<story><title>Small business owners say they&apos;re pressured to hire off-duty cops for security</title><url>https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/10/17/small-business-owners-they-are-pressured-to-hire-off-duty-mpd-cops-for-security/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arthurofbabylon</author><text>Already, police do this exact shakedown on cities. There are numerous incidents (anecdotal) of US police threatening city officials to reduce enforcement during election cycles, demanding increases in police force budget.&lt;p&gt;Broadly, the US needs to eliminate corruption. There are many broken feedback loops right now from the grand (lobbying and campaign finance) to the minuscule (niche price fixing, bribery, police-ran protection rackets), all compounding unfavorably, all seemingly booming. It&amp;#x27;s astonishing the degree to which the public tolerates such forms of ineptitude and subversion – it has a direct impact on everyone&amp;#x27;s bottom line.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>et-al</author><text>The SF Police Department &lt;i&gt;bombed&lt;/i&gt; the mayor&amp;#x27;s house in 1975:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;In early August 1975, the SFPD went on strike over a pay dispute, violating a California law prohibiting police from striking. The city quickly obtained a court order declaring the strike illegal and enjoining the SFPD back to work. The court messenger delivering the order was met with violence and the SFPD continued to strike...&lt;p&gt;The ACLU obtained a court order prohibiting strikers from carrying their service revolvers. Again, the SFPD ignored the court order. On August 20, a bomb detonated at the Mayor&amp;#x27;s home with a sign reading &amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t Threaten Us&amp;quot; left on his lawn. On August 21, Mayor Alioto advised the San Francisco Board of Supervisors that they should concede to the strikers&amp;#x27; demands.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;History_of_the_San_Francisco_Police_Department&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;History_of_the_San_Francisco_P...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Small business owners say they&apos;re pressured to hire off-duty cops for security</title><url>https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/10/17/small-business-owners-they-are-pressured-to-hire-off-duty-mpd-cops-for-security/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>arthurofbabylon</author><text>Already, police do this exact shakedown on cities. There are numerous incidents (anecdotal) of US police threatening city officials to reduce enforcement during election cycles, demanding increases in police force budget.&lt;p&gt;Broadly, the US needs to eliminate corruption. There are many broken feedback loops right now from the grand (lobbying and campaign finance) to the minuscule (niche price fixing, bribery, police-ran protection rackets), all compounding unfavorably, all seemingly booming. It&amp;#x27;s astonishing the degree to which the public tolerates such forms of ineptitude and subversion – it has a direct impact on everyone&amp;#x27;s bottom line.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stevenwoo</author><text>The Supreme Court is responsible for a lot of this, it has institutionalized immunity for law enforcement and prosecution and unlimited corporate money in politics so that it would require overriding that lever of power which doesn’t seem likely since democrats just rolled over when the gop wouldn’t allow Obama to appoint a Supreme Court justice.</text></comment>