Well I see that you live in Ohio, but I do not which county. But here in Lake County the Deputies are pretty well paid IMO. With an added benefit of driving their cruiser home considerably cuts the cost of living
So you're suggesting that this off duty officer just called in the other sheriff's deputies for the fun of it? If he did he must really like being ridiculed by his co-workers for not being able to deal with an old woman.
Your above does not take in to account that if he arrest the woman he would have to leave his off duty security job to take her away. His surveyor charges would be unprotected.
You think his co-workers are going to enjoy going out there and arresting an old woman and taking her to jail?
No, but I do believe that they will take their fellow deputy’s word that the woman was disorderly.
You're suggesting he is doing this to make the utility workers or the utility company happy. Why would the workers make a big deal out of this unless she was harassing them. Why would the utility company want the bad press of arresting an old woman?
What I am suggesting is that harassment is often a matter of perception. The property owner did not believe that she was harassing anyone but the officer did. I believe that the officer’s perception could be unconsciously altered by his employment with the utilities.
Spending time with these surveyors long enough he is going to form friendships with them.
It is likely that if he has been with these surveyors for a few months that other land owners have stopper the surveyors and asked similar questions. The surveyors after a time would start to become irritated by these questions as would the officer. Over time the officer might get a little short tempered and confrontational. If the old woman did not back down right away he may just decide to arrest her.
It is the personal relationship with the off duty employer (or their employees) that I see as the problem. It has the potential to change the way that a LEO perceives the behavior of those who interact with those he is hired by.
Arguing with utility workers is also a pretty useless thing to do….I find it hard to believe that officers arrested a little old woman for disorderly conduct when she didn't give them reason to do so.
She said she was asking questions not arguing. As I said above disorderly is a matter of perception. I suspect that the officer told her to leave the vicinity of the surveyors and she balked at being told to leave her own property. The officer having been in this situation again and again over the months of doing this part time job decided she was being disorderly.
We both are just surmising what happened because we have only the woman’s side of things. But this is my take.
I'm in Greene County, not that it really matters for the purpose of this discussion. I did a quick search and found a report that included salary survey info from 2004.
In Ohio the average starting salary for Deputy Sheriffs was $29,868.87 in 2004. That has probably gone up about 2% a year to cover cost of living increases.
Assuming 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, that is $14.36 an hour. I don't know what union dues are, but since they are required to be part of the union, that needs to come out of that.
So they make about $14 an hour for a relatively dangerous job, with crappy hours, where they have to deal with the worst aspects of the public.
With an added benefit of driving their cruiser home considerably cuts the cost of living
They get to drive it to and from work. They don't get to drive it around for personal use. All it saves them is paying for gas to and from work, and none of them have a very long commute, because they have to live in the county in which they work. It isn't the big deal you make it out to be.
I said:
So you're suggesting that this off duty officer just called in the other sheriff's deputies for the fun of it? If he did he must really like being ridiculed by his co-workers for not being able to deal with an old woman.
You responded:
Your above does not take in to account that if he arrest the woman he would have to leave his off duty security job to take her away. His surveyor charges would be unprotected.
Leaving his off duty job to arrest the woman really isn't much of an option. He did the right thing in calling in other officers to deal with the issue. The reason to do that is to avoid the conflict of interest of acting as an on duty officer while being paid for doing security. Instead he called the sheriff's department, just like any other security guard could do, and let the on duty deputies come out and investigate the incident and act accordingly.
However, that doesn't seem to stop the usual suspect from screaming how there was a conflict of interest, even though the off duty officer didn't make the arrest and called in the incident just like anyone else could.
No, but I do believe that they will take their fellow deputy’s word that the woman was disorderly.
Well, if they know him, they probably have a pretty good idea if he would lie about such a thing or not. Of course there are also the workers and the woman herself that they can talk to and try and resolve the issue. However, you usually don't get hauled off to jail for disorderly conduct, unless you refuse to stop disturbing the peace. You instead get cited and have to pay a fine.
The arresting officers don't want to fill out the paperwork for an arrest report. They don't want to deal with their sergeant asking them why they had to arrest a little old lady and couldn't talk her into calming down. They had to know the sheriff wouldn't be happy considering that he is an elected official and arresting little old women on their property for disturbing the peace is going to look bad.
Even if their fellow officer tells them the woman had been creating a disturbance, and they believed them, arresting her is a rather extreme solution unless the situation itself dictated it.
However, we really don't know what happened. All we know from the article is that she says she didn't threaten anyone, which is pretty vague. You don't get to hear the deputies' side because they aren't allowed to talk about it, especially when she is threatening a lawsuit.
What I am suggesting is that harassment is often a matter of perception. The property owner did not believe that she was harassing anyone but the officer did. I believe that the officer’s perception could be unconsciously altered by his employment with the utilities.
Well, those utility workers have every right to be there, and they need to be there to do their jobs. The woman has every right to be on her property as long as she isn't interfering with the workers. However, exactly what purpose do you think she had in going over to the workers? The workers aren't going to be able to answer any questions for her, and I didn't see any allegations that they were outside of the utility right of way. She doesn't particularly need a reason to be there, but it isn't very credible to suggest that she was completely innocent in her intents and wasn't disruptive, while the evil utility workers and the evil off duty officer just had her arrested for doing nothing but watching.
I've heard people complain about intimidation. What purpose does it serve the utility workers to try and intimidate this woman? They are just there doing their jobs. You've got to make some really one sided assumptions of bad intent on the part of the utility workers, the off duty deputy, and the two on duty deputies to come to the conclusion that they were intimidating a poor woman who was doing nothing but minding her own business.
Spending time with these surveyors long enough he is going to form friendships with them.
So. It's not like the surveyors have any reason to want to falsely accuse the woman of harassment either. From the story, it also sounds like the utility hiring off duty officers to provide security was a pretty recent development.
It is likely that if he has been with these surveyors for a few months that other land owners have stopper the surveyors and asked similar questions. The surveyors after a time would start to become irritated by these questions as would the officer.
That's not exactly unreasonable on their part since the surveyors are the wrong people to be asking such questions. If they told her they were unable to help her and she kept asking and insisting, that would be harassment. They are under no obligation to stop what they are doing and try and satisfy her.
I suspect that the officer told her to leave the vicinity of the surveyors and she balked at being told to leave her own property.
Well, if she kept badgering them, then she was harassing them and disturbing the peace.
Over time the officer might get a little short tempered and confrontational. If the old woman did not back down right away he may just decide to arrest her.
That's a pretty big assumption, and it also ignores the fact that he didn't arrest here. He called the Sheriff's office and they sent out two deputies that were on duty, and they decided to arrest her.
We both are just surmising what happened because we have only the woman’s side of things. But this is my take.
Understandable. I responded with why I don't think that your "take" is very credible. It is possible that it happened that way, but it requires a number of people to act unreasonably, rather than one person to get irate and feel that they have the right to say whatever they want as long as they remain on their property, especially when they dispute that the surveyors have a right to be there.