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| Member |
This is almost laughable. 18k for food.
Link, http://www.richmond.com/news/l...71-8d65c7916f05.html | ||
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eh-TEE-oh-clez |
I don't see the issue. They spent a little over $5 per meal. If you are trying to keep staff onsite for the duration of what might be an emergency, then you should expect to feed them. $5 per meal, plus incidentals like coffee, water and Gatorade, seems perfectly reasonable. The rest of the money was spent on overtime and investment in equipment that can be reused--not just in emergencies, but for daily policing activities. They likely would have bought body-cams and plate scanners at some point anyway. | |||
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| Made from a different mold  |
Pretty sure his point is how much the "stupidity" of protesting the Confederate monuments along Monument Ave. in Richmond is costing the tax payers. That's a cool half mil, that otherwise could have been used a little more productively, especially seeing as RVA has some of the shittiest schools in the state. Let's not even go into the buying of license plate readers, which we have been used in the past within the state to make note of potential gun owners and other "deplorable's". ___________________________ No thanks, I've already got a penguin. | |||
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Don't Panic |
As I read this, it is detailing the expenses to protect statue-defenders, not the statue protestors. I can see this article as testing out another way to attack freedom of speech. The argument being set up will go something like this, "Hey, the assholes protesting your event will be violent, and it costs too much to defend you, so we'll have to shut you down in the name of fiscal responsibility." That argument didn't work in the '60s and it shouldn't work today. Granting counter-protesters a functional veto is not freedom of speech. | |||
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| Get my pies outta the oven!  |
You know you can edit out half the junk that got cut and pasted in, right? | |||
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| Member |
More or less this. The cost in protests themselves. I will say this is a far cry from seattles response to protests, planned or not. I was quite pleased with the departments overal handle on this. What i was getting at is it's purchase of a fair number of items they should have had, borrowed from parks deptment, or reallocated from thier other resources. Ie the lisc plate readers, renting trucks instead of borrowing from the city. This whole thing smacks of budget justification. We will get a blank check after charlottville, we will use it ot loose it. | |||
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Fighting the good fight |
People complain when the cops aren't prepared and a protest gets out of hand. "They're incompetent! They should have known there was a good possibility that this protest could turn violent!" Then people complain when the cops are prepared but the protest doesn't get out of hand. "What a waste of money! All that manpower and equipment for what turned out to just be a small protest!" I guess the bottom line is that some people just want to complain, no matter the circumstances. Richmond PD doesn't have a crystal ball, and they decided (probably rightly so in light of the Charlottesville incident that occurred shortly beforehand) that it was better to be prepared for the possibility than under-prepared. | |||
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| Member |
On the cell phone for now, will trim it up when i get home. | |||
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| Member |
See my points above. The city has the school busses to handle moving people and the parks department to move the gear. As for feeding, not sure why that is on my taxpayer dime. | |||
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| Member |
~500 a pop for gas masks ? They never heard of Amazon ? Fuck it. Not their money they were spending | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Institutional buyers usually don't buy items off-the-shelf. They typically need/want packaged items with dealer support. In the case of gas masks, they also probably want training, replacement filters, and inspection/re-certification of the masks periodically. It's one thing for you to buy something off of Amazon for shits and giggles, it's another thing when you are ordered to go into harms way and to use the safety equipment mandated by your employer. If the equipment doesn't work as it should, and your employer didn't take reasonable precautions to ensure that the equipment works as it should, then the employer could be sued into oblivion. | |||
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| Member |
Twas ever thus in police work: Damned if you do, damned if you don't. End of Earth: 2 Miles Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles | |||
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Member |
Many were probably on mandatory overtime after having worked their regular shifts in patrol, etc. They were probably bussed to staging areas where they were unable to leave to go get something to eat. If those were the circumstances, I think it's quite reasonable for the city to pick up the tab. | |||
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| Member |
I'm not defending anything about this because I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, BUT here are my observations as a police: 1) If this had turned into a full scale civil emergency, and they did nothing to prepare, or less, or probably even more, and there was any loss of life, damage to property, etc., the story would have been how they did not do enough. 2) When you get into large government agencies, there are generally complex rules for purchasing, especially as the amounts climb. $500 for a gas mask does not sound remotely absurd to me, given that they are probably bought on a bid and have to meet certain standards that were specified in that bid. For some other items, the sooner you need it, the more expensive it will be. 3) A large amount of the equipment I see mentioned (radio "earpieces" which are likely actually expensive tactical headsets, gas masks, video recording equipment, license plate readers, etc.) will find continued additional use. 4) As somebody mentioned, the cost of meals was actually pretty low. By providing meals, they were likely able to ensure that their people ate while also limiting the duration of meals breaks and travel time to and from meals. 5) What's left is the overtime, really, and I go back to point 1 on that. | |||
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| Oh stewardess, I speak jive.  |
The saying about never letting a good crisis go to waste applies here also. Beyond whatever valid points and reasons there were, you can bet your ass the opportunity was *also* used to buy other shit *just because*, whether a favor to a vendor, or a wish list item they couldn't justify otherwise, and 80 other reasons. Furthermore, the difference between the ideal Aeteocles mentions and the reality is a vast gulf, filled with enormous amounts of waste and bullshit that sounds good on paper and never amounts to much of a real difference in the end. Such has *always* been true. | |||
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Corgis Rock |
My read is that the department had a chance to get some goodies. Take the body cameras. The purchasing process is no doubt long and entails a lot of bureaucrats that can "just say no." Why not just buy them and claim it was for the demonstration? “ The work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation is slow, laborious and dull. | |||
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| Member |
I don't really see a problem with it, but do I think Richmond PD bought a few goodies on the sly or used the protest as a convenient way to do it? Sure. But I will say, and many other Officers on the forum can testify too::: The duty sucks... You are either held over your normal shift, brought in early or forced to work on your day off. You are usually bused or transported to the area, and can only have a few items with you. Besides being tired, hungry, hot/cold,you then add in the fact there is usually no where to go to the bathroom, or you have to wait and go in shifts. So the money spent on food, water, snacks etc.. Anything little thing to help keep morale up I am good with. | |||
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| Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. |
There's an entire OSHA program that goes along with a mask including sizing and fit-testing. A resourceful police department could have set this up using DHS grant funds. Training for crowd control is another example of authorized expense of the HSGP. As far as the food goes, I'm not sure riots and demonstrations allow for lunch hours and coffee breaks IAW the contract. You gotta feed your guys. | |||
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| Do No Harm, Do Know Harm |
Ain't that the truth. We get emails weekly for staffing pulls due to events. I think the one I just deleted was for something like 350 officers. There aren't enough cops to go around. Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired but not strictly required here. Although sometimes distracting, there is often a certain entertainment value to this easy standard. -JALLEN "All I need is a WAR ON DRUGS reference and I got myself a police thread BINGO." -jljones | |||
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Hop head  |
my only thought is why did they not reach out to the local business community for food and beverages? great that they kept some of the meals local, however when I was in the grocery business, (spent some time downtown RVA) we donated a lot of water and goods to the local police for events and needs, esp during the summer months, a couple of phone calls would have netted them a pallet or 3 of water, easy https://chandlersfirearms.com/chesterfield-armament/ | |||
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