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

[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.