California to spend $250M (of $300M) for in-store police presence to reduce looting

[rdtompki]

Very interested on opinions on this (mods, please move if in the wrong forum). I imagine 75% will be in high-end stores in high-end neighborhoods with little benefit for small businesses. What could go wrong?

[littlejerry]

Do they plan to arrest, prosecute, and jail looters? Or are police just intended to be human shields?

[blues]

Do they plan to arrest, prosecute, and jail looters? Or are police just intended to be human shields?

I'd bet the mansion on them being brought up on charges at the first use of any (reasonable and articulable) level of force to effect an arrest.

I'd love to be proven wrong.

[BehindBlueI's]

Very interested on opinions on this (mods, please move if in the wrong forum). I imagine 75% will be in high-end stores in high-end neighborhoods with little benefit for small businesses. What could go wrong?

Do you want input from the LE side on effectiveness/issues or more of a general political bent that the thread has already taken? If you want the first I'll clean up the thread and leave it here. If you want the second, I'll leave the thread as is and move it to politics.

[Erick Gelhaus]

This problem wasn't made in the last 12-20 months. The causal factors go back several years.

Start with changing the difference between grand and petty theft from $400 to $950, then look at all of the treatment & diversion programs because the media & others sold the lie that crooks were going straight to the Pen without a chance for treatment. This was followed by trying to radically drop the number of bodies in CDC-R and county jails through parole & probation shifts. Add in the positions about race that are being hammered on daily. And, finally, consider the cops in some places having very different concerns with media/organization/political/public reactions than coppers in other parts of the country might.

The above has been going for quite a while. It led to these mob looting events.

These issues need to be fixed first.

[RevolverJIM]

V2.0 NYPD Stake Out Squad

[Erick Gelhaus]

One of the best NCOs I ever served under shared this elsewhere:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/california-police-under-fire-after-group-targets-macy-s-in-attempted-robbery-assault-i-was-afraid/ar-AARXMHM?cvid=bdcb9e3a614047828f0a7e2f426d5746&ocid=winp1taskbar&fbclid=IwAR3BtGiXsYDGBEYQcKecHxHgMIfmeypteJMFrBfxN 7ZuMSAphcTh2PC11Ew

Interesting part:

" ... Security guards did detain one woman and a male juvenile for allegedly interfering with the arrests of the suspects. There is no known connection between the detainees and the suspects, according to police.

The detainment of the pair set off criticisms from some witnesses who say police were too rough with them when they arrived on scene.

"The officers decides to get excessively close to my mom, and essentially grabs her arm. She had to fling his arm off and he got more upset when she was saying what he was doing was wrong. And that’s when he decided to grab her and slam her to the floor," Anna Hamed, the daughter of the woman who was detained, told NBC Bay Area."

Yes, we grab arms in order to handcuff people. You're probably going to get cuffed if you interfere. And, naturally, the media reports the crooks' assertions as fact.

You won't see any Stakeout Squads out here. Word from inside one of the best entities to ever do that kind of work, and two platoons that regularly supported them, is that they aren't doing anywhere near that sort of stuff very often anymore.

[Borderland]

So how much does it cost a city to prosecute a shop lifter/looter?

Can unarmed security actually make an arrest?

If arrested, will they be given a reason not to do it again?

Probably a few of the reasons we're going to a lot more looters/shoplifters.

[BehindBlueI's]

Do you want input from the LE side on effectiveness/issues or more of a general political bent that the thread has already taken? If you want the first I'll clean up the thread and leave it here. If you want the second, I'll leave the thread as is and move it to politics.

At the OP's request, this thread will be LE/criminal justice concerns specific. Please leave the general political stuff out, we get it, there's no meat on that bone.

I think Erick Gelhaus posts are worth reading twice.

[paherne]

I'd bet the mansion on them being brought up on charges at the first use of any (reasonable and articulable) level of force to effect an arrest.

I'd love to be proven wrong.

You're not wrong. I don't have the citation at hand, but the 9th Circuit frowns on using any force on misdemeanants.

[KevH]

This nonsense started with the California Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 (AB109) that kicked a metric ton of convicted felons out of state prisons. Basically, a person could be sentenced to prison for 5 years, but they would be out on "supervised release" and it put the responsibility of supervising on county probation departments instead of on state parole. So suddenly, you could rob someone at gunpoint, but plea the charges down to a lesser "non-violent crime" like "petty theft from person" and you would be on "supervised release" (never having stepped foot in a state prison) and be supervised by a county probation officer.

In a big county in California like mine pre-2011 most probation officers supervised maybe 50 probationers. Once AB109 passed that probation officer was now supervising around 1200 probationers. So how much supervising to do you think actually occurred?

Then in 2014, voters in this state passed Prop 47, which was labeled Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act (it had nothing to do with either). This changed all of the larceny laws and made any theft under $950 a misdemeanor. It also got rid of "Petty Theft With Prior Convictions" and changed PAST CONVICTIONS from being felonies to misdemeanors. Remember the guy before I talked about that robbed someone at gunpoint, but plead it down to a lesser sentence? Not only did he never go to prison, but now he doesn't even have a felony convictions. It also essentially made hard drug use (meth, coke, PCP, heroin, LSD, etc.) misdemeanors instead of felonies and overturned any prior felony convictions so lots of "felons" no longer were felons. This one piece of legislation set us on the course to where we find ourselves now. I cannot overemphasize how much this single piece of legislation has destroyed our criminal justice system in this state.

In 2016, voters passed Prop 57, which further reduced sentencing and overturned more past felony convictions.

In 2019, our legislature passed AB392 which severely limited police officers' ability (and legal protection) to use force.

In 2020, more legislation was passed, such as taking away police officers' ability to use a carotid restraint.

In 2021, SB2 and SB16 was just passed which further strips police officers' ability to use force and makes them subject to a "state board" to review their ability to maintain their job and further opens them to liability.

While all this had been happening, Soros-backed "district attorneys" (I'll use the term loosely) have been aggressively prosecuting cops for both current and sometimes long past use of force.

In summary, violent criminals are no longer punished and it's been clearly messaged that they won't be held accountable which in turn emboldens them to do whatever they want.

At the same time, police officers are now open to huge liability such as being sued without qualified immunity, losing their job or going to prison while their departments have been "defunded" and are now understaffed while the media (especially locally) continues to slam the police for everything we do.

Law enforcement morale in California is at an all time low and crime no longer has punishment.

So with all this information in mind, I'll let you decide if you think sticking a cop in a store will do anything.

The people that created this mess (as well as our homeless issue which is directly connected) think throwing money at it will make it go away. They spent ten years creating this mess. Now they are reaping the results.

[AMC]

This nonsense started with the California Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 (AB109) that kicked a metric ton of convicted felons out of state prisons. Basically, a person could be sentenced to prison for 5 years, but they would be out on "supervised release" and it put the responsibility of supervising on county probation departments instead of on state parole. So suddenly, you could rob someone at gunpoint, but plea the charges down to a lesser "non-violent crime" like "petty theft from person" and you would be on "supervised release" (never having stepped foot in a state prison) and be supervised by a county probation officer.

In a big county in California like mine pre-2011 most probation officers supervised maybe 50 probationers. Once AB109 passed that probation officer was now supervising around 1200 probationers. So how much supervising to do you think actually occurred?

Then in 2014, voters in this state passed Prop 47, which was labeled Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act (it had nothing to do with either). This changed all of the larceny laws and made any theft under $950 a misdemeanor. It also got rid of "Petty Theft With Prior Convictions" and changed PAST CONVICTIONS from being felonies to misdemeanors. Remember the guy before I talked about that robbed someone at gunpoint, but plead it down to a lesser sentence? Not only did he never go to prison, but now he doesn't even have a felony convictions. It also essentially made hard drug use (meth, coke, PCP, heroin, LSD, etc.) misdemeanors instead of felonies and overturned any prior felony convictions so lots of "felons" no longer were felons. This one piece of legislation set us on the course to where we find ourselves now. I cannot overemphasize how much this single piece of legislation has destroyed our criminal justice system in this state.

In 2016, voters passed Prop 57, which further reduced sentencing and overturned more past felony convictions.

In 2019, our legislature passed AB392 which severely limited police officers' ability (and legal protection) to use force.

In 2020, more legislation was passed, such as taking away police officers' ability to use a carotid restraint.

In 2021, SB2 and SB16 was just passed which further strips police officers' ability to use force and makes them subject to a "state board" to review their ability to maintain their job and further opens them to liability.

While all this had been happening, Soros-backed "district attorneys" (I'll use the term loosely) have been aggressively prosecuting cops for both current and sometimes long past use of force.

In summary, violent criminals are no longer punished and it's been clearly messaged that they won't be held accountable which in turn emboldens them to do whatever they want.

At the same time, police officers are now open to huge liability such as being sued without qualified immunity, losing their job or going to prison while their departments have been "defunded" and are now understaffed while the media (especially locally) continues to slam the police for everything we do.

Law enforcement morale in California is at an all time low and crime no longer has punishment.

So with all this information in mind, I'll let you decide if you think sticking a cop in a store will do anything.

The people that created this mess (as well as our homeless issue which is directly connected) think throwing money at it will make it go away. They spent ten years creating this mess. Now they are reaping the results.

Can't like this post enough. Everything KevH says here is what I was trying to explain to every non cop voter in my community for the last 10 years. The people voted for this. The fact that they were too lazy, ignorant and apathetic to actually READ what they were voting for doesn't change that.

A fellow Sergeant and I were getting coffee at a local place a few years ago and were approached by a young woman with a baby. She wanted to tell us about the out of control auto burglary and drug use problems in her expensive neighborhood (Alamo Square for those who know). We explained reporting procedures, advised contacting the local community group to share her concerns, gave her the District Community Meeting schedule where the Captain of that station would be in attendance, etc. Then we explained the changes to drug laws wrought by Prop 47, which made changing the behavior of those shooting heroin on her front steps nigh impossible, even temporarily. She asked "What idiots voted for that? I don't remember that being on the ballot!" She then accused us of lying, and being "on the take" for the drug dealers.

The only part of KeH' post I disagree with is that our politicians think money will solve this. They know that it won't.....thats the whole point. The chaos, crime and disorder is a feature of the plan, not a bug. I mean...its not like they've been writing openly about doing this for the last 70 years or so. Oh...wait...

[AMC]

Can't like this post enough. Everything KevH says here is what I was trying to explain to every non cop voter in my community for the last 10 years. The people voted for this. The fact that they were too lazy, ignorant and apathetic to actually READ what they were voting for doesn't change that.

A fellow Sergeant and I were getting coffee at a local place a few years ago and were approached by a young woman with a baby. She wanted to tell us about the out of control auto burglary and drug use problems in her expensive neighborhood (Alamo Square for those who know). We explained reporting procedures, advised contacting the local community group to share her concerns, gave her the District Community Meeting schedule where the Captain of that station would be in attendance, etc. Then we explained the changes to drug laws wrought by Prop 47, which made changing the behavior of those shooting heroin on her front steps nigh impossible, even temporarily. She asked "What idiots voted for that? I don't remember that being on the ballot!" She then accused us of lying, and being "on the take" for the drug dealers.

The only part of KeH' post I disagree with is that our politicians think money will solve this. They know that it won't.....thats the whole point. The chaos, crime and disorder is a feature of the plan, not a bug. I mean...its not like they've been writing openly about doing this for the last 70 years or so. Oh...wait...

ETA: yes I know this reply can be seen as "political", but law enforcement is inherently politically charged by its nature...since we're dealing with the publics liberty. I know some don't like to impute motive into legislation, but like I said.....they've been saying they'd do this for 70 years.

[Coyotesfan97]

IIRC that proposal involved paying off duty cops to work those details. Good luck trying to find cops who want to do that for all the reasons KevH and AMC outlined.

[KevH]

IIRC that proposal involved paying off duty cops to work those details. Good luck trying to find cops who want to do that for all the reasons KevH and AMC outlined.

Literally every department is understaffed and overtime is beyond plentiful. In fact, most departments are forcing officers to work overtime just to have minimal staffing.

You would literally have to be out of your mind to work a retail theft gig unless it was made painfully clear that you were expected to do absolutely nothing and not be seen...and if that were the case then what is the point?

Stories like this don't help:
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/police-arrest-woman-suspected-of-interfering-with-officers-detaining-retail-thief-at-sj-macys/2759811/

[Coyotesfan97]

Literally every department is understaffed and overtime is beyond plentiful. In fact, most departments are forcing officers to work overtime just to have minimal staffing.

You would literally have to be out of your mind to work a retail theft gig unless it was made painfully clear that you were expected to do absolutely nothing and not be seen...and if that were the case then what is the point?

Hey I completely understand that. When I was working I was all about easy off duty and overtime gigs. The risk versus the reward in those details would be unacceptable to me. I wouldn’t be involved.

We had big off duty details like big and running events where they didn’t get enough volunteers and people were told they were working it. Do you see departments making it mandatory?

[AMC]

Hey I completely understand that. When I was working I was all about easy off duty and overtime gigs. The risk versus the reward in those details would be unacceptable to me. I wouldn’t be involved.

We had big off duty details like big and running events where they didn’t get enough volunteers and people were told they were working it. Do you see departments making it mandatory?

Our department is already making it mandatory. The follow on to this is the mayor's new plan to tackle the suddenly important rampant drug crime in the Tenderloin. Not that it's a felony again...and not that it's gonna be prosecuted by the DA. But cops will be redeployed from other assignments to aggressively go after the drug dealers. Neat idea. About a decade too late, but...

The staffing crisis is real and getting worse. And the political attention suddenly paid to rising crime doesn't change the fact that these same people continue to restrict LE Use of Force Options to deal with these criminal actors. We are, in my opinion, in a cascade failure in my city at this point. No traditional incentive options will increase hiring or retention.

When we used to hold testing for the Police Department, we'd get 3000 people show up over a weekend to test for spots in the Academy. Last Saturday we held the Physical Agility test for a 2022 Academy class. 35 applicants showed up. Not passed.....showed up.

[KevH]

Hey I completely understand that. When I was working I was all about easy off duty and overtime gigs. The risk versus the reward in those details would be unacceptable to me. I wouldn’t be involved.

We had big off duty details like big and running events where they didn’t get enough volunteers and people were told they were working it. Do you see departments making it mandatory?

In my department it hasn't been mandatory. When no one signed up (shocking) they re-assigned already on-duty motors and the gang team to do it.

Things are only going to get worse around here.

I agree with AMC about the staffing crisis. It is very very real. Most police academy classes for decades in this area had 60+ to start with and that was after turning a lot of people away. They're lucky right now if they can get 25 in them and many are quality that we would have rejected a short time ago. Meanwhile anyone that can possibly retire is retiring and our glorious former governor, Moonbeam Brown, completely screwed up CalPERS (our retirement system) so bad that once our ~15 year cops start doing the math and realizing they are maxed out they're going to leave. I have long enough left that I may see the pendulum start to swing back before I retire, but man, is it going to get bad before that.

[BehindBlueI's]

ETA: yes I know this reply can be seen as "political", but law enforcement is inherently politically charged by its nature...since we're dealing with the publics liberty.

Agreed, which is why the 'specific to LE/crime/topic' rule exists for this forum. This law/this policy has the effect of X is both within the rules and necessary to have these sorts of discussions. We are part of the executive branch, after all, so LE is political just by being LE. Your post is well within the guidelines, and useful to the discussion. What was removed was the generic: "Party X sucks" and "they get what they voted for" sort of stuff that is neither.

[BehindBlueI's]

Our department is already making it mandatory.

Out of curiosity, what are your normal shifts? I mean length wise?

We've only done mandatory OT during the riots and during a few special events. We work 8.5s normally (well, street officers do), cycles work 10s. Mandatory OT is usually 12hr or until end of events.

[AMC]

Out of curiosity, what are your normal shifts? I mean length wise?

We've only done mandatory OT during the riots and during a few special events. We work 8.5s normally (well, street officers do), cycles work 10s. Mandatory OT is usually 12hr or until end of events.

We work 4/10's. Originally only Patrol, but for the last 20 or so years, almost everyone. Currently we're on a 'Platoon' schedule. Everyone works either Mon-Wed or Wed-Fri with alternating weekends off. Goal of this was to keep the workforce separated through Covid. It's created staffing issues at the stations, but has been a boon for training. At least until the politicians noticed the out of control crime and redployed everybody.

Currently around 1/3 of all on duty personnel are deployed to Union Square to discourage the retail pirate gangs. They're supplemented by folks on overtime. As you can imagine, stripping 1/3 of officers out of the stations that are already short creates problems. To deal with that, Watch Commanders are authorized to hold over officers up to 4 hours to meet the shortcomings. In practice, it's meant that about half the patrol force are working 14 hr days at any one time. There is a massive amount of voluntary overtime going unfilled as a result. Clearly this is not sustainable long term, but the chief has announced this redeployment is "permanant". He says the department will just have to function on mandatory overtime going forward. Next up is the mayor's new plan to "tackle drug crime in the Tenderloin ". Good luck.

We haven't even rolled out the new Use of Force policy yet, which was crafted by the Anti Police activists of the Department of Police Accountability for the purpose of ending police Use of Force. The cops haven't seen it yet. When that hits, the exodus of cops is gonna look like the waves of refugees swamping Europe's borders. We should should have about 2300 sworn officers to Police this city. The ACTUAL number right now is about 1700 (down over 250 from when I came in at the end of 1991). I predict there will be around 1000 left here in January 2023.

[jnc36rcpd]

Mandatory overtime was not uncommon at my former agency even when morale and command support were considerably better than they are today. Almost always, someone would volunteer. These were often the same people motivated by a combination of dedication and greed. I frankly think we all turned a blind eye to the number of hours these officers worked, hoping they weren't so exhausted that they would fall asleep driving or make a poor use of force decision.

Since many officers now avoid situations where force may need to be used, I was actually surprised that two worked off duty at a college basketball game last week. Granted, a junior college basketball game isn't a bar just outside the Superbowl, but still...

[BehindBlueI's]

We haven't even rolled out the new Use of Force policy yet, which was crafted by the Anti Police activists of the Department of Police Accountability for the purpose of ending police Use of Force. The cops haven't seen it yet. When that hits, the exodus of cops is gonna look like the waves of refugees swamping Europe's borders. We should should have about 2300 sworn officers to Police this city. The ACTUAL number right now is about 1700 (down over 250 from when I came in at the end of 1991). I predict there will be around 1000 left here in January 2023.

Woof. That's rough enough and the burn out will just make the spiral faster, but I know I'm preaching to the choir. I just did a process for new detectives in my office and had historic levels of interest. People want off the streets, and I don't blame them.