The point of such a policy was almost certainly to encourage officers to stop more often at your gas station, not a token of respect. An increased police presence at a convenience store/gas station is a deterrent to armed robbery. It was to protect the store's profits and by no small coincidence would also increase the safety of the employees.
You were kinda sabotaging yourself, out of spite.
Which might make sense given the Cubs and White Sox play like they're injured and like a random redditor could play for them.
*I'd like to thank the Cubs and White Sox for being in last place of their respective divisions so this labored joke would work*
My first job was as a truck driver at Kellogg, Browning, and Root, a subsidiary of Haliburton. American servicemen killed for us and gave me free coffee.
Yup, just commented exactly this. I never got held up but my store got robbed several times. I worked solo night shift and having them stop by was comforting.
I worked in a poor neighborhood and the store was robbed often... Never while I was working. The locals would come hang and smoke me up lol.
Though I gave out free wraps on a regular lol
>The point of such a policy was almost certainly to encourage officers to stop more often at your gas station, not a token of respect.
Yep, spot on.
Here in Australia, McDonalds has the same policy (or at least did have in the 80s in Tamworth in rural NSW). My father was in the police force, and they regularly got half price McDonalds. It meant that throughout the day, you'd have police cars and uniformed coppers hanging around McDonalds, simply displaying a presence.
Former graveyard convenience store worker here. Theres a difference between principle and spite. I'm not going to incentive a cop with gifts in an inconsequential matter because I don't want to encourage a cop to accept a gift in a consequential matter. That being said, I sold out in a heart beat when I started calling the cops on mental illness cases and wanted to develop a good relationship with them. Like it was literally a 180 one day when a cop showed up for a person being attacked and the cop ended up giving them a ride home and I realized I needed to advocate for that person because based on appearance alone I don't know if I'd believe them
There's a surprising amount of shit that happens working graveyard and I miss the instances of adventure and do-goodery that apply to being the only place with lights and cameras in a bad area.
My good friend who has a PhD in economics worked at a gas station throughout college life, including the 9 months or so after arguing his dissertation.
The difference of risk a cop offers possibly showing up for 10 minutes a night is something that has low weight against the principle that cops shouldn't accept gifts that change their behavior. No reason to gift them something in an inconsequential matter and show them it's ok to accept gifts when a consequential matter occurs.
It's similar to policies that cops are not allowed to recommend businesses even though the majority of the time it's like "hey there's a tire store up the street and your tires are about at the legal limit." Like there's a reason for these principles even though most times it's harmless.
Except most cops will and do frequent places where they’re offered perks or the owner/staff is friendly, even if they don’t accept them (which some will anyways, justifying that a $2 coffee is inconsequential)
I’m not defending the cops, I’m not defending corruption no matter how inconsequential. But cops are human. Their behaviour can be influenced like any other human, we’re hard-wired social creatures.
Statistically it *does* make a difference, a small one, but a noticeable one. You’ll have cops more willing to respond to local calls faster, and they’ll naturally develop a preference even just from the friendly reception, especially if you get multiple patrols or shifts who all stop in periodically because word spreads that the owner/staff are friendly and offer free stuff. Even that small difference is probably worth it to a high-risk business like a gas station.
It’s more like 5-10 minutes every hour or other hour once that happens. There’s also a profound unconscious psychological effect on everyone there if the cop walks in and is treated like a regular. People treat the staff much nicer and are a lot more respectful, even if the cop leaves, just the suggestion that they’re a regular changes people’s behaviour. I worked in a couple fast food joints in undergrad and it was noticeable, even in a city where violent crime is basically unheard of.
I also worked for the Corporation of my city, which has similar rules about accepting gifts as the regional police force (I was on a general city construction/maintenance team. Very visible to the public). Small stuff like a bottle of water on a hot day or a cup of coffee on cold day or at night are actually acceptable within the guidelines for most government entities. It’s discouraged, but you’re not going to get in trouble for it unless it becomes a regular thing.
The main thing I came to say was that OP was not being stupid or necessarily doing it out of spite, the same way police having a policy of not accepting gifts is not a matter of their higher-ups creating a policy out of spite.
This is clearly a weighted discussion and you, me and OP have 3 different scales. I don't really fault anybody for where their scales end up in this exact scenario. There are at least 3 values to weigh.
Fair enough, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, just figured my personal experience was actually relevant here.
The abusive customer suddenly shutting up and being respectful when Officer ______ walks in and your boss greets him by name and ask if he wants “the usual” is definitely a real thing, even if he insisted on paying every time.
By the same token, laying asphalt in 90-100 degree heat on a local road and having the neighborhood busybody come up to your crew and offer us all cold water bottles straight from the fridge was also a nice gesture, even if we knew it was basically just to try and make sure we did a good job, and we had to make sure to report it to our supervisor afterwards to cover our asses.
I guess my overall point was that if you treat everything adversarially, you’re gonna make things a lot harder than they need to be for very little gain. It’s fine if OP did what they did out of respect for a policy, I get that.
But it’s pretty clear OP didn’t actually understand the reason behind the owner’s actions and did what they did explicitly out of spite, and both of those showcase a pretty narrow mindset that doesn’t pause to think about their, or other people’s actions, and is not going to serve them well at all in the long run.
The significant difference here is that police are public servants, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and expected to enforce the law fairly and equitably. They also, nearly all, have some level of code of ethical conduct disallowing them from accepting gifts, especially in exchange for performing their job duties.
Construction workers are none of these things.
I’m not a fan of police but if everyone from the station comes for a free coffee every night even if they are only there for a couple of minutes you never know when another cop will show up. It’s not just duration, it’s frequency. If someone is casing the place and sees this they will just rob somewhere else most likely.
I'm not sure how organized convenience store crime is. My assumption is it's mostly a crime of convenience (pun intended), and potential criminals aren't spending time casing the store.
Not to mention almost every police district has a policy against accepting freebies.
Some cops will still do it. Most won't. When I worked at a gas station.. we offered. Every cop would drop the payment amount on the counter. It was up to us where it went. In the till, or in the charity jar.
Interestingly enough this happens in Europe too. So it's not even the classic "American cop bad" thing but a universal "this way we get more police presence" thing.
I worked at a fast food place that had this policy. Cops certainly knew the policy. They only came by occasionally and still paid. So despite the opportunity for abuse, they never did. I had my problems with our local cops, but OP is just being silly
This, one of the things that I learned studying in law was that free coffee and donuts for the police is not actually something that is condoned by any police agencies because it would be constituted as a "bribe". This person is correct, the incentive here is to have officers stop by the place of business more often, providing police presence on the grounds, the dilemma that you run into however tends to be one of a moral and philosophical one.
If an officer is willing to grab a free drink or food from an establishment, it's likely to put the owner in good standing with the law enforcement visiting, and may come a point in time where they would overlook certain aspects of their business should it be less than legal. It was also observed that officers who received free "small" incentives from places of business would also be more willing to accept much bigger bribes, and be less of a clean officer than those who normally would buy their own.
I’ve worked overnight shifts in fast food for 3 years and this checks out. We don’t give out free anything to police officers but we regularly have them show up to us throughout the night for food and coffee because we are the only place open all night around here. It can be annoying when 14 of them show up at 4am but at the end of the day, having a good relationship with our local police force has 100% saved our arses several times with violent customers and thefts.
This is funny, because you're obviously wrong.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens
Edit: lmao this joker blocked me, then unblocked me to post a large response, then blocked me again. I didn't "pick and choose" an article, I literally googled this topic and posted the first article. It's self-evident. It's common sense. My wife grew up in an inner-city minority majority neighborhood and every one of her neighbors wanted more police presence because it directly led to less violent crime. There's mountains of data proving that more police means less crime in that area, yet the person I'm responding to thinks his biased anecdote is more accurate. It's just a lie to say a greater police presence does nothing to stop crime, and it's an obvious lie too.
This is funny, because you're telling me what I've learned directly is wrong while you're cherry picking articles. Fuck no I'm not wrong.
They put more police in my childhood neighborhood, it did fuck all. The only thing that happened was the police constantly stopped us and searched our bags as we were trying to go to school.
You know what DID help lower crime? The city finally putting more money into the neighborhood for a large urban renewal project. In the span of 5 years the neighborhood went from being called felony flats to a desirable neighborhood with a lot of community events every week.
On top of that, the city tested out a program called the street response, which had trained professionals responding to metal health crisis that did not require police. This had SIGNIFICANTLY better results so the city rolled it out to more of the city.
Police presence doesn't do shit. It doesn't deter any thing. Stop trying to tell people who actually live in the neighborhoods this effects that their experience is wrong.
Here are some more cherry-picked articles for you.
[https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/relationship-between-police-presence-and-crime-deterrence](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/relationship-between-police-presence-and-crime-deterrence)
[https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-023-00193-4](https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-023-00193-4)
[https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/do-more-visible-police-help-deter-crime/](https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/do-more-visible-police-help-deter-crime/)
There will always be exceptions to a rule, but understand that your anecdotal evidence from personal childhood experience is never going to be as compelling as results from studies based on statistics and documented incident reports.
Perhaps more to the point of your first post, comparing the effectiveness of 1 or 2 officers regularly patrolling a neighborhood to 1 or 2 police regularly visiting a single convenience store ignores scale.
A neighborhood can be large enough that an officer on one end will have no way of knowing about something going on at the other end unless they get a call from dispatch. More relevant still is that a would-be criminal thinking of committing a crime on the other end of the neighborhood to an officer may not even know there's an officer in the neighborhood, creating no deterrence whatsoever on the far end of the neighborhood.
On the other hand, if an officer is in the convenience store, their vehicle is somewhere in the lot. pretty much anyone walking into the entrance meaning to rob the place will have already seen the car. And if not, they'll certainly see the uniform at the coffee station, or at the checkout.
B-b-but....fuck the police, right?
Look, cops can abuse their power like any group with authority can, but they still serve a valuable purpose in society. And 99% of them are fairly decent people just doing a job. They're making their way through this life like the rest of us, and you may find yourself in a situation where they really help you out.
Yeah I had quite the opposite experience, It wasn't my coffee. They said offer it free to them, so I did. Probably 7 times out of 10 they would decline anyway and buy it actually.
Giving cops gifts is a slippery slope. If you give them free coffee because you admire police and want to thank them for existing, that's okay. Giving them coffee so they change the way they do their jobs, i.e, you want them to spend time at your store, it becomes problematic. They aren't supposed to accept that. Either way, I wouldn't give them free stuff either. Now firefighters and EMTs, they deserve free stuff.
I know. This is the nightmare that the founding fathers warned us about. All three branches of our government have been corrupted. It's awful. Time for some serious changes, imo.
And not to forget that just because there are some bad cops doesn’t mean the majority of cops are bad. At the end of the day, the police are there to protect us and many are risking their lives everyday to maintain order. I’m not saying the institution is perfect (nothing really is) but it’s pretty fucked up to just say “fuck the police that keep my neighborhood safe.”
At the end of the day, all police are part of a system that was born out of catching runaway slaves. All police are armed soldiers with a monopoly on violence that enforce laws made by and the interests of the upper class. Not every cop is there to protect us and not every cop is risking their lives every day. And at the end of the day, all cops participate in this broken system when they can do far more by participating in the growth of their community instead of just maintaining the power balance.
> At the end of the day, all police are part of a system that was born out of catching runaway slaves.
This is factually incorrect.
> All police are armed soldiers with a monopoly on violence that enforce laws made by and the interests of the upper class.
Are only rich people able to vote now?
> And at the end of the day, all cops participate in this broken system when they can do far more by participating in the growth of their community instead of just maintaining the power balance.
Like what, specifically? I guarantee the average police officer does more to protect and build up their community on a daily basis than you do.
> ... and by no small coincidence would also increase the safety of the employees.
Finish the sentence you're quoting next time, with the hugely relevant counter-point.
I mean yes but also I'd rather spend corporates money and have the cops on my side if something happens and their consistent presence is a deterrent for idiots
It's less 'free because theyre cops' and more 'their presence here deters dumbasses from doing stupid shit.'
Average Redditor when they can’t decide if they hate cops more so they charge them for their coffee, or hate corporations more so want to give cops free coffee: 🤯🤯🤯
If you have made a career out of working a gas station yes you should be frustrated with yourself for not increasing your personal value. Unless you have some obscure purpose and drive in life to only work a convenience store.
# "In America, the police is nothing more than a private militia governed by the ruling socioeconomic class"
This is some of the dumbest freshman year poli sci babble I've ever read.
In theory I agree with you. In practice it often is the way OP describes. It's not quite as bad as people like OP imply, but simply dismissing the problem isn't helpful either.
Yeah, usually put it more like, "state sanctioned gang with a monopoly on violence designed to defend the interests of capital", the way OP said was a little unclear, but the sentiment was basically accurate
So... What do you call an armed force that basically has no oversight into they really fuck up? Like people need to be marching in the streets for them to face any repercussions except when they are not white. Ones who's concerns are more of protecting property than lives? Monopoly in violence might be too far but the caveat is state sanctioned. You and I could do violence and get in trouble, unless you're a cop, but a cop can run over a woman going 74 down a 25. Wasn't running sirens down a dark street under construction. And no charges and remains employed by the department. Oh he did get a traffic infarction so there's that which is nice. Plus the piece of shit vice president of the local police union was joking that it was just a normal person and they had limited value, city should just pay the family 10k to make it go away. This is how the cops think about you. Well maybe not you if you're a cop or rich.
No, it’s not. They do what they want, within reason of course. If you know people who are cops or are one, you know, and you’re either covering for them or just trolling.
You might be surprised to learn that some of us know cops and if you feed them a few beers they tell us how it is. It’s not a secret and they love that they can tell you and there is nothing you can do about it.
Get a firefighter drunk and he’ll tell you the wild ass pranks the do on each other at the firehouse.
Get a police officer drunk in my town and you might get a whole sexual assault story that he calls a blowjob.
A family friend is IA in the police department and told me while drunk that he is “officer focused” when it comes to how he handles cases. Meaning he will side with the officer regardless of the evidence when conducting his investigation. I asked what he does when the cop is obviously guilty of wrongdoing and he just said “I already told you we are ‘officer focused’.” And then walked away from the conversation. Another friend of the family has admitted to turning a blind eye to crime because he pulled over friends and family. Another one was a sheriff who was given desk duty for like 6 months for fracturing a guys spine when he tossed him into the cell, and he said he did it “because the guy was giving me a hard time”. I do not trust any cop to do what’s right when they can easily do what’s wrong and get away with it.
Cops don't protect anything other than property, and even then it's usually reactive and not proactive - aka they respond after harm has been done thus not protecting shit.
It’s more that they are a gang than controlled by the elite. Other countries don’t have as bad a problem with the police and it’s because of how US police unions operate specifically. If you banned cops from unionizing this shit wouldn’t happen.
I tend to agree. People correctly identify many religion-based judgements as intellectually lazy, and this falls into the same basic category. OP paints a nuanced, difficult issue with a broad brush. Like most complex things, it's not so black-and-white. It's incredibly easy and lazy to describe it as such - opposite in intention, but equally shallow as a thin blue line supporter.
" OP paints a nuanced, difficult issue with a broad brush."
It's not nuanced at all actually.
They believe that the rich own the police. They don't, the state government does.
If they'd said that the rich get breaks that everyone else don't, that'd be accurate. But they didn't.
They said that the police are a militia. They aren't.
Militias are well defined by law. So are law enforcement agencies.
If they'd said that the over militarization of law enforcement was incredibly worrisome, they'd be right. They didn't.
I'm pro police reform. There's a lot that they could be doing better and differently from recruitment all the way to their mission parameters. I just don't believe that making ignorant and bombastic statements like OP does anything other than be counter productive and diminishing.
I think we’re on the same page here - I think it’s much easier to say “they’re all evil and slaves of the rich” than it is to say “police unions and contracts need to be refactored, their culture demilitarized, and budgets applied to tools that aren’t all battle axes”. I also think that police can do quite a bit of good, while still subscribing to and participating in a system that protects those that don’t do good. It’s all gray at best.
The issue I’m saying that is nuanced is that we do have very fundamental problems with the police in the US. The OP is blaming this on a cartoonish caricature of reality.
I too believe we're on the same page here.
There's plenty of problems in how law enforcement is run today that can be addressed. \[Don't even get me started on the insane discrepancies in competency and oversight between one sheriff's office and the next\].
I'm also tired of being accused of being a "boot licker" or "cop lover" for pointing out that the police provide an invaluable civil service that none of the most bombastic complainers have ever lived without.
Dealing with the people from either extreme ends of this highly polarized issue is beyond exhausting and annoying.
Yeah, this user has got it right!
After all, who’s going to show up an hour after a crime has been committed, write something down in their notebook, then disappear into the night never to be seen again?
Gooooooooo cops!
I don't how you're fed news in the US, but the rest of the world are constantly seeing news items involving US police brutality, racism, corruption, and selective law enforcement.
The ridiculous way your law enforcement is organised doesn't help, either. You have lots of little independent silos where accountability is limited and transparency is absent. Researchers have to trawl *newspapers* to get an idea of the number of people killed by police. This information is not available centrally, it's not something the police are required to report.
The over-militarisation of US police would be comical if it wasn't scary as fuck. You basically have a bunch of unaccountable cowboys given assault weapons and sent out *to use them*. It's truly bizarre. Seeing footage of US police blowing a door in and firing blindly into someone's home with machine guns *is normal to you*.
The tribal in-fighting and territorial bullshit your police pull is also counter-productive. Because there is no central police authority, your departments act like school children, trying to have something over other departments, hiding information and duplicating police work.
They might not be "private militia", but they may as well be. I'm very glad I wasn't born in your country.
"I don't how you're fed news in the US, but the rest of the world are constantly seeing news items involving US police brutality, racism, corruption, and selective law enforcemen'
It's obvious that you don't know that police doing their jobs as defined by the law doesn't make the news like the overwhelmingly rare cases by statistical comparison where they do something horrendously wrong.
Do they not have the concepts of over saturation and sensationalism where you come from?
I know you're not going to lie to me and say that there aren't similar stories where people entrusted to enforce the laws of the state abuse their authority.
"The ridiculous way your law enforcement is organised doesn't help, either. You have lots of little independent silos where accountability is limited and transparency is absent."
On this we agree.
" Researchers have to trawl *newspapers* to get an idea of the number of people killed by police. This information is not available centrally, it's not something the police are required to report."
This is *stunningly* ignorant, and a reinforcement to the fact that you've admitted to not being from here. Literally every bit of paperwork that law enforcement produces is available for public consumption with an information request. P.s federal law enforcement keeps track of every death, wrongful or otherwise, that comes from state law enforcement cases.
"The over-militarisation of US police would be comical if it wasn't scary as fuck."
Again, we agree.
"You basically have a bunch of unaccountable cowboys given assault weapons and sent out *to use them*. It's truly bizarre. Seeing footage of US police blowing a door in and firing blindly into someone's home with machine guns *is normal to you."*
Why do you keep following up perfectly reasonable comments about the untenable state of local law enforcement in the US with abject stupidity like this? You reveal just how little you actually know about the situation at the same time as you prove that your position is driven overwhelmingly by sensationalist nonsense that you hear third or fourth hand.
"The tribal in-fighting and territorial bullshit your police pull is also counter-productive. Because there is no central police authority, your departments act like school children, trying to have something over other departments, hiding information and duplicating police work."
AGAIN with your self revelation of ignorance. I finally know what your problem is. You've revealed it with this sentence. You are genuinely confusing Hollywood tv and movie tropes with reality. You actually think scene where local law enforcement has to get into a fight to keep a major case from another agency is real. Then they have to pursue their own secret investigation on the side when the FBI tries take over.
What. A. Joke.
That's not how reality works, bud.
Investigations, and the appropriate division on labor to cover them, are determined by the type and scale of the crimes and perpetrators involved in them. The delineation of who investigates what is not conducted by some contest of wills by hardscrable law enforcement veterans. It's well defined by law.
Jeez. You are way out of touch here.
They might not be "private militia", but they may as well be.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know a single thing about what an actual militia is.
"I'm very glad I wasn't born in your country."
We're very glad you're not here too. Please don't visit either.
I went to montreal recently.
They say their cops are the worst Canada has to offer up in QC
Me, I’m from Louisville Kentucky. Canadas cops seemed to carry themselves so much differently that back home. They were bad if you asked Canadians. If you ask me they were Mr Roger’s compared to the corrupt idiots back home.
My cities cops are a literal gang
Now you're swinging it the other way. Yes, our police is corrupt and has 0 accountability. But you're making it sound like we live in a wasteland, fleeing in terror from these roving gangs like it's Mad Max or some shit.
>you're making it sound like we live in a wasteland, fleeing in terror from these roving gangs like it's Mad Max or some shit.
Aren't you?
You must be white.
It's not accurate at all. Reddit has a twisted view on police because they only post bad news about police. In a country of 340 million people, you're bound to have a handful of negative stories at any given moment. 99% of cops are not bad people and have never shot anybody. Most police interactions are incredibly boring and just a lot of paperwork. But if you only read the spicy stories posted by and debated by edgy teenagers on Reddit, then that's all you'll ever know.
I mean two studies in the early 90’s (the last time any study on this topic was really done) found that 40% of spouses of police officers experienced domestic violence.
https://kutv.com/amp/news/local/40-of-police-officer-families-experience-domestic-violence-study-says
This random ass local news station from Utah that showed up in google sums it up pretty well.
There’s dozens of problems from police ranging from aforementioned rates of abuse to systematically covering for bad actors and thin-blue-lineism
Cool. I live in a city where I have had to call the cops on my violent neighbors multiple times. I’m talking 15-20 reports filed. They literally refused to show up the first 10 times I called and when I asked “why?” The dispatch said “it’s up to the watch commander to decide which calls to respond to. If he thinks it’s important, then they will send someone.” Okay then, I guess the guy beating the shit out of a woman in the front yard while two other women are trying to stab each other isn’t a big deal. They showed up four hours later. Drove by shining lights into my front windows which woke me up after I finally got back to sleep, and then just left. When a different neighbor (same city, different house) pulled a gun on my roommate for “stealing” his dog he left to die tied up in his front yard when he went to jail on drug charges for a couple months the cops said “we can’t do anything. It’s his word against yours.” This was also 5-6 hours after the incident where we reported a fucking gun pointing a gun at someone. These are just the two craziest ones. I have had to call so many fucking times because my drug addict fucking neighbors think it’s fine to do nitrous balloons in their car with the music blasting at full volume 6 feet from my bedroom window. Nothing they can do about that apparently. And I say that with *full* sarcasm because they could do something, but just choose not to. These assholes drove that car into a family (luckily nobody got too badly hurt) all fucked up on nitrous. The cops are mostly worthless. They don’t stop crimes and barely even show up after the fact to take a statement. Good luck if something of value gets stolen. My GFs car got stolen and the jackass who did it dropped his ID in the car. Still fucking nothing.
Nope, it's factually inaccurate.
Just because neither you nor OP are smart enough to understand that doesn't actually mean anything.
Facts > your feelings
It's a online communist agenda post.
This subreddit has become the place to agenda post your own shitty political opinions disguised as an actual post. I think right now a good portion of the memes on the subs front page is some political opinion disguised as a post
>Communist agenda
Recognizing that the American population is over-legislated and as a result over policed, is now communism?
I don’t know man, that sounds like some police state agenda pushing this country into neofascism and totalitarianism. Which, a quick glance through your profile, is what you are pushing.
It's a conservative ploy to drive a wedge between liberals and law enforcement. Look at how hard they push the ridiculous narrative about liberals turning Portland into a war zone because they got rid of the police. They want to scare old white people into thinking that voting for Democrats means that they'll lose police and crime will skyrocket.
ACAB and Defund the Police were communication strategies developed by conservatives and the left picked them up and ran with them and they lost moderate votes over it.
> Look at how hard they push the ridiculous narrative about liberals turning Portland into a war zone because they got rid of the police.
As a Portland resident, it's extra funny because our police has only ever gotten more funding and we never got rid of them, despite how much we wanted things changed.
>ACAB and Defund the Police were communication strategies developed by conservatives and the left picked them up and ran with them and they lost moderate votes over it.
Yea no, this is just some conspiracy nonsense. As someone born and raised here, our cops genuinely are that bad. As in some of the founding portland cops were kkk members and now a days they still work with white supremacy groups like the proud boys. ACAB and defund the police have been around long before I've been alive.
Yeah somehow Seattle burned down while I was living downtown and I didn't notice. But they had some nice people in a park giving out water and food but also it was total anarchy according to fox news. Oh and thanks to the cops for driving away pissed off protestors into my immigrant working class neighborhood while protecting the nicer areas. Very 92 LA riots of them.
>"In America, the police is nothing more than a private militia governed by the ruling socioeconomic class"
This is the battle cry of the socialist and sovereign citizen...until their residence is broken in, something of theirs is stolen, or they're assaulted. Then they're all about making the civil servants do their job.
Also, not to split hairs, but they are financed by county and township taxes. Therefore, they are a *public* militia governed by the ruling socioeconomic class. Get it right.
How many robberies have police prevented? Not like showed up hours after the call and filed out a report? How many stolen items actually get returned to people if it's worth less than $1000?
It’s clear from posts like this that you have never personally known any police officers. I have multiple good friends who are cops, and they are wonderful human beings.
Since things on the internet get taken out of context, no I do not condone the brutality that happens way too often across the country from police officers on to citizens, but this broad brush that people try to paint where all cops are despots is absolutely ridiculous.
That's the problem though. The police are people in a position with a lot of trust and authority. Because of that, there is also a higher expectation of good conduct, and a lot more scrutiny.
If it were just a couple of bad cops, the problem could be overlooked. But it isn't just a couple. It is a consistent breach of trust, bad faith, harm, and death. Because it is such a prevalent issue, all cops will be labelled as bad.
If your good cop friends want to repair the harm their bad cop peers have caused, they should be at the forefront of efforts to purge the bad elements. And yes, even if the whole department is good, they can still do something. For example, putting pressure on their union to stop protecting the bad cops so enthusiastically, and to create measures whereby bad cops are punished in such a way that they can't be given such a position of authority again.
If the good cops aren't willing to make a stand against the bad cops, then all they're doing is protecting the bad cops. That's what it means to be on their side of that thin blue line.
1. This isn't even ***close*** to a Confession Bear. This is a Baby Insanity Wolf.
2. Hating the police in totality tells me you are an ignorant tool that knows nothing about governance. You can want reform and to prevent police shootings on unarmed black men, for example, but otherwise... no.
Moving along, I'll take my downvotes. *sigh*
OP would prefer to have no cops around so the gas station can get robbed. Smart.
OP also would be the first to call the cops if ANYTHING were to happen, lol.
Lol. I love.. so so much...that everyone thinks they're dunking on OP....and not the cops...by saying basically "OP, you're a moron....everyone knows that cops are grey-furred old labradors that need you to rub peanut butter on crimes so they can find them."
I gave all police, firefighters, and ambulance service workers free coffee. Not by-law enforcement though those guys had to pay. Firefighters and ambulance got to skip the line too.
Yeah the point of giving police free stuff isn’t out of respect.
It’s so they visibly frequent the place and deter crime, whether that’s petty vandalism or robberies. This is a statistically effective tactic as not only are they visibly present frequently, but they’ll often be more protective of their favourite coffee/snack joint, where the owner gives us stuff for free and is friendly.
The point of your freshman philosophy class wasn’t to parrot the prof or textbook, it was to think critically about the world around you from *all* perspectives.
I am not going to agree with the OP completely, but he has a point.
I have spent nearly 20 years involved in the criminal justice system and I am speaking from my experiences and the experiences of my colleagues.
The police are not legally required to protect anyone. There is literally nothing that can force them to assist you. See DeShaney vs. Winnebago, 489 U.S. 189 (1989) and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005).
By definition, this means they can choose when to use their powers and when not to. They can also choose where and who to police, and where and who not to police.
This means that at a very basic level, they hold a lot of power. And because the use of this power comes down to personal decisions, that power is subject to the inherent biases of the police, whether or not they realize it.
Take a deeper look into how police are hired, trained, retained, and disciplined and you get an idea of the type of folks that are staffing police departments.
That isn't to say every cop is a bad person. But you should also look at how the institution is inherently designed to protect itself such that even a good cop is likely to either ignore or cover up the bad behavior of their colleagues.
To confirm this, look into how many cops that do report colleagues are treated. There is a very long line of people that suffered severe retaliation for trying to report bad behavior. (For references, look up terms like "qualified immunity" "officer retaliation" "police corruption.")
You can make all sorts of excuses, but the above is pretty well documented by numerous sources. It is getting better, but it is a very slow process.
I am not an ACAB person, but I certainly understand why many people are.
I agree. But not reporting it at all is still wrong, without it necessarily being a cover up.
Unfortunately, there is no way to know specifically how often this occurs, because there are no reports.
Given what we know about the history of policing, the number of retaliations, and the number of times people have been wrongly convicted based on police misconduct, it is safe to assume it occurs much more often than is reported.
I worked in a beach club on Long Island as a young fella in the early 90's. I'm from Ireland. Half the time there was a cop sitting in the staff break room drinking his free coffee. This was some top shelf slacking off work. Just so there could be a cop car parked out front as a deterrent. It sounds like a good decision from the beach club's point of view but what about all the other places the cop car can't be seen because it's missing? In Ireland and Europe, I'm quite sure you'd get fired for accepting anything for free as a cop. It just doesn't happen.
Complaints about socioeconomic class, probably hates capitalism, proceeds to continue to feed the system whilst working at a gas station.
Why not charge them then pocket the money?
We gave them free coffee where I worked too. I would actually piss and shit and cum in every cup that I gave to a private militant governed by the ruling socioeconomic class.
When I worked delivering pizza from a non-chain pizza place in place in a small town with a local PD less than a block from the pizza shop, we'd deliver 5-6 large pizzas daily to the police. First time I was asked to do it, I asked why we were giving free pizza to the cops. The answer:
We are all driving around this town, displaying the company sign on our cars. Do we all obey all traffic laws all the time? If a cop whose belly is full of free pizza sees you run that stop sign, maybe he'll let it slide.
It seemed to work. Neither I nor any of my fellow drivers ever got a ticket while working there.
Yeah fuck 'em.
I will NEVER respect any entity (government or otherwise) that doesn't have my best interests at heart and is legally allowed to lie to me to achieve their own goals.
So you don't respect.... Literally everything? Nobody and nothing has anyone's best interests in mind other than their own.
Every retailer doesn't care about the customer, they just want the to spend money.
Every corporation/ company don't really care about employees, they just care how much money they make every year.
Hell you'd be lucky is deep down your S/O truly has your best interests in mind, as people will almost always value themselves above anyone else.
And what non government entities have the legal authority to lie to me?
Maybe you should figure out which one you wanna poke holes at then we can nag about it.
Feel like I've been pretty clear on which ones, you just cant accept that youre wrong and are looking for any way you can spin anything I say into an argument.
That being said, you have fun believeing what you want, ill go hang out with the normal people.
Most Americans have no idea how bad the justice system is here because the justice system has a very specific corner of American society over polices
and that corner doesn't sit around chatting on the whitest subreddit
Differing opinions exist
Yes, there are bad cops, but the point of giving out free coffee is not to support cops, it's to get them to frequent the specific store and lower both crime and response times for crime in that store. OP isn't hurting a cop with this, they're hurting the gas station
Lmao same. If dunkin can't give me health insurance why would I give my local cops a fucking discount? The franchise was too cheap to help it's employees but god help us we need to get these cops their free hot coffee.
Pub I worked at years ago used to have a 50% off food deal for uniformed cops. They never tipped and showed up all the time with their families expecting the deal for the whole table.
I just stopped giving them the deal, told them the policies changed and charged em full price.
Took about a week for them to all stop showing up looking for their handouts. Freed up a lot of table space and got a lot better group of customers coming in. Paying customers that tipped and didn't demand absurd amounts of attention.
No, it's not really that. Parking right along the curb in front of the building would accomplish that. But doing that scares away some customers, who fear there's a confrontation happening in the store. After seeing that a few times, people start associating the store with crime and decide to shop elsewhere.
So the stores provide police parking spots in the normal parking area, so it's quick but also more discreet.
I was in the drive-thru line at Dunkin, got to the window and the employee said "Hey, the car in front of you paid for your order...it's been a chain for like 45 minutes. Do you want to pay for the order for the car behind you?" I looked in my mirrror at the car behind me: 2 massachusetts state troopers in a massive SUV. "Er....do you think I want to pay for their order?" She looked back at them, giggled a little, and said "Um it's up to you I guess...". I handed her the $10 I was going to give her anyway and said "My orders paid right? This is for YOU. Keep the change. Please dont apply it to theirs ok?" She looked around conspiratorially, folded up the 10 and said "Yessir. Thanks, have a great day!" Wait, what's order behind them? "Um...$3.50?" I handed her a $5. "Keep it going after the cops?" She grinned and nodded. "Promise?" "Haha of course!" I thoroughly enjoyed my $15 expreme pettiness coffee and bagel.
Same.
I had an officer once insist on paying for his coffee and said it was against policy for him to accept. He wasn’t a young cop, but none of his coworkers ever refused. I hope he’s still on the force.
The point of such a policy was almost certainly to encourage officers to stop more often at your gas station, not a token of respect. An increased police presence at a convenience store/gas station is a deterrent to armed robbery. It was to protect the store's profits and by no small coincidence would also increase the safety of the employees. You were kinda sabotaging yourself, out of spite.
Can confirm. My first job was as a Class C operator in IL and that's exactly what my boss taught me to do and why.
Same for me. Taco Bell in a upper middle class suburb, California, 1977.
What’s an IL?
It’s the abbreviation for the state of Illinois.
It's where all the FIBs live.
Hello fellow Wisconsinite! 😂
Injured List, it's where sports players go when they can't play for a team they're usually starting for
Which might make sense given the Cubs and White Sox play like they're injured and like a random redditor could play for them. *I'd like to thank the Cubs and White Sox for being in last place of their respective divisions so this labored joke would work*
My first job was as a Tier 1 Special Forces Operator in Iraq. Saddam was charming in person and I gave him free coffee.
My first job was a jihadist in Afghanistan. Airport security was nice and gave me free coffee.
My first job was as a truck driver at Kellogg, Browning, and Root, a subsidiary of Haliburton. American servicemen killed for us and gave me free coffee.
Work at a chain of convenience stores. They told us this exact fact during orientation. "Offer em coffee, let em use the bathroom."
Yup, just commented exactly this. I never got held up but my store got robbed several times. I worked solo night shift and having them stop by was comforting.
I worked in a poor neighborhood and the store was robbed often... Never while I was working. The locals would come hang and smoke me up lol. Though I gave out free wraps on a regular lol
When I worked at Best Buy I was told we always gave a 15% discount to cops because it guaranteed they’d show up fast if we had a problem.
>The point of such a policy was almost certainly to encourage officers to stop more often at your gas station, not a token of respect. Yep, spot on. Here in Australia, McDonalds has the same policy (or at least did have in the 80s in Tamworth in rural NSW). My father was in the police force, and they regularly got half price McDonalds. It meant that throughout the day, you'd have police cars and uniformed coppers hanging around McDonalds, simply displaying a presence.
Former graveyard convenience store worker here. Theres a difference between principle and spite. I'm not going to incentive a cop with gifts in an inconsequential matter because I don't want to encourage a cop to accept a gift in a consequential matter. That being said, I sold out in a heart beat when I started calling the cops on mental illness cases and wanted to develop a good relationship with them. Like it was literally a 180 one day when a cop showed up for a person being attacked and the cop ended up giving them a ride home and I realized I needed to advocate for that person because based on appearance alone I don't know if I'd believe them There's a surprising amount of shit that happens working graveyard and I miss the instances of adventure and do-goodery that apply to being the only place with lights and cameras in a bad area.
He's not bright enough to see that. I thought that everyone knew it.
Read the text and it is clearly a person who is far less clever than they think they are
They work at a gas station. Not saying there's anything wrong with the job but it doesn't usually require a robust resume.
[удалено]
My good friend who has a PhD in economics worked at a gas station throughout college life, including the 9 months or so after arguing his dissertation.
The difference of risk a cop offers possibly showing up for 10 minutes a night is something that has low weight against the principle that cops shouldn't accept gifts that change their behavior. No reason to gift them something in an inconsequential matter and show them it's ok to accept gifts when a consequential matter occurs. It's similar to policies that cops are not allowed to recommend businesses even though the majority of the time it's like "hey there's a tire store up the street and your tires are about at the legal limit." Like there's a reason for these principles even though most times it's harmless.
Except most cops will and do frequent places where they’re offered perks or the owner/staff is friendly, even if they don’t accept them (which some will anyways, justifying that a $2 coffee is inconsequential) I’m not defending the cops, I’m not defending corruption no matter how inconsequential. But cops are human. Their behaviour can be influenced like any other human, we’re hard-wired social creatures. Statistically it *does* make a difference, a small one, but a noticeable one. You’ll have cops more willing to respond to local calls faster, and they’ll naturally develop a preference even just from the friendly reception, especially if you get multiple patrols or shifts who all stop in periodically because word spreads that the owner/staff are friendly and offer free stuff. Even that small difference is probably worth it to a high-risk business like a gas station. It’s more like 5-10 minutes every hour or other hour once that happens. There’s also a profound unconscious psychological effect on everyone there if the cop walks in and is treated like a regular. People treat the staff much nicer and are a lot more respectful, even if the cop leaves, just the suggestion that they’re a regular changes people’s behaviour. I worked in a couple fast food joints in undergrad and it was noticeable, even in a city where violent crime is basically unheard of. I also worked for the Corporation of my city, which has similar rules about accepting gifts as the regional police force (I was on a general city construction/maintenance team. Very visible to the public). Small stuff like a bottle of water on a hot day or a cup of coffee on cold day or at night are actually acceptable within the guidelines for most government entities. It’s discouraged, but you’re not going to get in trouble for it unless it becomes a regular thing.
The main thing I came to say was that OP was not being stupid or necessarily doing it out of spite, the same way police having a policy of not accepting gifts is not a matter of their higher-ups creating a policy out of spite. This is clearly a weighted discussion and you, me and OP have 3 different scales. I don't really fault anybody for where their scales end up in this exact scenario. There are at least 3 values to weigh.
Fair enough, I don’t necessarily disagree with you, just figured my personal experience was actually relevant here. The abusive customer suddenly shutting up and being respectful when Officer ______ walks in and your boss greets him by name and ask if he wants “the usual” is definitely a real thing, even if he insisted on paying every time. By the same token, laying asphalt in 90-100 degree heat on a local road and having the neighborhood busybody come up to your crew and offer us all cold water bottles straight from the fridge was also a nice gesture, even if we knew it was basically just to try and make sure we did a good job, and we had to make sure to report it to our supervisor afterwards to cover our asses. I guess my overall point was that if you treat everything adversarially, you’re gonna make things a lot harder than they need to be for very little gain. It’s fine if OP did what they did out of respect for a policy, I get that. But it’s pretty clear OP didn’t actually understand the reason behind the owner’s actions and did what they did explicitly out of spite, and both of those showcase a pretty narrow mindset that doesn’t pause to think about their, or other people’s actions, and is not going to serve them well at all in the long run.
The significant difference here is that police are public servants, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and expected to enforce the law fairly and equitably. They also, nearly all, have some level of code of ethical conduct disallowing them from accepting gifts, especially in exchange for performing their job duties. Construction workers are none of these things.
Except OPs title is literally an anti-cop screed
I’m not a fan of police but if everyone from the station comes for a free coffee every night even if they are only there for a couple of minutes you never know when another cop will show up. It’s not just duration, it’s frequency. If someone is casing the place and sees this they will just rob somewhere else most likely.
I'm not sure how organized convenience store crime is. My assumption is it's mostly a crime of convenience (pun intended), and potential criminals aren't spending time casing the store.
Not to mention almost every police district has a policy against accepting freebies. Some cops will still do it. Most won't. When I worked at a gas station.. we offered. Every cop would drop the payment amount on the counter. It was up to us where it went. In the till, or in the charity jar.
Interestingly enough this happens in Europe too. So it's not even the classic "American cop bad" thing but a universal "this way we get more police presence" thing.
So what you're saying is ALL cops are bad? I agree.
aka a protection racket
I worked at a fast food place that had this policy. Cops certainly knew the policy. They only came by occasionally and still paid. So despite the opportunity for abuse, they never did. I had my problems with our local cops, but OP is just being silly
This. Lure cops in randomly at the cost of $0.98, or hire an officer at an extra duty rate of probably $50+/hr? You played yourself.
This, one of the things that I learned studying in law was that free coffee and donuts for the police is not actually something that is condoned by any police agencies because it would be constituted as a "bribe". This person is correct, the incentive here is to have officers stop by the place of business more often, providing police presence on the grounds, the dilemma that you run into however tends to be one of a moral and philosophical one. If an officer is willing to grab a free drink or food from an establishment, it's likely to put the owner in good standing with the law enforcement visiting, and may come a point in time where they would overlook certain aspects of their business should it be less than legal. It was also observed that officers who received free "small" incentives from places of business would also be more willing to accept much bigger bribes, and be less of a clean officer than those who normally would buy their own.
I’ve worked overnight shifts in fast food for 3 years and this checks out. We don’t give out free anything to police officers but we regularly have them show up to us throughout the night for food and coffee because we are the only place open all night around here. It can be annoying when 14 of them show up at 4am but at the end of the day, having a good relationship with our local police force has 100% saved our arses several times with violent customers and thefts.
As someone that grew up in a poor neighborhood, more police presence did fuck all to lower crime. He wasn't sabotaging a thing.
This is funny, because you're obviously wrong. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens Edit: lmao this joker blocked me, then unblocked me to post a large response, then blocked me again. I didn't "pick and choose" an article, I literally googled this topic and posted the first article. It's self-evident. It's common sense. My wife grew up in an inner-city minority majority neighborhood and every one of her neighbors wanted more police presence because it directly led to less violent crime. There's mountains of data proving that more police means less crime in that area, yet the person I'm responding to thinks his biased anecdote is more accurate. It's just a lie to say a greater police presence does nothing to stop crime, and it's an obvious lie too.
This is funny, because you're telling me what I've learned directly is wrong while you're cherry picking articles. Fuck no I'm not wrong. They put more police in my childhood neighborhood, it did fuck all. The only thing that happened was the police constantly stopped us and searched our bags as we were trying to go to school. You know what DID help lower crime? The city finally putting more money into the neighborhood for a large urban renewal project. In the span of 5 years the neighborhood went from being called felony flats to a desirable neighborhood with a lot of community events every week. On top of that, the city tested out a program called the street response, which had trained professionals responding to metal health crisis that did not require police. This had SIGNIFICANTLY better results so the city rolled it out to more of the city. Police presence doesn't do shit. It doesn't deter any thing. Stop trying to tell people who actually live in the neighborhoods this effects that their experience is wrong.
Here are some more cherry-picked articles for you. [https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/relationship-between-police-presence-and-crime-deterrence](https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/relationship-between-police-presence-and-crime-deterrence) [https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-023-00193-4](https://crimesciencejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40163-023-00193-4) [https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/do-more-visible-police-help-deter-crime/](https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/do-more-visible-police-help-deter-crime/) There will always be exceptions to a rule, but understand that your anecdotal evidence from personal childhood experience is never going to be as compelling as results from studies based on statistics and documented incident reports. Perhaps more to the point of your first post, comparing the effectiveness of 1 or 2 officers regularly patrolling a neighborhood to 1 or 2 police regularly visiting a single convenience store ignores scale. A neighborhood can be large enough that an officer on one end will have no way of knowing about something going on at the other end unless they get a call from dispatch. More relevant still is that a would-be criminal thinking of committing a crime on the other end of the neighborhood to an officer may not even know there's an officer in the neighborhood, creating no deterrence whatsoever on the far end of the neighborhood. On the other hand, if an officer is in the convenience store, their vehicle is somewhere in the lot. pretty much anyone walking into the entrance meaning to rob the place will have already seen the car. And if not, they'll certainly see the uniform at the coffee station, or at the checkout.
For real, like oh thank god the police were here to mag dump blindly and hit 4 bystanders said no one ever.
B-b-but....fuck the police, right? Look, cops can abuse their power like any group with authority can, but they still serve a valuable purpose in society. And 99% of them are fairly decent people just doing a job. They're making their way through this life like the rest of us, and you may find yourself in a situation where they really help you out.
Yeah I had quite the opposite experience, It wasn't my coffee. They said offer it free to them, so I did. Probably 7 times out of 10 they would decline anyway and buy it actually.
Also, former cafe owner here. A cup of coffee costs the store about 25 cents.
Giving cops gifts is a slippery slope. If you give them free coffee because you admire police and want to thank them for existing, that's okay. Giving them coffee so they change the way they do their jobs, i.e, you want them to spend time at your store, it becomes problematic. They aren't supposed to accept that. Either way, I wouldn't give them free stuff either. Now firefighters and EMTs, they deserve free stuff.
The extreme court says it's not a bribe, it's gratuity!
I know. This is the nightmare that the founding fathers warned us about. All three branches of our government have been corrupted. It's awful. Time for some serious changes, imo.
And not to forget that just because there are some bad cops doesn’t mean the majority of cops are bad. At the end of the day, the police are there to protect us and many are risking their lives everyday to maintain order. I’m not saying the institution is perfect (nothing really is) but it’s pretty fucked up to just say “fuck the police that keep my neighborhood safe.”
At the end of the day, all police are part of a system that was born out of catching runaway slaves. All police are armed soldiers with a monopoly on violence that enforce laws made by and the interests of the upper class. Not every cop is there to protect us and not every cop is risking their lives every day. And at the end of the day, all cops participate in this broken system when they can do far more by participating in the growth of their community instead of just maintaining the power balance.
> At the end of the day, all police are part of a system that was born out of catching runaway slaves. This is factually incorrect. > All police are armed soldiers with a monopoly on violence that enforce laws made by and the interests of the upper class. Are only rich people able to vote now? > And at the end of the day, all cops participate in this broken system when they can do far more by participating in the growth of their community instead of just maintaining the power balance. Like what, specifically? I guarantee the average police officer does more to protect and build up their community on a daily basis than you do.
Oh, it was a bribe to get protection from the local mafia, got it.
Yep. I worked graveyard shift in a hotel, and you better believe I had a fresh pot always on for cops. Keeps the baddies away.
The 711 I worked at was across the street from an actual police station. It got robbed 4 times in the 9 months I worked there.
yup. more police, less chance of criminals getting the idea of pulling something.
Maybe OP doesn't like bribery?
give OP 5 USD to check it out My guess is that like everybody else, OP too likes bribery.
Hahhahahaha
“When keepin’ it real goes wrong.”
To kiss police ass more like.
>It was to protect the store's profits Why would someone making minimum wage, give a flying fuck about "protecting" profits?
> ... and by no small coincidence would also increase the safety of the employees. Finish the sentence you're quoting next time, with the hugely relevant counter-point.
A mutually beneficial arrangement? Not on my Internet! Everything must be a zero sum game 🤡
I mean yes but also I'd rather spend corporates money and have the cops on my side if something happens and their consistent presence is a deterrent for idiots It's less 'free because theyre cops' and more 'their presence here deters dumbasses from doing stupid shit.'
Average Redditor when they can’t decide if they hate cops more so they charge them for their coffee, or hate corporations more so want to give cops free coffee: 🤯🤯🤯
Yes but unironically. If I had to pick, I'd probably lean the latter.
I did, they would come through pick up snacks and drinks. I liked having them around. Then again I was solo night shift.
Ooooh, you bad. This deserves the meme with the baby wolf howl.
We see why you're working in a gas station now.
Is that something to be ashamed of? What respectable career should gas station clerks seek out to appease you?
Part-time dog walker?
Full time reddit mod
If you have made a career out of working a gas station yes you should be frustrated with yourself for not increasing your personal value. Unless you have some obscure purpose and drive in life to only work a convenience store.
# "In America, the police is nothing more than a private militia governed by the ruling socioeconomic class" This is some of the dumbest freshman year poli sci babble I've ever read.
In theory I agree with you. In practice it often is the way OP describes. It's not quite as bad as people like OP imply, but simply dismissing the problem isn't helpful either.
Yeah, usually put it more like, "state sanctioned gang with a monopoly on violence designed to defend the interests of capital", the way OP said was a little unclear, but the sentiment was basically accurate
That’s also hyperbolic and alarmist to the point that it’s no longer accurately describing reality
So... What do you call an armed force that basically has no oversight into they really fuck up? Like people need to be marching in the streets for them to face any repercussions except when they are not white. Ones who's concerns are more of protecting property than lives? Monopoly in violence might be too far but the caveat is state sanctioned. You and I could do violence and get in trouble, unless you're a cop, but a cop can run over a woman going 74 down a 25. Wasn't running sirens down a dark street under construction. And no charges and remains employed by the department. Oh he did get a traffic infarction so there's that which is nice. Plus the piece of shit vice president of the local police union was joking that it was just a normal person and they had limited value, city should just pay the family 10k to make it go away. This is how the cops think about you. Well maybe not you if you're a cop or rich.
No, it’s not. They do what they want, within reason of course. If you know people who are cops or are one, you know, and you’re either covering for them or just trolling. You might be surprised to learn that some of us know cops and if you feed them a few beers they tell us how it is. It’s not a secret and they love that they can tell you and there is nothing you can do about it.
Get a firefighter drunk and he’ll tell you the wild ass pranks the do on each other at the firehouse. Get a police officer drunk in my town and you might get a whole sexual assault story that he calls a blowjob.
A family friend is IA in the police department and told me while drunk that he is “officer focused” when it comes to how he handles cases. Meaning he will side with the officer regardless of the evidence when conducting his investigation. I asked what he does when the cop is obviously guilty of wrongdoing and he just said “I already told you we are ‘officer focused’.” And then walked away from the conversation. Another friend of the family has admitted to turning a blind eye to crime because he pulled over friends and family. Another one was a sheriff who was given desk duty for like 6 months for fracturing a guys spine when he tossed him into the cell, and he said he did it “because the guy was giving me a hard time”. I do not trust any cop to do what’s right when they can easily do what’s wrong and get away with it.
They also protect normal people from bad people, too, though. They're not JUST what you and OP said.
Cops don't protect anything other than property, and even then it's usually reactive and not proactive - aka they respond after harm has been done thus not protecting shit.
It’s more that they are a gang than controlled by the elite. Other countries don’t have as bad a problem with the police and it’s because of how US police unions operate specifically. If you banned cops from unionizing this shit wouldn’t happen.
The theory is wrong too, They aren't owned by the rich, they're owned by the state. The rich merely get more leeway from them.
Remember bird watching guy and white Karen claiming he abused her?
And yet your "take down" is just an ad hominem insult.
I tend to agree. People correctly identify many religion-based judgements as intellectually lazy, and this falls into the same basic category. OP paints a nuanced, difficult issue with a broad brush. Like most complex things, it's not so black-and-white. It's incredibly easy and lazy to describe it as such - opposite in intention, but equally shallow as a thin blue line supporter.
" OP paints a nuanced, difficult issue with a broad brush." It's not nuanced at all actually. They believe that the rich own the police. They don't, the state government does. If they'd said that the rich get breaks that everyone else don't, that'd be accurate. But they didn't. They said that the police are a militia. They aren't. Militias are well defined by law. So are law enforcement agencies. If they'd said that the over militarization of law enforcement was incredibly worrisome, they'd be right. They didn't. I'm pro police reform. There's a lot that they could be doing better and differently from recruitment all the way to their mission parameters. I just don't believe that making ignorant and bombastic statements like OP does anything other than be counter productive and diminishing.
I think we’re on the same page here - I think it’s much easier to say “they’re all evil and slaves of the rich” than it is to say “police unions and contracts need to be refactored, their culture demilitarized, and budgets applied to tools that aren’t all battle axes”. I also think that police can do quite a bit of good, while still subscribing to and participating in a system that protects those that don’t do good. It’s all gray at best. The issue I’m saying that is nuanced is that we do have very fundamental problems with the police in the US. The OP is blaming this on a cartoonish caricature of reality.
I too believe we're on the same page here. There's plenty of problems in how law enforcement is run today that can be addressed. \[Don't even get me started on the insane discrepancies in competency and oversight between one sheriff's office and the next\]. I'm also tired of being accused of being a "boot licker" or "cop lover" for pointing out that the police provide an invaluable civil service that none of the most bombastic complainers have ever lived without. Dealing with the people from either extreme ends of this highly polarized issue is beyond exhausting and annoying.
Yeah, this user has got it right! After all, who’s going to show up an hour after a crime has been committed, write something down in their notebook, then disappear into the night never to be seen again? Gooooooooo cops!
Reddit gets mad when things are simple and awful. If you want Reddit in your side just pick and a negative adjective.
I don't how you're fed news in the US, but the rest of the world are constantly seeing news items involving US police brutality, racism, corruption, and selective law enforcement. The ridiculous way your law enforcement is organised doesn't help, either. You have lots of little independent silos where accountability is limited and transparency is absent. Researchers have to trawl *newspapers* to get an idea of the number of people killed by police. This information is not available centrally, it's not something the police are required to report. The over-militarisation of US police would be comical if it wasn't scary as fuck. You basically have a bunch of unaccountable cowboys given assault weapons and sent out *to use them*. It's truly bizarre. Seeing footage of US police blowing a door in and firing blindly into someone's home with machine guns *is normal to you*. The tribal in-fighting and territorial bullshit your police pull is also counter-productive. Because there is no central police authority, your departments act like school children, trying to have something over other departments, hiding information and duplicating police work. They might not be "private militia", but they may as well be. I'm very glad I wasn't born in your country.
"I don't how you're fed news in the US, but the rest of the world are constantly seeing news items involving US police brutality, racism, corruption, and selective law enforcemen' It's obvious that you don't know that police doing their jobs as defined by the law doesn't make the news like the overwhelmingly rare cases by statistical comparison where they do something horrendously wrong. Do they not have the concepts of over saturation and sensationalism where you come from? I know you're not going to lie to me and say that there aren't similar stories where people entrusted to enforce the laws of the state abuse their authority. "The ridiculous way your law enforcement is organised doesn't help, either. You have lots of little independent silos where accountability is limited and transparency is absent." On this we agree. " Researchers have to trawl *newspapers* to get an idea of the number of people killed by police. This information is not available centrally, it's not something the police are required to report." This is *stunningly* ignorant, and a reinforcement to the fact that you've admitted to not being from here. Literally every bit of paperwork that law enforcement produces is available for public consumption with an information request. P.s federal law enforcement keeps track of every death, wrongful or otherwise, that comes from state law enforcement cases. "The over-militarisation of US police would be comical if it wasn't scary as fuck." Again, we agree. "You basically have a bunch of unaccountable cowboys given assault weapons and sent out *to use them*. It's truly bizarre. Seeing footage of US police blowing a door in and firing blindly into someone's home with machine guns *is normal to you."* Why do you keep following up perfectly reasonable comments about the untenable state of local law enforcement in the US with abject stupidity like this? You reveal just how little you actually know about the situation at the same time as you prove that your position is driven overwhelmingly by sensationalist nonsense that you hear third or fourth hand. "The tribal in-fighting and territorial bullshit your police pull is also counter-productive. Because there is no central police authority, your departments act like school children, trying to have something over other departments, hiding information and duplicating police work." AGAIN with your self revelation of ignorance. I finally know what your problem is. You've revealed it with this sentence. You are genuinely confusing Hollywood tv and movie tropes with reality. You actually think scene where local law enforcement has to get into a fight to keep a major case from another agency is real. Then they have to pursue their own secret investigation on the side when the FBI tries take over. What. A. Joke. That's not how reality works, bud. Investigations, and the appropriate division on labor to cover them, are determined by the type and scale of the crimes and perpetrators involved in them. The delineation of who investigates what is not conducted by some contest of wills by hardscrable law enforcement veterans. It's well defined by law. Jeez. You are way out of touch here. They might not be "private militia", but they may as well be. Spoken like someone who doesn't know a single thing about what an actual militia is. "I'm very glad I wasn't born in your country." We're very glad you're not here too. Please don't visit either.
I went to montreal recently. They say their cops are the worst Canada has to offer up in QC Me, I’m from Louisville Kentucky. Canadas cops seemed to carry themselves so much differently that back home. They were bad if you asked Canadians. If you ask me they were Mr Roger’s compared to the corrupt idiots back home. My cities cops are a literal gang
Now you're swinging it the other way. Yes, our police is corrupt and has 0 accountability. But you're making it sound like we live in a wasteland, fleeing in terror from these roving gangs like it's Mad Max or some shit.
>you're making it sound like we live in a wasteland, fleeing in terror from these roving gangs like it's Mad Max or some shit. Aren't you? You must be white.
We are not. I'm also not white.
Except, no that's literally accurate in the US.
It's not accurate at all. Reddit has a twisted view on police because they only post bad news about police. In a country of 340 million people, you're bound to have a handful of negative stories at any given moment. 99% of cops are not bad people and have never shot anybody. Most police interactions are incredibly boring and just a lot of paperwork. But if you only read the spicy stories posted by and debated by edgy teenagers on Reddit, then that's all you'll ever know.
I mean two studies in the early 90’s (the last time any study on this topic was really done) found that 40% of spouses of police officers experienced domestic violence. https://kutv.com/amp/news/local/40-of-police-officer-families-experience-domestic-violence-study-says This random ass local news station from Utah that showed up in google sums it up pretty well. There’s dozens of problems from police ranging from aforementioned rates of abuse to systematically covering for bad actors and thin-blue-lineism
The "few bad apples" argument falls apart when those bad officers face little to no consequences for Thier actions.
Cool. I live in a city where I have had to call the cops on my violent neighbors multiple times. I’m talking 15-20 reports filed. They literally refused to show up the first 10 times I called and when I asked “why?” The dispatch said “it’s up to the watch commander to decide which calls to respond to. If he thinks it’s important, then they will send someone.” Okay then, I guess the guy beating the shit out of a woman in the front yard while two other women are trying to stab each other isn’t a big deal. They showed up four hours later. Drove by shining lights into my front windows which woke me up after I finally got back to sleep, and then just left. When a different neighbor (same city, different house) pulled a gun on my roommate for “stealing” his dog he left to die tied up in his front yard when he went to jail on drug charges for a couple months the cops said “we can’t do anything. It’s his word against yours.” This was also 5-6 hours after the incident where we reported a fucking gun pointing a gun at someone. These are just the two craziest ones. I have had to call so many fucking times because my drug addict fucking neighbors think it’s fine to do nitrous balloons in their car with the music blasting at full volume 6 feet from my bedroom window. Nothing they can do about that apparently. And I say that with *full* sarcasm because they could do something, but just choose not to. These assholes drove that car into a family (luckily nobody got too badly hurt) all fucked up on nitrous. The cops are mostly worthless. They don’t stop crimes and barely even show up after the fact to take a statement. Good luck if something of value gets stolen. My GFs car got stolen and the jackass who did it dropped his ID in the car. Still fucking nothing.
Nah, that's an accurate statement.
Nope, it's factually inaccurate. Just because neither you nor OP are smart enough to understand that doesn't actually mean anything. Facts > your feelings
It's a online communist agenda post. This subreddit has become the place to agenda post your own shitty political opinions disguised as an actual post. I think right now a good portion of the memes on the subs front page is some political opinion disguised as a post
>Communist agenda Recognizing that the American population is over-legislated and as a result over policed, is now communism? I don’t know man, that sounds like some police state agenda pushing this country into neofascism and totalitarianism. Which, a quick glance through your profile, is what you are pushing.
*everything I don’t like is communism*
It's a conservative ploy to drive a wedge between liberals and law enforcement. Look at how hard they push the ridiculous narrative about liberals turning Portland into a war zone because they got rid of the police. They want to scare old white people into thinking that voting for Democrats means that they'll lose police and crime will skyrocket. ACAB and Defund the Police were communication strategies developed by conservatives and the left picked them up and ran with them and they lost moderate votes over it.
> Look at how hard they push the ridiculous narrative about liberals turning Portland into a war zone because they got rid of the police. As a Portland resident, it's extra funny because our police has only ever gotten more funding and we never got rid of them, despite how much we wanted things changed. >ACAB and Defund the Police were communication strategies developed by conservatives and the left picked them up and ran with them and they lost moderate votes over it. Yea no, this is just some conspiracy nonsense. As someone born and raised here, our cops genuinely are that bad. As in some of the founding portland cops were kkk members and now a days they still work with white supremacy groups like the proud boys. ACAB and defund the police have been around long before I've been alive.
Yeah somehow Seattle burned down while I was living downtown and I didn't notice. But they had some nice people in a park giving out water and food but also it was total anarchy according to fox news. Oh and thanks to the cops for driving away pissed off protestors into my immigrant working class neighborhood while protecting the nicer areas. Very 92 LA riots of them.
>"In America, the police is nothing more than a private militia governed by the ruling socioeconomic class" This is the battle cry of the socialist and sovereign citizen...until their residence is broken in, something of theirs is stolen, or they're assaulted. Then they're all about making the civil servants do their job. Also, not to split hairs, but they are financed by county and township taxes. Therefore, they are a *public* militia governed by the ruling socioeconomic class. Get it right.
How many robberies have police prevented? Not like showed up hours after the call and filed out a report? How many stolen items actually get returned to people if it's worth less than $1000?
JC this is pure cringe…
The post title is very “I form my political opinions based on leftist twitter memes”
Precisely.
So brave /s
I always gave the cops their free coffee and donuts. Working the graveyard shift at a gas station, you need all the friends in blue you can get.
It’s clear from posts like this that you have never personally known any police officers. I have multiple good friends who are cops, and they are wonderful human beings. Since things on the internet get taken out of context, no I do not condone the brutality that happens way too often across the country from police officers on to citizens, but this broad brush that people try to paint where all cops are despots is absolutely ridiculous.
That's the problem though. The police are people in a position with a lot of trust and authority. Because of that, there is also a higher expectation of good conduct, and a lot more scrutiny. If it were just a couple of bad cops, the problem could be overlooked. But it isn't just a couple. It is a consistent breach of trust, bad faith, harm, and death. Because it is such a prevalent issue, all cops will be labelled as bad. If your good cop friends want to repair the harm their bad cop peers have caused, they should be at the forefront of efforts to purge the bad elements. And yes, even if the whole department is good, they can still do something. For example, putting pressure on their union to stop protecting the bad cops so enthusiastically, and to create measures whereby bad cops are punished in such a way that they can't be given such a position of authority again. If the good cops aren't willing to make a stand against the bad cops, then all they're doing is protecting the bad cops. That's what it means to be on their side of that thin blue line.
This. Good orchards don’t consistently grow bad apples.
yeah but when the bad cop kills you they are going to cover for him
God forbid the police are alert when a crack head goes on a rampage.
Kinda dystopian that you have to bribe them for protection with free snacks though
1. This isn't even ***close*** to a Confession Bear. This is a Baby Insanity Wolf. 2. Hating the police in totality tells me you are an ignorant tool that knows nothing about governance. You can want reform and to prevent police shootings on unarmed black men, for example, but otherwise... no. Moving along, I'll take my downvotes. *sigh*
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmaoNLSHx\_w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmaoNLSHx_w)
They aren't supposed to accept it for free... if they do, they are wrong to do so.
Paid for by you and me.
Giving cops free food got me out of a DUI when I was 18. It still scared the shit out of me and I've not gotten in trouble since.
So bribery works?
All over the world every day.
Thread title is bull malarkey
OP would prefer to have no cops around so the gas station can get robbed. Smart. OP also would be the first to call the cops if ANYTHING were to happen, lol.
Cop where I live get paid $60 an hour. Really taking it to them huh.
Lol. I love.. so so much...that everyone thinks they're dunking on OP....and not the cops...by saying basically "OP, you're a moron....everyone knows that cops are grey-furred old labradors that need you to rub peanut butter on crimes so they can find them."
"worked"
I get it, you enjoy directing hate towards the police.
I gave all police, firefighters, and ambulance service workers free coffee. Not by-law enforcement though those guys had to pay. Firefighters and ambulance got to skip the line too.
They're not supposed to take it for free either.
Thank you for your service
I would do this at a job all the time. Little did they know that free coffee was always decaf...acab
Such an edgelord
So edgy
Yeah the point of giving police free stuff isn’t out of respect. It’s so they visibly frequent the place and deter crime, whether that’s petty vandalism or robberies. This is a statistically effective tactic as not only are they visibly present frequently, but they’ll often be more protective of their favourite coffee/snack joint, where the owner gives us stuff for free and is friendly. The point of your freshman philosophy class wasn’t to parrot the prof or textbook, it was to think critically about the world around you from *all* perspectives.
Fucking moron and he sounds so proud of himself, never thought to ask why we give them free coffe.
I am not going to agree with the OP completely, but he has a point. I have spent nearly 20 years involved in the criminal justice system and I am speaking from my experiences and the experiences of my colleagues. The police are not legally required to protect anyone. There is literally nothing that can force them to assist you. See DeShaney vs. Winnebago, 489 U.S. 189 (1989) and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005). By definition, this means they can choose when to use their powers and when not to. They can also choose where and who to police, and where and who not to police. This means that at a very basic level, they hold a lot of power. And because the use of this power comes down to personal decisions, that power is subject to the inherent biases of the police, whether or not they realize it. Take a deeper look into how police are hired, trained, retained, and disciplined and you get an idea of the type of folks that are staffing police departments. That isn't to say every cop is a bad person. But you should also look at how the institution is inherently designed to protect itself such that even a good cop is likely to either ignore or cover up the bad behavior of their colleagues. To confirm this, look into how many cops that do report colleagues are treated. There is a very long line of people that suffered severe retaliation for trying to report bad behavior. (For references, look up terms like "qualified immunity" "officer retaliation" "police corruption.") You can make all sorts of excuses, but the above is pretty well documented by numerous sources. It is getting better, but it is a very slow process. I am not an ACAB person, but I certainly understand why many people are.
I agree with you, except good cops do not cover up crimes for other officers.
I agree. But not reporting it at all is still wrong, without it necessarily being a cover up. Unfortunately, there is no way to know specifically how often this occurs, because there are no reports. Given what we know about the history of policing, the number of retaliations, and the number of times people have been wrongly convicted based on police misconduct, it is safe to assume it occurs much more often than is reported.
Police aren’t required to protect or serve you. Keep worshipping the fascists, bootlickers
I worked in a beach club on Long Island as a young fella in the early 90's. I'm from Ireland. Half the time there was a cop sitting in the staff break room drinking his free coffee. This was some top shelf slacking off work. Just so there could be a cop car parked out front as a deterrent. It sounds like a good decision from the beach club's point of view but what about all the other places the cop car can't be seen because it's missing? In Ireland and Europe, I'm quite sure you'd get fired for accepting anything for free as a cop. It just doesn't happen.
… you’re a Bud Cubby fan aren’t you?
Complaints about socioeconomic class, probably hates capitalism, proceeds to continue to feed the system whilst working at a gas station. Why not charge them then pocket the money?
Whatever you say, oh wise one. Lead us *children* with your mature and supremely smart words. You got it all figured out, I can see.
I didn’t think cops could accept gratuities
We gave them free coffee where I worked too. I would actually piss and shit and cum in every cup that I gave to a private militant governed by the ruling socioeconomic class.
Uh o, someones in college.
Bad use of meme. You did something good at the cost of your own safety. Not confession bear worthy
When I worked delivering pizza from a non-chain pizza place in place in a small town with a local PD less than a block from the pizza shop, we'd deliver 5-6 large pizzas daily to the police. First time I was asked to do it, I asked why we were giving free pizza to the cops. The answer: We are all driving around this town, displaying the company sign on our cars. Do we all obey all traffic laws all the time? If a cop whose belly is full of free pizza sees you run that stop sign, maybe he'll let it slide. It seemed to work. Neither I nor any of my fellow drivers ever got a ticket while working there.
Stunning and brave OP. Bravo! You really showed em!
Because police are the worst amirite?
💯
Yeah fuck 'em. I will NEVER respect any entity (government or otherwise) that doesn't have my best interests at heart and is legally allowed to lie to me to achieve their own goals.
So you don't respect.... Literally everything? Nobody and nothing has anyone's best interests in mind other than their own. Every retailer doesn't care about the customer, they just want the to spend money. Every corporation/ company don't really care about employees, they just care how much money they make every year. Hell you'd be lucky is deep down your S/O truly has your best interests in mind, as people will almost always value themselves above anyone else.
You really missed that government entity part didn't you?
>I will NEVER respect any entity (government or otherwise) You really forgot you said goverment or othwerwise part didn't you?
And what non government entities have the legal authority to lie to me? Maybe you should figure out which one you wanna poke holes at then we can nag about it.
Feel like I've been pretty clear on which ones, you just cant accept that youre wrong and are looking for any way you can spin anything I say into an argument. That being said, you have fun believeing what you want, ill go hang out with the normal people.
You never answered my question...
Nah… Police are just the largest gang in the USA.
Fuck why is everyone sucking off cops in this thread
Most Americans have no idea how bad the justice system is here because the justice system has a very specific corner of American society over polices and that corner doesn't sit around chatting on the whitest subreddit
Differing opinions exist Yes, there are bad cops, but the point of giving out free coffee is not to support cops, it's to get them to frequent the specific store and lower both crime and response times for crime in that store. OP isn't hurting a cop with this, they're hurting the gas station
Lmao same. If dunkin can't give me health insurance why would I give my local cops a fucking discount? The franchise was too cheap to help it's employees but god help us we need to get these cops their free hot coffee.
[F___ Tha Po-lice!](https://youtu.be/IxaSqKelRro?si=QaoqVx34nAGWODeg)
Pub I worked at years ago used to have a 50% off food deal for uniformed cops. They never tipped and showed up all the time with their families expecting the deal for the whole table. I just stopped giving them the deal, told them the policies changed and charged em full price. Took about a week for them to all stop showing up looking for their handouts. Freed up a lot of table space and got a lot better group of customers coming in. Paying customers that tipped and didn't demand absurd amounts of attention.
A lot of boot licking going on in here
ACAB. Not just American cops, ALL cops. That's been their purpose from the start.
I park in every “reserved parking for our friends in law enforcement” spot I see. Why are we discriminating against people based on their jobs.
Yeah those aren't for officer Steve to do his shopping while off duty, it's so squad cars can park quickly when responding to a call.
No, it's not really that. Parking right along the curb in front of the building would accomplish that. But doing that scares away some customers, who fear there's a confrontation happening in the store. After seeing that a few times, people start associating the store with crime and decide to shop elsewhere. So the stores provide police parking spots in the normal parking area, so it's quick but also more discreet.
I’ve never seen something like that, but I like your style. No physical reason at all to give them preferred parking.
I see those spots at random stores. But they never use them. Emergency or not, they park directly in front of the store.
Based
Based on what?
Their lived experiences.
I was in the drive-thru line at Dunkin, got to the window and the employee said "Hey, the car in front of you paid for your order...it's been a chain for like 45 minutes. Do you want to pay for the order for the car behind you?" I looked in my mirrror at the car behind me: 2 massachusetts state troopers in a massive SUV. "Er....do you think I want to pay for their order?" She looked back at them, giggled a little, and said "Um it's up to you I guess...". I handed her the $10 I was going to give her anyway and said "My orders paid right? This is for YOU. Keep the change. Please dont apply it to theirs ok?" She looked around conspiratorially, folded up the 10 and said "Yessir. Thanks, have a great day!" Wait, what's order behind them? "Um...$3.50?" I handed her a $5. "Keep it going after the cops?" She grinned and nodded. "Promise?" "Haha of course!" I thoroughly enjoyed my $15 expreme pettiness coffee and bagel.
This is one of the laziest posts of all time
You seem far too proud of this for Confession Bear to be appropriate.
Same. I had an officer once insist on paying for his coffee and said it was against policy for him to accept. He wasn’t a young cop, but none of his coworkers ever refused. I hope he’s still on the force.