Cops: No Snarky Nor Positive Title

[Kepler]

To serve and protect.

“For years, Sean Williams drugged and raped women and sexually exploited children in Johnson City, Tennessee, and for years, officers of the Johnson City Police Department (‘JCPD’) let him get away with it,” the second amended complaint begins.

Filed by nine unnamed Does in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the lawsuit alleges that “at least eight” reports about Williams drugging and raping women in his downtown apartment were swept under the rug by numerous police officers, who, instead, treated the business owner and sports car collector like he was “untouchable.”

”In exchange for turning a blind eye, JCPD officers took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from Williams, all while refusing to take meaningful steps to protect women and children in Johnson City and to stop his known sexually predatory behavior,” the filing continues. “JCPD was not only turning a blind eye to Williams’ crimes, but also engaging in a pattern and practice of discriminatory conduct towards women who reported rape and sexual assault by Williams.”

[St. Clown]

At what point do smaller cities disband their PDs and pay the local sheriff’s office to take over the duties for the area? With repeated reports like this, it’s likely not an ethical one but a financial threshold. Will it take the local citizens to actually stand up and make the public outcry or some politician to step in first to beat that public scorn and place the motion to the city council?

[RaceBoarder]

At what point do smaller cities disband their PDs and pay the local sheriff’s office to take over the duties for the area? With repeated reports like this, it’s likely not an ethical one but a financial threshold. Will it take the local citizens to actually stand up and make the public outcry or some politician to step in first to beat that public scorn and place the motion to the city council?

Maybe it's different in MN, but in rural IL, it seems that the County Sherriff is a ton more shady than what you'll see at the town level.

[Bronco]

At what point do smaller cities disband their PDs and pay the local sheriff’s office to take over the duties for the area? With repeated reports like this, it’s likely not an ethical one but a financial threshold. Will it take the local citizens to actually stand up and make the public outcry or some politician to step in first to beat that public scorn and place the motion to the city council?

Anytime there is talk about getting rid of the small town police department you end up with Bubba Joe and Farmer Bob forcefully defending the police and the total chaos that would ensue from not having the police department in their tiny little 5-15k pop town. And as RaceBoarder said, the county is likely even worse since they have the funds to paint a blue stripe on their cars whenever their fee fees get hurt.

[Kepler]

The places it would make the most sense to kill the Po Po are the places where the derp is strongest.

[Jimjamesak]

Abolish all local police departments and sheriffs. Run everything from the state level.

[Kepler]

Abolish all local police departments and sheriffs. Run everything from the state level.

Same with schools. And fund them all out of the general fund, at the same rate.

(The irony is it would help the derp areas the most, since it would no longer be intellectual filicide to relocate rurally.)

[WeAreNDHockey]

Abolish all local police departments and sheriffs. Run everything from the state level.

I have been advocating for this for years. Virtually all local police (city, township, county) derive their power at a state level and theoretically serve the STATE of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, whatever. There should only Ohio Police, or Michigan police, etc.

This alone would not fix many of the worst abuses by police but at the very least training, policy, and protocol would be standardized. It would also save a ton of money on administrative costs. In Cuyahoga County alone, in addition to the 60+ municipal police departments, there are at least 3 sworn agencies serving 3 different health care providers (Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Metro Health), there are transit police, housing police, local offices of the Ohio Highway patrol, various federal agencies, and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's department. Each of these has a chief executive officer (chief of police, sheriff, etc), all making at least $100,000 in yearly salary. In total there are 1000s of redundant employees doing clerical work, assisting needless chiefs, and basically sucking the taxpayers dry with needlessly duplicated jobs. If you count every separate police agency with a presence in Cuyahoga County, the number approaches 100. Absolutely ridiculous.

It would be nice someday if American voters took an honest, hard look at the literal billions of dollars we WASTE on law enforcement in this country. And I'm not talking about abolishing the police, or "defunding" law enforcement here. Police departments can serve a vital public need. But this country gets absolutely nothing out of at least half of every dollar we devote to law enforcement. If republicans cared, really cared, about saving taxpayers and ending needless government spending, they'd start with law enforcement.

[Handyman]

Half the states can't fix their roads but you want them to be in charge of the cops? Are you nuts? The abuse will be ten times worse and the citizens will have no way to stop it. Not to mention you get tbe wrong government in place and you have a recipe for serious disaster.

State cops and County Sherrifs are some of the worst around...you guys are advocating for basically giving them carte blanche in the name of balancing a budget. No thanks...that may work in Alaska but in large Blue States that is a disaster. Check out the Sherrifs in California some time they are worse than the LAPD.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Half the states can't fix their roads but you want them to be in charge of the cops? Are you nuts? The abuse will be ten times worse and the citizens will have no way to stop it. Not to mention you get tbe wrong government in place and you have a recipe for serious disaster.

State cops and County Sherrifs are some of the worst around...you guys are advocating for basically giving them carte blanche in the name of balancing a budget. No thanks...that may work in Alaska but in large Blue States that is a disaster. Check out the Sherrifs in California some time they are worse than the LAPD.

Actually, 90% of the states can't fix their roads probably.

You elect a decent governor and much of the problem goes away. Ohio has one of the best public sector collective bargaining laws in the entire country. But right now the executive branch does everything it can to render it as useless as possible. The last time Ohio had a governor that gave the first crap about working people and the positive effect unions have on the middle class, public sector workers fared much better and the law was administered properly.

Like I said in my post, eliminating local police alone will not fix the worst problems in policing. But explain to me how it is better that Cuyahoga County pays -- literally -- millions of dollars to 60+ municipal police chiefs who all do the exact same job as the one in the community immediately north, south, east, or west of them, than to either not tax the taxpayers that money or use it for better purposes.

Some police organizations even realize the problem of too many police departments. In the aftermath of the Michael Brown murder at the hands of a suburban St. Louis cop, the Police Executive Research Forum identified as one of the problems of policing in the St. Louis area that there were far too many separate police agencies. With more than 60 agencies in St. Louis and St. Louis County (the city is not part of the county but is surrounded by it) the report noted "(t)he fragmentation of policing is inefficient, undermines police operations, and makes it difficult to form effective law enforcement partnerships to combat crime locally and regionally."

75% of all police agencies have fewer than 25 officers. Half have fewer than ten. If one person can be the chief executive of more than a thousand cops in Cleveland, we certainly don't need to pay 80 others to do that job for 25 officers. or 10. Or 5. A Cambridge University criminologist, Lawrence Sherman, has studied the different challenges faced by cops in the U.K. and the U.S. He believes that due to the tiny size of so many police departments in the U.S. makes organizational quality control of police far too difficult.

You know who are the most opposed to any sort of geographical consolidation in police departments in the U.S.? The chiefs and other top executives who would be out of jobs. I think their opinions on this are useless. And by the way, while not to the same extent as law enforcement, other public safety entities like fire/rescue departments also suffer from the same over-abundance.

[state of hockey]

Half the states can't fix their roads but you want them to be in charge of the cops? Are you nuts? The abuse will be ten times worse and the citizens will have no way to stop it. Not to mention you get tbe wrong government in place and you have a recipe for serious disaster.

State cops and County Sherrifs are some of the worst around...you guys are advocating for basically giving them carte blanche in the name of balancing a budget. No thanks...that may work in Alaska but in large Blue States that is a disaster. Check out the Sherrifs in California some time they are worse than the LAPD.

This. Members of the MPD may have started that mess in May 2020, but in the ensuing unrest the State Patrol came in and said “Hold my beer.”

[RaceBoarder]

The other thought is what do you do with "split" states like IL or NY where there is a GIANT divide between the urban center(s) and the rural 80% of the state?

Even with standard training, you are gonna essentially have the same job in two different areas where one is super "easy" and the other is "difficult".

I can only imagine the corruption that would go into who gets to work where.

[Handyman]

This. Members of the MPD may have started that mess in May 2020, but in the ensuing unrest the State Patrol came in and said “Hold my beer.”

[MissThundercat]

Not a drag queen. Not a trans woman either.

https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/20...li2liv4usKj3G4

[rufus]

Meskin, though.