Crazy Activity on Nostrand Ave St Marks Last Night

won't ub my nabor

My overall sentiment is, similar to a lot of posters on here, the police have a lot to do with very little resources and, unfortunately, they just can't be every where at once. That is the cost of a publicly funded police force.
I don't fault the police for that. If we want better services, we'd have to be willing to pay more for them.

Plus, we are more responsive to situations that involve people we know, care about or feel connected to. I chock that up to human nature, and unless we want robot-cops policing the streets, the situation is not likely to change anytime soon.

That said, SBQ's question has merit:

Tsarina and others suggest that police officers' lives are more "valuable" to the community because they protect us. This makes SBQ's question more, not less, relevant. Since we give the police this flexibility and glory in exchange for protecting and saving the community, then we have to make sure that they are actually protecting and saving the community.

In which case the question of whether or not their response was timely or overblown has merit. More generally, the question is how do we balance giving officers discretion to do their job (particularly since we know they are working with limited resources) with the need for accountability from them so that we are comfortable trusting them with the discretion that we grant?

MOD

I'm down with RoboCops