7 ms·

It's not just an empty threat either. It's happened numerous times in NYC when the mayor or city council has attempted to reign in the NYPD, they simply stop r

It's not just an empty threat either. It's happened numerous times in NYC when the mayor or city council has attempted to reign in the NYPD, they simply stop responding to calls for service and then blame it on the politicians. Even if it doesn't lead to an uptick in crime, it still angers voters that police won't respond to their calls and they take it out at the polls.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Shit NYPD publicly doxed and threatened the mayor's daughter. I've always known the police were evil but that made me stop and really wonder what sort of constraints municipal politicians are operating under. Like that is very very close to "gloves off" mafia type shit right out in the open. What kinds of threats do they make against those figures in private?
- thechao 3y ago
  In case anyone is interested in the power dynamic in Imperial Rome between the Emporers and the Legions, this is is an analogous situation.
  - joshuaissac 3y ago
    This kind of power dynamic between the civilian administration and 'the military' would not be considered to be healthy, if it were happening in a sovereign polity. Could a sufficiently wealthy mayor (like Bloomberg) push through privatisation and deunionisation, while using their personal funds to pay for private security for the whole city in case there is a strike? The department's annual budget seems to be around 5 billion USD.
    - causality0 3y ago
      The problem in that situation wouldn't be funding, it would be personnel. NYPD is nauseatingly over funded and could do their job with half their current budget, but you can't just pull thirty thousand private security contractors out of your ass.
      - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
        Eh, I think you can: It's called the national guard.
        linksnapzz 3y ago
        Nope. Not without the help of the governor. And, they're really badly equipped to do everything NYPD does.
        fakedang 3y ago
        How about seizing NYPD assets and calling in the National Guard after removing everyone, collecting their data in a massive database so that they get blackmarked wherever else they would go for employment? I guess there would be an inherent risk of such a draconian policy, considering it was the American MO in Iraq, but then again, that's Iraq and this is America. Just a thought.
- soerxpso 3y ago
  A particular video essay comes to mind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs). Since government must ultimately be held in place by use of force no matter how you structure it, it's unsurprising that the sub-organization responsible for exerting force is the ultimate decider of what's actually allowed.
- trogdor 3y ago
  >NYPD publicly doxed and threatened the mayor's daughter As best I can tell, that is not true. The Sergeants Benevolent Association, a police union, posted to Twitter a screenshot of Chiara de Blasio’s arrest report, which is a public record. The arrest report report contained her address… which was Gracie Mansion. In other words, not remotely a secret. The tweet did not threaten her.
maxwell 3y ago
The real socialist shadow governments are local police departments.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  If only they were socialist. They’re arguably a lot less socialist than many actual gangs, as far as providing material benefits of their criminal activity to the people who “host” them. Not to glamorize gangs, but some have historically taken care to maintain some degree of legitimacy and favor among “their” people, including through provision of services and money or goods. While also, sure, shaking down some of those same people.
papercrane 3y ago
The police in NYC have rioted because the mayor was proposing a civilian oversight board to investigate misconduct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Association_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Assoc...
euroderf 3y ago
I thought this meme was identified decades ago: Whenever a town threatens to cut the fire department's budget, the FD whines loudly, and let a house or two burn down, and then they point fingers back at the mayor / town board. Once voters know the pattern, they're hep to it. So what's with the NYPD ? No voter control ? Should NYers start proposing referendums ? Are referendums even possible ?
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I'm in Chicago, but we have a similar situation. Voters are wise to the pattern, there's just nothing we can do about it other than firing all of them and bringing in the national guard, and we're not ready to do that. They've got us by the balls, blaming them doesn't get them to start working again
AtlasBarfed 3y ago
It's happened in Minneapolis as well after the George Floyd. The solution to this is either: - setup a second security force to gradually replace them or - subdivide the coverage map into different districts, suss out the districts with poor performing management, then merge the territories of bad areas under the management of good areas or - subdivide responsibilities between violent crime, petty crime, and mundane enforcement like traffic, with separate departments for each, and tackle cleaning them up separately. Really the notion of taking the same "trained" cop for all the roles in an urban area is pretty stupid. Specialized enforcement roles are likely a better solution. Shadow defunding, without calling it defunding, is also another weapon, but of course Minneapolis blew that by outright calling it defunding. But really the drug war is what fuels corruption and excessive power. Remove the drug war, and it would kneecap massive amounts of abuse.
- fakedang 3y ago
  Wait, cops in America aren't divided by roles? Huh, Til.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    They'll have different duties, like traffic cop and patrol and detective, but they are all part of the same department and most go through the same training "school". And, of course, they are all part of the same union. By subdividing into distinct departments, it is the basic divide and conquer. And you can replace departments more readily: keep the traffic and crime investigation units, but replace the patrol cops that are refusing to do their jobs.
  - banannaise 3y ago
    Not officially. One of the effects of this is that if you crash your car, the guy who shows up to file a report has a loaded gun on his hip.
nostrademons 3y ago
Interesting. Seems like the logical thing to do would be to fire the whole PD and replace them with another group. Except that's basically the model used by secret-police dictatorships (eg. Russia, Iran) and anarchist failed states (eg. Haiti, much of Africa), so it doesn't seem to work very well either. Seems like the root problem is that we grant the state a monopoly on physical violence because the alternative (no group having a monopoly on physical violence, and hence all of them battling it out) is worse. But then like the holders of any monopoly, they abuse it. This is why we can't have nice things.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  I seem to remember some city in the east coast fired their whole department and then hired back selected ones. And hired new cops to replace the guys they wanted to get rid of. And it helped. A suggestion I've thought of before and have seen in the wold increasingly is pay cops a stipend to pay for their own insurance. If they can't get insurance they get fired automatically.
- grotorea 3y ago
  I remember reading an article about Georgia (the country) successfully doing that with its highway patrol, but I can't find it again.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

Shit NYPD publicly doxed and threatened the mayor's daughter. I've always known the police were evil but that made me stop and really wonder what sort of constraints municipal politicians are operating under. Like that is very very close to "gloves off" mafia type shit right out in the open. What kinds of threats do they make against those figures in private?

thechao 3y ago
In case anyone is interested in the power dynamic in Imperial Rome between the Emporers and the Legions, this is is an analogous situation.
- joshuaissac 3y ago
  This kind of power dynamic between the civilian administration and 'the military' would not be considered to be healthy, if it were happening in a sovereign polity. Could a sufficiently wealthy mayor (like Bloomberg) push through privatisation and deunionisation, while using their personal funds to pay for private security for the whole city in case there is a strike? The department's annual budget seems to be around 5 billion USD.
  - causality0 3y ago
    The problem in that situation wouldn't be funding, it would be personnel. NYPD is nauseatingly over funded and could do their job with half their current budget, but you can't just pull thirty thousand private security contractors out of your ass.
    - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
      Eh, I think you can: It's called the national guard.
      - linksnapzz 3y ago
        Nope. Not without the help of the governor. And, they're really badly equipped to do everything NYPD does.
        fakedang 3y ago
        How about seizing NYPD assets and calling in the National Guard after removing everyone, collecting their data in a massive database so that they get blackmarked wherever else they would go for employment? I guess there would be an inherent risk of such a draconian policy, considering it was the American MO in Iraq, but then again, that's Iraq and this is America. Just a thought.
soerxpso 3y ago
A particular video essay comes to mind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs). Since government must ultimately be held in place by use of force no matter how you structure it, it's unsurprising that the sub-organization responsible for exerting force is the ultimate decider of what's actually allowed.
trogdor 3y ago
>NYPD publicly doxed and threatened the mayor's daughter As best I can tell, that is not true. The Sergeants Benevolent Association, a police union, posted to Twitter a screenshot of Chiara de Blasio’s arrest report, which is a public record. The arrest report report contained her address… which was Gracie Mansion. In other words, not remotely a secret. The tweet did not threaten her.

maxwell 3y ago

The real socialist shadow governments are local police departments.

hotnfresh 3y ago
If only they were socialist. They’re arguably a lot less socialist than many actual gangs, as far as providing material benefits of their criminal activity to the people who “host” them. Not to glamorize gangs, but some have historically taken care to maintain some degree of legitimacy and favor among “their” people, including through provision of services and money or goods. While also, sure, shaking down some of those same people.

papercrane 3y ago

The police in NYC have rioted because the mayor was proposing a civilian oversight board to investigate misconduct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Association_Riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrolmen%27s_Benevolent_Assoc...

euroderf 3y ago

I thought this meme was identified decades ago: Whenever a town threatens to cut the fire department's budget, the FD whines loudly, and let a house or two burn down, and then they point fingers back at the mayor / town board. Once voters know the pattern, they're hep to it. So what's with the NYPD ? No voter control ? Should NYers start proposing referendums ? Are referendums even possible ?

HDThoreaun 3y ago
I'm in Chicago, but we have a similar situation. Voters are wise to the pattern, there's just nothing we can do about it other than firing all of them and bringing in the national guard, and we're not ready to do that. They've got us by the balls, blaming them doesn't get them to start working again

AtlasBarfed 3y ago

It's happened in Minneapolis as well after the George Floyd. The solution to this is either: - setup a second security force to gradually replace them or - subdivide the coverage map into different districts, suss out the districts with poor performing management, then merge the territories of bad areas under the management of good areas or - subdivide responsibilities between violent crime, petty crime, and mundane enforcement like traffic, with separate departments for each, and tackle cleaning them up separately. Really the notion of taking the same "trained" cop for all the roles in an urban area is pretty stupid. Specialized enforcement roles are likely a better solution. Shadow defunding, without calling it defunding, is also another weapon, but of course Minneapolis blew that by outright calling it defunding. But really the drug war is what fuels corruption and excessive power. Remove the drug war, and it would kneecap massive amounts of abuse.

fakedang 3y ago
Wait, cops in America aren't divided by roles? Huh, Til.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  They'll have different duties, like traffic cop and patrol and detective, but they are all part of the same department and most go through the same training "school". And, of course, they are all part of the same union. By subdividing into distinct departments, it is the basic divide and conquer. And you can replace departments more readily: keep the traffic and crime investigation units, but replace the patrol cops that are refusing to do their jobs.
- banannaise 3y ago
  Not officially. One of the effects of this is that if you crash your car, the guy who shows up to file a report has a loaded gun on his hip.

nostrademons 3y ago

Interesting. Seems like the logical thing to do would be to fire the whole PD and replace them with another group. Except that's basically the model used by secret-police dictatorships (eg. Russia, Iran) and anarchist failed states (eg. Haiti, much of Africa), so it doesn't seem to work very well either. Seems like the root problem is that we grant the state a monopoly on physical violence because the alternative (no group having a monopoly on physical violence, and hence all of them battling it out) is worse. But then like the holders of any monopoly, they abuse it. This is why we can't have nice things.

Gibbon1 3y ago
I seem to remember some city in the east coast fired their whole department and then hired back selected ones. And hired new cops to replace the guys they wanted to get rid of. And it helped. A suggestion I've thought of before and have seen in the wold increasingly is pay cops a stipend to pay for their own insurance. If they can't get insurance they get fired automatically.
grotorea 3y ago
I remember reading an article about Georgia (the country) successfully doing that with its highway patrol, but I can't find it again.