Entire police department resigns, advises citizens to call state police instead
65 replies, posted
Blandford’s Entire Police Force Quits, Citing Unsafe Conditions ..
https://i.imgur.com/UAZ5NJw.png
Its pretty awful that they cannot afford to properly outfit 4 fucking officers
The officers said the town’s police cruisers are in such bad shape they often have to answer calls in their personal vehicles. They said their police radios don’t work in some parts of the town and bulletproof vests are beyond their expiration dates and fit poorly to begin with.
I hope they gave the state police a little warning first, but I can see why they did it.
The statement said the reasons had to do with poor equipment and wages that saw officers get paid $14-15 per hour.
what the fuck
I guess they missed the gravy train of the past couple of decades.
The department is made up of an interim chief and three officers.
Perfect opportunity for the Kochs to fund a private police force experiment.
Not to mention paying officers 14-15 dollars an hour....I'm a fuckin' Paul Blart at a local mall and I make nearly that much.
bulletproof vests are beyond their expiration dates
15$ an hour, that'd be a pretty great pay
unless you're a cop... then you're being paid fuck all for risking your life very day
Yeah most stuff ranging from life vests to (some Kevlar) helmets to gas mask filters have some form of expiration date or another. Problem is in a lot of these things there's some sort of sensitivity to either sunlight or something else in the normal environment that causes them to degrade over time.
To add on to what MrFailz said, it also applies to almost anything the military uses. Bombs, missiles, and artillery munitions all have expiration dates (primarily either the explosive or the rocket motor), which is a factor in deciding what to do with left over inventory such as firing it at things that don't really seem to justify such overkill.
I work in a shitty warehouse, making just a bit more than that and I can't afford a lot of things.
I cannot imagine going through all that training, having the prestige of being an officer, and risking your life daily to be paid less than me.
I can make nearly 17 dollars working in a county jail lol. Literally a zero qualification job so they can at least get people into a high turn over job.
I can't imagine being a fully certified peace officer (not cheap to get certified on your own) and get paid 14 dollars an hour.
Shit I work at a coffeeshop and bring home more than these guys, and ngl my job is pretty meaningless compared to something like the police in terms of civil service/necessity. The fuck did they expect to do to keep people safe with a town of 1,300 people and 4 cops that are basically guns with uniforms and not much else?
not surprised this happened, small towns are very difficult to keep cops in. my hometown hasn't had a police department in years because it was too expensive. if you need cops, you have to call state patrol.
Jesus Christ, I make more in a three hour shift than these guys make in five, that's fucked up.
eh, if they were paid well (ie not $15 an hour), 4 cops for a town of 1,300 is about right.
Considering some police forces have fucking APC's and these guys are paid entry level wages, that's insane.
Those APCs are sold at a massive discount because it'd actually cost taxpayers more to mothball them.
That's fair.
Still a crazy situation.
Would love to read the article, but its one of those gdpr-phobic websites that block off europeans. Any alternative sources?
It's not like cops have to 1v1 every single person in the town every day. 4 cops for a town of 1,300 is pretty par for the course honestly. To put it in perspective, each cop in LA has to cover for 335 people, and the cops in this town had to cover 325 (if you take the total population and divide it by number of officers).
Well I mean sure, for small town problems 4 isn't a ton. I was from a village of around the same number of people, but it was a sleepy suburb in kind of a fancy area. It was kind of a special case, as we had one RCMP guy drive in and out every thursday. Sometimes you just don't need a policeforce at all.
That said, I can't say I know for sure what Blandford's crime-rate is like, as info online is pretty barren. If there's crime to be responded to, there should be more than 4, to be safe. Put it at like 10 maybe, if not just for giving people jobs :v If one cop is sick, there goes 25% of the force, wham. While being underpaid and under equipped, it's not hard to see why they were fed up. It sounds akin to giving a kid a shiny plastic Sheriff badge and a hollow baton to fight off a bully, if one should come up. There's little to nothing they could do about anything serious.
That's nearly 12,000 cops though, and they're not always doing something/otherwise engaged. Lots of people to call in for backup if shit goes south. If anything serious happened in Blandford, there's literally nobody to call except the 4 people probably already there.
Backup vests I have at work expired 2015. The kevlar plates themselves expired 2013. Like, this is common in the security business but I'd expect better when it comes to resources allocated to a police department.
I watched this documentary on Netflix about the Flint, MI police department and how they're understaffed and underequipped. If I were a billionaire I'd find towns like this all over the country and just dump money into their police departments
Eh, still seems pretty low. My home town has roughly the same population (about 1,400) and we have at least 10 officers on patrol, not including the Chief and his LT.
Four can certainly manage patrols, but in a worst case scenario, you don’t want to be short handed
Also 1 cop is not literally expected to handle 335 people in LA; while this is a representation of that manpower, if 335 people got together and rioted in LA, there would be enough cops to handle the situation in that one instance. However, if 335 people got together in a small town with 4 cops, the cops would have to call in state backup.
There are lots of small towns in my home state that have only a handful of underequipped and underpaid police crews like this one and I'd wager a huge portion of the rural US is the same way. All the fervor over police departments getting surplus/retired military gear was blown way out of proportion
10 cops for a town of 1,400 is an absurd amount unless you've got a lot of seasonal residents
Aren't they also hideously expensive to maintain as well? IIRC that's one of the reasons giving police departments MRAPs was considered a rather bad idea.
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