Comment by tcbawo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tcbawo | Hacker News Reader

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Being a police officer is a difficult, thankless, dangerous job, yet critical for a functional society.

You don't get the same resources, respect, or pension of the military. If you are let go/fired, you have little chance of finding something comparable close by.

It's not healthy for the psyche to be put into harm's way for an entire career span. There is probably a lot of untreated PTSD going on. It's not surprising that they are very leery of policies that would put them or fellow officers at risk, or be guinea pigs for policies pushed down from above.

People get awkward or remain guarded around police in social settings, so law enforcement tends to fraternize with each other and their families.

None of this makes for an environment that promotes transparency.

I'm not making any judgements for or against any of the events that have transpired. But I have sympathy for everyone involved. I suspect that the police-public dynamic will never be changed without a significant cultural shift in attitudes.

Being a police officer isn't a dangerous job, it isn't even in the top 10 of most dangerous jobs in the US. No one thanks the 7-11 clerk for the danger they put themselves into so you can buy a Slurpee at 2AM in the morning. No one thanks the crab fisherman who risk their lives so you can enjoy "all you can eat" snow crab legs at Red Lobster.

There's lots of extremely brutal jobs that are thankless. People who pick your food. Visit central California during summer where people are picking produce in 100+ degree weather for 10 hours day. It's hard back breaking work.

Being a police officer is a well paid job with a pension where most of your day is filling out paperwork.

From a quick Google search, this article lists sherriff/police officer at 14th most dangerous job: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/careers/2018/01/09/work... The most common cause is intentional injury by another person. The police, like everyone with power needs accountability. But I don't know if being overpaid is the core problem.

If anything better pay would attract better cops.

I guess this is just another one of those problems that almost every other western democracy has figured out that is simply impossible to fix in the US.

It's probably a given that other western democracies have less police-related violence. Which countries have the best systems?

I suspect the impass will be worked around rather than fixed. Quasi-police will take on some law enforcement duties. Technology will intercede in a big way. Our public anonymity is probably already out the door.

I wouldn't be surprised if many looters are tracked and identified even with face masks, even retroactively.

>> Being a police officer is a ... thankless ... job

Police officers are regularly held up as heroes, and often afforded special privileges in everyday life.

If anything, they are irrationally worshipped.

Police are praised as heros and, when you count the pension, make 5x more money than the typical immunology PhD student (without whom we would likely literally be entering a new multi-century dark age).

Lots of people do hard society-critical jobs that take an emotional/physical toll at wages far below that of a typical officer. Only one of those occupations has a serious violence problem.

I can’t even imagine a world where there are protests in the streets asking immunology PhD students who have no pension and make 19K a year with a college degree to stop killing people. And there will never, ever be a parade for those folks.

Stop excusing police. They are paid better than most for the job they do, even if most of that comp is back-loaded.

I couldn't believe when they found the salary of the San Jose policeman that shouted "fuck you bitch" at a protester it turned out to be something like $250,000. Like holy fuck I thought bayarea frontend engineers were paid a lot, god damn. Dude looked 25 years old!

At the risk of sounding like I'm defending a guy I think should have been fired for conduct unbecoming an officer, I looked at the breakdown of his compensation. To be accurate, his total compensation (not just salary, but includes health benefits and probably things like reimbursements, uniform, etc); last year was closer to $230k. The $250k was the previous year. Remember that police unions have strict employment contracts where all of their overtime must be paid (they don't just make salary and work a variable number of hours).

SJPD has been chronically understaffed since at least 2008 when there were large layoffs. The department prefers to hire fewer officers, but work the existing ones longer hours (hence lots of overtime).

Definitely not excusing any behavior by the police. But if you lump all officers, departments, and cities together you are never going to get anywhere with reform.

I only have a vague idea what police officers make. Generally, I avoid begrudging anyone's salary.

You say this, and yet crime went down when NYPD went on strike.

I'm not saying we get rid of all cops... But I also don't see any reason for them to have an Ironman suit for every officer.

Cops have guns and close to complete immunity to do whatever they want. They've been getting more and more militarized in the last couple of decades. They really, really don't need you to defend them.

> ... yet critical for a functional society.

Citation needed.

This article[1] from during the NYPD "slowdown" of 2015 suggests we actually don't need police as much at Blue Liners claim.

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...

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