These have been around forever, I grew up in NJ and a friend's father was a cop so he had one. Definitely a corrupt thing that should be eliminated. A few dynamics I remember:
- many cops saw PBA cards as corrupt and insulting. So the rule of thumb was you never offered these, you just let the card be visible when reaching for your license. If the cop was in on it they'd then ask you about where you got the card. It was a huge no-no to offer it not just because some cops didn't take it but because even those who would could probably be offended by you not deferring to their authority to decide to ask about it (ie offer to give you a pass) or for being entitled. The net dynamic you wanted was the cop to of his own volition see the card and decide if he wanted to cut you a break since he knew you were connected to the police somehow. (Ie, total corrupt dynamic)
- a big variable was if they took the card or let you keep it. If you were a son or daughter of a cop you probably never got it taken. Otherwise you'd get it taken if you would have otherwise gotten a ticket. If you were just being pulled over for no good reason they'd probably not take the card from you so you could "use" it again.
- these were not gonna get you out of trouble if you did something more than speeding, talking on a cell, etc. If you ran a light or stop sign it was borderline. If you committed a felony or were drunk etc then flashing your PBA card probably would have made your life worse.
I grew up in Queens and these are definitely a thing. My sister's father in law is (retired) NYPD and gave her one. She used it to get out of a ticket for biking on the sidewalk, of all things.
> you just let the card be visible when reaching for your license
I was always told to hand them to the cop underneath your license, but never explicitly mention it.
Edit: I've also heard stories that well monied institutions (hedge funds, etc) will hire security guards from retired NYPD in part to gain access to cards for important employees.
You know it, but I still find it amusing that higher up employees (purportedly) receive get-out-of-jail-free cards and the personal numbers of ex-cops who can call in favors at the local precincts after they fill out their i9s or whatever.
It's amazing that they can get away with this. It's a bribe by any other name. And it's a terrible sign of the police that they go apesh*t about losing the ability to sell/give get out of jail cards.
I guess it's simpler than handing the ticket to a cop friend and asking them to fix it (happened in our lifetime) but still kills the rule of law.
And when you see this, is it hard to believe there are 2 tiers of justice in the inner city?
Not that much surprising since America is very much corrupt isn't it... At least it's really much of a jungle where only power and money talk. So many things are going on in this country that you can easily call bribery or at least quid-pro-quo, but they just carry on blatantly forever.
My dad used to get out of speeding tickets by bribing officers all the time using the same principle - when he handed over his licence there would be a banknote folded inside it(licences were in forms of booklets back then). If the policeman was on it, they would just take the money and not say anything - if they weren't, my dad would just say he forgot he had some emergency money in there. Worked about 90% of the time? That's not in US though, central/eastern Europe in the 90s was a very corrupt place.
Yes, I lived in NJ around 15 years ago, and PBA cards were well known (but not much talked about), and that's precisely the way they worked. Subtly flash the card to a cop, and they might ignore it, they might take the card and skip the speeding ticket, or they might just skip the speeding ticket.
Yes, corruption, but not exactly a get out of jail free card either. Or that's how it seemed to be, mostly, in NJ, over a decade ago. :)
It's very possible that things are worse today (such things tend to devolve over time), or worse in NYC, or worse than what I saw at the time.
In New York these cards are basically sold by the PBA to anyone willing to shell out the proper "donation". Prominently displayed on the card is the year the "donation" is given to ensure that it becomes an annual ritual (if you want your card to be honored). They also give out stickers that are usually applied next to the registration/inspection stickers (even though it is illegal to apply other stickers there).
I've always thought there was something a little shady about these license plates in Washington State, but they're probably worth it if they get you out of a ticket every once in a while: http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/splem.html
Basically $28 of the registration fee goes to a foundation for injured police, and you get to prominently tell everyone that on the license plate.
I never had one myself but I thought if they did take the card they were supposed to send it to the cop that gave it to you and then they would decide if they should give it back to you.
While this is true (that diplomatic immunity poses problems with some diplomats heavily abusing it, while there doesn't seem to be a good way to punish them for it), it at least is a phenomenon that can be seen as a cost to bear for a greater good: protecting representatives of other countries from becoming targets of a sort of "state-organized bullying" by the officials in power, which often makes it possible for these representatives to enter foreign states in the first place and which thus can be seen as a mutual agreement that fosters peaceful diplomatic exchange between countries.
For these weird PBA cards, I can't see any positive effect for society as a whole that could be brought up in their defense. This is clearly a form of institutionalized corruption, pressed into a handy credit-card format, and it is unworthy of a country like the United States.
I was thinking along the lines of "a country that makes no secret of the fact that the ones who happen to have power due to their status in society (whether based on their wealth, social influence or whatever else) are free to use this power for their personal benefit without regard for any ethical concerns and especially without regard for the well-being of others". Such a hypothetical country would be worthy of corruption, as corruption would be a perfectly reasonable and expected part of their inner workings.
But...I don't find any real existing country that fully matches this description. There are countries in which this unbounded "rule of the powerful" practically exists, but they all try to sugar-coat it, which effectively makes them unworthy of corruption.
You might find this inderesting, Cultures of Corruption: Evidence From Diplomatic Parking Tickets[1]. Apparently, there's a fairly good correlation (if I remember correctly, but the article, or at least a summary, is there to check) between cultures with a lot of corruption and unpaid parking tickets from their diplomats in NY.
Interestingly Transport for London claims that the US embassy owes them ~£12 million in unpaid congestion charge fees, which exist as a disincentive to drive in central London. The embassy claim it's a form of taxation and as such they are exempt -- unsurprisingly TfL disagree. For context the next highest amounts supposedly owed are by Japan, Nigeria, Russia and India.
Parking tickets are some of the least malignant things diplomatic immunity allows diplomats and attaches to get away with. Some of the more egregious examples are things like sexual violence[1], slavery, assault, etc.
There is little the local jurisdiction can do other than ask the diplomat's home country to waive immunity --which almost never happens.
I had a car accident a few month ago. I was the victim as the other driver did not give priority to the right. After the police arrived, they came to this conclusion, too. Turned out, that the other driver was a diplomat, who drove a brand new rented BMW, and did not understand why I was the victim. The driver was also an unwanted person in the country due to corruption scandals, and he was heading to the airport to leave the country for good. The police did not charge him due to the diplomatic immunity and patiently endured his crazy ideas that I was causing the accident on purpose, I was diving too fast, I am too young to know how to drive, and I was on my phone while driving etc. Of course, none of these was real, and ironically I could prove it thanks to the cameras there. I think this behaviour is not supposed to belong to a diplomat who represents his country on foreign soil.
A friend was a teenager in NYC with diplomatic immunity. His older brother was driving when they were caught speeding. The policeman showed him some photos of a wrecked car, a youth's dead body, and said he didn't want to meet my friend's father.
The infraction gets reported to the embassy. Some countries don't care, but a European country for example will not be pleased if their staff are breaking American law.
I've never heard of these before today, but I spent some time in Philadelphia and I swear every third person there has a Fraternal Order of Police licence plate and/or sticker on their car. I actually have a couple pictures somewhere of various people who put FOP stickers OVER digits on their licence plate (and under one of those tinted plate covers, of course). Never understood the whole thing anyway since nobody ever seemed to get pulled over for speeding or running red lights there. 60mph on Kelley Drive (35mph limit) was average even though the local tow companies found it profitable to station multiple tow-trucks at every intersection whenever there was any rain or fresh snow.
This is terrible, of course. Goes without saying. But what really interests me that police officers are complaining about not having enough of these cards to give out as Christmas presents. Complaining in public, in the clear light of day!
That actually worries me more than the cards themselves in some respects, because it means that the average officer's perception of what is fair is utterly, entirely out of whack with reality. It's one, corrupt, thing for these cards to exist under the radar as a means for officers to benefit, but it's another to not even see why people would be offended by it.
How much in total compensation exactly do you think a say a ten year veteran of the NYPD should make in a year all in (i.e. including all shift differentials, uniform allowances, overtime, health care and other fringe benefits, as well as the net present value of the 1/20th of expected retirement benefits)?
What’s your estimate of the current average total amount?
If you think $200k in total compensation is fair, then good news. They get more than that.
As for the second part, I regret not getting a job with the NYPD out of high school. If I had, I’d be just about ready to start collecting a six figure pension (I’m in my late 30s).
Over Christmas I talked to a new cop in California and someone who worked at a crime lab. Both making over 100k after a few years, paid overtime and 80% pension after 50. Definitely picked the wrong career.
Keep in mind that this policy is in effect for the entire state of New York, not just New York City. There are thousands of cops on Long Island and in other suburbs that make far more than the NYPD.
That’s not really true at all. Nobody is collecting a six figure pension from NYPD after 20 years. Some of the 30 year guys do, but the stress and other hazards of the job kill them early... you don’t see many very old cops. They die in their mid 60s.
Honestly, NYPD pay is pretty lousy — they hire so many cops because they lose officers after a few years to Suffolk County, Nassau County and the NY State Police, all of which pay significantly better.
Usually those stats focus on deaths or shootings, which have fallen as crime has decreased and cars have gotten safer.
But, if you look at workplace injury and sickness, police don’t do well. They have higher incidence of heart disease, higher probability of auto accident injury, and other issues. It’s a tough gig.
Cops have very high rates of alcoholism. Just because they're not getting shot at doesn't mean they're not dealing with the worst society has to offer.
That is not to say there aren't honorable and amazing police officera who deal with the worst of society; but our policing force has serious problems beyond even the unbelievably awful militarization and race discrimination.
"The answer is the state highway patrol -- the men and women that most people interact with only when getting ticketed for speeding. A number of the frames read “CHP 11-99 Foundation,” which is the full name of a charitable organization that supports California Highway Patrol officers and their families in times of crisis. Along with engraved mugs, jackets, and leather wallets, the foundation gives out the license plate frames as tokens of thanks to donors who become “Lifetime Members.” Donors receive one license plate as part of a $2,500 “Classic” level donation, or two as part of a bronze, silver, or gold level donation of $5,000, $10,000, or $25,000."
Sounds like someone could make a pretty penny selling duplicates, and possibly also eventually flood the market enough as to make the identifier useless. Make money while helping fight corruption. ;)
These have been a thing for years, are so readily knocked off as to be irrelevant, and make many officers angry.
For a while the 11-99 "get out of jail" idea required you also pass your membership card under the license (like the NY cards listed) but I haven't heard of an officer even considering letting someone off because of 11-99 in a long time (sourced entirely from the other side - spending a lot of time at car meets and on auto forums).
You register your cars with CHP on top of the membership card. It merely starts with a license plate frame. If you say you’re a member they’re able to look it up. Lying about that whilst pulled over is a bad look..
As someone living outside America, the thing that makes this seem the most unreal to me is the fact I've never seen it on any TV show.
Like, there are plenty of shows about/involving (fictional) police and corruption, looking the other way, giving someone a free pass, etc. but I don't remember ever seeing any where someone used a card like this.
Does anyone know of any? Or is it some sort of open secret that Hollywood has just agreed not to talk about?
The movie CHIPs that came out last year had nearly exactly the card pictured. One of the newer cops was attempting to pull over and ticket a guy who was going 100 MPH and weaving in and out of traffic.
The scene basically turned into a fight with his more seasoned partner when the new guy refused to accept the "donor" card, he called backup, and the 4 or 5 cops that showed up basically lectured the new guy and apologized to the card carrying criminal. It was a comedy so I didn't think such a card actually existed.
They show up in several episodes of "Blue Bloods." The daughter-in-law of the Police Commissioner uses one to expedite a gun purchase. A guy uses one to when he gets pulled over for speeding and the find a gun in his car. The beat cop son gives one to a girl. There are several other times, too.
Also not from the US, I used to think/assume that the deals happening via "plea bargains" were just mildly corrupt fictional plot devices used in police TV series scripts. It took me until reading about Aaron Swartz's case that I realized "wait what, that's an actual thing?". I always assumed that could only happen in TV series because the pressure and amount of leverage against the suspect could only be presented as a "good thing" (which is almost always) if you know that the officers and prosecutors are not only strictly "good guys" but also definitely for sure right in their hunches, which requires trusting the meta-narrative of a police TV series.
There's a substantial amount of depictions of police corruption in America that does make it into media, but often times the depiction is so extreme or so jarring that people write it off as being substantially fictional rather than substantially real. Take, for example, the TV show "The Shield", which had roots in the LAPD rampart/CRASH scandal. There's plenty in the show that isn't real, but the reality is about as extreme.
South Carolinian - we don't, insofar as I'm aware, have the PBA card but it's a common enough thing to see folks with the local equivalent, a sticker, given for donating to the local PBA group on the lower-left hand corner of the rear windshield, such that an officer would see it when walking up to the window.
Now I have no idea of it's efficacy, but I've bumped into a few folks who swear by it. Like the card it would be good for, at best, a warning on a speeding ticket or another basic moving violating. Of course I've gotten the same treatment by simply being respectful to the ticketing officer, so who knows? As gfodor mentioned[0], there are likely certain dynamics to the situation and I can imagine an officer seeing that as too on-the-chin.
The Wire has it, though it's not a card exactly like this, it's just a detective's card. If I remember right, Omar tries to use it to avoid being thrown in jail.
That is an absolutely and totally different situation — Omar has the card as a reward for having done the justice system itself a big favour, as opposed to nepotism. Still morally questionable as it’s very unofficial, but he has been given it for contributing to society in general — by a person (DA?) whose job it is to make decisions like that — rather than being related to a cop.
Cop in my family. Using the business card is exactly how I was told to do this for traffic tickets.
I get that the scene in The Wire had to do with being an informant (IIRC), but it's also important to distinguish that it's not always presented as a ridiculous "Get out of jail free" card.
The protagonist in 'Billions' flashes it to the cops, actually he outright shows the card instead of his ID, when he gets pulled over for speeding in his Bentley/Rolls.
The most frustrating thing about this is that these aren't even official government cards (they're issued by the union instead), so it's harder to crack down on them through your elected officials.
Even if you banned cards (and I'm not sure you could), unions might just shift to making "Police Benevolent Association Family Member" license plate frames - or any other token. I think the most efficient way to solve this might be to have the law fall more lightly on everyone - reducing the benefits to connected citizens relative to the their less fortunate neighbors.
It’s plenty easy to crack down on them. It’s conspiracy to commit wire fraud of the intangible right to honest services variety. That’s a RICO predicate. The entire corrupt PBA organization could be rolled up. It won’t be, but it could, and should be. Just need a US Attorney for SDNY or EDNY with the stomach for taking on the Blue Wall.
Out here in California there is something called the 11-99 foundation, associated with the California Highway Patrol. If you donate enough they give you a license plate frame. I've heard rumors that this sometimes confers similar benefits on the driver of a car displaying the license plate frame.
I had an ex-girlfriend who was a professional athlete who had one of these that was “given to her by a friend”. She had told me a number of things that seemed like either lies or the result of being severely misinformed, so I always kind of rolled my eyes whenever she mentioned it and assumed it wasn’t real. She even called it this - a “get out of jail free card”.
Anyways, have been able to witness their use since, and it’s pretty shocking how easy and effective it is to use. Really disgusting practice.
"A Christmas gift of institutionalized corruption."
Perfectly stated. That's precisely what these cards are - a physical token of nepotism and what I refer to as the "blue wall of bullshit". I had a very close friend offer me one of those Gold cards for family members once (his Uncle gave him one and his family is small and thus had extras). I told him to keep it because even if I could use it to get out of a ticket, I'd rather take the fine and keep my morality in tact. Plus, given my belief on these cards, I doubt I could even muster the gall to present one. I mean, honestly, how arrogant does a human being have to be to present that card when stopped by an officer, expecting that the officer is going to basically be like "Aw shucks, guess my hands are tied. Please try not to do that again."
Cops have a lot of discretionary power and, unfortunately, operates with very little information at hand. If you're for any reason in a "bad" neighborhood, specially if you're non-white having one of those may be the difference between a stop and go, or spending a few hours in a precinct.
> expecting that the officer is going to basically be like "Aw shucks, guess my hands are tied.
This happens more often than not depending on the nature of the relationship/ticket. Source, my Grandpa was State Patrol, and my Dad carried his business card (I don't think they had official cards back then). I saw him use it twice, and both times it work. However, he has gotten tickets out of state, so it depends on the circumstances.
In the past it was just considered professional courtesy, and only applied to very close family members (wife/son). It wasn't an official thing. You would never have "gifted" it for Christmas to anyone, and sure as hell not to a politician/someone who wasn't family.
Laws (unjust ones aside) are made by representatives of the populace; flouting them is therefore a moral infraction against your fellow citizens, not against police officers.
(That said, many laws are unjustly/unevenly enforced. If I was pulled over for what I knew to be a legitimately BS reason, I'd have no qualms flashing one of these.)
Kidnapping someone and locking them in a concrete box is a far greater moral infraction than almost all of the "reasons" that law enforcement does that to people. You deserve every opportunity to stop that from happening to you.
What disingenuous hyperbole. The infractions for which you can use these cards result in fines, not jail time; failure to pay these fines typically results in wage garnishment, not jail time: http://www.sdcourt.ca.gov/portal/page?_pageid=55,1272338&_da...
So what's your better alternative to police that no criminal justice system of any major civilization today has been sophisticated enough to figure out?
The non-aggression principle. The only time violence or the threat thereof is acceptable is in response to unprovoked violence or threats against you and yours.
> In your doctrine, can you ask someone else for help with response to the violence?
Of course.
> Can that someone make his response not the same moment, but when he actually meets the guy who threatened you and yours?
Well, it would be kind of dumb if they responded to violence when the violence isn't even there.
> Because these two things seem rational, and cops are exactly what you get with them.
No, not even close. For one, police are not altruistic; they are doing a (government) job and earning a (government) paycheck. Second, as mentioned elsewhere, police do a whole hell of a lot more instigating violence against non-violent people than they do responding to violence with equal force.
And whom do the elderly, physically weak women, and children call when faced with this threat? Who responds to hold-ups, hostages, organized racketeering, riots, and theft after the fact? The real world is a little more complicated than the "Don't be a d*ck" principle. Who even determines whether thr level threat rose to violence or who instigated?
> Who even determines whether thr level threat rose to violence or who instigated?
Certainly not police departments or unions. They shoot first, never ask questions, and cover up for officers regardless of the circumstances of a shooting. The answer to "Was the officer justified in shooting this civilian?" is always, according to cops themselves, yes, irrespective of circumstances.
> And whom do the elderly, physically weak women, and children call when faced with this threat?
Private security forces (that would respond to actual crimes instead of looking for busy-work like busting people smoking the wrong things or having sex the wrong way) or friends and family. Or, in the case of (hopefully) trained adults, they will carry their own threat equalizers.
> Who responds to hold-ups, hostages, organized racketeering, riots, and theft after the fact?
After the fact? Well, currently, the police lolololo. When seconds count, they are minutes away.
> Who even determines whether thr level threat rose to violence or who instigated?
Some libertarians envision complicated matrices of private courts that would settle these sorts of things. Me, I'm not so sure that sort of thing would work. I don't know what the answer is, but I know that the monopoly-on-violence state, under which true equality is impossible, is just not the answer.
Coming from France, this seems completely unreal to me. Here, we've got three types of "police":
"police municipale", which is paid by the city and has got very small rights
"police nationale" and "gendarmerie", which belong to the country, and have got "full rights".
Here, you can't give donations to the force, and I can't event believe the implication of such cards; it seems so "third world". It makes me afraid when municipal police are given more rights (carrying a firearm, …) as they are much more entangled with the mayor, the city, and the local people. The gendarmerie for example all live in barracks and serve a bigger area. I would think that they are less prone to corruption.
> Coming from France, this seems completely unreal to me.
Probably because no one talks about it.
Corruption is largely a taboo issue in France. Neither government nor independent researchers have conducted any comprehensive and empirically based analyses of the phenomenon in the recent past. In addition, the French government does not report publicly on organised crime,
and academic research is very limited. The information available publicly nevertheless provides sufficient evidence that in certain geographic (Corsica, large cities, or South-Eastern France) or economic areas (public utility contracts, energy, real-estate, or defence sectors) corruption is
often encountered. At the lower level of organised crime, police (information leaking, or direct involvement in OC activities) and local authorities (regarding public contracts) are most often targeted by criminals. At
the higher level, judicial corruption and undue political influence over the criminal justice process occur in relation to financial and corporate crimes. The scale of the corruption problem remains unclear due to lack of data. In Corsica, parliamentary reports indicate that the problem is
commensurate with the one in mafia-affected regions of Italy.
I spotted a lot a russian sounding names in the authors of this "report". The "Center for Study of Democracy" looks like a Russian troll factory : http://www.csd.bg/index.php?id=182 One dude from Sodia university, all the others with no instutions other than the so call think tank.
Also that gem :
> France: the local researcher preferred to remain anonymous
.bg is Bulgaria. Bulgaria is an eastern European country, a member of NATO and the EU. The capital is Sofia, and they speak a slavic language - Bulgarian.
I don't know about cards like that, however people put stickers of one of the police unions (GDP) on their windshields in hope of getting a better treatment from the police.
However, there are two reasons why this would not work:
1) Police officers can choose to forgive minor infractions, i think everything below a certain fine can be waved. An example would be if you drove a little to risky or something else and don't behave like an idiot to the officer.
2) as soon as you are above these thresholds, it gets very dangerous for cops to let you off the hook. There is a crime called "Strafvereitelung im Amt", basically meaning trying to hide a crime as an officer of the law. it carries a sentence of at least 6 months up to five years and even trying to hide something is punishable. This can also break the career of an officer. So if you, for example, drive drunk and your buddy let's you off the hook, he should damn well be sure that his partner does not talk about it.
There is, of course special treatment for special persons. I remember the mayor of my town, being known as an alcoholic, driving his car at night away from the bar where he boozed it up with his buddies. He never got caught, probably because his license plate was known and the cops were "somewhere else".
> it carries a sentence of at least 6 months up to five years and even trying to hide something is punishable. This can also break the career of an officer.
One of the big problems with US police, I think, is that police have to carry a firearm because anyone they run into can carry a firearm. In countries where firearms are regulated to the point where both legal and illegal firearm possession is rare, police can just carry batons and not expect to find themselves facing a gun.
In England, when private gun ownership was legal, contables used to carry batons. Now, private gun ownership is largely illegal, and police carry guns.
But there are also countries like NZ, where private gun ownership is legal, but NZ police do not carry firearms (some have firearms, but they are locked in the boots of their vehicles).
In Australia and NZ, it's important to note that you must register each firearm and you need a reason. That reason can include pest control or sport, but it cannot be self defense.
I think one of the biggest reasons firearms are not registered in the US is because the gun industry and the NRA lobby against it to keep guns flowing into South and Central America. I wrote about this a while back:
In these discussions i find myself wondering how many of the firearms owned are pistols or something equally concealable, and how many are longarms(?).
Norway similarly makes it relatively easy to own a rifle or shotgun for hunting. But it is that much harder to get a pistol.
Best i recall, you need to have been a member of a target shooting club for some time before even being considered. And even then you are only permitted to transport it to and from the range, not general carry.
NZ police will carry firearms on their persons in very specific circumstances, but it's not standard.
There's also the "Armed Offenders Squad", maybe analogous to a SWAT team, who are armed. Don't know too much about them, you just hear them mentioned on the news when there's a gunman who has shot someone.
I thought that gun ownership in England was restricted to special types of police, i.e., the average beat cop patrolling an area or pulling you over for speeding is unlikely to be armed, right?
(Is this a language difference in "constable" vs. "police" vs. "cop" etc.?)
Armed in the sense of with a firearm, tazer or similar? Yeah, you're right, only a minority of British cops are qualified for that and most wouldn't have them anyway unless they need them.
But keep in mind in the UK all weapons are prohibited. Walking down the street waving a baseball bat in a threatening manner is a criminal offence in the UK. Any object that could reasonably be interpreted as a weapon needs a lawful excuse to carry it in public, and a bunch of objects that violent people tend to fixate on are just outright banned, there aren't any excuses permitted for those, you just can't have them in public at all.
Thus having just the _same_ gear as the cop: pepper spray, an extensible baton and some hand cuffs, would get you in trouble here, never mind any sort of firearm.
"Constable" is the legal term used in UK law to refer to police officers and give them special powers or immunities. A Detective Chief Inspector is still a Constable by this meaning, so is a Special Constable (volunteer spare time cop) but a Police Community Support Officer (cheaper fake cops with less training) is not a constable. Outside of statute law, ordinary people don't call them constables.
British pop culture says the equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card would be membership of a Masonic Lodge. Police officers (in particular senior ranks) are supposed to be particularly likely to join the Masons, an esoteric order with a big emphasis on helping other members.
just to add to your comment, in the UK it's prohibited to carry weapons openly. You can legally own a wide range of firearms but there are strict rules around when and where you can carry them and I believe (based on observation, not research) you're not allowed to take a weapon out of its carry case or bag outside of your home or a registered gun club. You can own a rifle and ammunition and keep them at home as long as you have a police-inspected gun safe for your weapon and a separate one for your ammunition and bolt.
Indeed. Only 5% of police officers in England and Wales are Authorised Firearms Officers, and AFOs are only issued arms for specific operations.
I was surprised that there were only 10 incidents where police shot their firearms in year ended March 2017 (although multiple officers might use their guns in a single incident). I guess some of the use of firearms is deterrence - a lot of police wandering round waving submachine guns at airports and stations when the terrorism threat is high.
I live in a quiet backwater of England with a low crime rate. I was very suprised, after a sad incident where a chap started waving a gun about, to read that some police who were on patrol did have firearms in the car (ie not a special SWAT team that we usually hear of). The incident ended up with a dead police man along with a dead perpetrator. Many felt that the policeman was rather gung-ho and if he had waited for proper armed support it might have saved his life
I do wonder, to UK police have a similar system to Norwegian police (that are in general also not armed) where there are handguns locked in the patrol car? They still have to radio in to get approval from the commanding officer before arming themselves though.
BTW, in recent years there have been a "temporary" general arming of the Norwegian police that have lead to a bunch of incidents (most of them accidental discharges as the issues handgun do not have the typical safety, as they were not intended to be carried on the hip for extended periods) including one where a officer fired a warning shot into the air...
Police don't carry guns, except very specific units patrolling potential terrorist risk sites (i.e central-ish London). There are tactical units that can be called out, and are part of the police, but they don't patrol and are more like the SWAT than a "beat cop". Same for those very specific units to be honest.
By that reasoning, parking enforcement must also carry firearms. But they do not.
The biggest problem with US police is that they've been primed by hypersensationalized entertainment to think of their role as being a domestic-facing military, rather than civil peace officers. The second biggest problem is that they're mostly immune from civil and criminal liability for the damages they themselves inflict.
it seems unreal to most Americans as well. it's not a practice that's widely known, as the article says.
if the cards are given after a "donation", the donation is to the labor union representing the police officers, rather than to the force itself. the unions sometimes engage in charitable activities in the area, so there is at least a pretense for making a donation.
the article also talks specifically about NYPD, which while technically a municipal police department, probably shouldn't be seen that way because it's so huge. indeed the mayor of New York describes it as "the seventh largest standing army in the world".
>> the donation is to the labor union representing the police officers.
Not always. Many US department accept donations directly. Often people donate equipment, up to and including cars. The Tulsa shooting in 2015 involved an insurance salesman acting as a "volunteer" police officer. He had donated substantially to the force and was, allegedly, given privileges in recompense. Pay to play imho.
I do imagine that it's not significantly different than the professional courtesy one would likely get in a smaller department. But NY being so large, where there's no chance any given officer knows who another officer's family is, they need some sort of card. "I'm Officer Smith's wife" doesn't cut it in NY.
But it is amazing how much official bureaucracy has been placed on a system... designed to give people a loophole out of the bureaucracy.
To me it seems that having gendarmes with big guns wandering around is very third world and the civilised thing to do is have unarmed police like in Ireland. Our police are mildly corrupt, but at least they don't shoot people.
In general gendarmes only carry a gun with them (a glock or something like that), and rarely "big guns" as you put it. They also don't go around shooting people.
We have state (e.g. state troopers, highway patrol) and federal police (FBI) as well. Pretty much all except for those on traffic duty carry guns, however.
I suspect what works similarly is law enforcement charity license plates. Here in Illinois, about six of these are related to police charitable organizations or foundations: http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/vehicles/licen... (See the CP, PO, IP, HF, SO, and LE plates.)
While they may list being active or retired police, or a family member, for eligibility, they also clearly state that any individual or corporate donor can qualify, and that all people who qualify for the plate must be donors. So in reality, being law enforcement or family is irrelevant: You must be a donor to get the plate, and that's all that matters.
Willing to bet you won't get pulled over for minor infractions with any of those plates on your car.
Something similar exists in California with the 11-99 foundation (associated with the Highway Patrol). Donors receive a license plate frame and I have heard rumors that cars with those license plate frames are not likely to be ticketed.
Why limit the number of cards? If I were to really piss off these nice folks, I'd issue a million copies and pile them in front of a busy Metro station.
(Of course, if I were a politician that will be a sure way to lose my next election, I guess.)
1. Cards are issued based on locality.
2. Cards are signed by the issuing officer.
3. Cards are meant to be used in a local community, where the ticketing officer recognizes the signee.
Source: Had my share of these cards. (Never used one)
> MTA is similar to the U.S. Govt it's a criminal organization. Theft is from commuters every day and passed on through outrageous salaries and pensions.
These are real, but they're not really get out of jail free cards. More like get out of a speeding ticket or get out of running a red light cards. Another thing that works is to be a nurse or fireman.
In my younger/less scrupulous days when I got pulled over I'd hand over my license, registration, and Army ID. If asked why I included it, I'd pass it off with a "I'm sorry, it must have been stuck to my driver's license". But it seems like every officer has a brother, cousin, or some other close relative who's first infantry. They'd mention it and you say something like "those guys are awesome, I really wish I could have worked with them more" and you'd usually just get a warning.
Nowadays I feel guilty about having done that, and I don't use anything of the kind.
"get out of jail" would make more sense. Jailing can happen to be questionable, speeding or running a red light can't, it's simple and forbidden for a serious yet easy to understand and hard to argue reason.
I did get out of a red light (I honestly though I cleared it, but maybe just barely) and I do think it had to do with the PBA sticker on the back of my car. It was just a regular civilian donation sticker.
In California there's an equivalent called the CHP 11-99 foundation. Used to be you could buy license plate holders for a few thousand bucks that would elicit beneficial treatment.
That makes them a traitor cop, with the same (well-documented) negative effects on their career as to cops who report on corruption in their department, cops who enforce laws against other cops, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_wall_of_silence
"However, it is equally possible that the enforcement officer’s zeal will not be appreciated, and the enforcement officer will come to work one day to find his locker has been moved to the parking lot and filled with dog excrement."
This happens and is why the "protocol" is not to offer the card directly but ensure it is visible in your wallet to give the cop an opportunity to give you a pass.
I was passenger in a car with a girl who tried to pull this by handing him her card along with license/registration. He looked at it for half a second and said 'You can go ahead and hold onto that' and then gave her a ticket for what she was doing wrong(speeding). I'd like to think he might have let her off with a warning if she didn't try to flash that card.
Ultimately, this is the result of a lack of accountability by the police to the people.
Call your representatives and demand that police make information such as the number of stops, arrests, and reasons for cause public. You'd be surprised at how much resistance you will encounter when trying to find these numbers.
My father got one of these from an officer he befriended in Chicago. It had the officer's name and badge number on it, and my understanding is that the officer who gives out one of these cards is willing to put his or her reputation on the line as a reference for the recipient of the card.
The gravity of that gesture seems to be altogether lost with the people described in this article.
Knowing that cops will arrest on regular traffic stops if it's too cold for a breathalyzer, creating an arrest record and thus creating challenges to employment etc, makes this all the more gruesome to learn about.
I recently found one of these in a car's glove box and couldn't believe it implied it was a "Get out of jail free" card. Even seems to imply it has an expiration date given the years written on it.
Sometimes I wonder if the worship of police and soldiers is an instinctual tug towards the sort of warrior-caste that bronze age societies, for example, had.
Cop in my family. Everything about the "blue wall" frustrates me to no end.
Instead of corrupt junk like this, I would much prefer what the US military culture has evolved, recently covered on 99% Invisible[1].
A "get out of jail free" card is ridiculous on its face, but even worse, it's effectively a joke which is extremely sobering if you think about it.
I have a cop in my family and I see what entitled attitudes are adopted by his wife when she is pulled over for her illegally tinted windows and then acts like she is too good to get a ticket because she is "in the club".
I grew up in a law enforcement family. Stuff like this MIGHT get you out of a speeding ticket at best - depending on just how fast you were going, your attitude, and the mood of the officer that stopped you. Serious offenses meant you were going to jail, period.
Here in Houston, you see people with a stack of "100 Club" stickers on their back windows. A friend of mine who is a deputy for a nearby county said that the bigger the stack, the more likely the driver is an ass and the more likely they are to get a ticket...
> depending on just how fast you were going, your attitude, and the mood of the officer that stopped you
I agree with the assessment, but It frustrates me that only 1 of the 3 criteria have anything to do with the statutory law.
The rest has to do with prosecutorial discretion, which is the least objective part of the law and opens up so many people to the "* privilege" criticisms that are so common now.
An Audi RS6 used to park regularly in the commercial loading area right outside my old apartment in Gramercy (17th and Irving).
It never got ticketed because it had “volunteer ambulance service” license plates. Which apparently are a thing you can buy with a large enough donation:
Funny that no-one in that thread mentions the actual problem with someone parking in front of a hydrant (increases risk that they die in a fire due to fire department being unable to quickly access it).
The fire department will usually just break your windows and run the hose through the car. From what I understand it doesn't actually slow them down by much (I'm obviously not condoning this activity). If it's an expensive car they'll make sure that the hose leaks. A lot.
Plenty of examples if you search for "fire hose through car"
That's another problem that doesn't need to exist. I never saw a fire hydrant until I arrived in the states, because the smart thing to do is put it under a hatch somewhere in the road.
How is it better when you can accidentally park on top of it? Sounds worse. Harder to access, access can be cut off by single car. A hydrant has 4 directions of flow, so works fine. I think we have the engineering well sorted.
I'm surprised about my lack of being surprised of this existing in (some parts of) the USA. How can law enforcement function if it's not separated from profit, greed or other common forms of influence?
There are many critics that don't think it's possible. 40% of local city budgets go towards "law enforcement" (the aggregate of police, prosecutors, courts, and jails). Many rural sheriff departments are largely dependent upon speed traps and "Civil Asset Forfeiture" confiscations of people just driving through.
However, I don't consider the "get out of jail free" card as evidence of a pay-to-play. There is no legal mechanism to enforce this, and in fact it's probably illegal for a police officer to enforce it if the crime is sufficiently problematic (there is always a little wiggle room with "prosecutorial discretion").
Additionally, it's likely that any money raised goes towards a "charitable" organization, as opposed to the police department's budget or directly into the pockets of police officers.
Included in your purchase:
You get some of the 2018 NYST Benefit Fund Window Decals for your vehicles
We issue you a NYST Benefit Fund Wallet Card with assigned security ID code
Disgusting. Of course, if these got counterfeited to oblivion, the police would just make an online system. This has to stop. The state legislatures (and Congress!) need to step in. Judges lose credibility and may find themselves forced to retire or resign -- judges should really never ever avail themselves of this privilege.
Ultimately, the funding of police departments through fines needs to stop. This one's on Bill Clinton, who added 100,000 police officers in 1993 by having the U.S. government pick up the tab for two years. After those two years local departments had to find a way to fund the new officers.
Seems like an great candidate for something to counterfeit.
Generate an officer name/cell number pair for each card and then charge monthly for someone to answer and say the card is real.
Since these are not strictly speaking legal anyway, there probably isn't much recourse.
One would hope that with more body cameras and car mounted cameras that these become impossible to use. As in make it a requirement that with every arrest that any item presented during a stop must be captured by the camera, if not discipline the officer
Live in NYC and can confirm these exist. A buddy of mine actually has acquired several, and doesn't always use them on traffic stops, waiting for a "better occasion".
Shit like this just makes me appreciate our state police force more. They transparently tweet out every time a member of the force is fined for drink driving, speeding etc, which is more often than not. Not saying they're perfect, but it's something I'd like to see more of. https://twitter.com/VictoriaPolice/status/949795594603716608
I thought those were so off-duty firefighters are able to respond to calls as-needed, no? They usually have their personal vehicles outfitted with those blue lights and the plates make it easy for any officers coming up behind them to see that they are legit and didn't just buy the light on eBay so that they could speed or do whatever on the road.
I could be wrong, but I am reasonably sure that's what those are for.
That one makes more sense, though. Foreign diplomats basically can't be charged with traffic crimes, and it's generally agreed internationally that this is sort of okay. That's substantially different from a cabal of police officers independently deciding to hand out "special treatment" tokens.
Interesting chart at the bottom btw. Seems that in USA a diplomat or their family can be issued traffic ticket, but can't be detained, prosecuted, or have their residence searched.
If doctors help other medical professionals' family, the professional courtesy. If a lawyer writes a will for a friend, that's just plain neighborly.
If a cop respects another cop's family, that's suddenly corruption? I know; law enforcement is different. But traffic tickets are not quite earth-shaking. They're the flu-shot or will-writing equivalent.
Police face people every day, not very nice people, so we don't have to. Its a great civilizing influence, both for criminals and for folks considering potential vendettas, to know the police will handle it.
But to do their job, officers have to start from a solid foundation. They have to know their families are safe and taken care of, like anybody else. That their community respects them.
It's ethically questionable, of course. But so is writing a will for a friend, or giving free flu shots to the neighbor's kids. Avoiding the expense (and income tax!) and all that.
I've got way better, more important things to worry about than what's at heart, a personal matter for law enforcement officers.
If the lawyer is in some way writing a will that benefits the friend more than the other wills the lawyer writes, or (worse) benefits the lawyer, that's unethical. If the lawyer is writing the will but just not charging, that doesn't seem ethically questionable.
If the doctor is stealing flu shots from the clinic that could have gone to people who couldn't pay for them except via insurance or another program, that is definitely unethical. If the doctor ... happens to have flu shots lying around? does this happen?? ... and has nothing else to do with them, healing people is part of the doctor's mission.
Letting people go after they have committed a misdemeanor is not part of a police officer's mission. It's rather the opposite of it. If a lawyer takes up a client's case, and argues weakly in court because the other side is a friend of the lawyer's, that is absolutely unethical. If a doctor prescribes a medication that the patient doesn't need because a family member works for the pharmaceutical company, that is absolutely unethical. And these things don't happen on a regular basis.
I'm sure that the doctor in your example would love to give flu shots to everyone, or the lawyer would love to make sure everyone has a will - they just don't have the time to write wills for everyone without pay. But the situation with the cop is the opposite: the cop spends less time not pulling someone over. The cop does not have a limited amount of tickets they can overlook; the cop actually has a limited amount of tickets they can write. If the cop wants to give everyone a pass on speeding tickets, that seems great. But they clearly don't - they are saying "I have one set of standards for my friends, and another for everyone else," which is unethical. The doctor and lawyer aren't saying that.
Barter is supposed to be taxed. Its tax evasion. A small matter, but so is not writing a ticket. After all, officers have discretion - the public safety is their concern, not making money for the city. I've been stopped a couple of times, only gotten a ticket once. Because I'm not a public menace, and that's clear once the officer talks to me. No special card involved.
Those examples (writing a will, giving flu shot) are an expense of the giver, and the giver alone. (In the flu shot example, assuming they're not stealing one from their employer.)
With "get out of jail free cards", the expense is borne by society: blue family members speeding without risk of punishment increases the danger to other people, and at no cost to the officer giving the perk. Equivalently, pretend the offender's fine is just paid out of some public coffer. They're taking money from the city.
If, say, the police officer's union wanted to pay supporters' fines out of their own coffers, I could see an argument that it's not immoral. At least then they'd be incentivized not to hand out so many…
As I replied in another comment, where's the barter in your examples? I see gifts. If there is barter, yes, one must pay tax, or it's unethical.
Where did I say the cop was gaining financially? Why does that even matter?
Now you could say our whole system of taxation is unjust and thus skirting it is unethical. That's fine, but has nothing to do with get-out-of-jail-free cards, since, as you point out, the cop is not gaining financially.
The examples you gave are ultimately poor analogies because not only are the laws potentially broken different (taxation vs. speeding), but the officer is explicitly in a position of enforcing the law, making that scenario a conflict-of-interest.
A better analogy would be a government worker awarding a contract to a friend. Such an act is widely considered unethical, even if the friend charges the same and performs the same as another contract applicant. It's unethical, and a conflict of interest, because the worker is using their position of power for quid-pro-quo (a social benefit for the worker).
Of course, none of the above paragraph is true for a private corporation; it is beholden only to itself and can choose whatever chum it wants for contract work. Likewise, I could see an ethical argument in favor of a cop who pays from their own pocket the tickets of family members. Just not one who flouts his duty as a government officer for quid-pro-quo gains.
> But to do their job, officers have to start from a solid foundation. They have to know their families are safe and taken care of, like anybody else. That their community respects them.
Wrong. Police do their jobs out of a sense of duty. They don't do it because it's a popularity contest.
Respect is earned. For those officers that are genuine and honest, their community will see that.
The problem is that when you wear a uniform, you lose lots of your personal characteristics and people see you for the aggregation of everything that other officers do. When thousands of NYC police officers turn their back on the mayor+president during a speech for sticking up for civil rights of the entire country, police officers lose respect from me.
Police families are safer when they don't speed, or at least that's what our laws and our police tell us when we get pulled over. I'd prefer it if police families were kept in line just like those of us on the other side of the "thin blue line".
> It's ethically questionable, of course.
It's an abuse of prosecutorial discretion.
You may want to read up on ethics. "Giving a free flu shot" isn't an ethical dilemma. Giving your neighbor's kids an experimental vaccine without their parents knowledge or consent is.
> I've got way better, more important things to worry about than what's at heart, a personal matter for law enforcement officers.
I'm a tax-paying citizen. When small acts of police corruption are tolerated in my name, that's not insignificant. Small acts, unchecked, give police the feeling that they can get away with larger acts.
And this is coming from a guy with a cop in the family. His wife is already showing signs of questionable ethics. And she uses the same "They have to know their families are safe" argument.
Disagree. Barter is supposed to be taxed; doing 'professional courtesy' freebees is avoiding that. Ethically not much different. Heck, the cop doesn't even get the money.
And police do their job because they want to help people. Movie plots aside.
Police families that abuse the privilege, the officer will call the family's officer and mention this. You think the repercussions will be less than a fine? Think again.
I know, police are in the public eye for misdeeds/corruption by some. Some of that is because police are so much 'on display' all the time. We all see them at their duties. They're not sitting in an office. But ethics are ethics, and to pull their chain, but give the rest of us a free pass, is disingenuous.
Even if we grant that evasion of some $20 filing fee on the will (the attny fees are probably tax deductible [1]) or 75 cent [2] tax on the flu shot is of the same magnitude of offense as the skipped speeding ticket,
note that the free shot or will isn't being given deliberately to avoid taxes. It's done to avoid paying the doctor or lawyer's fee. So, the exchange is considered as being between friends with no real governmental third party--a gift.
OTOH, the intent of the PBA card is aligned with the putative ethical wrong: you show the card deliberately to avoid paying a fine to the govt and to avoid the deterrent effect of the punishment.
I get what you're saying, I think there is a human element that can never be factored out entirely. But to do it on such an industrial scale that you have to get a card printer involved is pretty brazen.
- many cops saw PBA cards as corrupt and insulting. So the rule of thumb was you never offered these, you just let the card be visible when reaching for your license. If the cop was in on it they'd then ask you about where you got the card. It was a huge no-no to offer it not just because some cops didn't take it but because even those who would could probably be offended by you not deferring to their authority to decide to ask about it (ie offer to give you a pass) or for being entitled. The net dynamic you wanted was the cop to of his own volition see the card and decide if he wanted to cut you a break since he knew you were connected to the police somehow. (Ie, total corrupt dynamic)
- a big variable was if they took the card or let you keep it. If you were a son or daughter of a cop you probably never got it taken. Otherwise you'd get it taken if you would have otherwise gotten a ticket. If you were just being pulled over for no good reason they'd probably not take the card from you so you could "use" it again.
- these were not gonna get you out of trouble if you did something more than speeding, talking on a cell, etc. If you ran a light or stop sign it was borderline. If you committed a felony or were drunk etc then flashing your PBA card probably would have made your life worse.