A letter to the editor in today's LancasterOnline:
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/law-enforcement-in-columbia-park/article_6ae247ae-74d5-11e4-abc4-2ba060976743.html
A letter to the editor in today's LancasterOnline:
http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/law-enforcement-in-columbia-park/article_6ae247ae-74d5-11e4-abc4-2ba060976743.html
26 comments:
From what I've been hearing, it doesn't sound like the police have much interest in enforcing the rules/regulations.
The Police Force is short of Officers, there is so much they can do and be everywhere all at once, cut in budgets officers retire and not replaced, everyone bitches but it's all about the money, you know how many times a cop sees a person run a stop sign or passes by something, Pushed to the limit like everything else in town. Do you think I would stop at the park just because I saw kids standing there, NO, do you want a cop in every corner, put more cameras up don't have to pay retirement, insurance, $ 80,000 salary. You want the job for $ 30,000 no benefits and all the stress of being killed by the trash moving in town, then shut up.
Funny, I heard that Columbia has too many officers for the size of the borough. If someone with the correct knowledge of the situation knows, I hope they will tell us how many officers are currently on the payroll in Columbia borough.
Too much of the police budget going to things other than cops on the street example dispatchers. Why does Cola need there own dispatchers, when everybody else uses county dispatchers. Duplication of services.
Is the commenter saying the salary of an officer is 80,000. with benefits or 30,000. with no benefits?
Wow!!! Certainly hope you are not one of our police officers. It is a different time for cops than it was 30+ years ago. They now shoot and ask questions later so there is very little risk as a police officer these days. Read the newspaper, watch the news, cops are killing people all of the time and getting away with it. What ever happened to shooting suspects in the leg or arm instead of the chest? The job of the CBPD is ALL about the benefits, could care less about this community and the people who pay their salaries.
No officer in this borough makes less than $70,000.
If you shoot it is to kill before they kill you. More criminals, gangs and druggies are carrying guns and will shoot someone without hesitation. Put yourself in the situation where a gun is pulled on you and you have a fraction of a second to make a decision and react, how do you handle the situation? If you go for an arm or leg shot did you disarm and disable the shooter? Anything other than a body shot will most likely miss and you might be dead for missing. This is the real world today. Talk to someone who is an expert marksman and see what they say about taking the shot.
Everyone has an opinion about how the police should do the job, but like most it is armchair quarterbacking without a clue.
This is real world not Mayberry.
most hear5 say and bs. go to the boro council mtg and ask! they are working on the budget for 2016. duh.
Pennsylvania DECD (Department of Community and Economic Development) Website says 16 full-time and no part-time officers. While the Borough is supposed to report this datav - "The Municipal Statistics web page contains a range of local government tax, contact information for local government officials, financial and demographic data that Department of Economic Development is legislatively required to collect along with forms for local governments and school districts to file." - recent hiring of part-time officers appears not to have been reported to the Commonwealth.
http://munstatspa.dced.state.pa.us/ReportViewer.aspx?R=MuniPolice&MunicipalityId=360273&rendering=H
Thanks for this information, Brian.
My reference to not taking body shots wasn't a level playing field of a gun vs. a gun. How many more unarmed people will be shot and killed? How about the homeless man who had a knife last year in Lancaster? A suspect with a gun is a completely different story.
They don't have much interest in doing much of anything. I would LOVE to see a weekly police log with all activity. These cops are lazy and could care less about this community. Why no cops on foot patrol? Or bikes, and not just on warm sunny days! The residents of Columbia deserve better!
A knife is a deadly weapon. Justifies use of deadly force.
I have heard people say " leave if you don't like it here", but what they are really trying to say is leave if you don't like the way we run things here because we aren't willing to change. Columbia needs to welcome progress.
When you only have 1 or 2 cops on duty at a time, they need their cruisers. They are useless if there's an emergency across town and all they have is a bike or pair of shoes.
--fmb
the comment above the Police being short of staff is no excuse. take a walk through the Park and you can see how destructive these kids have been and still are.............
Umm....with a force of 16+, why would there ever only be 1 or 2 on duty at a time?
16, eh?
Figure 3 shifts a day, and with days off, vacations, training, court dates, etc., you aren't going to have many officers on duty at any one given time.
Even if there were more on duty, they still need their cars. Sorry, but a cop without a car is useless in a town this size.
--FMB
Our police work 2 twelve hour shifts, at THEIR request. Maybe we should get rid of the whole police department, go to state coverage and come back to local in 12 months and start over with police that will work for less than $70,000/year. I just read recently that an officer in Ferguson makes $45,300/year. Columbia Police Officers are WAY overpaid! PERIOD!!!!!
Funny you don't see any of our officers quitting because they are over-worked, short handed, too dangerous of a community or because they are being shot at daily. They have it way to good here, they NEVER quit in this borough and none of them live here but 1 or 2. Let's not even start talking about their pension AND benefits! If you want to speak on this topic, do your homework!
Lighten up, Francis.
Perhaps you should get a better job instead of trying to drag everybody else down. If it is so easy and lucrative, why don't you hire out? Even if you do 2 shifts per day, you still are at 8 officers max. Now account for days off, court dates, sick/vacation time, etc, and you are knocking at maybe half of that at times. Get 2 or 3 calls going at once, and you are stretching a force pretty thin. Yes, these officers deserve to get paid more than minimum wage. 70,000 isn't a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
--FMB
PS. Stop it with the constant capitalization of random words and exclamation point abuse. You sound like a 14 year old x-box user.
My "this" letter to the editor was never intended to intensify the situation with name calling or disrespect towards the Police or question their salary etc. That is a totally different topic.
Not everybody is content with our police department MJ. This became a venue for those who are frustrated with them to vent. The health and safety of myself and my family should be taken more seriously by the powers to be. What the officers are paid only adds insult to injury to those of us who pay their salary.
The comment that $70,000 isn't much in the grand scheme of things. Maybe you haven't been reading but the average household in this town is less than half that. And the average citizen surely doesn't get the kind of benefits police get. This all equals up to one thing, this Boro will join the other bankrupt municipalities in this nation who's civil servants are compensated way more than the tax base can afford.
York City school teachers are finding this out right now, they'll either work for the new charter schools for less money & benefits or be unemployed. With the republicans running this country former civil service jobs will be run by private co. This appears to be the only way to rein in the rediculous compensation of these emmployees.
Understood
Who wins in a race to the bottom?
--fmb
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