quote:

The vast majority of health care workers that I have met are liberal, particularly the providers.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
It is quite the opposite. The lower level housekeeping and support personel to some degree. When Trump was first elected there were few doctors with sad faces. Talk to some physicians who practice in the South and Midwest. A lot of the liberal legislation has hurt docs. Now those idiots at the AMA are liberal and lean towards psychotic.

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And it’s ridiculous to be against hospitals having armed police for fear of “becoming too powerful”. Ridiculous is probably too soft a word.

The police power is the exclusive use of force.
It is ultimately a political power because it is limited only by the political process.
I'm surprised that anyone (at least on Sigforum) would think it's a good idea that police power should be trusted to private corporations.

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Originally posted by chellim1:
I'm surprised that anyone (at least on Sigforum) would think it's a good idea that police power should be trusted to private corporations.

That cat is already out of the bag, because they already have that, in a large number of places and different iterations.

Many airports, power plants, railroads, transit systems, hospitals, private universities, toll roads, etc. already have their own police departments. And they have for over a hundred years in some cases (see railroad police in particular). Those are all private companies (some more and some less, with some of the utilities and airports being only partly private in some ways, for example), but because various state legislatures believe there's a compelling public safety interest in having a police force in those types of vital facilities, laws have been passed that allow them to form police departments despite not being public entities.

And in some cities/states, in order to be even a plain old security guard for a private security company, you have to be commissioned as some level of peace officer with at least some police authority. These are usually some lower level than full standard LEO authority, like "Security Police" or "Special Police" or something like that.

Some areas even allow true private police departments, which are private entities that effectively blur the lines between security guard companies and police departments. The largest example would probably be the San Francisco Patrol Special Police, which have been a thing since 1847.

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Some areas even allow private police departments, which are private entities that effectively blur the lines between security guard companies and police departments.

You're right... but the more blurry those lines become the less accountable the legitimate use of force becomes to the people.

When the police power is no longer accountable to the political process justice is merely the advantage of the stronger.

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Originally posted by onegeek:

The vast majority of health care workers that I have met are liberal, particularly the providers.

Two urologists that I used were not so liberal, or at least not anti-gun. The first one stared, as I removed my belt holster prior to dropping my pants for "the probe." He looked, and said, "What's that -- a SIG? I carry an H&K."

The second one couldn't contain himself; he had to show me his P320.

I had to take my shirt off so a cardio nurse could stick the sensing thingies on me. I tried to keep my holsters pistol covered. She said, "Don't worry about it. My brother is Army and he carries all the time."

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Originally posted by onegeek:

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Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
...
The other fun one for a while the attitude of the officers was to take no action at all. A number of them told us that if the person was homeless and residing at a city shelter, the DA's office would not prosecute. Stated they did not want the publicity of crime statistics making the shelters look like a magnet for criminal activity. The officers' attitude was why bother with the time and paperwork if they won't be prosecuted.

...

How did your coworkers vote in the last election? Because in Anchorage at least the commies won all the city assembly seats but one, so there are a total of 3 conservative (rational) assembly members. The rest of the assembly works against the mayor (because he is conservative) and the assembly has enabled the criminal, homeless, drug addicted, and mentally ill in the city without providing any treatment, much less law enforcement or judicial consequence.

The vast majority of health care workers that I have met are liberal, particularly the providers. But you have much greater knowledge of hc workers' voting than I.

Yes there are some liberals. But there are also some docs whose gun collections make me envious. Nurses I work with for the most part hunt, fish, own guns and get outdoors. Yes there are some exceptions to that as well. All of us are pretty much pissed off at the city council because we're the ones that have to deal with the problems they've created.

Keep in mind, I'm also in the ER which is a bunch of Type A strong personalities. A lot of us also live in Eagle River which is the conservative part of Anchorage. Probably even more are out in the Mat-Su Valley which makes Oklahoma seem liberal.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
I'm surprised that anyone (at least on Sigforum) would think it's a good idea that police power should be trusted to private corporations.

It could well be that many here choose to be educated instead of following the talking points of some YouTube video or article from coffeeandcovid. To actually understand how places like schools and hospitals get their authority to form police forces, and why they are a good thing.

It’s also not surprising that all you got out of Rogues post was “lines blurred” and you totally missed the hidden gem of the actual fact that the state legislature regulates and controls hospital police forces, not some scary all powerful hospital version of Montgomery Burns. The state regulates the standards based upon the level of authority granted to the force. If they are full service police, with an ORI, they are held to the same state POPS standards. If they are “special police”, their powers are much more limited. All generally have authority on their parcel of property. A great example is the Vanderbilt university Hospital police in Nashville. They police their own facility, and act as liaisons with Nashville metro, and all other agencies. And the extra added benefit is the taxpayers of Nashville do not have to fund the calls for service there.

There are two hospitals here. One has armed security, the other doesn’t. One is a war zone where doctors and nurses are routinely assaulted, so much so that the facility has a high turn over rate. The city police can’t keep up with taxpayer calls for service and hospital calls. The other hospital doesn’t have these issues frequently. I’ll let you guess which is which.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I worked in a hospital in the barrio in San Antonio years ago. We were told to wear a tie enter through the ER entrance and to not make eye contact with patients. Most of them had stab wounds. It was explained that the locals would not bother you because they knew you were there to help.
Other hospitals were different. Psych patients could be be very dangerous and there was no security what so ever.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Thanks for taking the time to explain. I worked in a hospital in the barrio in San Antonio years ago. We were told to wear a tie enter through the ER entrance and to not make eye contact with patients. Most of them had stab wounds. It was explained that the locals would not bother you because they knew you were there to help.

No problem, man. To understand what it is helps folks. Some people support a soft defunding of the police, or they just don’t like anything the government does or doesn’t do.

Hospital police (much like school or campus police) solve problems that your PD or SO don’t have the resources to. All without costing the taxpayers in that jurisdiction extra. Hospitals have become the dumping grounds of societal problems.

Let me throw out another taxpayer thing. Mental transports. Without hospital police, the city and county must transport involuntary committals to the state institution 90 minutes away. By statute, within 48 hours, court ordered mental commitment have to be transported. Now imagine, the way it works, the city is responsible for all the commitments with a city address. The county is responsible for all the ones with a county address. Or any other addresses, such as other counties or other states. So a county that has two hospitals that serve 11 counties in Kentucky, and 5 counties each in Illinois and Missouri, generate a fair number of committals that don’t live in that county. The county is responsible for the transports if there are not hospital police. And the taxpayers in that county wind up footing the bill for other county and other state committals.

Just one of many advantages.

Hospital security (not police) is common in Michigan but that mostly involves asking beligerant family to leave. It’s very uncommon for security to call police or any patient being charged for hitting a healthcare worker.

The mental commitments can take all day depending upon the issues and whether the attorneys want to mount some sort of defense. The county sheriffs department that handles transportation of all prisoners is given the task of bringing the commitments to Chancery Court.
If they are deemed in need of involuntary commitment they sit in the Crisis Stabilization Unit until the state hospital {200 miles away} has a bed. The sheriff's Dept then drives to the hospital. Sometimes it is a month or more wait.