
How a City Agency Stockpiled Arms to Fight White-Collar Crime - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/nyregion/doi-mark-peters-nyc-militarization.html
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joe_the_user
So the agency stockpiled arms neither for the purposes of fighting crime nor
for any drug-dealing or nefarious state-overthrow activity but effectively as
a kind of entertainment or a sort of fantasy that they'd be acting like the
cops they saw on TV.

And here, it may seem strange but is actually logical that the thinking of
real cops who don't shoot it out everyday seems to be driven by the images of
TV cops who do.

This book is relevant here.

[https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-
Ameri...](https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-
Americas/dp/1610394577)

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hirundo
> The agency is charged with investigating waste, corruption and mismanagement
> in city government, where it has traditionally focused, in large measure, on
> white-collar crime.

Apparently they investigated waste and mismanagement and learned to apply
those techniques themselves. But where is the corruption?

> He spent $45,000 in federal forfeiture money to acquire a small arsenal of
> Glock handguns.

Ah, there it is. Waste and mismanagement corruptly funded by legally stolen
money shredding the fourth amendment.

Maybe the problem is that the name "Department of Investigation" doesn't have
something like "Prevention" in its name, so its mission is unclear to its
employees. As philosopher George Costanza once said, "I've got to plead
ignorance on this because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I
first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon..."

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saagarjha
> The agency is charged with investigating waste, corruption and mismanagement
> in city government, where it has traditionally focused, in large measure, on
> white-collar crime.

It seems like they should have been investigating themselves ;) But on a more
serious note, the article doesn’t actually place numbers on the amount spent,
saying that only a portion of the civil forfeiture money went to arms. I’m
curious to know how much that was.

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boomboomsubban
>Spending for guns, ammunition, bulletproof vests, gym equipment, a firearms
training simulator, radios, night vision gear and ceremonial uniforms totaled
more than $1.3 million, according to the agency.

A little more than just arms, but most of it was related to arming the agency.

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Justin_K
Did I miss it or where is this agencies arrest / conviction record showing
justification for all this spending?

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boomboomsubban
The money coming from forfeitures means there is little oversight in how it is
being spent.

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so_tired
In other news, 50% of start-ups use micro-services and docker to implement a
simple web backend

So i guess YMMV ...

~~~
saghm
I think there's a pretty noticeable difference between docker/microservices
and actual weaponry.

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gweinberg
I was disappointed that there really wasn't a "how".

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MrMorden
NY needs a state version of the federal Anti-Deficiency Act. (As do most other
states.)

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heyjudy
_" What's a gun doing in your trousers?"_

 _" It's for protection."_

 _" Protection from what? Zee Germans?"_

Also: [https://outline.com/RBrG7p](https://outline.com/RBrG7p)

