How is someone that gets out of breath eating a donut going to protect and serve anyone?
Guns.
Why are American cops allowed to be morbidly obese?
Submitted 13 hours ago by snausagesinablanket@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
Kolanaki@pawb.social 46 minutes ago
Bgugi@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Neither protecting or serving are actual job requirements.
LemmyIsReddit2Point0@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
The “no duty to protect” doctrine. Our news doesn’t even have to be factual.
UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I think NPR or PBS can’t lie on the news or over the air public local news. The over the air news usually will have a PSA opinion piece and it’s usually by the owners and mostly sways right. Cable news is free for all and one sided.
sramder@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
This is a common misconception in the U.S., it’s not even the car’s job… that crappy sticker has the shittiest union.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 11 hours ago
That sticker was exclusive to the LAPD, but it kept turning up in films made in Hollywood set elsewhere, so other regions adopted it eventually too.
over_clox@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Cops with guns don’t have to run… 🤷♂️
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run outrun my gun
BossDj@lemm.ee 12 hours ago
Cities in pretty much the entire country are running with an understaffed police force. They’ll take what they can get. I’m 100% pro Union, but another problem is that police unions help protect unfit (literally and figuratively) police from being forced to try harder by abusing protected status health claims. I’ve seen in both police and military, they are handed paperwork if they are not meeting fitness expectations, but nothing ever comes of it.
verdigris@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
Police unions are the only bad union.
grue@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
All labor unions are good. Police unions are not.
This is because police unions are not labor unions, since police are not labor but rather the enforcers for the owner class.
floo@retrolemmy.com 11 hours ago
They’re illegal in many other countries
kobra@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
So bad in fact, they’ve often made me wonder if any union is worth it if that’s the risk of what they could become.
derry@midwest.social 12 hours ago
“They’ll take what they can get.” Except for the smart ones. abcnews.go.com/US/…/story?id=95836
BossDj@lemm.ee 10 hours ago
…well shit. Too smart to be an officer is a thing.
grue@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Cities in pretty much the entire country are running with an understaffed police force.
Counterpoint: Americans are already overpoliced and the “understaffing” is only relative to the authoritarians’ desire to make us even more so.
BossDj@lemm.ee 8 hours ago
Makes sense. Maybe they wouldn’t be understaffed if they were utilized in places that actually mattered to people
Zenith@lemm.ee 10 hours ago
France doesn’t let the police unionize, it’s the only group in the country try explicitly and expressly forbade from unionizing. Police should never be to unionize
kaki@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
The only group that can’t unionize is the military, there’s plenty of police unions in France.
sprite0@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
understaffed my asshole
Sprinks@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I…i didnt realize this needed staffing…
octobob@lemmy.ml 10 hours ago
I live in Pittsburgh and there are literally no cops on duty from like 3-5 AM or something. We haven’t had a police chief in years, and I never see cops unless there’s a violent crime or a car accident or overdose. You can kinda do whatever you want in terms of traffic laws. I’ve never even heard of someone getting a traffic ticket in the city, and most times if you’re actually goin the speed limit you’re a hazard that isn’t following the flow of traffic. Completely different story in the suburbs outside the city.
It kinda rules not gonna lie.
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
Additionally, cities that want physically fit officers have unions that demand that they are paid to work out. Cities don’t want to pay for that.
So, usually the fitness requirements are only used when applying but aren’t used when you are in the force.
Damage@feddit.it 10 hours ago
cities that want physically fit officers have unions that demand that they are paid to work out
Seems fairly reasonable to me
Echo5@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Heard from a local cop that it had something to do with the union. If the department wants to implement a standard the union would require something or other. Something about an incentive? I didn’t get the whole picture obviously. I know police need unions in case somebody sues them but does seem kind of dumb that it’s so difficult to enforce a physical standard.
richieadler@lemmy.myserv.one 7 hours ago
They are not required to serve and protect. US courts say so.
PolydoreSmith@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Reminds me of my favorite Simpson’s quote.
_Marge (to Bart): “Your father wanted to be a police officer but they said he was too heavy.”
Homer: “No the army said I was too heavy, the police said I was too dumb.”_
grue@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org 4 hours ago
Considering how dumb the police chief is on that show, I think it was an intentional joke
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 8 hours ago
Our law enforcement is a huge joke and the meh pay, high turnover rate, and low bar of entry attracts the type of people you wouldn’t want to be associated with to begin with.
But also, why are small framed 5’3 women allowed to be police?
Fact is, most cops can’t outrun or overpower a lot of criminals who chose to resist or flee. In actuality that’s a pretty tiny part of the job. The rest is tickets, reports, paperwork, arrests with no resistance, investigations, etc. you don’t have to be an athlete or even very physically fit to do any of that. Id rather deal with a fat cop that isn’t a dick more than a slim one who’s a dumbass.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Never met anyone who was too fat to shoot minorities. 🤷🏻♂️
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
From what I’ve seen, they don’t even learn about the law and often break the law by illegal detainment, searches and confiscation. Cops who served for over 20 years but don’t know people their rights. They often get minimal training while having to serve alone where everyone carries a gun. That’s asking for problems. And now cops in the US are militarized with heavy combat gear, while the majority is white and racist. So obesity is the least of the problems with US police.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Non joke answer: A bunch of reasons. Many precincts are understaffed, so they need all the hands they can get. The police union is huge and makes it extremely difficult to fire even the most homer-simpsonian individuals. Many of the hugely obese cops are assigned to “light duty” meaning the most exertion they face is paperwork, manning the public information desk and or doing things like serving writs (in some cases you’re even allowed to wear the uniformneven if you’re not a bonded officer). Additionally, fitness requirements are actually fairly rare across the whole spectrum of law enforcement - It’s surprisingly rare to see them for any positions besides uniformed patrol officer, even detectives or etc. aren’t always required to pass them - and even when you do, they’re usually pathetically easy to pass.
absolutejank@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
to give an answer to a rhetorical question: because firing people based on weight is a can of worms being opened. while it’s still technically not illegal to fire someone because their weight makes them “unfit,” the ada can be invoked if said obesity is caused by a disorder (e.g., type 1 diabetes). this ignores the fact that it’s hard to prove that someone would be unfit just for their weight; it just opens up employers to lawsuits. a simpler way to think about it would be to ask yourself if the guy handing out speeding tickets is “unfit for duty” solely because he’s obese.
moody@lemmings.world 7 hours ago
The easy way around this is to require passing regular fitness tests. If your obesity isn’t an impediment to the fitness test, then it shouldn’t be an impediment to your job.
undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 12 hours ago
Everyone’s so fucking obese here that most people don’t even notice.
abbadon420@lemm.ee 6 minutes ago
Blend in with the crowd
MTK@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Kind of an over amplification. Yeah, cops should ideally be fit-ish but even an obese person with a gun or a tazer can protect people, maybe not as well but still, and that doesn’t take into account the fact that a lot of cops are not actually on the streets but rather in an office doing paperwork etc. The problems are:
- There are maybe not enough cops that are fit for actual fights?
- Cops are ridiculously undertrained and unfiltered, giving us all if these assholes that really just like power.
LonstedBrowryBased@lemm.ee 11 hours ago
They just need to be able to drive a car and pull the trigger on their gun
Lembot_0003@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
I believe that they are not allowed. Some of them just are.
theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Just as well as any other cop
Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 12 hours ago
Cops don’t exist to protect you and they don’t have to be physically fit to serve their purpose: using the threat of violence and the prison industrial complex to protect the interests of capital.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I mean, where are they? Most cops I’ve seen personally wouldn’t even qualify as regular obese, let alone morbidly.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
In a small Midwest town, if the police force has more than 3 members, I bet half of them are classified as obese.
FuckFascism@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
By being racist?
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 11 hours ago
The point is to punish, not to protect. Fatasses can punish just fine.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 11 hours ago
Fatasses can punish just fine.
Not when everybody can run circles around them and run away at the same time…
dbx12@programming.dev 11 hours ago
That’s why they are armed like they go to a war zone. Don’t need to be fast off you have weaponry which has more reach than even the fittest guy can run before they pull the trigger. Survival of the suspect is optional.
protist@mander.xyz 12 hours ago
Police departments in general have severe problems, but I encounter police often in my work and can honestly say I’ve never encountered an officer for my city’s dept who’d qualify as morbidly obese
SassyRamen@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Don’t live there, but I think something to do with Dunkin Donuts
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I totally agree with your thought here, I’ve thought the same thing many times. I’ve see many very overweight cops stopping at gas stations and whatnot.
How can these guys chase down an assailant? Cops should be required to be fit. I’d say they need to prove weekly they can run a mile in like 8mins? Faster? Then, once per month they need to prove they can do a 5 mile, like 45-50 mins? Seems fair.
Kaboom@reddthat.com 11 hours ago
Beyond what others have said, different departments have different policies. They’re usually pretty similar to each other, but a lot don’t explicitly lay out fitness requirements.
OceanSoap@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I think once you pass the physical strength/endurance exam to become a cop, you don’t have to take any to remain one. I definitely think that should change, though. Make them pass once a year to retain their job.