You must log in or # to comment.
Why does the NYPD look so damn frumpy?
Dunkin donuts
Because there’s no mandatory fitness tests once they pass the academy.
Once they finish their 10 minutes of training and get hired by the NYPD, they’re pretty much Made Men, mafia style.
It’s so funny because they are also in a union. I’m sure this is lackluster for them
They’re not in a real union.
Real unions exist to improve the compensation and working conditions of their members.
Cop “unions” exist to make sure they get away with their countless crimes. They do little to nothing of what real unions do
Red Rover, Red Rover, send freedom on over
Something something class traitors.
The were never of the people.
You know how in TV shows its always a call from some high powered rich guy pulling strings and calling the chief of police or the like and telling him “you do what i want or im going to make sure youre knocked down to field duty so fast it will make your head spin”? Can you imagine how many strings Amazon can pull? We the people will never have that kind of power over them
Your next day shipping fee at work.
This is the police union’s idea of solidarity… with the ruling class.
Its the main reason the police ‘union’ always gets its pay rise come budget year and Nurses, Firefighters and Teachers are left to fight for the ever diminishing crumbs.
The ruling class will always need there little army of oppressors.
But firefighters are hallowed FIRST RESPONDERS! /s
I love it that cops know they are hated and so hide behind people that actually save lives instead of murdering people when they “feel unsafe.”
You can add paramedics to the list of the grossly underpaid, too.
My Dad was a firefighter in a city that had a referendum requiring firefighters and police receive the same salaries for the same ranks.
Council let the police hire all officers in one rank higher than the fire department to get around it.
And paramedics also get completely shafted, I think they’re often contractors not even state employees, though that may vary
I’m my area they’re all contractors and the pay is shit. Many try to become fire fighters because starting pay is double
How can ambulance journeys be 1000’s and their drivers be paid shit? What stops an independent ambulance service simultaneously paying higher wages and charging patients less?
How can ambulance journeys be 1000’s and their drivers be paid shit? What stops an independent ambulance service simultaneously paying higher wages and charging patients less?
Simple answer: They can’t. There’s a lot more expenses than you realize.
Then you have inadequate Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates which means almost every run you do for a patient insured under Medicare or Medicaid will be a net loss, along with most municipalities unwillingness to adequately fund the EMS system with taxpayer dollars, if they fund it at all.
Also, when you pay for your ambulance ride, you aren’t just paying for that ride. It’s not just the hour the crew was with you. You’re paying for the fully stocked ambulance $250k+ depending on service level, fuel (I put over $100 of fuel in my rig every day), restocking the supplies, the station (either rent or mortgage+ utilities), training, maintenance costs on the ambulance and equipment, and salaries of all the personnel who do administrative, logistics, and fleet services. For a true 100% municipal based EMS system the government and taxes absorb a lot of those costs, but a private third party EMS system has to pay all of those out of reimbursement rates. They may get some money from the municipalities they cover, but it’s usually a drop in the bucket. One township in the coverage area where I used to run would only give $2,000 a year and demanded a fully staffed ALS (paramedic + EMT) ambulance on duty 24-7. That didn’t even cover salaries for a week, let alone any other costs.
There’s a lot of politics that go into EMS in the US, especially when municipalities bounce their coverage off to private systems. It ends up with a system where everyone loses. Communities get worse coverage, pay more individually for their EMS bills, and have weaker providers making less money because the better providers who can get hired in better systems tend to go where they can get paid more unless they have strong ties to the community and want to work there for personal reasons rather than financial reasons. I have an hour long commute because I’m willing to drive to an agency that pays me more than everything around where I live. I know people who drive 2 1/2 hours one way to make even better wages. I also know people who aren’t willing or can’t do that for family reasons and so they make less than 3/4 of what I do to do the exact same job.
A detailed answer, thanks.
To get a fair price we should look at other countries, but it’s hard to see the level of public subsidy.
Looking here, Australia is the next comparison country. I think the most telling statistic is the cost per km. The US is x8 more expensive.
Pretty sure the reason to use private companies as they won’t have to deal with unions if the employees were county employees like police and fire fighters. So they can pay less collect more money
I can understand why current ambulance service owners want to charge more and pay less.
I don’t understand why rival services dont appear and give better wages for a cheaper service.
Where are the Uber ambulance companies?
I’m sure you gotta pay your local politician to make sure there is no competition
And they suffer a lot of abuse.
Yup!
You pay the taxes, they evade them. You get controlled, they get protected.
Idk maybe this one
It all boils down to the same thing: protecting capital.
During the Civil Rights marches, the whites in power 100% saw these people as a threat to their money, as well as a threat to the established hegemony that had them squarely at the top.
A 17-year-old civil rights demonstrator, defying an anti-parade ordinance of Birmingham, Alabama, is attacked by a police dog on May 3, 1963.
Bill Hudson—AP PhotoThere’s a decent article with wider context on the Equal Justice Initiative site.
Systemic racism is part of the greater class war.
That is a fantastic picture, however.
People don’t realize that there must always be an oppressed, second class group of people at best. This way they can made to be out the enemy while being a victim to the system.
Police protect property. If you don’t have any of that, they are not very useful. If you have a lot of it, they’re at your beck and call.
You forgot the part where if you have a little they steal it.
You never had it, idk what this poor is talking about.
There’s The Money, and then there’s everyone else.
At this point though, they’re even taking art away from us. They’re not making anything though, only manufacturing trash into giant piles.
End game? No one knows. Not even them.
i have a few ideas…they wont like it tho
Dumb fucking idiot pigs
Hope they are singing ‘we shall overcome’
I don’t get it, honestly.
What would you like the police to do in this situation?
Get a real job.
Arrest Amazon suits. If not then they should quit and join the strikers,
The fact that you have trouble imagining police NOT being bastards should invoke a realisation that it’s not good for us to be at the mercy of mercenary cop bastards in the first place.
Arrest Amazon suits for what crime? Just the vibe? I’m sure you can imagine how that might not work out how you plan.
Its true that citizens should not be “at the mercy” of police. The US does seem to be a bit fucked in that way. The solution to that, or at least the first step in the right direction, would be higher entry requirements, better training, and actual consequences for misconduct.
vibe based arrests of people you don’t like is not going to solve your police problem.
Not be there. Or exist for that matter.
To not be there, they’d have to make a choice about which altercations they ought to attend. Does that really sound like a good idea? If there’s a protest with a risk to person or property it seems sensible for a police force to attend to mitigate that risk.
There’s a lot of criticisms to be made of any police force, and it’s absolutely proper and right to do so in a democracy (even if that’s not how things roll on .ml), but expecting them not to attend a protest just because your opinions align with the protesters is pretty daft.
Who are police mitigating risk for?
The parties who are at risk I guess.
Do these parties have names? Or do you plan to answer in another circle?
I’m not answering in a circle, I’m pointing out the absurdity of your question.
If you have a point then make it.
Childish boot licker
Protect tax payers instead of non tax payers
So you don’t want the police to protect homeless people, for example?
I get your witty snarky lemmy-ism, but obviously in practice police can’t conduct an assessment of who ought to be protected. They need to just protect everyone. In this case there’s no threat against the “tax-payers” if you will.
So you don’t want the police to protect homeless people, for example?
What we might want and what actually happens are different things. In philosophical terms it’s the difference between the normative and the descriptive.
Example: for the several years I was unhoused police harassed me regularly (despite being careful of to break no laws or inconvenience any Normals) and offered help exactly zero times. Admitted it’s anecdotal but I don’t think it’s an outlier case.
“To Serve and Protect [the status quo]”
What we might want and what actually happens are different things.
Yes, but we’re sat here commenting on a picture of police protecting corporate property during a protest, so we are dealing exclusively with “what we might want”
Everyone piling on complaining that police shouldn’t be doing that, but no one has any idea what a competent and well trained police force would be doing instead.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. Police already do not protect homeless people.
That’s a generalisation which isn’t true. I’m certain there are innumerable crimes against homeless people which have been prosecuted. What a silly thing to say.
I think they’re implying that Bezoes doesn’t pay taxes and they very well could be right
That’s the witty snarky lemmy-ism I’m referring to.
I get it. Obviously the guy should pay taxes. No one should be able to accumulate wealth in that way.
My point is, it’s daft to suggest the police should make an assessment about whom they ought to protect, without reference to the law.
Lol oh that was the “witty snarky lemmy-ism”, but not your reply pretending that you thought they meant homeless people?
My reply about homeless people was pointing out the unintended consequences of their daft “tax payers” assertion.
If that’s something you would describe as a witty or snarky response, that’s up to you I guess.
Oh fuck off, you know I’m right. You did the exact same thing you were criticizing.
it’s daft to suggest the police should make an assessment about whom they ought to protect, without reference to the law.
… But they already do…
So you simultaneously do and do not what them to be selective in their policing?
They already are
I get your point and agree
How about lose like 75% of their funding for a start?
Which police functions would you curtail?
Well, an immediate thought that comes to mind is any action related to mental health. We need a separate group that responds to 911 calls regarding mental health incidents, that are not cops.
I would stop, and completely walk back, the obscene militarization of US police forces that has been happening over the last 30+ years. No they don’t need military surplus shit built for warzones in the middle east.
And I would consider not allowing them to carry firearms (at least not at all times, or maybe needing remote permission to unlock).(I can’t wait for people to glom directly onto this one and ignore everything else I’ve said 🙄)
I would make covering or turning off a body cam at any time for any reason a criminal (and fire-able) offense.
I would remove qualified immunity.
I’d make it so police need to purchase their own malpractice insurance like doctors so taxpayers aren’t the ones paying out millions when they kill people they shouldn’t.
That was all off the top of my head. I could probably think about it more and keep going
Edit: the problem really is fundamental. Police exist, and have always existed, to protect capital. Not people (see original photo for prime example).
I’m honestly not sure if it’s even possible to remove or change that unifying purpose, and instead shift it to serving people. Especially not with the douchebags we currently have our precincts staffed with.
We need an entirely new type of civil servant for that, I’m afraid.
the problem really is fundamental. Police exist, and have always existed, to protect capital.
This, in my experience (exclusively outside the US), is just plain wrong. If I enumerate my interactions with police over the years the vast majority is personal well being, not corporate property or capital.
They showed up to my neighbours house a few times over domestic violence complaints. Actually she got a restraining order against him, then a few weeks later was threatening suicide, and the police picked him up and took him to see her. They got back together after that (for better or worse, but they do have kids and seem happy enough).
Another neighbour had a psychotic break and appeared in my back yard one morning. The po-po showed up and managed the situation in a humane and sympathetic manner. Actually years later he was prosecuted for possession of CSAM.
I had some expensive trainers (shoes) that were stolen from my front door. I got the perps on camera and the police showed up to see. The thief was known to them and the video allowed them to get a warrant for a search. They didn’t get my shoes but they got a bunch of other stuff. I suppose you could call this “protection of capital” but I don’t think anyone really thinks of their shoes and other personal effects as capital.
I regularly see the police on the road. Conducting breath tests to check no one is driving drunk. When there’s an accident they show up to manage traffic and so on.
My kids (3yo twins) have weekly gymnastics lessons at a local Police and Community Youth Centre. There’s always a couple of coppers hanging around. That centre has dance, music, boxing, et cetera. It’s not funded by the police but a lot of events and programs are conducted with police participation.
In contrast I called them about an annoying alarm that was going off in a nearby bus-depot all weekend. They were decidedly disinterested in whatever was going on. They looked around and said that there was no sign of an imminent threat or ongoing crime so they weren’t going to enter the property. Not much protection of capital going on there.
The assertion that police exist [only to] to protect capital just doesn’t align with my observed experience. Sure, police in the US might be more concerned with shooting people, not getting shot, and protecting capital, but that’s an American problem rather than a police problem.
