These people are just awful:
As if you needed any more proof the NYPD is made up of whiny diaper babies on ever dickish, often lethal power trips: In an effort to embarrass Mayor Bill de Blasio or something, the second largest policeman’s union in New York City has begun photographing the homeless and uploading their pictures to Flickr for an initiative called (I shit you not) “Peek-a-Boo, We See You!”
In an initiative glowingly profiled by the New York Post, the Sergeants Benevolent Association is encouraging cops and their pals to take picture of homeless people and upload them to this Flickr account while they are off duty, as it’s illegal for a police officer to photograph the public while on duty. The purpose seems to be three-fold: To mock efforts to hold police accountable for their behavior via videos and body cameras, to kick homeless people when they’re down, and to embarrass de Blasio by showing that New York still has homeless people a full year and a half into his mayorship.
Police unions need to be nuked into orbit before they do more damage to the general public and to the good name of unions everywhere.
Gavin
Also, too: Politicians who give to the Police Union aren’t pro-worker.
Another Holocene Human
A) most labor unions have little if anything to do with police unions, and that includes non-union labor movement entities like community organizations and labor law firms (naturally, the police have their own 401(c)3’s and lawyers)
B) police labor unions are there for the wages and working conditions of police which were truly atrocious when police unions were outlawed. The police unions we know today grew out of non-union brotherhoods (back when insurance regs were a lot looser), ethnic brotherhoods, and out and out secret societies. That colors their identity today.
It’s not police unions that are the problem. It’s our arbitrators and judges, hoary old white men (the arbitrators even moreso than the judges) who think that cops always tell the truth and “suspects” always lie.
These SAME arbitrators do not rule the same way for non-public-safety, non-police-and-correctional grievants. Trust me!
elboku
It is not unions: it is the blue wall mentality. Whether there is a police union or not, they will act that way. It is easy to blame the union but the reality is ALL POLICE consider themselves part of the blue wall.
Nothing has changed since Serpico.
Another Holocene Human
@Gavin: Where do you live that the money doesn’t flow in the opposite direction?
Another Holocene Human
@elboku: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Police and correctional officers are represented by the same unions. (Mainly Teamsters, PBA, and FOP, although they go by different names sometimes.)
Joel
How long before we can replace policing with automation?
Humboldtblue
Firefighter unions are a bit better and even firefighters who aren’t in unions are still awesome. There are more than 100,000 acres ablaze from the Oregon border to the Humboldt county line but lifesaving efforts mean all lives as a mama dog and her puppies found out in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest on Wednesday.
The Fork Complex of fire has scorched more than 27,000 acres and resulted in the evacuation of local residents due to very poor air quality. Mama dog and her pups got separated from their owners but have since been reunited.
Steve From Antioch
Yet another thread that ignores Black Lives Matter.
MattF
I don’t get the point of this ‘initiative’… and I think I’m glad I don’t.
Another Holocene Human
@Humboldtblue: IAFF is a very militant union. They will use every legal measure open to them. I guess they are kind of paramilitary–and for the most part firefighters and the emts who work with them seem to be very aware of what side their bread is buttered on, unlike the dipshits I work with.
OTOH, they sometimes get that police/military halo (they have a whitey white image, so that helps, and a ton of them are reserves–but so were my coworkers, not like anyone gave a shit) and so when they get involved in politics and stuff they often succeed. Most unions have to get into the streets (like, blocking it) to get any attention.
Another Holocene Human
@MattF: To be nasty bullies. That’s what animates New York Post “readers”, such as they are, as well as most soi-disant conservatives in the tristate area.
Humboldtblue
@Another Holocene Human: My brother is a union rep and I was a member for 5 years at one point.
Another Holocene Human
@Steve From Antioch: What, too chicken to be a racist all over the actual Black Lives Matter thread?
Too stupid to understand how this action by police fits in with exactly the kind of stuff #BLM has been talking about?
Too lazy to read the OP before hitting “Send”?
Flatscan. Is you.
NonyNony
Someone could perform a true act of journalism by taking the photos that the police are taking and writing up a story about how the social justice system in New York has failed these people and how they need more shelters, social workers, and psychological counselors to address these issues. But that the last thing the city actually needs is to have police harassing these folks as “nuisances” rather than helping them. (And maybe going into some stats about how “helpful” the police are when it comes to treating people with psychological issues – which many of these folks are going to have.)
Frankly I think that might be the best way to stick it to the police union here. They’re collecting evidence that the city is failing these homeless people, and indirectly the rest of the city. Why not use that evidence to push the city to do more for them – maybe by reallocating portions of the police budget to more community outreach to help these folks out.
Another Holocene Human
@Humboldtblue: That’s great. Being a union rep is a thankless task.
I hope it was clear I admire the IAFF. And one of their locals opened their hall up to our CLC. :)
Humboldtblue
And speaking of cops, we all know our Republican brethren are more opposed to raising taxes than they are to repealing Obamacare and medicaid and the EPA. Except in states where marijuana is big business, when it comes to the devil weed Republicans are more than happy to jack up the taxes.
Woodrowfan
@Another Holocene Human: I thought he was joking. he’s being serious?????
Another Holocene Human
@NonyNony: No kidding, and let’s not forget the deeper issues with affordable housing that DeBlasio was elected to work on. Some of these folks need mental health care or help with substance abuse or both. But the sheer numbers bespeaks of the severe inequalities and imbalanced priorities that have made it so difficult to obtain shelter for those at the bottom of the income ladder.
Another Holocene Human
@Woodrowfan: For days, my friend, for days.
Culture of Truth
To quote Gordon Geckko in Wall Street, “why are we employing these people – did we run out of human beings?”
the Conster
@MattF:
I know, right? It’s pretty clear that the overlap between cops and sociopaths is close to 100% because anyone not a sociopath is left scratching their head.
scav
Being vindictive, small-hearted and acting-out: it’s not just a job, it’s a vocation. Benevolence!
Woodrowfan
@Another Holocene Human: oh my. I’ve been skipping the BLM Wars. I didn’t know…. Oye.
Another Holocene Human
rawstory.com/2015/08/detroits-transgender-community-after-murder-of-amber-monroe-police-have-have-no…
“Police Have No Sympathy For Us”
Maybe this story from Detroit will put NYPD’s harassment of the homeless into context a little bit more.
#AmberMonroe #SayHerName
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
@elboku:
This, but I’d go beyond cops, judges and lawyers and say “the public.” As a general rule, the majority of the white public (which still has the most influence on the nation, demographic changes or not) simply will not believe a suspect over a cop, period – especially if the suspect is black or Latino, but to quite an extent, any suspect unless he’s personally known to them. If they had to smack that gangbanger around a little, surely the gangbanger started it or did something to deserve it, and if they occasionally make a mistake or go a little too far, we need to cut them some slack because they’ve got a tough job protecting good honest folk from all the gangsters out there.
The videos we’ve started seeing in the last year or so are finally slapping white people in the face with the fact this mindset of unquestioning acceptance and slack-cutting on the part of the public and the authorities has allowed cops to run completely wild and get away with anything they want to. Even then, plenty of people are still in flat-out denial (I’ve seen it myself when these arguments pop up at family reunions). And then you’ve got those who know that the cops are basically licensed street gangs, but are okay with that because they want the blacks and Latinos treated like an occupied population.
shell
Their last hissy-fit, (dont remember what it was in retaliation for, rescinding Stop and Frisk or just because Deblasio said something mean about them.) refusing to write traffic and parking tickets. We all know how well that went down.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
Curious: when you say “ethnic brotherhoods and out and out secret societies,” are you talking about the ethnic gangs and mob families of those days?
Humboldtblue
@Chris: Both, think Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Irish grip on some municipal jobs, the mobsters and the cops.
cokane
the phrase is “nuked from orbit” Cole
shell
@Chris: Much of the NYPD was strongly Irish, back in the days when they were one of the few place s that would hire them back in the days of ‘No Irish Need Apply.’
Another Holocene Human
@Chris:
Yep.
Oh, and then there’s the Supreme Court that completely shredded the 4th amendment, enabling these escalating traffic stops. (But that’s only a piece–as you say, the white public is approving of stuff even SCOTUS considers going too far.)
NonyNony
@Chris:
No. The working class guys back in the day had “ethnic brotherhoods” back in the day – Irish Clubs, Polish Clubs, etc. – where guys of similar backgrounds could get together and BS with each other. Their main purpose was actually to pool together as a risk group to purchase life insurance at a rate they could actually afford (something that unions eventually won as part of their bargaining, so it became an employer-provided benefit in most jobs and the purpose of the clubs eventually disappeared).
There were also the “secret societies” that weren’t so secret – like the Freemasons or the Shriners. And they were “secret” in that the members were supposed to keep what went on in the meetings quiet, but what went on in the meetings was generally childish hazing of new members and bullshitting about their wives and jobs around the “society’s” cash bar. They again were mostly about getting a bunch of guys together to form a risk pool to purchase life insurance and give them a place to socialize that their wives weren’t allowed to enter :)
Both of these kinds of groups still exist, but they aren’t as prevalent as they were in the early 20th century. I mostly attribute that to the rise of labor unions (which got rid of the need for a lot of the services they were providing) and the rise of television (which killed the need to find ways to entertain yourself with elaborate hazing rituals and socializing).
Another Holocene Human
@shell: It was SNF, and Patrick Lynch was derping about that again just today, claiming that a drop in gun seizures was due to ending SNF and that was why murders were staying the same and not declining this year. Bill Bratton told the press that’s not true.
Neither of them mentioned allocation of detectives, which for all the bluster about targeting high crime areas don’t seem to get deployed to these high crime areas but are rather saved for working cases in high money areas because … priorities, people.
Mike J
@Humboldtblue: Pot taxes were one of the big selling points in the legalization drives.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: I’m talking about Ancient Order of Hibernians and groups like that. Every group had them: Italians, Cubans, Jews. Black Masons.
I’m not talking about criminal organizations.
Before modern insurance/banking/IRS regulations some groups formed primary to run life insurance pools, such as “Woodmen of the World”. My union formed in the 1890s and immediately decided to create a life insurance pool (it’s now grandfathered by IRS). PBA I think basically was a life insurance/annuity pool. Raise money for police widows and orphans and all that. (The pay was atrocious and there would be nothing “put by”. Pay being atrocious meant workers found other forms of income … I’ve heard some entertaining stories from the history of my union, legal though, but cops turned to extortion.)
eta: Oops, missed that Nony already answered this question
Another Holocene Human
Secret groups I know less about but during the 19th century unions were illegal and socialist groups were persecuted and infiltrated so a lot of them operated underground. The Molly Maguires I think were a socialist secret society?
Chris
@NonyNony:
@Another Holocene Human:
Thanks. I knew about groups like the Masons and Shriners, just had no idea that they’d ever been involved in forming things like police departments. I asked about gangs and the like because I knew that was a thing at the time already, and since the primary purpose of the police (as far as many are concerned) is to crack heads, I wondered if the people in power might have simply decided to hire from their ranks on the assumption that they’d have the skills.
Another Holocene Human
@NonyNony: Masons were WASPs (didn’t admit Catholics, and Catholics weren’t allowed to join) so they were well out of this discussion. Still, I think your description of their purpose is about right. :)
Black Masons are a bit different, and a bit more like Black fraternities and Black church, more like the former, attract a lot of the former, but also those who didn’t go to college.
A lot of focus on professional/career and business success, basically because their professional groups/societies are not very supportive places for Black professionals.
But it’s also a clubby club, even where I work, one guy dropped out because he couldn’t afford dues and his boss was a Mason too and suddenly got all cold with him because he’d quit the Masons. WTF.
WereBear
@shell: Partly because at one time police were supposed to be a minimum of six feet tall (for riot breaking) and the further North you go, the larger the people tend to be.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris:
I think you misunderstood. I’m talking about the roots of the police unions. Police departments were formed by the city governments for a variety of reasons. At some point in the 19th century the chief of police in NYC decided to hire an all Irish Catholic force of really big guys, called his “whales”, armed them with billy clubs and paid them exceedingly poorly. They purpose was to set them loose on the city’s criminal element and break heads, I think. In those days police unions were ILLEGAL, so the fraternal societies ended up serving some of those functions.
To your other point: yeah, probably.
eta: crap it was probably a different city than NYC that started this. my bad.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
I did misunderstand. Thanks for clarifying.
redshirt
I read on Twitter this morning that more Americans have been killed by the police in the USA this year than all the Americans who died in the Afghan war.
Debbie
Appalling as this is, this is just another locker room sword fight. I think they’ve won the biggest dick award.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human:
Hence the Knights of Columbus, who are sort of the Catholic alternative to the Masons.
scav
Ethnic (and similar) associations can also serve as money pooling and focussing groups. People throw in a small amount of cash and who gets to use the larger amount rotates through the group. (swapping in community, trust and social pressure for the paperwork, ratings, etc. that banks need for loans). Other groups use pooled resources for group projects, either locally or in the home country (if they’re organized by immigrant ethnicities). They can be organized around town or place of origin as well (build schools, buy guns for local disputes so yes, mixed bag). So it’s not always just social and networking. They still exist.
Humboldtblue
@Mike J: From the left side of the aisle or in general, but I am on Runner’s email list and he’s never said boo! about excise and sales taxes on marijuana until he saw the numbers from Colorado and Washington. I will give him credit for his support that those taxes remain local, that’s been the big push here because of the environmental degradation and the costs of cleanup of sites. There are also the associated enforcement costs for illegal grow sites as well that tax local budgets,.
Humboldtblue
@redshirt: In an interview last week our local police chief talked about the wider issues regarding police abuse, horrible interactions with the public as well as shootings and the number of officer-involved shootings in just the first six months of this year was more than 450.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
Well, kinda, but more than this.
At one point, New York City had two police forces, the Municipals and the Metropolitan Police Force (similarly, there used to be multiple fire departments). And very roughly,
Criminals arrested by one group of cops would be rescued by another, and Irish immigrant gangs would often fight the Mets.
And two continuing problems has always been police brutality and corruption:
Control by political factions was as much a factor as absence (or suppression) of unions.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t expect much from the Post but off late NYT op-ed page seem to have become a troll fest. First they had Lolrus Bolton wax eloquent for another war, then then they had some Zimbabwean guy who thought that killing lions was just fine, and some wingnut political science prof who had a sad because of the smugness of liberals in general and Jon Stewart in particular.
ETA: When we lived in MD we used to get calls from the fraternal order of the police soliciting donations, this was back when we had a land line. A little bit harder to blow them off than your average telemarketer.
Frank Wilhoit
@Steve From Antioch: …and rightly so, as the issue is police unaccountability, irrespective of the target-of-convenience. Raise the cost of one target and they will at once pivot to a different target. There are rural areas, and even towns of some size, where the black population is negligible. In those environments, the cops and the sheriffs pick other targets, but they are still unaccountable and that fact is still every bit as much of a problem.
(PS. If you are a troll, please pretend that I did not feed you. Peanut butter with ground glass is my specialty.)
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat:
They were in the practice of hiring firms to make those calls. Then it turns out the firms were pocketing all the money. There are also people making FAKE calls from the PBA, FOP, or Firefighter’s whatever whatever. And constant alerts in the media about these fake calls.
When I lived up North a certain breed of asshole would make donations to get those donor window stickers for their cars believing that they would get them out of tickets. Joke’s on them, as SCOTUS ruled that one of those stickers is cause for police to find you suspicious.
Jack the Second
My rule of thumb is, when there is uncertainty or a lack of facts, always side with the less powerful party.
In many situations, the union is the less powerful party. When it is “police union” versus “random member of the public”, the police union is usually not the less powerful party.
redshirt
@Jack the Second:
That’s a great rule of thumb and I’m adopting it. Thanks!
My Truth Hurts
I hate to say it but nuking police unions isn’t the right answer if you generally support the right of workers to organize and negotiate for better working conditions. The answer is public officials with the balls to stare these motherfuckers down and implement common sense reforms. They will call chicken because they are chickens.
Jparente
@Another Holocene Human: You are correct about municipalities forming P.Ds for different reasons. I many regions, you cantrace the deparment’s origins back to the county Slave Patrols.
Pseudonymous Bosch
politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/the-police-are-still-out-of-control-112160.html#.VczfO3UViko
#serpicoisright #nypd
Bobby B
@My Truth Hurts: Walker’s got the “nuke the unions” part right, he just doesn’t hear the police part. The police, always eager to obey the Obergruppenfuckyoupeasants.
Another Holocene Human
@Jparente: In London the Met was invented to reduce the volume of cargoes that the criminal class was carting away every night from the docks. So basically the paid knee-breakers of the merchant class. (As such, the upper classes distrusted them.)
Another Holocene Human
@Jack the Second: The “police union” doesn’t prosecute random members of the public, nor does the “police union” commit acts of police brutality. Instead, the police union files grievances to defend officers who’ve been disciplined for said acts (far too few of them, so start with chief of police/police commissioner/mayor/city commission/sheriff/county commission for that).
Filing grievances is what they ARE REQUIRED TO DO BY LAW. Look up the “Duty of Fair Representation”. The only way they would NOT be required to defend dirty cops is IF ARBITRATORS STARTED TOSSING BAD COPS OUT ON THEIR ASSES. Arbitrators have NOT done this, so police unions are, again, required by law to defend these assholes.
On the other hand, nobody makes jack-holes like Patrick Lynch jump in front of news-mikes and make a fucking ass of himself, or start jack-hole social media campaigns like the jack-hole that he is.
But I think these douchecanoes and jackwagons are doing us all a great service because the elected union leadership reflects those who elected them. They are telling us who they really are. They are exposing the disgusting police id to the world.
Mike G
@Another Holocene Human:
Still happens. You see lots of 11-99 Foundation license plate frames on expensive/fast cars in California. The foundation supports the families of injured/deceased cops; rumor is the plate frame can get you out of tickets.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
The upper classes distrusted them because they had their own brutes, and also held themselves as being above the purview of the police.
A guy
I’m sure some liberal will propose body cams for the homeless
mclaren
The proper quote is:
“I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” — Ripley, Aliens, 1986.
Cole, I really admire your ability to say this kind of extreme stuff and get away with it. Me, I suggest something mild like “The president of the United States has to obey the constitution,” and I get pilloried by hordes of commenters screaming “You’re too radical!”
mclaren
@Another Holocene Human:
It may well be a fact that the London Metropolitan police force was formed to reduce theft from the London docks, but I can tell you as a matter of fact that Sir Robert Peel founded the London Metropolitan Police force in 1829 and he set forth 9 principles of policing:
PRINCIPLE 1 “The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.”
PRINCIPLE 2 “The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions.”
PRINCIPLE 3 “Police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.”
PRINCIPLE 4 “The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.”
PRINCIPLE 5 “Police seek and preserve public favor not by catering to the public opinion but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.”
PRINCIPLE 6 “Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient.”
PRINCIPLE 7 “Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
PRINCIPLE 8 “Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.”
PRINCIPLE 9 “The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.”
(Source: Wikipedia)
Permit me to suggest that America’s police forces have today moved in a direction diametrically opposed to the Peelian principles upon which the world’s first public police force was founded.
So, “hired leg-breakers for the merchant class,” not so much. In America, those would be the private cops — the infamous Pinkerton Agency in particular. Whenever there was a union strike, the Pinkerton goons were brought in to murder the strikers and their families. Pinkertons were death squads hired by rich industrialists. Not so the London Metropolitan police.
mclaren
@Frank Wilhoit:
Unfortunately true. The real divisions in America are class divisions demarcated by money. Race just happens to be the surest indicator of an underclass in much of America. But in areas where the underclass is white, other demarcators are used — in the hill country in the Appalachian states, for example, being from the hills will get a beat-down or or a fatal shooting just as much as being black will in the deep south or midwest.
In Silicon Valley, failing to drive an expensive car will get you harassed. There was a news story about some landscapers in Silicon Valley who got pulled over and threatened by the cops so many times that they had to fix up an old Mercedes Benz to transport their landscaping workers.