[NGTM-1R]

They aren't self-financing. As public servants go, they fall somewhere between the military and the officeworker types.

When you join the military your rights are, in effect, suspended. You have no expectation of privacy or anything else. Cops are subjected to a less-intense level of discipline but are still being called upon to risk their life, health, and social standing for the greater good. They are treated as civilians, but in the end, they're really not the same beastie and can, must, be held to different standards of accountability.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Did anyone every think that disclosing such info could put their families at risk?  Seriously I felt it was a major violation of my privacy to have to go through a metal detector every day at work.  Yea I had to take the 2 knives I carried out and everything else that I used for my job and then put it back in my pockets.  I had a key to the building (still do) if I wanted to I would have carried enough stuff into the building on the weekend.

Back to the point.  Disclosing finances becomes public record.  Any criminal they bust can access that record.  You got 20 grand as a gift from your elderly mother it's on record.  Guess who that criminal gang you just busted is going to target?  Would you want that?  It's one thing to have your payroll records public (yes cops paychecks are public record) but another thing entirely to bring every cent you get from all sources into the public record. 

[Flipside]

If that's the case, then maybe there should be a two-tier system, the public can know how much the department spends of their money, that's relevant enough, but the exact details of those expenses would not be in the public interest, and, as Fubar points out, could actually be in contradiction to it, and would be better dealt with internally.

The problem is that the police are carrying the can for previous corruption, if you had a department that had already taken a lot of flak for fiddling expenses/corruption etc, then it would be as much a question of regaining public confidence as ensuring the best use of resources.

[NGTM-1R]

Back to the point.  Disclosing finances becomes public record.  Any criminal they bust can access that record.  You got 20 grand as a gift from your elderly mother it's on record.  Guess who that criminal gang you just busted is going to target?  Would you want that?

You honestly think there's a criminal organization in the US that'll ever get in that kind of a pissing contest with the police and survive? Nobody in their right mind would even try. You haven't been able to get away with that sort of thing since Prohibition ended, and the guys who ran the Prohibition rackets were smarter than this.

And especially the LAPD. These are the people who taught the world how to utterly dismember street gangs in the late '90s. Those that survive do so at their sufferance, because they have not made themselves worth the while to get rid of, and they, despite their posturing, are aware of it. Nobody is going to call down the wrath of God so casually on themselves.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Thing is almost all that financial info is already available to the IRS it's just not public.  So what is the point? If all of a sudden you have 10k show up with no trace the IRS is going to be beating down your door anyway.  Yea you can keep all transactions in cash or under 10k but that only goes so far.  It's traceable. 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Back to the point.  Disclosing finances becomes public record.  Any criminal they bust can access that record.  You got 20 grand as a gift from your elderly mother it's on record.  Guess who that criminal gang you just busted is going to target?  Would you want that?

You honestly think there's a criminal organization in the US that'll ever get in that kind of a pissing contest with the police and survive? Nobody in their right mind would even try. You haven't been able to get away with that sort of thing since Prohibition ended, and the guys who ran the Prohibition rackets were smarter than this.

And especially the LAPD. These are the people who taught the world how to utterly dismember street gangs in the late '90s. Those that survive do so at their sufferance, because they have not made themselves worth the while to get rid of, and they, despite their posturing, are aware of it. Nobody is going to call down the wrath of God so casually on themselves.

Yes I expect these hardcore gang members to do just that.  They don't give a crap about going to prison or even the death penalty to make a name for themselves what's one more small hit?

[Flipside]

Well, I'll take a step back there, since we are entering an area of American financial laws and procedures that I, admittedly, know nothing whatsoever about.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well I admit I can't speak for Cal but Ohio all payroll records are public record.  All you have to do is request them and you get everything except SSN on paper.  As they are part of the so called sunshine laws that a lot of states go by it's probable the same would be true in Cal.  Even if it's not it could be requested under the freedom of information act. 

[newman]

I can't help but remember the good old Psi-Corps. Submitting to a scan is mandatory. If you refuse, you must have something to hide
All joking aside, this isn't all that different in principle.

[NGTM-1R]

Yes I expect these hardcore gang members to do just that.  They don't give a crap about going to prison or even the death penalty to make a name for themselves what's one more small hit?

Getting left face down in alley or a cell by your buddies for having the stupidity to destroy everything they have ever tried to accomplish or defend.

I'm sure in the happy world of 1995 where gangs owned large sections of LA there might be a few who would try that. (But damn few. For all "gangsta" rap's glorifying the killing of police officers, it's an exercise in self-destruction: there is always another cop and it causes a lot of people, including the federal government, to become committed to your destruction.) It's SOP in Mexico because the government is ineffective and the army's institutional hatred of most other Western states is so entrenched they won't learn the simplest urban warfare lessons. But we're not in 1995 or Mexico. This is LA, 2011, and the days when gangs ruled parts of the city are dead and gone. They have been dismembered, innovative and sometimes questionable legal options to destroy their ability to coordinate or carry out business employed, their every move shadowed and reported, locked away for the slightest of offenses and sent to places where their name and their gang status means nothing and they die in a cellblock somewhere because they didn't realize they don't carry any weight.

There's no glory in going to jail for unpaid parking tickets, and far less in dying there for those parking tickets. The government has the means to exploit this, so if you kill a cop's family member in LA, everyone you know goes to jail (not in SoCal either; they'll send them to Nevada or Oregon or some jail full of white supremacists in NorCal, where their connection to you means nothing) at some point and a lot of them don't get out and their family members get mad at you, and you end up dead in an alley somewhere with everything you ever accomplished essentially dust in the wind. It will be as if you never existed. The exercise of the power a gun gives you brings down the wrath of those who are beyond such petty instruments of guns and have a lot more practice in the exercise of power.

Just to add to the pressure, the gang system in LA is breaking down demographically as Latinos replace the African-American population.

[Kosh]

Hate to say it but I agree with them.  The day we have to give up private info just to keep a job is the day to leave that job.

The difference being that his salary is supplied by taxpayer dollars, so there must be some amount of transparency with this regard.


However reading up on the Rampart Scandal of the late 90's, in which LAPD anti-gang officers engaged in unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, covering up evidence, and the murder of a rap star, it seems clear that the lack of transparency and the Blue Wall allowed this stuff to continue for far longer than it should have. 

[Snail]

The LAPD killed Biggie that means they're super corrupt


okay i'll shut up now sorry

[Kosh]

The point being that past experience makes people demand more transparency, hence the request to disclose this guys finances.

[Scotty]

The difference being that his salary is supplied by taxpayer dollars, so there must be some amount of transparency with this regard.

I call bull**** on this.  Yes, it's important to know WHO the money is going to when it's still taxpayer money, but the moment the recipient cashes the check, it ceases to be taxpayer money and starts to be private finances.

tl;dr bull**** it's not taxpayer anymore.

[Nemesis6]

No, that's just the persuasive efforts of cops who really want to search you but don't have probable cause.  Remember, refusing to consent to search does NOT give probable cause.

I think refusing a search is mostly a Catch-22. You know, by refusing, you'll cause it, and/or open yourself up to reprisals.

Anyway, on the subject of financing, isn't it normal for precincts to finance themselves via Asset Forfeiture laws in the United States?

[NGTM-1R]

By the way, on the subject of financing, isn't it normal for precincts to finance themselves via Asset Forfeiture laws in the United States?

It's not possible in most cases, and any sane system has the department handle disposal anyways. A lot of departments supplement funding with auctioning off property that isn't claimed by a rightful owner or money/goods that they've confiscated as generated from illegal sources (drug money/vehicles used in the transport of drugs/etc.), but the income this generates is far too unreliable to be used as a major source of funding.