[belkinpower]

Police, particularly in big cities, seem weirdly disinterested in doing their jobs. More recently I’ve seen people blame this on polarizing issues like protests or progressive DAs, but it’s been going on for longer than that. I honestly don’t know what the causes or solutions are.

[whimsicalism]

I've grown up in cities and lived in them my whole life. People in service and public-facing positions (including police) in cities generally are disinterested in doing their jobs, this has always been my experience.

The main development I've noticed in the past decade is an increasing share of people moving to the cities from suburbs where they were raised and expecting suburban level of service in the city.

[YeBanKo]

I don’t know, I would disagree regarding all public-facing positions being disinterested. While living in SF I had interactions with Park services, mainly requesting them to fix stuff, it was fine. They fixed / cleaned up things.

Regarding the police however I agree, but they did start using the “DA not gonna prosecute” way too often.

[SQueeeeeL]

Yeah, police in big cities are basically just there to act as a strike force when the rage of all the minimum wage workers boils over every few years. They don't even have a legal obligation to protect you in dangerous situations, so they truly don't have a purpose

[quantified]

What are their incentives? The brotherhood has their back to do whatever they want or not.

Quiet quitting has been around for a while.

[JTbane]

Interactions with cops be like:

>here's the exact location of my stolen property

I sleep.

>obviously fake shooting threat at a popular streamer's home

REAL STUFF SEND SWAT

[knaekhoved]

In big cities with progressive DAs,

Police enforce the law and punish criminals who e.g. steal: they expose themselves to physical risk, and are likely to be accused of racism, lose their job, possibly go to jail. E.g. the recent case of 4 cops going to prison because they tried to arrest a counterfeiter high on fentanyl and he died of OD-induced respiratory failure while being arrested. Arrested criminals are immediately released anyway, so why bother?

Police chill in their cars and don't do anything: little physical risk, won't be accused of racism, won't risk losing job or going to prison.

The incentive structure pretty clearly dictates what police are going to do.

[majormajor]

So how do you explain the lack of effective policing in the decades before these new "progressive DAs" that police complain about so much?

[quantified]

Nothing to do with "progressive DAs" except that as a tribe they really want to make those DAs look bad.

[breser]

Your example is George Floyd.

* He was accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, we still don't know if Floyd created the bill or even knew it was counterfeit. For all we know he might have been an innocent victim of someone else. https://web.archive.org/web/20220409101419/https://www.nytim...

* Floyd did not die of the results of fentanyl overdose: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/04/16/fac...

* He died because a police officer knelled on his neck after he was already in handcuffs for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. https://web.archive.org/web/20210410114811/https://www.start...

* They had him in the car but then pulled him onto the ground and started kneeling on him. There were 4 officers present at that point. They did this despite calling for EMS. They did this despite Floyd saying he couldn't breath. They did this despite bystanders pointing out that he couldn't breath. The position continued even after he was clearly unconscious. They only got off his neck when EMS arrived and told them to. With EMS on site and asking for Fire Department help, the police didn't direct the Fire Department to Floyd, delaying their help for 5 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksEJR9EPQ8

This behavior was so shocking that these officers were convicted of crimes for their behavior. It is VERY rare for police officers to be indicted, let alone tried and convicted for killing someone. I seriously doubt that they would have been tried and convicted if it weren't for the shocking video showing them kneeling on his neck for a long period of time.

I find it impossible to reconcile police refusing to do their jobs with a VERY rare conviction for misconduct that is so utterly shocking. If you don't want what happened to those officers to happen to you, simply don't kneel on someones neck for a long period of time. Carrying out a search warrant for a laptop is unlikely to result in that sort of situation. Simply because there's not really a good explanation for any of the behavior that resulted in Floyd's death on the part of the police.

Maybe they choose not to do their jobs for the other reasons you gave. But the facts of the George Floyd case do not support your conclusion.

[CPLX]

When you see a whole profession that seems to be weirdly disinterested in their jobs, like say police or the speaker of the house, consider the idea that it's you who doesn't understand what their actual job is.

Hint: it involves serving their actual employer, which isn't the regular guy.

[anoonmoose]

Just basing my opinions off of what they loudly declare their job is. If it's different than that, then they're lazy AND lying.