a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by snoodog
snoodog  ·  2872 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Walmart responsible for far more police calls than comparable stores

Its interesting in that both Walmart and the police are both complacent in the problem so they both must get something out of it. The bigger problem is that the police keep showing up for these BS calls and there must be some incentive to do so. If the police just showed up 4-8 hours after the call was made and didnt hang out in the lots to provide extra security that would go along way to de-incentivze the bad behavior.

So why are they showing up? I'm assuming they are trying to just game the response time numbers. If they just hang out it the parking lot and average 1-2min response times they can double the response times on other calls and still come out looking good. Its very common to see government respond to metrics by gaming the numbers instead of actually improving the issues.





user-inactivated  ·  2872 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That strikes me as possible in some cases, but ridiculous on the whole. If the police stopped showing up generally, Walmart would sue them. Being sued by Walmart is an automatic loss.

snoodog  ·  2872 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The police have no legal obligation to protect or serve. They especially have no obligation to respond QUICKLY to a business that is wasting their resources. Being slow to respond is a pretty common police tactic when people piss the police off so the continued fast response time is an indication of some other incentives at work.

user-inactivated  ·  2872 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This is both illogical and unsourced.