Out of Pod Experience

Capitalize security leaving the rich secure and the poor to fend for themselves, allowing for individual rule sets to be created and companies like Blackwater to uphold them while completely ignoring to look into the issues that lead to crime such as low social or economic standing and poor education. Sounds great, where do I sign up.

Blackwater is a training facility as well as a security provider for state law enforcement, military, and private domestic firms. They also provide R&D technologies and intelligence/counterintelligence. They had 200 people contracted for security during Katrina. They work with the DEA and the DOD, and provided similar training to Afghans police and military forces.

And that quip about working in the special interest of customers and community is silly. What company wouldn't have their customers in their best interest? Blackwater didn't become global just because, it because global because of its service to its customers.

Wrong.

That's not an argument. I have to conclude that you cede the point.

That doesn't really have any bearing on the argument except to explain your bias, which is entirely fair. Most people do readily associate a badge with respectability and I am sure there are some uniformed men and women who don't act like thugs, despite the system giving them the leeway and incentive to do so.



I don't find a lot of merit in this argument. The job that "nobody wants," is vacant, because nobody takes the job. If one is economically desperate then they take whatever comes their way, sure, but to imply that getting into a reasonably well-paying government job with a whole lot of benefits is an act of desperation I think stretched reality.

I certainly wouldn't suggest the job isn't dangerous, but if you consider the on-the-job fatality/injury rate for police is lower than that of fishermen, farmers, loggers, power linemen, and a host of other physically dangerous professions, you begin to understand that the axiomatic assumption that it should pay more because -danger- doesn't really fly. I don't suggest anyone is over payed because the market makes that decision, but since a state employee is not subject to the market there is no way to tell.

In terms of keeping people safe, the track-record is pretty grim. Check out the track record of the private security companies who have set up shop in the now-defunct and un-policed districts of Detroit. Their streets are far safer and the number of times they discharge their weapons is much much lower. Since they are subject to the demands of their customers, they are able to respond to that by providing the best protection, rather than whatever fits into the current state budget. They've done well enough that they even patrol the poor neighborhoods for free. By the numbers they appear to be doing the job better by any metric and they have no extrajudicial power to abuse. If they shoot someone down in the street, they'll be on the hook for murder, not some misdemeanor conduct charge.



I assume it's as much a regional problem as anything else, but it is well established that the criminal justice system does not regularly prosecute officers who violate the law, in letter or spirit, on the job. Whether it is excused by fiat or because of some extraordinary circumstance doesn't really matter. Just last week a case closed where a 9 year old girl was killed when a SWAT team broke into her home to apprehend one of her parents. The team corroborated the fact that there was no struggle and the shooter had simply popped the kid. He got off without a day in the pen. Fast forward a few days when another child accidentally kills his younger neighbor wile wrestling and he goes right away, charged as an adult.

I think we have a serious problem with young children are being punished more harshly than fully grown and trained adults.



I've never had that problem, personally, and if something was stolen from me I would contact my insurance agent. My understanding of reporting something missing is that it won't be found and if it is found, you will not likely find it in one piece. Not to mention any cash or material of significant value will probably be claimed as a lawful seizure.

The solution, as I indicated earlier, is private security and self-defense. The firms in Detroit are just confirming what our long American history or armed private citizens has taught us. Criminals think twice when they know that the proprietor of the establishment they marked is going to do something other than "call the cops," which is exactly what they want.

Having a class of uniforms that operates above the law in order to safe-guard that law, doesn't seem to be working. That's more or less how I view the situation anyway. Hope that clears things up and kudos to your police friends if they are some of the few that do good from within a bad system.

Most people, smartly, do not antagonize the uniformed thug who can quite literally get away with murder.

How incredibly ignorant. You assume that all police are thugs?

Chicago Police Officer Richard A. Rizzo has been arrested four times in the past seven years, but that’s not enough to get him fired from the department. Rizzo has been arrested for domestic battery, child endangerment and aggravated assault with a gun. Yet while members of the general public are expected to pay fines or go to jail, prosecutors have dropped charges against Rizzo each and every time.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

On Dec. 30, 2010, Rizzo was arrested for aggravated assault with a gun and domestic battery after a fight with a 40-year-old man and the man’s 18-year-old son. Both of them lived with Rizzo in a Garfield Ridge bungalow.

The arresting officers said Rizzo punched the older man, grabbed the gun, put the muzzle in the man’s eye and told him, “How about I shoot you in the face?”

A month later, on Jan. 31, 2011, Rizzo was arrested again, this time for domestic battery, after officers said he grabbed his girlfriend “by her throat and began to strangle her.” The arresting officers said she broke away and locked herself in a bedroom. They said Rizzo kicked in the door just before they arrived.

The officers “photographed alleged injuries to victim and damage to the bedroom door,” and the incident was referred to the city’s Independent Police Review Authority for investigation.

According to the Sun-Times, Rizzo has never been disciplined for violating Chicago Police Department (CPD) rules that “generally target officers who break the law or otherwise bring discredit upon the department,” and records show he continues to make $80,724 a year working for the CPD.

Rizzo is not alone. The Chicago Police Department has a history of allowing officers who break the laws they are entrusted to uphold and enforce to remain employed--collecting high salaries and pensions.

Since 2004, 32 officers have been fired, or quit prior to being fired, collecting pensions that cost the city more than $1.2 million a year. Chicago officers cannot be stripped of their pensions unless they break the law while on duty.

Rizzo was reportedly relieved of his “police powers” on June 13, 2013 and placed on "call back" (desk duty), only after the Chicago Sun-Times asked about his status. Just as his fellow law-breaking officers, Rizzo remains eligible to collect his pension.

Although Blackwater has private contracts with private firms, it was started by ex US Military and Intelligence officers for the sole purpose of gaining lucrative military security contracts that could have been done in house. All other 'domestic' contracts were icing on the cake. Also, the fact that they do 'it' more efficiently then the US Military, speaks volumes about the state of the US military and its leadership imho

Although Blackwater has private contracts with private firms, it was started by ex US Military and Intelligence officers for the sole purpose of gaining lucrative military security contracts that could have been done in house. All other 'domestic' contracts were icing on the cake. Also, the fact that they do 'it' more efficiently then the US Military, speaks volumes about the state of the US military and its leadership imho