How is someone that gets out of breath eating a donut going to protect and serve anyone?
You misunderstand. Cops in the US have no legal obligation to protect OR serve anyone. Check out the NY subway guy that was attacked with a knife while cops watched from 10 feet away behind bulletproof glass. They literally hid in the conductor booth and watched this guy get stabbed in the fucking face repeatedly.
Not only did the guy survive, he actually overpowered and subdued the attacker. Guy brought a suit against the NYPD for failing to protect him when their motto at the time was literally “Protect and serve”. Long story short, the end result is that he got a real live judge to say out loud that police have no actual duty to protect you when it could endanger themselves. Coupled with your observation on the obesity of American cops, it could be argued that walking down the street to issue a ticket could be lethal for the cop in question and therefore they have no obligation to do it, they simply choose to do it out of spite.
Neither protecting or serving are actual job requirements.
The “no duty to protect” doctrine. Our news doesn’t even have to be factual.
I think NPR or PBS can’t lie on the news or over the air public local news. The over the air news usually will have a PSA opinion piece and it’s usually by the owners and mostly sways right. Cable news is free for all and one sided.
This is a common misconception in the U.S., it’s not even the car’s job… that crappy sticker has the shittiest union.
How is someone that gets out of breath eating a donut going to protect and serve anyone?
They don’t serve anyone
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Cops with guns don’t have to run… 🤷♂️
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run outrun my gun
Cities in pretty much the entire country are running with an understaffed police force. They’ll take what they can get. I’m 100% pro Union, but another problem is that police unions help protect unfit (literally and figuratively) police from being forced to try harder by abusing protected status health claims. I’ve seen in both police and military, they are handed paperwork if they are not meeting fitness expectations, but nothing ever comes of it.
Cities in pretty much the entire country are running with an understaffed police force.
Counterpoint: Americans are already overpoliced and the “understaffing” is only relative to the authoritarians’ desire to make us even more so.
Makes sense. Maybe they wouldn’t be understaffed if they were utilized in places that actually mattered to people
France doesn’t let the police unionize, it’s the only group in the country explicitly and expressly forbade from unionizing. Police should never be allowed to unionize
I think once you pass the physical strength/endurance exam to become a cop, you don’t have to take any to remain one. I definitely think that should change, though. Make them pass once a year to retain their job.
Fuck the physical part, they should take yearly psychological exams and have continuous education on conflict resolution.
There are definitely agencies that do exactly what you described. The one I’m most familiar with has a sliding scale based on age and they are required to pass annually.
to protect and serve is not their job.
To protect and serve the rich
Why are they also so clearly low iq, and hyper violent?
and why are they paid so well?Paid to keep the poor in place between wars.
That’s by design.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
Police forces deliberately filter out intelligent people because A) the job is mostly really boring, and smart people don’t like boring jobs, and 2) Smart people won’t put up with the open racism, corruption, and general bullshit of cops.
Ever notice on the news, that the local police chief always sounds like a swaggering, arrogant dumbass? It’s because he was promoted from a professional gene pool that was compromised from the start. He’s was just the biggest arrogant swaggering dumbass out of big pool of arrogant swaggering dumbasses.
Reminds me of my favorite Simpson’s quote.
Marge (to Bart): “Your father wanted to be a police officer but they said he was too heavy.”
Homer: “No the army said I was too heavy, the police said I was too dumb.”
the police said I was too dumb.”
Well that sure didn’t age well!
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
Never met anyone who was too fat to shoot minorities.
Heard from a local cop that it had something to do with the union. If the department wants to implement a standard the union would require something or other. Something about an incentive? I didn’t get the whole picture obviously. I know police need unions in case somebody sues them but does seem kind of dumb that it’s so difficult to enforce a physical standard.
Now I dont work in the law enforcement industry but I do work in an industry that has supposed fitness requirements although they arent enforced.
For us, the union told them “If they have to maintain a weight of X to remain employed. You have to pay them to hit the gym on company time or pay their gym fees and an allowance.” So the company filed that away under “fuck that”. Now if you get too fat for the equipment they just move you to a different duty, often one with a shitload of walking around.
It’s a fair enough requirement from the union
Backfired big time too.
Most of the big older guys realised that walking around all day is actually a pretty low pressure and laid back gig even if you are on your feet all day and dont want to go back on the machines once they are getting like 20,000 steps a day and lose the weight.
In my part of the world, cops are near on top of the food chain in any town and city, sometimes literally getting a free pass as long as they do something for a politician, a celebrity, or a business personality. So some of them, especially senior officers, do eventually get obese because not only they get to choose what duties they want to carry out, but also either they have three full square meals plus two snacks a day, or maybe a drinking party two to four times a month.
Of course they – the Philippine National Police – are a government agency, but also they’re a fraternity, the so-called “Brotherhood”: “you scratch my back as long as I scratch yours”.
From what I’ve seen, they don’t even learn about the law and often break the law by illegal detainment, searches and confiscation. Cops who served for over 20 years but don’t know people their rights. They often get minimal training while having to serve alone where everyone carries a gun. That’s asking for problems. And now cops in the US are militarized with heavy combat gear, while the majority is white and racist. So obesity is the least of the problems with US police.
Non joke answer: A bunch of reasons. Many precincts are understaffed, so they need all the hands they can get. The police union is huge and makes it extremely difficult to fire even the most homer-simpsonian individuals. Many of the hugely obese cops are assigned to “light duty” meaning the most exertion they face is paperwork, manning the public information desk and or doing things like serving writs (in some cases you’re allowed to wear the uniformn even if you’re not a bonded officer, which is absurd). Additionally, fitness requirements are actually fairly rare across the whole spectrum of law enforcement - It’s surprisingly rare to see them for any positions besides uniformed patrol officer, even detectives or etc. aren’t always required to pass them - and even when you do, they’re usually pathetically easy to pass.
They just need to be able to drive a car and pull the trigger on their gun
