But, you talk out of both sides of your mouth, like your old-timer...
I do my job professionally and to the best of my abilities so I can go home to my family and friends after every tour.
Posted on 01/11/2005 3:13:51 AM PST by pageonetoo
D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams cited the "urgent need" to collect revenue in his recent request to continue the city's automated traffic-enforcement program, which added four new cameras yesterday, despite previous assurances that use of the technology is driven by concerns for safety, not profits.
"There is an urgent need for the approval of this contract to ensure the continued processing of District tickets and the collection of District revenues," Mr. Williams wrote in a Dec. 16 letter to D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp.
In the letter, Mr. Williams was seeking support for the District's $14.6 million contract with ACS State and Local Solutions, which the council later approved. ACS, a private company, handles fines for the city's automated traffic-enforcement program.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Williams yesterday said that the mayor's views about red light and speed cameras haven't changed and that he probably should have included "an extra sentence about public safety" in his letter to Mrs. Cropp....
(Excerpt) Read more at insider.washingtontimes.com ...
Don't want to pay the fine, don't run the red light :)
Blah, blah and blah. Why am I not surprised to find a donuts comment in a thread full of people that don't know anything about advancements in LE theory and practice.
To some extent I agree. I would love to give up writing parking tickets except in special circumstances, but I still believe in the value of moving violations. Aggressive driving is a big problem in NY, and one of the main sources of our incredibly high insurance rates. I drive 55 or so in the right lane going to work and I see all kinds of craziness going on. So when I can
But I would love to spend hours staking out burglary-prone locations too. We have a plainclothes unit that does just that, often spending hours on rooftops in our precinct waiting and watching.
Whats needed is balance. Everyone notices someone that pulled over for speeding or running a stop sign, but most don't see or know about other things going on in their neighborhoods.
That is part of the problem with the police. Real crime ie theft is not a high priority item on your agenda. Administrative crime (signs too big, speeding, cigarette taxes not paid, and -horrors- guns owned) now thats the sort of thing law enforcement can really sink its teeth into.
All sending a patrol car does is take a car out of service that could be ready to stop an in-progress crime.
You're basically saying that if a criminal isn't caught in the act by the police, then don't bother them with it. Your attitude sucks.
Wahhhhh!
As a LEO, I am sure you think you are special, and deserve being called a hero.
From your about page: NYPD class of '02!!!!!!!!!! God bless all of our 640 fallen officers, including the 23 lost on 9-11-01.
I regret the loss of life by these officers, but they are just part of the statistics, to me. They died doing what they wanted, playing "cops and robbers", for real. In this case, they were directing traffic.
I am sure that you know "all the advancements", and will be a credit to your chosen profession. My oldest son is a cop, and I give him the same praise!
Heroes earn their titles. There are few LEO heroes, these days, just wannabes! Most, of the up and coming LEO's, just want to wear black shirts, tuck their black bdu's into their Jack boots, and speed up and down the highways, behind limo-tinted windows... your tax dollars, at work! There is little difference, to me, between the cops and the robbers! At least most of the robbers get their due...
Half of the LE budget is for court officers to protect the revenue stream... the other half is for the gas to ride!
On 270, from Frederick, I travel with traffic, at 70-75, in the 65, then reduced to 55, mph speed zones. Around the beltway, limit is 55, but you get run over quick, if doing less than 70.
In the district, the limit is 30-35, and I keep it tight there...
I see the cameras, and they see me...
The last time I enhanced DC revenue was with a $25 parking fine, which was not warranted, but paid! I didn't have time to waste fighting their "parking ticket beaurocracy...
Luckily, the red light cams will be found to be inherently racist because they catch more black drivers than white drivers.
Aggressive driving is a big problem across the country. But the traffic enforcement which most people encounter isn't targeting aggressive driving, it's a cop on the side of the highway picking out unlucky drivers who are just going with the flow.
I would LOVE to see cops actually driving the roads and catching the tailgaters, racers, SOBs who cut you off, weaving drunks, etc. That kind of traffic enforcement would get nothing but kudos.
Its not an issue of real crime or not. The issue is if you only have a certain number of cars with cops in them do you want to have one of them spend a half-hour taking a report for a crime when the criminal is long gone? I think I'd rather have the car available for a quicker response to an in-progress crime, and let a civilian take the report over the phone. The crime is still documented, and its not like patterns of such crimes still can't be tracked to better place undercover stakeout-type units. As for the other stuff, being hard on dangerous drivers (not someone that misses a red light by a tenth of a second like the cameras seem to love) saves lives and saves people money.
"You're basically saying that if a criminal isn't caught in the act by the police, then don't bother them with it. Your attitude sucks."
My attitude is just fine, thank you very much. Treating every "smash and grab" like the Lindbergh kidnapping decreases response time to both serious crimes and minor in-progress ones. If you want to attack the concept back it up with something other than your antipathy towards LE. I think its a step towards allocating scarce resources more efficiently.
I'm glad cops don't have quotas. That would be wrong.
I think they're continuously dropping the speed in the District on 295; it was 45, but I noticed sections at 40 mph. I got a automated ticket for going 53 in one of the 45 areas, and the average speed of traffic around me had to have been 60; the amount of money they're making has to be obscene.
I'd like to see a local TV station try driving people with DC plates, and MD/VA plates, at the same speed through some of these areas; I'd bet they only ticket the non DC plates.
What case are you talking about? Not 9-11-01?
"As a LEO, I am sure you think you are special, and deserve being called a hero."
Obviously you're sure of a lot of things. I'll you something I was told by an old-timer here almost as soon as I got out of the academy..."A hero is just a sandwich, kid". I do my job professionally and to the best of my abilities so I can go home to my family and friends after every tour.
"There is little difference, to me, between the cops and the robbers!"
There is nothing I can say, nothing I can show, that can dispel a delusion rooted so deep. People like you make me wonder why I even bother. Please don't ever visit NYC. I would hate to get t-boned by a cab while racing through an intersection to come help you.
This is a crux of where we disagree. I think property crimes are important - more important than administrative ones that tend to net the government revenue. But I see a different role for the government than you do. I see its primary role to protect the lives and property of citizens. Most neo-cons see government's role as to tell everyone what to do about everything. And when I see plenty of resources available for traffic fund raisers, but get a brush off letter for property crime, then I disagree with the allocation.
I don't know what goes on elsewhere, but I could write a book of those type of violations every hour if I had any time. I go after the cabs almost exclusively as does every cop I know, mainly because any driving New Yorker would tell you they are the "yellow menace".
You got it. The only 3 times I ran a stop light, it was all at a camera in the DC area. (I didn't get any tickets, though, probably because I was out-of-state and not worth it... or just plain lucky.)
They shorten the yellow light time to only about half that every other intersection has.
But, you talk out of both sides of your mouth, like your old-timer...
I do my job professionally and to the best of my abilities so I can go home to my family and friends after every tour.
If thats what you see where you are then I'm with you. What I see is 3 or 4 cars in my precinct overnight and one or two of them constantly tied up taking reports for 20 minutes at a time for fenderbenders or small crimes where the perp is already long gone. If I'm freed up to look for the next guy breaking into a car or to stop a stabbing its a good thing. If that extra time means that they expect me to write more tickets its just wrong...
...did you look behind him? You'll find some more...
I have no idea what you're talking about. I like my job, and I getting a good collar and earning the respect of my peers. Just like most decent people like to do their jobs well. But I'm not looking to get into a shootout or jump from rooftop to rooftop just to catch some guy for glory and the honor of NYC.
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