The Adventures in Policing Thread Part II

This is probably a good idea and mgiht help so you can be sure that one of our political parties will call it socialism or marxism or defunding or something and make sure nothing happens.

 

If ever you needed proof the police are there to suppress the poor and not the wealthy, there it is.

Don't pay $3 for a subway? Shoot three people. Steal $millions from your employees? Not even a fine.

 

Yeah….your source literally says almost all of these payments are paid by the local governments themselves. I was looking for backup stating that those payments were covered by insurance like you said in your first post. I really really don’t think that’s true. The cities (and the taxpayers) pay for police misconduct….not insurers.

 

You seem surprised by this…it just seems common sense to me, in our federalist system.

Now, what Congress CAN do is make police and sheriff depts who want to access federal grants certify XYZ standards. I think that’s still constitutional, but I have nagging feeling when Roberts effed with the ACA they put in some bizarre definition of mandates or something to kill the Medicaid expansion. Can’t recall the details.

 

Not surprised by it at all. Not sure honestly why I wrote it like that. When I was thinking out that post my skepticism towards the Supreme Court was more on what you are saying to the latter.

 

Don’t try to make sense of this:

The NYPD spent $150 Million *extra* last year to catch people who weren't able to afford to pay the subway fare. They owed just $104,000.

$150 million could buy free fares (at going rate) for 95,000 poor New Yorkers per year.

Instead four people shot, including an officer. https://t.co/hATRP5DItI

— Scott Hechinger (@ScottHech) September 16, 2024

 

I’ll try to make sense of it. While this guy seems like a reputable user with a large following…he links to a pay walled “news “ site that I’ve never heard of and provides no direct quotes from either the article’s authors or their evidence. That in turn fires up my bullshit detector leaving me to believe that this is either a complete fabrication or so stretched kernels of truth as to make the truth unrecognizable…all to generate clicks.

So I’ll wait for my outrage until an actual reputable news source writes an article about this that doesn’t include “according to the news site Hell Gate NY….”

 

That guy is full of shyte.

 

If I had to venture a guess:

NYPD increased police resources for subway patrols. While their presence decreased violent crime on NYC subways…they also increased the number of arrests for fare violations (more cops on patrol means more cops there to spot turnstile jumpers). Therefore…the entire budget increase just has to be to increase fair violation arrests and not to decrease other crimes…because reasons.

I really ********ing hate when lefties post shit that gets me defending the police.

 

FPDMCIP

Federal Police Department Misconduct Insurance Program

In exchange for adopting these minimum standards in training, discipline, hiring standards etc….the federal government will insure state and local governments against liability for damages associated with police misconduct lawsuits. Any lapse…and the town/local government pays.

I have a dream….

 

But if the local government isn't on the hook for police misconduct what's the incentive to actually fight false allegations and not just settle?

 

I don’t know…co pays?

There are a thousand ways to de-incentivize that behavior.

 

I’ve seen a lot of discussion in and around these exact data on bluesky from lots of independent types, and some with links to major publications. I just did a search there for “nypd subway overtime” and most of the discussion appears to be based on the paywalled link below from several months ago (which I’m not paying for).

While I agree it would be much better to see one of the major publications pick this up, several of the bluesky accounts posting this seem to be reputable - i.e., people regularly re-posted by the regularly bigger accounts (“big” by bluesky standards, which is still a small fraction of twitter). I haven’t seen much if any pushback on this.

https://bsky.app/profile/cooperlund.bsky.social/post/3kh3a2erfyk2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/cooperlund.bsky.social/post/3kh3a2erfyk2l

There was also a lot of chatter around the same time involving photos of dozens of nypd seemingly just hanging out together at subway stations collecting OT. Somewhat anecdotal but again, I didn’t see pushback against this.

 

It's $10k to hire a good attorney. Probably another $10k for them to read a complaint and file a 12(b)6. If the case isn't immediately dismissed then a $50k settlement is cheap compared to the potential legal fees.

Well the best way to disincentivize would be to go after the complainant for the defendants' legal fees but courts are reluctant to do this, in fact they'll even waive the complainant's filing fees.

 

It was a horrible slogan no doubt. However, it goes much further than just defunding the police. In this particular case "Defund the Police" means, do not pay the police to perform fare enforcement, rather fund a Fare Enforcement department within the Metro Transit Authority that has unarmed fare enforcement "officers" that stroll through stations and trains "randomly" checking people to make sure they paid their fares.. If they haven't paid fares, get their ID, check if they are a repeat offender, if not, hand them a brochure telling them how they can get fare assistance, if they are a repeat offender, give them the brochure and a nominal fine.

 

LOL thank goodness you saw this post before me. The first thing that jumped out at me was his assertion that every fare jumper “couldn’t afford” the fare. That tweet was unconvincing from beginning to end, if the reader isn’t credulous.

We need to all be much more skeptical, ESPECIALLY about reports that tickle our ideological sweet spots. Dapip is primed to link dump this kind of thing, without really thinking about the veracity. @dapip, maybe the tweet thread?

Because now we’re debating the value and veracity of this tweet, instead of talking about how police work is broken, and solutions, and so forth.

 

Having lived in NYC for 20 years I can promise you that everyone hates fare jumpers.

 

There's no fare enforcement as such as once you're in the system you're in the system. There are no tickets to check etc. They will stop people who jump barriers right in front of them. The vast majority of people don't even though it's easy to do. If your kids fit under the barriers that's fine. It's like a trust system.

The vast majority of New Yorkers jumping barriers aren't poor families though, they're teenage boys doing what teenage boys do, being a little bit naughty. School kids can travel free anyway.

 

I was arrested, as a fully grown adult, for fare jumping in NYC. Ask me anything.