Pixiq

To summarize his comment, cops have a job. They’re away from home during this job. They’re paid for this job. There are so many incidents of misconduct that it’s not news, and so should be condoned. Did I miss anything?

Shorter Juan Sanchez:

“Whhiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnne!”
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

And really, is that the real guy? How do you get to be a police spokesman with writing skills that terrible?

Oh wait, maybe he really just has to stand in front of cameras and repeat what he’s told to.
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

Miami Beach Police spokesman Juan Sanchez – “BTW”? Are you serious? How can a spokesperson have such terrible writing skills – especially when drafting a letter in response to an investigative news story. I really hope the New Times staff takes a moment of their day to collectively laugh at this dribble. Juan Sanchez should be fired for poor performance. I wonder how much he gets paid…?

Michael,

Stand in front of the camera and say, “No Comment, No Comment, No Comment, No Comment….” While not getting upset. If you don’t know anything you don’t have anything to be upset about. Sounds like a great job that doesn’t require much skill at all.
Duane Kerzic´s last blog ..Weather Station

On the way into work this morning, I heard horrible statistics. 1/4 of all incarcerated people in the world are in the United States. You have an incarceration rate of just over 1% more than twice that of the closest competitor (if it can be called that) of 0.53%. The rest of the top 10 are the former Soviet Union. Yet which is safer, downtown Paris or downtown Atlanta? (Can’t comment on downtown Miami, haven’t been there…)

Actually… I’m fully in favor of cops getting paid very well for a very difficult, dangerous job. However, in exchange, there needs to be very high accountability.

You can’t have both high pay and low accountability. The problem here isn’t the pay rate (which I think keeps cops cleaner b/c they are less likely to then look for illegal money elsewhere).

The problem here is that they want both the high pay, and the ability to do whatever the hell they want to.

I guess on the bright side, you could argue
this rampant abuse of Florida cops
is not sustainable. Florida cops are Glory Hogs,
the guys that made themselves movie stars with the likes of COPS and all the mindless spinoffs.
Miami is not as bad as Palm Beach where there are bored cops in every parking lot and anyone walking is a “suspect.”

Don’t get me started with cops down here, let’s not forget my favorite mortgage fraud investigator ( http://thestrawbuyer.blogspot.com/2009/12/lets-say-hello-to-lead-detecti... ) who couldn’t even figure out how to execute his own mortgage correctly ( http://thestrawbuyer.blogspot.com/2009/08/remember-where-i-said-we-were-... )

Don’t get me wrong, there are great, honest, hard working cops out there, it’s just that down here in SFL, they’re few and far between.

Beat cops are drones who rely on their supervisors. No critical thinking involved, just reactionary thinking.
Guy Freeman´s last blog ..The Springfield Police Department

I’d much rather see the public school teachers be compensated in this manner. This jobs are much more important to fostering the kind of society America wants.
Guy Freeman´s last blog ..The Springfield Police Department

What a ridiculous hatchet job. The author took every IA complaint, ACLU allegation, and half-assed gripe about the police, rolled it into a few real cases of misconduct, and put it out as some kind of evidence of what? That the police are paid too much?

Give me a break. If a department wants to retain people, then they have to pay a decent salary. Otherwise folks will go there for the the experience and then jump ship for a better paying department. That happens to LAPD all the time because they pay low compared to many nearby areas.

It sounds like that department has many special events that require mandatory overtime. I know it comes as a surprise to folks but officers need to be paid for the hours they work. None are going to come in on their days off to work some street festival for free. OT is part of the job that is not ever going to go away and to bitch about officers being paid for it is pointless and petty.

I am very happy that those officers are getting a decent salary for doing their job. I wish all departments paid that well for police work. It’s good to see that the local citizens support them enough to pay such a generous salary. Maybe I should put in an application for Miami Beach PD.
Johnny Law´s last blog ..It’s been a long weekend

Well, given my experience with the local FWPD PIO, Michael Joyner, there’s also “deny police reports even though it’s against Indiana law” and “look like a chump when the city attorney rushes it right out and doesn’t even charge you a copying fee.”
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

TL;DR

For once, I am in (at least partial) agreement with Johnny Law. If you don’t pay police like qualified professionals, then don’t be surprised when they don’t act like it.

You really do get what you pay for. If a community is not willing to pay for law enforcement professionals, they’re going to end up with a bunch of people who are into the idea of having a badge for less savory reasons.

That doesn’t mean well-paid officers will never misbehave, but it certainly mitigates the problem.

JL,

C’mon down. You’ll have plenty to blog about down here, including a certain asshole photographer who stalks the streets of Miami Beach.

Beat cops make dick all, its the asshats sitting behind a desk, pushing papers who are the problem, as it is with all government organizations. It’s middle management that is overpaid and there are to many of them, in the police, fire, education, municipal government, military, etc. etc. All they care about is growing their own department, making it bigger so they have more underlings, a bigger budget, more power and a larger salary, thats the cancer that is government.
Jody´s last blog ..Mike and Jamie from Wheels off Liberty- train wreck of an interview.

I think the point of the article is that these officers are quite well-paid, and the problem doesn’t seem to be mitigated.
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

I just stopped by and checked out your blog.
Jesus Christ you guys are screwed in Dade County.
How the hell is he still a cop?
Des Moines Ia, my town, We just had a dirty cop, taken down by his own brothers for being a dirty on duty pervert.
They wasted no time taking him off the payroll.
Florida could learn alot about how to deal with dirty cops, by calling DMPD and asking how its done.

I read the original article, then Johnny Law’s comments, and then the article again.. I don’t have so much a problem with these guys making god money especially because my guess is that most of it is on overtime. But as a taxpayer, if I’m not only paying these guys but also having to pay for the lawsuits caused by them then it is going to piss me off. It doesn’t take very many events in a year or two before people start to look at the police with suspicion. Even for a large department. Perception IS reality, if you get some tiny fraction of a force acting poorly the VAST majority doing the right thing is not even going to be seen. Like it or not that is the reality. Also, it doesn’t matter if the behavior happened years ago, if you get caught for it yesterday, it was yesterday, and nobody cares about when you actually did it..

Well then imagine the problems if you started paying crap wages. While we probably disagree about the scope of police problems, a crappy salary will increase corruption and lower recruit quality and retention.

The pay isn’t the problem, it’s the obvious lack of firing the people that need fired.
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

Most Dangerous Jobs (read: don’t believe the hype)
1. Fishers and Related Fishing Workers
2. Logging Workers
3. Aircraft Pilots and Flight Engineers
4. Structural Iron and Steel Workers
5. Farmers and ranchers
6. Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors
7. Roofers
8. Electrical Power-Line Repairers and Installers
9. Drivers:Traveling Sales/Truck Drivers
10. Taxi Drivers/Chauffeurs

This tired old line again. There is a big difference between failing off a roof and responding to a call of an armed robbery in progress. In all those jobs you mentioned, none require you to knowingly put yourself in situations where violence has occurred or is occurring.

Just because officers are usually able to safely apprehend dangerous subjects on a daily basis doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. It just means that police tactics have improved.

Go to the Officer Down website and read a few entries.

You know police work is a different kind of job. The good thing is that most people know it and appreciate the dangerous job they do.

But in both those cases, the person takes the risk of a dangerous job, so your attempt at drawing a distinction between the two is ridiculous and dishonest. All of the require voluntarily taking on dangers – and danger does not always come in the form of a gun.

Go to the Officer Down website and read a few entries.

How will reading some anecdotes prove your point when hard statistics are against you?

Police work has dangers – but it’s not the most dangerous job, statistically. Get over it.

@R,

I think you miss my point. The fact that someone willingly chooses to take a job that involves such dangers should be something that gives them a little extra gratitude. I think the reply, “well that’s their job” is a little ridiculous given that many people don’t have the stones to do that kind of work. It is their job to enforce the laws but we shouldn’t shrug when one gets injured. That is not in anyone’s job description.
Johnny Law´s last blog ..It’s been a long weekend

“none require you to knowingly put yourself in situations where violence has occurred or is occurring.”

Never been out to sea have you?

Your mistaking violence as only man-caused. American fisherman are injured or die (approx 110 per 100,000) at a much higher rate than, for example, police (approx. 9 die per 100,000) because they do work in a much more violent environment. I’ve seen these guys working along the Aleutians wondering how they could even stand let alone work. Injury is a way of life.

No ambulance, no emergency room, and backup hours, even days, away. They know it ever second. It is a different kind of job that you obviously don’t appreciate.

They don’t get to throw their weight around (escalating violence), their weight is thrown around. It gets really dangerous after that.

I will agree with you on most of the others, with reservations on lumbering, but not on American fisherman.

I think I’ll just save myself some work here.

http://carlosmiller.com/2010/03/03/man-sues-to-protect-his-right-to-flip...

Yeah, just keep reading down, but I want to highlight this at the end again, since it was conveniently ignored the first go ’round:

http://carlosmiller.com/2010/03/03/man-sues-to-protect-his-right-to-flip...

“And you’re not making logical sense. Despite all the things you listed, you haven’t dispelled the fact that police work is not ultimately as dangerous as you would have us believe, much less so much more dangerous than other risky occupations.

“So yeah, we’re going to continue to ignore your Thin Blue Whine.”
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

JL,

And you missed his point. It was your dismissal of the dangers of the other jobs, of which some are where they knowingly and willingly face “violence” of some sort every day with which he took exception.

Like your profession, they work at improving “tactics” to increase safety. But their jobs are simply more inherently dangerous, dangers that can’t be reduced by armor or firepower, which in your “stones” pride you want to ignore. About 110 fisherman die per 100,000 versus about 9 police, but they aren’t as brave or special as you? Nice

Would you have the “stones” to do their work?. (Don’t even try to bring up injuries.)

There is an important difference between those jobs and police officers.

If any of those people fuck up or intentionally kill someone, they’ll actually get fired.

(Never mind arrested/charged/convicted/imprisoned.)
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

Yes yes. That the only difference between a police officer and a farmer or a roofer. We are all awed by your wit.
Johnny Law´s last blog ..It’s been a long weekend

Again, you ignore the point. Nor did he mention farmer or roofer, only you did.

So, are you ready to venture out on the high seas, gambling on making a living or losing livlihood or even life? Do you have the “stones”?Your job isn’t statistically more dangerous because it isn’t. Again I grant you that some of those listed are simply circumstance. Other professions also include knowingly throwing one’s self into harm’s way by their very nature, and they die at greater rates than your’s. But they don’t get free passes when they lie on the stand or in their reports, when they beat someone innocent, or when they break the law. Too many police do. Get rid of them.

No Johnny, there are other differences, that’s just an important one.

Remember, “an important” is not the same as “only.”

For instance, another difference is they don’t tend to demand automatic respect based solely on their profession as often, if at all.
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate

And let’s not forget this gem:

“(Johnny Law:) ‘…but people understand that there is something significantly different about a job that requires you to run TOWARDS an armed robbery in progress.’

“Yeah, it’s great being a news photographer.”
Michaelk42´s last blog ..Better a Bike Pirate