is not an outright "we'll let people commit crimes, that will teach you", it certainly comes close to "policing our style, or none at all".
  - fuzzybear3965 4y ago
    I've never filed a use-of-force complaint. Have you? It might be a simple form (that your state-provided attorney may recommend that you fill out).
- maratbn 4y ago
  They are not being forced to fill out that paperwork on their own time, it is part of their work shift for which they are compensated. I can think of no other occupation where an employee can refuse to fill out paperwork or refuse to do some other tedious task just because they don't like it and not get fired.
agentofoblivion 4y ago
What is the point of your comment? Are you here to say, “just so you know, Chesa and his policies are actually good, it’s the cops that are bad”?
kardianos 4y ago
This is so wrong. Even when police make arrests, they are back on the streets. Any rational police officer is bound to wonder, why make the arrest in the first place that only puts them at risk if nothing after them will actually be done.
- docmars 4y ago
  Bingo!
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  What kind of alternative do you imagine? A world where the police arrest every criminal once and they're done? There are few jobs on Earth where you fix everything once and it stays fixed forever. Almost everyone is working to keep a type of entropy at bay. Doctors help people get healthy who get sick again, I fix outages that will get caused again, and police need to arrest people who do crimes and will get released again.
  - kardianos 4y ago
    I expect there to be a consequence given for breaking the law. That's the "radical" alternative I imagine. Instead we get a release directly after offense.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    If you go see a doctor to help you get healthy, and you feel better right after, but the very next day you're sick with the same condition, do you think the doctor really helped?
- cogman10 4y ago
  "Why am I putting out this wildfire? A new one is just going to start later. It's pointless to fight these fires when year after year they just keep coming back". It's the job they chose and trained to do. If they don't like it, they can get a new job.
  - kardianos 4y ago
brodouevencode 4y ago
> police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosecutor is elected It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with demoralization. Most cops simply want to do their job and not consistently be undermined or called liars.
- greedo 4y ago
  "be undermined..." To cops, that means "DON'T QUESTION MAH AUTHORITAH!" Screw that. If cops policed their own ranks, getting rid of the "few bad apples" they claim are so rare, then perhaps they wouldn't be scrutinized. Even so, 99% of the US is perfectly happy with the way the police generally operates and are always willing to support the Blue.
  - brodouevencode 4y ago
    If you're suggesting that there's a bit of militarization in modern policing I'm not going to argue with you. At some point police departments went from being keepers of the peace to aggressive enforcement units. Many departments even have and utilize surplus military equipment. Personally I'd rather have more Andy Griffith and less Stacey Koon. However that's not what I meant in terms of undermining. If a DA undermines the work of the police force they are supposed to support that has negative consequences on the actions of the policing body. This would happen regardless of whether or not the policing body were true peace keepers or aggressors. I would argue that in fact the DAs actions affect the PD-types-we-like more than the bully types.
    - greedo 4y ago
      The job of the DA isn't to support the police department. A DA needs to allocate resources towards cases that are significant to the community, aligned with the desires of the people who voted the DA into office. I have a boss who doesn't always "support" what I think should be done. And that's fine, because he has different goals that he tries to communicate to my team, but in the end, he answers to his boss. I don't have the full picture on why he makes decisions, how he allocates budgets etc. I just have insights from what he tells me and what I see. But I'm a professional, and I don't get my feelings hurt when my boss tells me to do something different, or to do something I don't agree with. Yet cops are just different. In the US they get kid glove treatment when they break the law, either from fellow cops or the courts. They get idolized by TV shows as the only thing keeping people safe when they do little to actually prevent crime. And they continue to claim being underfunded, overworked, under appreciated and under constant threat of death at the hands of "civilians", since they tend to break communities into three categories (perps, civilians, and cops).
breakinjustice 4y ago
[flagged]
thatfrenchguy 4y ago
When most people don’t do their jobs, they get disciplined, I don’t understand why cops get a pass. SFPD has a hard job but « passed in front of someone who got stabbed and did nothing » should get your pay auto-docked.
eric_cc 4y ago
> police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosecutor is elected This is not true nor is it verifiable. This is a bullshit political talking point. And it’s ridiculous.
- nilespotter 4y ago
  Is there even a single cop working in SF right now that was hired when there wasn't a liberal prosecutor? I want to say no. This is not some recent development that caught a force full of good ol' boys off guard.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cryptonector 4y ago
GP specificially says the DA won't answer. It's not about the police in that specific case.
aaa_aaa 4y ago
This sounds like a very lame excuse for failing progressive policies.
horns4lyfe 4y ago
It’s hilarious that progressives refuse to blame homeless people or addicts for any kind of personal failings (it’s the system!) while simultaneously blaming police personally, saying they’re “quiet quitting”. Is it about systems or not?

syzarian 4y ago

This has happened in Minneapolis. Since George Floyd police in Minneapolis have effectively stopped doing their job. When one of their own is treated by the law like anyone else would be they retaliate by refusing to work. Police feel entitled to be free of genuine consequence for their actions. For example, police commit more domestic violence on average than non-police and rarely get arrested for it.

pandaman 4y ago
When they are treated like anyone else i.e. people who do not enforce the law they act like anyone else i.e. don't enforce the law, why would you expect anything else?
- anoonmoose 4y ago
  because they took the job
  - pandaman 4y ago
    They took a job that had different conditions. It used to be that the police could arrest people and use force (why everyone else could not).
    - syzarian 4y ago
      One should expect to live in a society in which police are not immune from breaking the law. When they mete out non judicial punishment then they should be held accountable for it in the same way I would be held accountable.
      - pandaman 4y ago
        Depends on one's definition of punishment. I for one don't consider any use of force to be a punishment. The police's use of force to apprehend a suspect in crime or to prevent a crime in progress is not a punishment, IMHO. I'd rather live in a society that agrees with this so I don't live in SF or Minneapolis.
        syzarian 4y ago
        Obviously no one is saying force should never be utilized by the police. Are you unable to understand or imagine a police force functioning in such a way that they use reasonable force to apprehend suspects and don’t beat with impunity those that are already in custody? Police in Minneapolis murdered a suspect and the response to the offending officers being convicted by a jury was to stop doing their job and you appear think this is a reasonable response. It is disheartening that you appear to be so willing to go along with with whatever police do all in the name of safety. Do you really view the world in such a way that you can’t comprehend having a police force that does it’s job without beating suspects who are already in custody?
        pandaman 4y ago
        Obviously we are listening to different people because people say just that in this very same thread. Also I don't see Escadrones de la Muerte being a problem in Minneapolis or anywhere in the US for that matter, so what extrajudicial punishment you are taking about if you don't mind my asking?
        syzarian 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
Also politicians pass laws that citizens need to abide —they have specific carve outs for themselves allowing them to skirt laws (such as trading on insider information for members of Congress).
- softjobs 4y ago
  Or government-sponsored healthcare. But no #M4A for the proles, because that's SOCIALISM.
pydry 4y ago
This would probably be a lot more rare if the Camden NJ option of "fire and replace the whole department" were invoked for underperformance and/or corruption.
mjfl 4y ago
So there's a tradeoff. Are you saying you would rather live in a high crime state, with tech founders being stabbed to death, than let them have their way?
- syzarian 4y ago
  It should be expected to have a police force that enforces the laws while not allowing police to mete out non judicial punishment. It’s possible for police to do their job without needing to beat whomever they want, whenever they want, without fear of prosecution.
  - mjfl 4y ago
    then do it. Will you and other citizens get in uniform?
    - syzarian 4y ago
      In case you aren’t aware, people can only hold a couple of jobs and one time and it’s ok for them to critique policies and actions of people in jobs they don’t have or ever intend to have. I can criticize a politician’s performance even though I don’t ever intend to become one. There is nothing illogical or hypocritical about this.
      - mjfl 4y ago
        in a democracy, if you point the finger at something and come to a bad conclusion, and then demand a ridiculous, unworkable solution, it is my duty as a fellow citizen to inform you and other voters that you are extremely wrong! That's what I'm trying to do. There's actually no super policeman hiding out there that can do what you say, and guarantee that across a population of over 300 million people there will never be violent interactions between the police and the citizenry. It is insane to suggest that.
        lukebitts 4y ago
daltont 4y ago
Seem that such corruption starts very innocuously. I remember police officer acquaintances saying being a cop means you can always use that fact to never get a speeding ticket. I never felt that they were shady people I think they are likely decent people with a difficult job, but something about that fact did sort of bothered me. I would like to think that a police officer driving very dangerously or even drunk would not being to get away with it that easily.
- tough 4y ago
  There was a famous ghost rider in the cannonballs in the 70s or 80s', which would always win the race and never stay to socialise. After a few years of having retired, he came out being a cop.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

junofan 4y ago

It’s great somebody wrote an article that says that. But let’s not pretend that’s what’s going on in San Francisco.

fallingknife 4y ago

Given that in SF the liberal prosecutor was, in fact, undermining the rule of law and de facto legalized stealing, I'm inclined to side with the cops here. Cops don't prevent crime, they only catch criminals after the fact. If the DA doesn't charge them, then all arresting does is give them a day off. I wouldn't arrest people either if I knew they wouldn't be charged.

TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
>Cops don't prevent crime, they only catch criminals after the fact. >I wouldn't arrest people either if I knew they wouldn't be charged. These two quotes seem to be at odds with eachother. A cops job is only to arrest criminals, if they are prosecuted should not be their concern. Good thing the psych eval for cops has questions that relates to this, and someone with your sentiment would not be selected for training.
- paisawalla 4y ago
  "A cop should risk his life to effect an arrest, even if that act will be immediately undermined by the prosecutor and will have no measurable difference on society." Are you saying they shouldn't value their own lives, but instead behave as instruction-following robots.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    Cops aren’t really risking their lives. Statistically they’re more likely to die of Covid than they are of trying to arrest someone. They have armor in their uniforms, carry multiple manners of debilitating a person from multiple ranges. This puts them at a massive advantage compared to your average homeless person or impoverished criminal, who likely can’t even afford a gun.
    - paisawalla 4y ago
      1. The average person doesn't have your grasp of probabilities. 2. You're still asking him to take a small chance with his life.

refurb 4y ago

Or another take is - why bother arresting people if you know they're going to be released right away and likely never charged? It shouldn't be surprising that the DA’s office and police need to work together.

notacoward 4y ago
> why bother arresting people if you know they're going to be released right away Because prosecution was never supposed to be the primary goal of policing. See Peel's principles. https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/welcome/crimj408/history_04.html https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/welcome/crimj408/history... Prevention is deservedly mentioned first. Prosecution is not mentioned at all, though the last point could be read as a veiled rebuke of those who believe it's a primary goal. "The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it." There's plenty for police to do in preventing, protecting, and investigating, even if no prosecution occurs. The problem with US policing (and the associated justice/prison systems) is that these original principles have been completely replaced by a punitive and largely anti-community attitude or approach. And it doesn't work. Just as higher medical costs don't correlate very well with better health outcomes, intensive policing and imprisonment as they're practiced here do not lead to better public safety. Sometimes it's not enough to do more of what you're already doing, and a paradigm shift - by it's nature something that can feel very scary and might even produce worse results in the short term - is necessary.
- mach1ne 4y ago
  Knowledge of prosecution is part of the prevention though - some would say it is the most important part, since police can’t physically be everywhere preventing crime. If you just remove prosecution from the equation of policing, without making any other changes, you won’t be left with a better system but a worse one.
  - notacoward 4y ago
    > Knowledge of prosecution is part of the prevention though Agreed. To be clear, I think a blanket refusal to prosecute is a terrible idea. I was responding to a specific question - "why bother arresting" - in a context where arrest would have been easy and at least locally beneficial. > If you just remove prosecution from the equation Nowhere close to anything I suggested or implied. I was merely pointing out that successful prosecution is not the only or even primary purpose of policing. My interlocutor's implication that we can only continue policing with a focus on prosecution or give up on policing at all is a pernicious false dichotomy. We can police differently. Prosecution is a part of that, but only when alternatives have been tried and failed.

paisawalla 4y ago

As a developer, I would get pretty upset and demoralized if someone came and periodically reverted all my commits. Imagine if I actually had to risk my life to make those "commits"? It's not hard to see why they stay in the car and keep driving if the arrests don't even lead to prosections.

smcl 4y ago
If we're going with the developer metaphor, it's more like you're making a bunch of low quality PRs that aren't adding any value to the product and the maintainer is choosing not to merge some of them. I don't think it's a suitable metaphor though.
- jwestbury 4y ago
  How does Rubocop fit into this?
- josephcsible 4y ago
  It's more like you're a pre-2012 glibc contributor who's making a bunch of high quality PRs that would add significant value to the product but Ulrich Drepper is choosing not to merge most of them for no good reason.
  - smcl 4y ago
    That's a extremely naive way to look at police. But if you think the police do "high quality" anything then you're probably not the kind of person who could be persuaded otherwise.
SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
Frankly, if your commits were being loudly criticized as harming/killing people then you have no right to sulk off and stop doing your job because they were reverted. And it also doesn’t excuse you to feel entitled to remain employed while you stopped doing your job. If you felt that way, quit so someone who is willing to do the work can get hired. Additionally, being a cop is a pretty safe job! It’s not even top 10 most dangerous jobs. Most injuries are because of the cops own traffic violations or, more recently, Covid.

analyte123 4y ago

Do they still refuse to work if someone defends themself against an attacker?

PoignardAzur 4y ago

That articles raises all sorts of "selectively including information to push a narrative" red flags. Eg, one police officer interviewed says: > “I made two arrests two days in a row one week, and both turned into paperwork clusterfucks,” the former officer said. “When you’ve accumulated two or three use-of-force complaints in a week, you’ll say: ‘I just need to stop. I need to stop doing this.’” The article later interprets it as "police officers opposed to the consent decree that McGinn negotiated [engaged] in underpolicing". Which is technically accurate, but also... The article implies this is political retaliation, as in "we'll let people commit crimes, that will teach you", while the interviewed officer's reported experience is "when you get reprimanded and asked to fill time-consuming paperwork every time you do X, at some point you stop doing X". (Or you keep filling the paperwork, and therefore spend less time patrolling and responding to calls.) Don't get me wrong, police brutality is a thorny problem and police often actively resists solving it. But when there's a tradeoff, if you act like the tradeoff only has one side and the other is that the people whose jobs you're trying to regulate are lazy corrupt assholes, you're not going to make a lot of progress on solving the problem.

m000 4y ago
These "use-of-force complaints" didn't file themselves you know. Citizens actually spent their own time filing them (in addition perhaps to being subjected to the use of force), so you can't just dismiss them as an one-sided/asymmetric nuisance. And while the officer's stance is not an outright "we'll let people commit crimes, that will teach you", it certainly comes close to "policing our style, or none at all".
- fuzzybear3965 4y ago
  I've never filed a use-of-force complaint. Have you? It might be a simple form (that your state-provided attorney may recommend that you fill out).
maratbn 4y ago
They are not being forced to fill out that paperwork on their own time, it is part of their work shift for which they are compensated. I can think of no other occupation where an employee can refuse to fill out paperwork or refuse to do some other tedious task just because they don't like it and not get fired.

agentofoblivion 4y ago

What is the point of your comment? Are you here to say, “just so you know, Chesa and his policies are actually good, it’s the cops that are bad”?

kardianos 4y ago

This is so wrong. Even when police make arrests, they are back on the streets. Any rational police officer is bound to wonder, why make the arrest in the first place that only puts them at risk if nothing after them will actually be done.

docmars 4y ago
Bingo!
droopyEyelids 4y ago
What kind of alternative do you imagine? A world where the police arrest every criminal once and they're done? There are few jobs on Earth where you fix everything once and it stays fixed forever. Almost everyone is working to keep a type of entropy at bay. Doctors help people get healthy who get sick again, I fix outages that will get caused again, and police need to arrest people who do crimes and will get released again.
- kardianos 4y ago
  I expect there to be a consequence given for breaking the law. That's the "radical" alternative I imagine. Instead we get a release directly after offense.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  If you go see a doctor to help you get healthy, and you feel better right after, but the very next day you're sick with the same condition, do you think the doctor really helped?
cogman10 4y ago
"Why am I putting out this wildfire? A new one is just going to start later. It's pointless to fight these fires when year after year they just keep coming back". It's the job they chose and trained to do. If they don't like it, they can get a new job.
- kardianos 4y ago

brodouevencode 4y ago

> police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosecutor is elected It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with demoralization. Most cops simply want to do their job and not consistently be undermined or called liars.

greedo 4y ago
"be undermined..." To cops, that means "DON'T QUESTION MAH AUTHORITAH!" Screw that. If cops policed their own ranks, getting rid of the "few bad apples" they claim are so rare, then perhaps they wouldn't be scrutinized. Even so, 99% of the US is perfectly happy with the way the police generally operates and are always willing to support the Blue.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  If you're suggesting that there's a bit of militarization in modern policing I'm not going to argue with you. At some point police departments went from being keepers of the peace to aggressive enforcement units. Many departments even have and utilize surplus military equipment. Personally I'd rather have more Andy Griffith and less Stacey Koon. However that's not what I meant in terms of undermining. If a DA undermines the work of the police force they are supposed to support that has negative consequences on the actions of the policing body. This would happen regardless of whether or not the policing body were true peace keepers or aggressors. I would argue that in fact the DAs actions affect the PD-types-we-like more than the bully types.
  - greedo 4y ago
    The job of the DA isn't to support the police department. A DA needs to allocate resources towards cases that are significant to the community, aligned with the desires of the people who voted the DA into office. I have a boss who doesn't always "support" what I think should be done. And that's fine, because he has different goals that he tries to communicate to my team, but in the end, he answers to his boss. I don't have the full picture on why he makes decisions, how he allocates budgets etc. I just have insights from what he tells me and what I see. But I'm a professional, and I don't get my feelings hurt when my boss tells me to do something different, or to do something I don't agree with. Yet cops are just different. In the US they get kid glove treatment when they break the law, either from fellow cops or the courts. They get idolized by TV shows as the only thing keeping people safe when they do little to actually prevent crime. And they continue to claim being underfunded, overworked, under appreciated and under constant threat of death at the hands of "civilians", since they tend to break communities into three categories (perps, civilians, and cops).

breakinjustice 4y ago

[flagged]

thatfrenchguy 4y ago

When most people don’t do their jobs, they get disciplined, I don’t understand why cops get a pass. SFPD has a hard job but « passed in front of someone who got stabbed and did nothing » should get your pay auto-docked.

eric_cc 4y ago

> police in America tend to go on low-key strike when a liberal prosecutor is elected This is not true nor is it verifiable. This is a bullshit political talking point. And it’s ridiculous.

nilespotter 4y ago
Is there even a single cop working in SF right now that was hired when there wasn't a liberal prosecutor? I want to say no. This is not some recent development that caught a force full of good ol' boys off guard.

deleted 4y ago

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cryptonector 4y ago

GP specificially says the DA won't answer. It's not about the police in that specific case.

aaa_aaa 4y ago

This sounds like a very lame excuse for failing progressive policies.

horns4lyfe 4y ago

It’s hilarious that progressives refuse to blame homeless people or addicts for any kind of personal failings (it’s the system!) while simultaneously blaming police personally, saying they’re “quiet quitting”. Is it about systems or not?