Massive Wave of Police Retirements Coming as Repercussions from Defunding Hit Home.
The Liberty Daily– Texas is generally considered a red (though leaning more and more purple) state. Republicans have been able to keep control outside of the metro areas and even in most of the metros the gab between blue and red is smaller than most other big cities.
The exception has been Austin which models itself more after San Francisco and Los Angeles than Dallas or Houston. The city was among those leading the charge during 2020’s big #DefundPolice movement and the results have been bad. They’re about to get worse. According to Fox News:
Austin police officers past and present are warning Fox News Digital that the Texas capital’s police force critically depleted as a result of defunding in 2020 is on the verge of losing another wave of officers in response to a breakdown between the city and the police on a new contract.
MORE HERE
Don’t throw steaks out the back door.
~ZooKeeper
I would never have turned a tire on an ambluance or fire apparatus if I thought for one minute that the City whose name was on my badge, my shoulder, my back, and my vehicle didn’t 100% have my back that their name was on, or at least give me the benefit of a doubt since they selected, hired, trained, and retained me.
It would not have been possible to function if I thought every patient interaction that could lead to a lawsuit would be enthusiastically jointed against me by the very City I was repping for. I would have took that badge with that City name on it and flung it in the face of the City representative that turned on me, had I had a similar issue. There’s nothing else that CAN be done if your own Command will not support you in executing THEIR orders.
I would imagine this is even MORE so with a Police Officer. They get into far more dangerous and adversarial situations by necessity, which means that there will be ample video of them controlling people the only way obstreporous people CAN be controlled, without context and with the video starting only AFTER the violence the police had to deal with has been subdued. This can only lead to overly cautious policing, and overly cautious policing inspired by a fear of having your house burned down and your family assaulted by BLM after a City official leaks all your data about your home, your wife, and your kids after denigrating you in public and denying you the hazard pay they are CAUSING you to deserve is probably worse than no policing at all as it only protects the criminals from the law abiding.
I have friends in TX that won’t go to Austin for this, and many other, reasons.
But the cancer seems to be spreading to them nonetheless.
You can’t fall back in front of the Borg indefinitely.
At some point, you will run out of places to fall back to.
I don’t know how to reverse it without resort to methods that can’t be publicly discussed.
But each of us will have to think about these methods in our own part of the world as the Communists consume more and more of the Nation, and each of us will have to face it sooner or later.
I can only pray we can figure out when and where to turn and fight before it is too late to do so.
If it isn’t already.
This may NOT be one of those , “Libs run a city, libs want cops defunded, cops don’t feel appreciated and leave” stories. I’ve seen firsthand how unions operate, and police unions can be more rapacious/adversarial than most.
It is the nature of negotiations that both sides ask for the moon and you eventually meet in the middle. But police unions have an extra advantage, they can wield the “public safety” hammer as an incentive. This just might be a case of the city council saying,”Enough is enough, we will not be bullied or forced into a contract that gives up the farm and is not in the interest of our tax-paying citizens”.
Over the years I have “evolved” wrt the use and implementation of OPO boards (Office of Police Oversite), civilian boards that independently investigate complaints of police misconduct. While on the job my attitude was,”Those civilians don’t have a clue about the stresses and dangers of police work and just want to nail us to the wall”. But the prevalence of police misconduct and the lack of accountability at the top has forced my hand. Every cop should start each shift knowing that his actions with the public will be documented with body cameras and microphones, the good cops won’t stress over it, they got nothing to hide.
Tons of overtime pay for the last 3 years and retirement plan that pays at least 80% of your highest annual salary. I’d be out of there too.
Interesting they compare Austin to Dallas and Houston for “blue-ness”
They are reliably blue cities, themselves.
Rats love infesting wherever people gather in close quarters.
Defunding the Police is one of the biggest scams going on!
They cut their expenditures without cutting taxes!
Where’s all the money going?
@SNS, I’m glad at least some people understand; it’s usually someone like yourself working in a similar hazardous environment.
I find myself making excuses to avoid visiting Austin these days. Sadly, the contagion is spreading. Once reliably “red” Williamson County is starting to buckle. I find myself shopping for retirement property entirely away from the metro’s.
I have to confess I don’t understand hunting deer over a pile of corn… Seems unsporting.
@Rich Taylor – No… Austin has elected a full-woke asshat as DA. He’s busy letting criminals off the hook for all kinds of things. Making things worse, he set up a panel to review the last ten years of police shootings, with plans to prosecute officers for events that had previously been deemed justified. That “no statute of limitations” thing means you’re forever at risk from the next DA…
KR
@KR
Thanks for the info. Austin is a perfect example of why red states need a ban on libs moving in. They flee the garbage dump environment of their old state and move to red states because the business climate is more accommodating and the people are “normal”, but they bring their “infection” with them and ruin it for everyone else.
Conservative Cowgirl FEBRUARY 27, 2023 AT 10:44 AM
“@SNS, I’m glad at least some people understand; it’s usually someone like yourself working in a similar hazardous environment.”
…CC, I just about had it beat into me by circumstances when I was on one side, but also by kindness shown when I was flirting with the other.
I was an ass as a teenager, as I suspect many young males are, so my early contacts with LEO tended to be disagreeable. But one time I was in way over my head from trusting a “friend” – the details are not important and I don’t know the Statue of Limitations so I’ll leave it at that – where I as a teen JUST starting to get his crap together COULD have had a LEO land on me with both feet and charge me with MULTIPLE violations of the law, but after talking to me instead of just slamming me on his patrol car decided I was honestly as stupid as I looked and that in this case simply losing what I’d already lost in the deal along with a hearty yelling at was sufficient to give me a “come to Jesus” momenent and cure any further impulses.
I like to think that officer was an excellent judge of character, for I have done nothing illegal ever since, remained an honest productive taxpayer, and went on to serve my commmunity in ways that would not have been possible had he simply slammed me in the pokey and called it a day, as he easily could have. I have had occasions to pay it forwards since then and will do so whenever possible, in memorandum of that one cop that showed an idiot boy mercy that day.
…and I really grew to respect the police after working alongside of them. There were situations I would not have cared to go into had not the law gotten there ahead of me, there are times that a cop saved a life before I got there and handed me a breathing patient instead of a dead one as a result, and times that they intercepted people who meant to do me, my partner, and my paitent harm but had to deal with people trained well in necessary controlled violence instead.
And I could NEVER do that job for other reasons, too. Had I had a gun at some of the things I saw, I would have cheerfully gone to jail for life for shooting some rapist or worse instead of doing what the law says to do. In those instances, particuarly when guilt was PRETTY clear, as frustrating as it was I had to admire the restraint that clearly disgusted cops showed in not going all Judge Dredd upside their sorry asses.
I loved our cops even though they sometimes had off days too. I’ve had cops use us to gain entry to drug dens that they couldn’t get otherwise that sometimes upped the hazard levels when the fights started behind us, return my Buck knife after I left it at the sally port when we got a patient from the cell block by tossing it in the guys lap (he WAS restrained, but still…), and in other ways getting somewhat…overenthusiastic…about the job. And yes, some were dicks, you didn’t see a lot of betas in the PD (and this was back when PR24s were still a “thing”), but I got to see who they were being dicks TO in the raw and, in a lot of cases, it was kinda EARNED.
Not to mention that the LEOs themselves sometimes needed patching and transport from showing restraint with the local citizenry. The slings and arrows go both ways, and that’s something else they tend to not discuss on the News at 11.
Do I think cops are perfect? Hell NO. No more than firemen are, or nurses, or doctors, or engineers, or jet pilots, or car mechanics, or a thousand OTHER professions that people can do, but cops I personally knew were TRYING, and while they may end up supporting the wrong side in a coming civil war, I still believe that many DO take their oaths and duty seriously…and that’s why the good ones LEAVE, because the Communist WANT them to, so they can fill the ranks with bully boys instead, and therefore get more brownshirts AND Demonize the police while they are at it. Using lives for cheap political points has been their way for some time, and as they have destroyed every institution we CANNOT be surprised they worked so hard to destroy “good guys with guns”.
Here at the end of civilization it’s easy to throw stones as to WHY it’s ending.
But I don’t think civilization would have lasted as long as it DID were there not police to take the lumps for the rest of us.
And that has occasionally meant giving some lumps in return.
But usually to people who have earned them.
God bless you and yours, Conservative Cowgirl.
Thank you for your honorable service in such trying circumstances.
@SNS, dang…you got me all choked up reading that. 🥲
If you throw a rotten apple into a barrel of good apples, the good apples will rot – EVERY FUKKIN TIME.
If you throw a good apple into a barrel of rotten apples, the good apple will rot – EVERY FUKKIN TIME.
This (the barrel of good apples) is a metaphor (or simile?) for Texas.
The barrel of rotten apples is a metaphor (or simile?) for California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Maryland, Washington, Oregon, Taxachusetts, &c.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
“I have to confess I don’t understand hunting deer over a pile of corn… Seems unsporting.”
Actually illegal in Texas. Likely in every other state too.
It’s just to fatten them up and get them used to hanging out on your property. Shooting them over feed like that can get you busted big time. Don’t expect to legally hunt again afterwards. Game wardens don’t need your permission to roam your property looking for such things. You actually know better in your heart, so I doubt you’ll be busted for it.
Hogs are OK to do that with, though. They aren’t game. Considered pests and anything goes with them.
Welcome to Texas. You’re the kind of immigrant we want.
Only a fraction of eligible voters participate in city elections in Austin, even after aligning them with state/national elections. The city is besieged with the invited “homeless”. Busy thoroughfares are needlessly narrowed to accommodate useless, unused bicycle/bus lanes. The city owns it’s electrical utility, yet rates are tye highest in the state while profits are siphoned off for the city council’s pet projects. Hence trimming around powerlines ceased, bringing devastating outages that lasted weeks after the last freeze. Only 20% of 911 operators are available in a given shift, and after a busy intersection was taken over by “street racers” a previous Saturday people calling, including a city council member were kept on hold for over 30 minutes, and a meager police presence after a similar time span. Who knows comes of this, but it’ll probably get worse before it gets any better
Illegal to hunt deer over corn in Texas? That’s a new one on me. Hunting deer over corn is a huge industry in Texas. Hunting over bait has been done by humans since there have been humans. In much of Texas, you’d never see a deer otherwise. It is an accepted, necessary and legal practice done to manage the deer population in Texas that would otherwise explode out of control causing disease and starvation of the herd. Texas already has the largest deer population in the US and it has to be managed, mostly through hunting. Each hunter is allowed four deer per season, with the option for one additional deer in certain areas. That doesn’t even include a limit of one mule deer for those who want to hunt for one. Additional tags can be had to help thin herds on some ranches when necessary. The Texas deer herd numbers in the millions and needs to be managed for it’s health. I do my part. Fresh venison is awesome.