NYPD Blues

My brother-in-law mentioned the fact that you never see a cop talking to a young kid to try to connect with the community while guys in the fire-department are much more likely to participate in community building.  Now I understand that the FD and PD are not interchangeable and the cops can't be too buddy-buddy as they need to have authority but I think they would go a much longer way if they showed respect for the laws they are expected to enforce.

I am not one who seeks out ways to defy authority and I do appreciate the work that the men and women in blue do but I am sick of the amount of cops who go through the motions, break laws and defy common decency while never seeing a pay-cut or criticism unless the act is so gruesome the media picks up on it.    Now I'm sure the majority of cops are fine and even sending a slight criticism is akin to supporting the Taliban by the police brethren but it's still a job and you should still be expected to do what you are paid to do.  It's time to run it like a business not a welfare state.

 How often do you see a cop turn on his lights in order to run a light just to turn them off again when they get across the street or cut into the opposite side of the street to get around a slow moving car.  Cops don't ever believe they are expected to obey anything.   They speed, park in front of hydrants, cut people off at turns and use their badge to intimidate.

 Forget the blatant disrespect of law and decency, how about the inefficiency.  What other job do you see people on their cell-phones for hours at a time?  These are employees of the city yet there isn't a single person making sure they are doing what they are paid to do.   How efficient is a cop who is staring at his IPhone going to be?   The police-department hangs up signs to report suspicious packages or situations but you can't expect your citizens to be the only ones vigilant.

When they are on the subway platforms they often stand huddled with 5 of them on one side.  Obviously their duty that day wasn't to congregate with their buddies but rather it was meant to patrol.

Why doesn't Ray Kelly focus on getting their cops to start patrolling, walking the beat, keeping their eyes on the street not on a screen.   I am sure these are novel ideas and I'm not an expert but...you are paying them to work, so expecting them perform the duties they are paid to do shouldn't be too difficult to sell to the public.  If you are incompetent or defiant than you get fired, now that's a novel idea!!   See  the average tax-payer who struggles to get to work, feed a family, deal with the grind of commuting all while having taken pay-cuts, hour-cuts or job losses understands sacrifice, cops don't have to worry about their jobs, benefits or pay because their supporters and the FOP and PBA are like the NRA.

 

But you can't fire any of them or ask them to take a penny less per year how about we start with this:

 

- We ask citizens to police the police, if we can be expected to report suspicious activity we should also be expected to report corruption, disrespect of common decency and inefficiency. we set up a 311 so citizens can report the badge numbers of cops blatantly breaking laws.

- hit them in the wallet: every cop caught running a red or swerving to the opposite lane to get past a slow car takes a 5% pay-cut for ever infraction.  If I get fined for breaking the law, they should too.

-We  (GASP) take away their cell-phones while at work.   They have walkie-talkies and we can give them NYPD issued phones that can make only official calls, kind of like the ones you give a 6 year old, shaped liked a frog with four calling buttons.

 

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry