Posted on 08/26/2012 5:12:44 AM PDT by tobyhill
“This is definitely a form of union-busting,” Camden Fraternal Order of Police President John Williamson told FoxNews.com.
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Meanwhile, the unions are all for municipality-busting. And they think you can get blood from a turnip.
“A better partnership between the citizens and the police would be beneficial, but making that happen is the problem.”
Your comments are very reasonable. That said, for far too many years the cops have (at least where I live) have acted like a cadre of arrogant spoiled “children.” They feel no obligation to adhere themselves to the most basic laws they enforce on the rest of us. Too many of them make far too much money and yet they still get caught engaging in major crimes ( can you say drugs and weapons) both of which they steal from their own “evidence” lockers. They can’t (and don’t) make things safer for the citizens. Each year, while they make more money personally, their “leadership” cries that they have less money and therefore will be unable to do some of the things that they have done in the past. So at the end of the day on the whole, we could just let them all go, save the money and be pretty much as safe as we are with them.
It would behoove the citizens of Camden to set up block watch programs as soon as possible.
“This is definitely a form of union-busting,”
The taxpayers staged a walkout on them...
To some degree you are right. I know a traffic guy who would cite people for 5 over the limit but while driving through another city on his way home from work he got stopped several times for doing at least 20 over the limit. And had the nerve to complain about it. I routinely see guys who run traffic zipping all over town off duty. Hypocrisy doesn’t help us in the least.
Too many cities started hiring applicants who should never been allowed to be police officers. Giving criminals badges hasn’t worked real well. It is PC though.
Unions are a world of trouble all their own. Where I work there are more people (because of the union) flying desks inside than there are people working the road. Collusion in union contracts is also killing us. It’s all about the money and getting off the road to alot of cops.
The politicians are all too happy to let it slide as long as the FOP backs the administration. It’s sickening. I’m betting that the national FOP is going to back Obama this election.
The answer is making people accountable. Getting cops off cushy desk jobs and having their behinds on the road. Doing some real investigating into people padding their salaries and pensions. Getting rid of lazy problem cops that make everybody else look bad.
Maybe you could help me. I am looking for some statistics or authority which would give the appropriate ratio of police to residents. My city and the neighboring city share a police force, with 12 full time police for a combined population of about 6,000.
I think we are overstaffed, but I want to be able to cite some reference to back that up. Suburban area, zero crime, which is a good thing but I think we are overpaying and could cut back without sacrificing safety.
Thanks and regards.
Check a website called citydata.com. They have the information you are looking for. They have stats and information for nearly every city in the country and stay up to date. Here is the stat for our police dept. staffing per 1,000 residents. What it doesn’t say is how many of us are actually working the road.
Officers per 1,000 residents here:
1.28
Ohio average:
2.10
......Dissolve CITY services and transfer the responsibility to COUNTY services...
The elected official responsible for law enforcement is the High Sheriff. His deputies are out and about. T he cities have determined that they are better served with a police force. Camden is saying they are not better served and revert to letting the sheriff do his job within the city boundaries.
I would think this would save the city taxpayers from double paying for a certain layer of the dual law enforcement bureaucracies
Varies with the size of the city but the average seems to be 2 sworn officers per 1000 population. So you're not necessarily overstaffed.
If you have 12 officers then one or two are supervisors and allowing for vacations, sick days, and the rest that leaves you with probably 2 or 3 officers on duty at any one time. If you think that's overstaffing then talk to your city.
Thanks, sounds like we are about right then.
Seems like they are bored, though. I came across one of them out of their patrol car hiding in the bushes with a radar gun, trying to catch speeders on a 20 mph residential street!
Freegards,
3/M
Thanks, that was just what I was looking for.
Freegards,
3/M
The article notes further down, that 49% of the laid-off city officers will be hired as (non-union) county officers.
Your welcome. It could very well be boredom, although a lot of people call into our chief’s office complaining about speeders on residential streets, running stop signs, etc. and say we’re not doing anything about it so they’ll put a guy out there for a few days as a deterrent. Then again some guys like to run traffic and cite everything that moves. Not my cup of tea.
So, it’s kind of a two-edged sword. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. What I don’t like is the hypocrisy. If we’re going to cite people for speeding, we better be obeying the speed limit ourselves. One of the reasons I quit running traffic was I got tired of pulling over cops or people with courtesy cards.
Running traffic is good for fishing, untold numbers of great arrests, etc. have been made on simple traffic stops. I got stopped in Texas for 5 over on the freeway. They were fishing for drugs. I did not get cited.
Anyway, be careful.
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