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Small business owners say they're pressured to hire off-duty cops for security
- criddell 3y agoBefore you hire off-duty police for private security, shop around a little. In the past, some concert promoters have hired the Hells Angels for security at a considerable discount.
- rpmisms 3y agoYou may also consider a less criminal MC, but generally bikers are great security. I ride with a Guardian Riders (https://guardianriders.com/ https://guardianriders.com/) chapter president, and he's often pulled in for private security at massive local events. They look intimidating and don't cause trouble.
- cafard 3y agoBecause it worked out so well at Altamong?
- Ylpertnodi 3y ago1 in how many years? And was the guy armed? I'm not saying they're angels, but I've never had a problem with The Angels as security: everybody knows 'don't mess', and things are good. I've seen a few mild beatings, but considerably less that the same fone by 'regular' bouncers down town (though they're getting better....must be all the cameras).
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoHiring off duty cops used to be a thing in Seattle when I was working at Crackdonalds (3rd and Pine McDonalds) in 94-95 (we had one or two cops working at all times to keep the lobby/dining area sane). But these days they aren't allowed to do that or the cops have become too expensive, I'm not really sure. They can only off duty for sporting events here for some reasons.
- forinti 3y agoThis is how the militias started in Rio de Janeiro. It will get out of hand if nothing is done.
- stevespang 3y ago[dead]
- Eumenes 3y ago[flagged]
- throwanem 3y agoYeah, I just bet if I go down to Sparrows Point and try to breeze in the front door of the Amazon DH there I'll get in no problem. And what's that have to do with a Minneapolis protection racket, anyway?
- nullindividual 3y agoDo you have any evidence of your extraordinary claim?
- cityguy33 3y agoSeems WAI from a capitalist perspective. Society has a problem, society doesn’t fix problem. Corporation come up with solution. Consumers use solution
- Eumenes 3y agoThis has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with enforcing law and order. People aren't stealing bread and milk to survive. Notice what products are behind plexiglass in large cities, its not food/essentials. District attorneys across the country are refusing to prosecute crimes like retail theft.
- CptFribble 3y agoIf you read The Fine Article, you will see it's not actually about security, but about police corruption - pressuring business owners of a certain skin color to hire off-duty cops as security under threat of losing their business license, when white business owners didn't appear to have the same requirements to operate. The business owner quoted in the article goes on to say that a lot of the time the cops they had to hire weren't even there - they had minimum pay requirements for every shift they "worked" even if they left early or just sat in their car doing nothing.
- thatgerhard 3y agogang behaviour
- toomuchtodo 3y agoMore like a Mafia protection racket imho. Worthy of a DoJ complaint and investigation.
- permo-w 3y agowhat's the difference?
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago"a gang" implies youth staking out territory, going up against other gangs, etc. Mafia implies it's a lot more subtle, someone coming up to a business going "Nice place you got here, would be a shame if something were to happen to it". Protection racket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket).
- permo-w 3y agothis is very tenuous and subjective. typically the mafia is regarded as a type of gang
- toomuchtodo 3y agoSomething like this: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-us-attorneys-office-district-new-jersey-announce-investigation-city-0 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-us-att... ("Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey Announce Investigation of the City of Trenton and the Trenton Police Department")
- bilbo0s 3y agoThe cops in concert with some city employees are running a protection racket. But I think it's a bit more like a crime family or maybe a corrupt political machine than it is like a gang. If businesses want to hire security, they should. But it shouldn't be a requirement of having a business. It comes off like the boss of the crime family telling you "I just want to get my beak wet". Like they're shaking down the small businesses. And it's hard to argue that they aren't.
- solarpunk 3y agoThere's a myriad of reasons that precinct got torched and the community it occupied doesn't want it back.
- monkaiju 3y ago[flagged]
- NotGMan 3y agoChildish reductionism. I'd like to see how well you handle 100 people ganging up on you and your family if true Mad Max style anarchy starts.
- bilbo0s 3y agoif true Mad Max style anarchy starts. and at the same time criticizing the Childish reductionism?
- lacrimacida 3y agoRight on. And even if the 100 madmax thugs ganged on you, what’s an off duty cops gonna do, call 911?
- tomrod 3y agoI don't agree with ACAB, but I do agree that there is a lot of dirty behavior out there that shouldn't be swept away with a weak, reductionist call to "childish reductionism."
- macksd 3y agoWhat's your argument here? That corrupt police who run protection rackets are worth it because they will, in the end, actually protect your family from gangs of 100+ people?
- toss1 3y agoJust because X does good things and serves a genuinely useful purpose, does NOT mean that X cannot also do bad things that damage the community In fact, both are almost inevitably true on any given day on both the best and the worst situations. The key is ensuring that the balance is on the good side. This requires distributing power, not allowing it to concentrate in too few hands.
- shipscode 3y agoWhy not just train staff and carry guns?
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoEven with guns, minimum wage people aren't gonna want to be heroes and risk their lives protecting the money of their boss, when threatened at gunpoint. Even if they're willing to pull the trigger, your average 7-Eleven employee is no Navy Seal and won't react well under gunpoint pressure and might end up shooting some innocent bystander or himself. Just giving guns to everyone is bad idea on so many levels.
- Justsignedup 3y agoI don't think this point gets plastered everywhere in the entirety of the world enough. Most humans don't want to shoot other humans. The few who have murder fantasies do, but other than that nobody wants to take a life. The concept of just arming everyone isn't a positive nor even a remote solution.
- hnlmorg 3y ago> I don't think this point gets plastered everywhere in the entirety of the world enough. That’s because most of the rest of the world doesnt respond to gun crime with arguments that the solution is to issue more guns.
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoSadly, that ship has long sailed for the US. Second amendment and all.
- hnlmorg 3y agoIt’s an amendment. The name says it all: it can be amended. The issue isn’t that the constitution cannot be changed. It’s that people are brainwashed into thinking it shouldn’t change.
- _moof 3y agoAlready we've got two top-level comments who think this article is about crime. It isn't. It's about corrupt police shaking down small business owners under threat of losing their business license. ETA: Please give the pedantry a rest. Of course I know police corruption is criminal. That's not what the people talking about "crime" are talking about.
- seanthemon 3y agoThe new mafia game's shaping up nicely.
- lagniappe 3y agoOnly a short amount of time before it devolves into pizza cartels
- vimax 3y agoAnd here we are in 2023, you can be a contract food courier for the Uber cartel.
- dirtyhippiefree 3y agoOne longs for Ad-Hocracy… I’m the Dirty Hippie Freak and I endorse this message.
- montagg 3y agoWhen we see Uncle Enzo’s chain launch, we know we’ll finally get the Metaverse we deserve.
- permo-w 3y agothis is more or less how the mafia and the yakuza originated
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- engineer_22 3y agoIt's shocking, but it is probably happening all over the country. In USA there is a shortage of workers, including security workers, and police benefit from that. Some of the allegations amount to corruption, some just business realities. This is a job for FBI to figure out.
- epicureanideal 3y agoShortage of good wages, not potential workers.
- tomrod 3y ago> In USA there is a shortage of workers, including security workers, and police benefit from that. You forgot the asterisk always required when one hears the phrase "shortage of workers*" --> "shortage of workers for the wage being offered."
- lokar 3y agoThis has been going on for a very long time
- willcipriano 3y agoYou have to scroll far past the accusations of racism and outrage to reach the story here: > Here’s how the off-duty work program works: Some businesses — like large nightclubs — are required by the city to have security, which until 2020, sometimes had to be off-duty Minneapolis police officers. Nightclubs often are required to have security beacuse they are a nuisance to the surrounding area and the taxpayer shouldn't be picking up the tab because you decided to overserve your customers. The off duty cop requirement is the only odd part here in my view and that appears to be gone now.
- Eisenstein 3y ago> Nightclubs often are required to have security beacuse they are a nuisance to the surrounding area How many night clubs are located in non-urban residential areas? The commercial properties near them would be closed because, you know, they operate during the day and night clubs don't. > the taxpayer shouldn't be picking up the tab because you decided to overserve your customers The solution to overserved customers is to not overserve them, not to have off-duty cops or security there to manage them after the fact. This is quite easily remedied by having the cops come by and fine them until they stop doing it. The fines will pay for the enforcement, so the taxpayers will be fine. By paying off-duty cops to manage overserved customers you are making real law enforcement improbable and making the problem worse. > The off duty cop requirement is the only odd part here Strange to qualify with 'only' when it is a major point of the piece.
- willcipriano 3y agoYou understand that any visible intoxication is overserving a customer right? You could give most people a beer an hour or so and forget about bottle service. Mixed drinks would have to contain less than a shots worth. I'm on board but the nightclubs won't be.
- Eisenstein 3y agoIs it your contention that every establishment serving customers more than a beer an hour should require security on premises?
- DonnyV 3y agoThe DOJ has to start actually doing its job and completely dissolving these corrupt police departments and rebuilding them. Thats the only way we're going to get rid of corrupts cops like this.
- MattGaiser 3y agoGiven the shortage of cops, I am not sure there is the appetite for this. Politically, cops shaking down businesses people associate with trouble seems more palatable than exacerbating the police shortage.
- mywittyname 3y agoSolving the corruption problem will solve the shortage problem.
- soco 3y agoI'm not sure what is the role of police here. If their role is to extort citizens I see no reason to keep them around. Or you think corrupt cops also protect some neighborhoods? Maybe for a nice price? I can rent my own thugs instead and I bet they'd be cheaper.
- 8note 3y agoThe benefit of having cops vs your own thugs is that the cops don't get you in trouble when they kill somebody on your behalf
- soco 3y agoI cannot imagine any real-life situation where police or thugs would need to kill "on my behalf". Armed terrorists shooting at people can be shot down already without much complications, and all the rest can and should be arrested.
- DonnyV 3y agoHere one solution that could fix shortage and quality in police departments. I see a lot of college educated people that can't find jobs. Raise the requirement for being a cop to need 2 to 4 years of college and hire all the college people looking for work. That will also fix most of the corruption problems. I bet a lot of college graduates would kill for a pension right about now.
- h2odragon 3y agoI know of a local Volunteer fire Dept that went that way; started having the head guy and a couple of his big cousins go around and tell people how much the VFD needed support, and how flammable their house or business looked. Couple months after that started, the guy's house burned down. I heard the trucks came out twice, the second time there were more people responding and the police got into the guy's barn with a major weed grow. Not sure what the whole story was but the VFD moved and became a different entity after that. The moral is that neighbors enforce the character of the neighborhood. Not cops.
- dd82 3y agoSo basically Marcus Licinus Crassus strategy for money making is still alive, 2000 years later.
- permo-w 3y agowhat did Crassus do similarly?
- LiquidSky 3y ago>The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Licinius_Crassus
- elcritch 3y agoOne could say he was giving the owners a chance at recovering some value rather than nothing. Also, it’s probably a more apt analogy for modern US hospitals: when you’re having say a heart attack you can’t exactly “price shop”.
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- thedaly 3y ago> Santamaria was later required to come up with security plans outlining the number of officers needed per night. The officers insisted on getting paid cash, she said. She feared if she didn’t oblige, she’d lose her license. > Eventually, another officer helped schedule off-duty work: Derek Chauvin. He worked security at her club for 17 years. > ... > She sold the club in 2019. When Santamaria saw Chauvin pinning George Floyd on the pavement in the video that shocked the world, she recognized both, because Floyd worked as a bouncer inside the club in 2019. That is an interesting connection. I didn't know that they worked together.
- rjbwork 3y ago>I didn't know that they worked together. Surprising. It came out fairly shortly after the incident that they were at least known to one another on some level through that security job.
- senderista 3y agoWhen I learned that I was suspicious that Chauvin was settling some personal score (and that explained why Floyd seemed to believe that Chauvin was going to kill him), but I don't know if any evidence for that came to light. Possibly an under-investigated angle, I'm not sure.
- slim 3y agoif you recognize someone from a previous job, even if he committed a crime, would you kill him if he did not represent any danger ?
- phatskat 3y agoThat’s a difficult hypothetical considering most of us don’t work in a capacity where we’re allowed to kill people.
- senderista 3y agoIf you hated him enough and thought you could kill him with impunity? Certainly some would.
- datadrivenangel 3y agoFascinating to learn that George Floyd and the cop who murdered him worked at the same nightclub for a while, and that the cop ended up also being charged for not paying taxes on the ~10k he earned under the table at the nightclub.
- thedaly 3y ago> Prosecutors said Chauvin failed to pay taxes on $95,920 he earned doing security for El Nuevo Rodeo between 2014 and 2019. Its actually closer to 20k/year.
- datadrivenangel 3y agoI misread the comma location! Wow, $100k in cash over 5 years.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago[dead]
- lr4444lr 3y agoI'm not here to shill for the police, but in my former city, it was not unusual for certain kinds of businesses which had a history of being the source of rowdy behavior to be required by the community board to take certain measures to prevent that. It didn't mean they had to hire former police, but they had to show preventative measures were taken above and beyond state level licenses requirements if the board, which had a right to refuse their liquor license, was fed up with the amount of police activity there. It's a valid response to say the board should not have had this much power, but the point is that it isn't necessarily a racket.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoI mean, you're basically describing hiring a bouncer. I've never heard of a bouncer being required, but that does make sense if otherwise they're calling the police all the time.
- Filligree 3y agoIt makes sense even if they don't. Places like that have externalities, and they shouldn't be offloading their rowdiness onto people who live next door.
- unethical_ban 3y agoI think the idea that the enforcers of law (the ones that show up in guns and armor) can compel people to hire them for security work is a very, very conflicted interest. Very mafia-like.
- Filligree 3y agoYes; the law should only allow them to require "a bouncer". Not one from a specific 'company'.
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- specialp 3y agoThis is also true in Orange County, Florida. I was surprised when I found out via a friend that was a deputy there that the uniformed police working at bars were being paid by the bar, and it was required that they had a certain number of them on duty. They too were getting paid $50-60 an hour.
- Clubber 3y agoThe fraternities at the university I attended were required to hire police at parties too. This was in the 90s.
- doctorhandshake 3y agoI've seen this with NYC nightclubs as well.
- thedaly 3y agoI've seen it in Chicago as well. The article mentions New Orlands PD. Seems to be a pretty wide spread phenomenon
- selimthegrim 3y agoYes, there was an article a few days ago about how basically cops here are grossing over 100 K working security. (I live in New Orleans)
- BWStearns 3y agoFriend of mine runs a drone photography business (think instagram people on vacation or house photography for real estate). The city requires he hire an off duty cop for $100/hr to “manage the set” and the minimum time per engagement for this rent-a-racketeer service is four hours. The shoots are usually about 30 minutes.
- stevehawk 3y ago(roughly) where is that at?
- BWStearns 3y agoFlorida of course.
- webninja 3y agoSounds like something a gang would require.
- FireBeyond 3y agoThat sounds so far from the realm of being in anyway necessary, and not just outright racketeering that you/your friend should contact local media, the DOJ or both.
- BWStearns 3y agoThat’s a good way to get your business license paperwork lost. Edit: not sure why the downvotes here. If you’re a small business owner you are trying to get through your day and your day gets a lot longer if you piss off casually corrupt city officials who can shut your business down by slow walking needed paperwork. This is a group that happily added 200% to your operating costs via ransoming your business license for a thinly disguised bribe. You think they won’t retaliate if you put them on the spot publicly?
- gamblor956 3y agoI think that if what you were describing was true, a federal DOJ investigation would result in a lot of people spending time in federal prison, and your friend walking away with enough money that your friend can drone all he wants from a private beach in the Bahamas while you both sip mai tais. So yes, they can retaliate against your friend. And your friend can retaliate against them and the difference is that their retaliation will cost your friend a few hours and a few hundred bucks, but your friend's retaliation will put them behind bars and destroy their careers and probably imperil their pensions. So if your story is true, contact the DOJ.
- slipperlobster 3y agoWe have a bunch of off-duty police here in the southeast US that do traffic control for churches, HOAs, etc. Not the same as security, I guess, but tangentially related. I always wonder how this is legally allowed. The idea of using taxpayer vehicles, training, equipment, etc. to control traffic while also leveraging the power of the badge to hold authority seems legally questionable, but IANAL.
- rjmunro 3y agoIn the UK, I believe that if you organise a large event that needs police coverage, you pay the Police force to provide on-duty officers. This seems a lot less open to corruption because it would be based on a standard price list that was public, and the officers received the same as they would doing any other duties. I know that's how it worked at some events my Dad organised in the 90s. I can't find anything about this on any Police force website, so it might be that it doesn't work like that any more.
- slipperlobster 3y agoOh, hey, I'm not saying off-duty police officers can't do side gigs. I'm more questioning them using publicly funded resources and authority to do so. Anyone can try to direct traffic, but cops are paid to do it because they get the car and flashing lights (and I assume the ability to ticket/arrest violations) while still collecting side money. It'd sort of be like me using my company's laptop/servers for side work, I guess. e: some random source I found -- of course the answer to the question is avoided, other than "it's for the officer's safety" https://www.al.com/on-the-road/2009/12/post_17.html https://www.al.com/on-the-road/2009/12/post_17.html
- mensetmanusman 3y agoYou would have to prove that trained non-off-duty citizens were prevented from supporting, otherwise you would implement a policy where you shrink the number of people that can take said position and that increases cost for tax payers.
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- say_it_as_it_is 3y agoThis isn't a story of racism but a story of power. It's not that white racists in power want to coerce non-white business owners but that people in power want to exercise that power to advance their own agendas. This same stuff happens to white business owners who aren't part of the inner circle.
- montagg 3y agoVultures picking what away at parts of a corpse they can. You see so many examples of this, just straight parasitical behavior, in at least American society. I don’t think the U.S. is economically where the Soviet Union was when it fell, but it’s rapidly approaching the civic dysfunction and deep corruption. You have to wonder, is this the fall of an empire or something like the corruption of the late 1800s and early 1900s, that created a backlash that corrected it and led to more prosperity? Dunno. We’ll see, if the vultures leave anything behind.
- shadowgovt 3y agoIt's dangerous to extrapolate too much from the early 1900s because the US not being ground zero for two World Wars, therefore able to serve as an industrial core to help rebuild the destruction, created economic opportunity the likes of which one hopes we never see again. Lacking that destruction creating a huge market for American business, it's hard to predict what happens if America lets its domestic capitalism go off the rails in terms of service to its people again.
- avgcorrection 3y ago> created economic opportunity the likes of which one hopes we never see again. What?
- bequanna 3y ago> just straight parasitical behavior Federal and State governments are the biggest parasites with their armies of useless Admin workers. Incidentally, big Govt is also the main driver of malaise-causing inflation. Start to starve them, redirect that labor/capital to useful endeavors and watch productivity and consumer confidence skyrocket.
- kbos87 3y agoDoesn’t sound that different from traffic control details in Massachusetts. While I don't know the details of their agreements first hand, I believe they are required by law to be off-duty cops, they are expensive, and have something like a 6 hour minimum. What I can validate is that they are usually seen chatting with people or sitting in their car rather than doing a single thing to help streamline traffic or in the interest of safety. Their union props up laws by saying it needs to be someone experienced and couldn’t be a cheaper certified citizen (as it is in many other states) but the net effect is that you get someone who is entitled and complacent.
- ben7799 3y agoCame here to mention this. It's the biggest shakedown of all time in Massachusetts. They are required to do all these jobs that most states don't require them to do. They are extremely expensive, like 10x what a construction worker costs to wave flags on the side of the road. And the police don't even really pretend to do the job most of the time. They are off on the side of the road drinking coffee and playing with a smartphone. What I have seen is lots of contractors will try to do things on the sly to avoid having to hire the police detail. E.x. a tree cutting crew that is technically going to block the road even briefly. The police detail will cost more than the work crew costs, so the contractor will try to sneak it in, otherwise the customer avoids having the work done completely or can't afford it. Even if the tree cutting takes 15 minutes the property owner would have to pay an entire shift's pay for the police detail. In the case of the original article though.. rowdy night clubs having to have police on board is no different than police being present in a school a large sports gathering.. it makes sense as those situations can be a powder keg waiting to go off.
- mattmaroon 3y agoI plan live events these days and the off duty cop shakedown is so real. Good luck getting really any permit. “Oh you’re hiring private security? We don’t think your security plan is sufficient to keep everyone safe.”
- ensignavenger 3y agoI would record that conversation and send it to the FBI, and if that didn't get any traction, the Press.
- diogenes4 3y agoNeither party is obligated to the interests of the people living in this country. I'm not saying this is necessarily bad advice but there are some problems that require actual citizens to do something aside from vote.
- mattmaroon 3y agoYeah, I mean, nobody knows how to skirt the law better than cops, and they of course never exactly phrase it in such a way as to be extortion. It’s bullshit, and I’ve talk to people from all over the country and I think it’s pretty pervasive. But my business relies on permits that they sign, and it just feels like I could probably spend a lot of time and money and ruin myself fighting it, over what is really a relatively small tax. I suppose that’s how they continue to get away with it. We’re all hoping someone else falls on their sword.
- ensignavenger 3y agoThere are certainly some locales that have a larger reputation for this sort of things than others.
- throw__away7391 3y agoI think this kind of defeated attitude enables this behavior. You should expect good behavior by default from public officials, normalizing the idea that this kind of corruption is deviant (even if it is more common than that) and expect punishment. Even as a bystander you can help influence opinion, expectations, and standards. This is a good tactic in many other situations as well.
- Daviey 3y agoI'm constantly surprised that the US allows off-duty police to "moonlight" as security. What is worse, many states seem to allow them to wear both their uniform and retain their police powers, whilst being paid in a private capacity. Which other countries allow this?
- s1artibartfast 3y agoMoonlighting isnt the problem. Workers arent slaves and should be able to work elsewhere when they arent on the clock. Cities legally requiring people to hire moonlighting cops IS the problem.
- giraffe_lady 3y agoUsing the language of labor movements to describe police isn't adequate for understanding the constraints they work under. What makes a cop a cop isn't the work they do, but the power they have. To what extent they are free to apply this power, or sell it, outside of its normal sanctioned purpose is a critical question. And one completely separate from the issue of workers selling their labor to multiple parties. Workers aren't slaves, but police are closer to slave drivers than they are to workers in this model. They do not labor, but are part of the system that coordinates who labors, to what ends, and to whose benefit.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoI think that argument breaks down if the police are Moonlighting in a job that doesn't require police powers. It is one thing, and I think reasonable, say that police can't wear their uniforms when working off duty. It's another thing entirely to say that they can't work at all
- lazyasciiart 3y agoIn most of the US (if not all - I don't know), off-duty police have the same powers as on-duty police, uniformed or not. That's why people want to hire them. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/when-police-walk-security-beat https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/when-pol... So if police are allowed to moonlight in other jobs, then they by definition bring those powers to the job - and their legal immunities, and their illegal immunities created by the 'thin blue line' of cops who protect each other.
- kemayo 3y agoThis is a pretty shady looking protection racket -- "nice business you've got here, be a shame if something were to happen to it". With the difference from traditional gang/mafia activity just being that they'll get the government to remove your business license, rather than burning the place down. Similarly, I once got a speeding ticket while driving through Kansas, and was instructed by the ticketing officer on how to send a "donation" to the "Sheriff's Benevolent Society" to make it go away without any points on my license...
- selimthegrim 3y agoThis happened to my dad with an Indiana State Highway patrolman on the toll road on the way to Chicago. (We are from Ohio)
- datadrivenangel 3y agoThis is also a favorite tactic in Mexico.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago> Similarly, I once got a speeding ticket while driving through Kansas, and was instructed by the ticketing officer on how to send a "donation" to the "Sheriff's Benevolent Society" This is when you express frustration because you already donated to the Policemen's Ball. If it works out, the officer will respond with something like "What are you talking about, policemen don't have balls"
- tomwhipple 3y agoI lived in Minneapolis in the late 90s/early 2000s. As I look back, I think the MPD is one of the most corrupt of all the places I've lived or worked. The sheer number of off duty "security" was surprising. As was the fact that cops never waited at stop lights. Instead, they'd roll up, flick on their lights for a second, then just roll through and keep driving. I've never seen anything like it since.
- Ajedi32 3y agoIt seems like there are a few different issues at play here: 1. In general, it doesn't sound like the police were the ones forcing the bars to hire police; that was the city. Maybe there was some backroom deal happening where the police were paying off city officials to create that mandate, but if so the article doesn't allege it. As others have pointed out, there are valid (though debatable) reasons for why a city might want to force bars and public events to hire private security, and even some valid (but more questionable) reasons why they might want that security to be cops or former cops. 2. But then there's the racism angle, with the woman in the article claiming that the only reason her business was required by the city to hire private security was because "they’re racist and we’re Mexican". If it's true that's the reason her business was targeted then yes that's a problem that definitely needs to be dealt with; probably through a civil lawsuit and some serious public shaming. Though I'll note that would be the city's fault; not the police. 3. The article also makes a separate claim "some small business owners — particularly those owned by immigrants — have been led to believe they must hire MPD officers, or risk getting ghosted by police", which if true would be an actual protection racket that the feds should bring the hammer down hard on, though there doesn't seem to be any compelling evidence of that as of yet (as least, not as described in the article); just rumors and allegations so far. 4. And then there's the issue of some of the officers hired being really expensive and not good workers. IMO that's only an issue if the claims about a protection racket are true. Otherwise you could just fire the people who are being lazy and hire someone else, same as any other business. It might also be a good argument for why the city shouldn't be requiring officers in particular to be the ones hired (much more limited hiring pool). 5. Then there's the tax evasion issue, with some officers insisting on being paid in cash. That's the least important part of this in my opinion. Let the IRS deal with it if that's actually what's happening. (I don't know why I wasted so much time writing this summary, but now that I have I might as well post it... hopefully some find it helpful.)
- colechristensen 3y agoThat open corruption is surprising but not surprising, why hasn’t it gotten federal attention? The problem in Minneapolis presently is that there are not enough police. There are statutory requirements for numbers that are nowhere being met. For that and perhaps other reasons they are not doing their jobs very effectively to the extent that I feel considerably less safe than I did ten years ago. With numbers and personal experiences to back it up.
- fundad 3y agoA lot of times, off-duty police are the only people licensed to carry concealed weapons. Santa Clara Sheriff's department decides to approve an application or not so they prevent any competition for armed security. They solicited bribes in exchange for permits for Apple corporate security. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-26/apple-security-chief-must-face-bribery-charge-over-gun-permits https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-26/apple-sec...
- rpmisms 3y agoThankfully, this is not common outside NY and California. Most other states (27 at last count) have constitutional carry, and at least in my area (small city) violent crime is extremely rare, since pretty much everyone has a gun or access to one. Our crime consists of theft and DUIs. I can't imagine what would happen if cops tried a protection racket here...
- Racing0461 3y agoThankfully it won't be common anywhere else due to Bruen supreme court case that made conceal carry permits shall issue if the person applying qualifies against aa rigid set of criteria.
- arthurofbabylon 3y agoAlready, police do this exact shakedown on cities. There are numerous incidents (anecdotal) of US police threatening city officials to reduce enforcement during election cycles, demanding increases in police force budget. Broadly, the US needs to eliminate corruption. There are many broken feedback loops right now from the grand (lobbying and campaign finance) to the minuscule (niche price fixing, bribery, police-ran protection rackets), all compounding unfavorably, all seemingly booming. It's astonishing the degree to which the public tolerates such forms of ineptitude and subversion – it has a direct impact on everyone's bottom line.
- NoGravitas 3y agoThe US has extremely low rates of corruption, because everything that would normally be considered corruption is legalized.
- rednerrus 3y ago[flagged]
- rpmisms 3y agoNo. SAG-AFTRA members, with the notable exception of Alec Baldwin, can't shoot people and get away with it. Police have special privileges, and should be snapped back into last century before we allow them to abuse them.
- mulmen 3y agoIn civil society running a protection racket isn’t a valid form of protest.
- stevenwoo 3y agoThe Supreme Court is responsible for a lot of this, it has institutionalized immunity for law enforcement and prosecution and unlimited corporate money in politics so that it would require overriding that lever of power which doesn’t seem likely since democrats just rolled over when the gop wouldn’t allow Obama to appoint a Supreme Court justice.
- specproc 3y agoI live in a country where this is fully integrated into the police system at a national level. There are two sorts of beat cops: traditional "patrol" police and "security" police, which you pay for. I only discovered the distinction recently, when a couple came knocking on my door, asking about my neighbour who'd missed a payment.
- senderista 3y agoIf you find these corruption allegations hard to believe, I lived on the South Side of Chicago in the late 90s, and cops there expected to eat for free wherever they went and blew through stop signs and red lights like they weren't even there. (I have never seen this kind of police behavior anywhere else I've lived, which includes downtown Seattle.) Oh, and I had a detective tell me once (after they'd found the guy who stole my laptop) not to worry because they had ways of making people talk. Shortly afterward I found out that detectives in that precinct had been sticking unloaded shotgun muzzles into suspects' mouths and pulling the trigger. I declined to press charges after I learned that.
- chaps 3y agoCan you share more on the shotgun stuff? Was that recently?
- 1123581321 3y agoThere was a famous case about their confessions obtained through torture. https://chicagotorture.org/reparations/history/ https://chicagotorture.org/reparations/history/ That link doesn't mention the guns in mouths, but I remember that technique from at least one article about those Chicago police.
- chaps 3y agoThanks. I'm familiar with the Burge case, just didn't know shotguns were involved. Vile.
- NullPrefix 3y agoisn't that normal behavior for law enforcement?
- renewiltord 3y agoThat happens in San Francisco too. Back in the day when someone tried to negotiate with the union, a bomb was found in the city with an implied threat.
- thelastgallon 3y agoIf they don't agree to hire, there is always civil forfeiture!
- jimt1234 3y agoThis happened to a childhood friend in St. Louis, Missouri. He opened a restaurant/bar and was mildly successful for a year or so. Then some dude came into his restaurant, flashing a badge, saying he needed to pay for additional security because of recent complaints, even though my friend had never heard of any complaints. My friend asked what "additional security" meant, and the dude told him that marked police cars would drive by every once in awhile. So, basically nothing "additional" at all. Anyway, my friend refused, and the dude left. Almost immediately, the "additional" police cars showed up outside his restaurant. They were constantly parked across the street, where they waited to pull-over nearly every car that left the restaurant. They issued numerous DUI citations, even to people that didn't have anything to drink. They impounded cars for chickenshit reasons. Business at my friend's restaurant plummeted - no one wanted to be harassed by the cops, and risk getting a DUI. My friend eventually had to close his restaurant. This was a few years ago, and when my friend told me about it, I just kept thinking he was talking about The Sopranos. But he wasn't; he was talking about the real-life police.
- exabrial 3y agoYet every HNer is begging for tax expansion. Where m you think this money is going to go? Don’t be naive, read history. Everyone else thought they could do it better too.
- renewiltord 3y agoIt's interesting that a lot of pro-cop people will say stuff like "The neighbourhood cafe always gives them free doughnuts. Guess who has a cruiser parked there often and always gets responded to. Be nice to the police." Like, dude, that's a protection racket. At that point, you might as well open it up to private organizations and I'll pay on the market for the best one that I like.
- Carioca 3y agoAs a Brazilian, I'm here to tell you: that's how it starts. If this isn't curbed, you'll have a presidential candidate thoroughly linked with them in ~20 years
- CSMastermind 3y agoThis has been happening in the US for more than a century now. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be stopped but our government system is pretty well designed to prevent things like this from rolling up to a national level. The bigger call out is that people who are trying to vest more power in the federal government should look at stories like this and realize that it's a bad idea.
- AtlasBarfed 3y agoThe Minneapolis Police Department aspires to be the Chicago Police Department. Kind of always been a theme for people that follow a police department of an otherwise pretty modestly sized city that should have a lot more integrity.
- sacnoradhq 3y agoThe Target here in ATX next to downtown hired 2 ex-PMC's in full plate carriers. (APD's call backlog for nonviolent reports runs 36- to 48-hours, so it might as well be never. A private person must then either be equipped to defend themselves, cease venturing in public, or move because the police may be too busy or too unconcerned elsewhere.)
- rpmisms 3y agoAnd of course, the police have no duty to protect individuals.
- wrboyce 3y agoATX? PMC? APD? I think I can maybe reverse engineer the meaning of two of those, but really you should use acronyms in full on first use. xPD is often how Americans refer to the police departments, so possibly that with “A” being a city or state or similar. ATX I can now assume is referring to the same “A” in APD, leaving “TX”, so I assume Austin, Texas and Austin Police Department? It shouldn’t take this much effort and international geographic knowledge to read your comment! (And I’m still don’t really grok it, wtf is a PMC?) I didn’t know what a full plate carrier was either, but I could at least Google that one ;)
- SauciestGNU 3y agoPMC is a private military contractor, also known as a mercenary. Think Blackwater, Wagner, that sort of company. You're right that ATX == Austin, Texas and APD == Austin police department.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- msteffen 3y agoFrom TFA: > Eventually, another officer helped schedule off-duty work: Derek Chauvin. He worked security at her club for 17 years. > … > “They were gone half the time,” Santamaria said. “They were on my payroll but they were gone.” > > She sold the club in 2019. When Santamaria saw Chauvin pinning George Floyd on the pavement in the video that shocked the world, she recognized both, because Floyd worked as a bouncer inside the club in 2019. > > El Nuevo Rodeo burned to the ground during the subsequent riots. So… 1. Insist on security officer 2. Use security officer to start riot 3. Use riot to cause mayhem 4. Goto 1 Classic, I guess
- llamaInSouth 3y agoSome cops are still nice, but eventually most of them appear to become corrupt.
- NullInvictus 3y agoYou have to have been raised pretty sweetly to not have known this kind of racketeering was a 'thing' for a very long time. Pressure to hire cops is rampant. 'rent-a-cop' is not aimed at the fact that security companies apply aggressive mimicry to their people, but that these people are themselves often off-duty cops. Security companies are strongly "encouraged" to hire off-duty cops, and find themselves left out to dry or otherwise 'convinced' if they try to resist. Before you add 'Why don't [you|they] do...' responses, recognize for a moment that the police in the U.S. are largely out of control, have undue control of local government and politics, and have an ideology that enforces self-righteousness and an 'enemy at the gates' siege mentality, and oh yeah, are able to apply violence at a level unmatched in society. These are not polite people, and the way one 'deals' with them has far more in common with radical militias rather than state bureaucrats. If you haven't encountered that, you're just lucky enough to have never threatened their interests.
- mcv 3y agoI live in a different country where this sort of racketeering would be extremely illegal and a national scandal if it happened. I find this article far too mild in calling out the blatant crime that these police officers openly engage in. With full knowledge of the city. People should be going to prison for this. A lot of people. That this is allowed to continue so openly is incomprehensible to me.
- edrxty 3y agoIt's pretty eye opening to watch every bill pushed through in the name of firearm safety turning out to have massive exemptions for off duty and retired cops. They're such a powerful political force that it's outright expected they should have a disproportionate ability to deliver force even after they're retired.
- PumpkinSpice 3y agoMy favorite part is that California has a roster of handguns approved for sale. The pretext for its existence is consumer safety (it is entirely separate from bans on stuff like assault weapons or large magazines), but the actual effect is that you have a very limited selection in stores, and most of the designs are very dated. But if you're a police officer? You get an exemption! Apparently, the state has no regard for your safety as a consumer, and allows you to buy whatever you want...
- ok_dad 3y agoEvery place where they do road work in Hawaii they require one or more patrol officers just sitting there in a car with lights on doing nothing. Also, I’m not sure of the details, but most cops in Hawaii seem to drive personal vehicles with lights attached. Literally what you see in “Hawaii five o”, with cops driving around in a 4Runner or a Charger or something.
- wnevets 3y agoDon't worry about it, they will investigate themselves and find nothing wrong.
- pmarreck 3y agoI see the corpos from cyberpunk with their own police forces are getting realer every day
- cvccvroomvroom 3y agoThis amounts to the police becoming a mafia with a protection racket. They realized that they have little or no motivation or incentive to actually do their jobs if they can extract more money with side jobs.
- dathinab 3y agoHow is it even legal for a cop to have a second job (job roughly == recurrent somewhat stable source of income)? Isn't that in many countries forbidden due to the high likelihood that this leads corruption and interest conflicts?
- pard68 3y agoThis makes me happy to live somewhere with a total of two deputies for the entire county. Not enough personnel to even manage the corruption.
- Ylpertnodi 3y ago...it only takes one.
- aldebran 3y agoMan I used to tell family in India that the US is better despite corruption because the corruption was at very high levels. Companies paying to pass bills that benefit them. That as a citizen you didn’t see it daily. I even used examples of how cops in India do this sort of thing. How naive of me…
- konaraddi 3y agoAny group of people, police or not, running protection rackets should face legal consequences that punish individual actors and effectively dissolve the said criminal enterprise. All of the officers, not just Chauvin, that were extorting immigrants for cash-only payments should also be investigated for possible tax evasion.