Tiny town with no police

[brassmonkey]

im packed and ready to move. perfect example of how the government will put safety last for tax payers

(CBS News)

As cities and towns across the country trim their budgets, some of them can't even afford some basics anymore - basics such as law enforcement.

The small east Texas city of Alto, population 1,200, is one such place, reports CBS News correspondent Don Teague.

And now, crime is on the rise.

No one knows that better than Charles Barron.

He has plenty of time now to care for his cattle.

That's because Barron is Alto's police chief, and no longer has a police department to run.

The patrol cars are locked in an impound lot. The police station is locked, except when Barron stops in to check the mail.

And all five police officers, including Barron, are unemployed, after the city council cut the police budget to zero.

"They put a bulls-eye target on law enforcement -- police department -- and police department only," he tells CBS News.

The council furloughed the police department for at least six months to make up for a $185,000 budget deficit.

Barron says, "There have been accusations that the police department is not generating enough revenue. Well, police departments are not revenue generators."

Now, county sheriff's deputies must handle calls in Alto.

But that means response times that were less than 3 minutes from police are now up to 15 minutes from deputies spread thin over a 1,000 square mile county.

"When you're sitting there needing help, it's a lifetime," says Cherokee County Sheriff James Campbell, who's among those who think chopping the police department was a bad idea.

"In the last 24 hours," Campbell says, "we've answered 18 calls in the county; seven of them were in Alto."

In fact, Teague notes, Alto has been experiencing a crime spree, including an attempted bank robbery last month and a rash of burglaries.

Greg Duplichain's construction company was hit Thursday night. It's located -- across the street from the now vacant police department.

"If people know you don't have a police force," Duplichain says, "I believe that some people will take advantage of it."

Alto resident Michelle Blackmen says, "I work at a business here in town and, at any time, someone can come in and rob it."

CBS News tried to interview members of the city council on-camera. They declined, though one said, "When you can't make payroll, you have to make cuts."

Barron says he just hopes to get back to his real job, protecting the people of Alto. "That's my life," he says. ... I miss it."

Alto residents are sending around a petition to try to get their police force back.

And Alto isn't the only municipality to cut law enforcement from its budget. Places from Nazareth, Pa. to Half Moon Bay, Calif. have made similar cost-cutting moves.

[ToBad]

That's what can happen when you live in a country where nobody wants to pay taxes, and where you think it is a human right to have cheap gasoline, and start wars everywhere.

[iamtam]

the crows be picking at your flesh... and you have no control of the... sit-ee-ashun.

[JamesGw]

Lol @ police not generating enough revenue. What is this crap?

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by JamesGw

Lol @ police not generating enough revenue. What is this crap?

the government is paying itself instead of the police. its not like the people stop paying taxes.

[u-Bob]

Time for people to start defending their property themselves. When it's your property you have an incentive to actually do a good job at it unlike police officers who get paid anyway no matter what they do or don't do.

[MaDalton]

who needs police if everyone is armed anyways? welcome to the 19th century ;)

[nico-t]

Originally Posted by JamesGw

Lol @ police not generating enough revenue. What is this crap?

I dont know how it is in the US, but here in holland that is their main objective. The only thing the cops do around here is herass the tax payers with writing as much tickets as possible for shitty little things. That's why the cops here don't get any respect from anyone.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by nico-t

I dont know how it is in the US, but here in holland that is their main objective. The only thing the cops do around here is herass the tax payers with writing as much tickets as possible for shitty little things. That's why the cops here don't get any respect from anyone.

Same thing to the south of you man.... The cops are only interested in making money and they can do whatever they want. Not a month goes by without a story making the news about police officers beating people half to death and getting away with it.

[mamaliga]

The cops were useless anyway. Problem fixed congrats to the city council.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

who needs police if everyone is armed anyways? welcome to the 19th century ;)

If you were a criminal and you had to choose between robbing people in a town with no guns or robbing people in a town where every adult is armed, which one would you pick?

Criminals may be bad people, but not all of them are idiots....

[V_RocKs]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

who needs police if everyone is armed anyways? welcome to the 19th century ;)

No shit... I mean... Isn't this Texas?

[Rochard]

The hometown I grew up at in had a population of 600 - and no police department. We were patrolled by the Sheriff or something similar, rarely had a need for law enforcement, and emergencies were handled by the fire department - which was an all volunteer fire department.

[ottopottomouse]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

who needs police if everyone is armed anyways? welcome to the 19th century ;)

Does seem a bit of a change from how normally guns are touted as the solution to everything and the police are all lazy donut munching idiots.

[Kiopa_Matt]

I was in about a 300 person town / village once where there was no police. Out in Newfoundland. Nice, peaceful little town actually.

Would never want to live there though. Needed a computer store for something, and asked where the closest one was. The response was, "well, there's one 250kms that way, and another 300kms that way".

[Yngwie]

Originally Posted by Kiopa_Matt

I was in about a 300 person town / village once where there was no police. Out in Newfoundland. Nice, peaceful little town actually.

Would never want to live there though. Needed a computer store for something, and asked where the closest one was. The response was, "well, there's one 250kms that way, and another 300kms that way".

Newfoundland has a lot of towns like that.. I was in on that had like 180 people total. I think it was St Jacques or something. the next town closest to it was just as small and then many km's (200 to 350km or so) away was a bigger town - Grand Falls. Peaceful? Yes, but boring as a motherfucker.

[MaDalton]

they should have watched KOPPS

When a small town police station is threatened with shutting down because of too little crime, the police realise that something has to be done...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339230/

[L-Pink]

Local sheriff/police departments have always been revenue generators. When Wyatt Earp was sheriff of Dodge city he earned $40 a month plus $2.50 per arrest. (that tells you why he was such a hard ass law man)

.

[epitome]

Just curious if that city votes Democrat or Republican? If Republican, they got what they claim they want ... less government.

I don't see what the problem is.

[officemike]

No cops? No problem! That town rpbably didn't need cops anyway, except maybe for a renegade cow or two every year. Now I bet all those state of the art, brand fucking new cop cares are getting better use parking at the impound lot. Gotta love the war on drugs and a thirty year buildup of law enforcement.

[DateDoc]

Originally Posted by brassmonkey

And Alto isn't the only municipality to cut law enforcement from its budget. Places from Nazareth, Pa. to Half Moon Bay, Calif. have made similar cost-cutting moves.[/LEFT]

I'd live in Half Moon Bay.

[v4 media]

In the little villages in Spain, there's a federal police that covers those areas.

My brother in law is one. He had 1 call last week, someone's been stealing acorns.
Silly but as it's acorns that make the best ham that sells for $100+ a lb they're a valuable commodity.

He seems to spend most of the time carrying old ladies shopping.

[Matt 26z]

Originally Posted by ToBad

That's what can happen when you live in a country where nobody wants to pay taxes

Stick to the suburbs of a major city where conservatives and liberals are both moderates and everything is normal.

The worse thing you can do is live in a lib or neocon stronghold. The conservative rural areas don't believe in government and taxes, so they have nothing. The far left inner city areas don't have anything either because they think it should be free and would rather go without than get a job and pay for it.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by ToBad

That's what can happen when you live in a country where nobody wants to pay taxes, and where you think it is a human right to have cheap gasoline, and start wars everywhere.

We are happy to pay taxes. We just are sick and fucking tired of being financially raped to god damned death. With over 200 taxes we pay resulting in over 80% of our income being raped from us, at least 80% of THAT stolen money is going to shit we would NEVER agree to pay for. Period.

[L-Pink]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

We are happy to pay taxes. We just are sick and fucking tired of being financially raped to god damned death. With over 200 taxes we pay resulting in over 80% of our income being raped from us, at least 80% of THAT stolen money is going to shit we would NEVER agree to pay for. Period.

Your percentage is way off but point taken.

.

[MrMaxwell]

Originally Posted by L-Pink

Your percentage is way off but point taken.

.

I'm sure it's worse than stated... Think about when they print billions and now even trillions of dollars, borrow it when it's printed, and then stab us to death with the bill... Imagine all of the bums and illegals living off of us, all of the money stolen through social security and used to "help balance the budget"... on and on and fucking on ..... you pay tax when you buy, when you sell for a profit, when you receive a benefit or receive a benefit that's useless to you but taxable, when you own a motor vehicle or car or boat or even a pet dog... .. . on and on and fucking on ... tax tax tax tax .. even when you die

[bronco67]

I predict in 4 years we start seeing this guy...

[PornoMonster]

Originally Posted by Rochard

The hometown I grew up at in had a population of 600 - and no police department. We were patrolled by the Sheriff or something similar, rarely had a need for law enforcement, and emergencies were handled by the fire department - which was an all volunteer fire department.

Same, but times have changed.

[PornoMonster]

Originally Posted by officemike

No cops? No problem! That town rpbably didn't need cops anyway, except maybe for a renegade cow or two every year. Now I bet all those state of the art, brand fucking new cop cares are getting better use parking at the impound lot. Gotta love the war on drugs and a thirty year buildup of law enforcement.

You are RIght, the Town prob didnt need cops, but NOW that the criminals know there is no police, guess who the next target is.

Traveling gun sales man, should do well in that town.

[PornoMonster]

Originally Posted by MaDalton

they should have watched KOPPS





http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0339230/

at 0:21 what laguage is that? Russian?

[kane]

A lot of this is just small town politicians being dumb and holding personal grudges.

A friend of mine is a cop in a small town and they recently were nearly closed down. They have 13 officers plus about 3-4 other staff for the police department. The city administrator said that because they weren't writing enough tickets that the police were responsible for the $165K deficit that the city was running this year. He claimed most of it was due to overtime and other unforeseen expenses like the fact that two of their police cars had to be replaced. He wanted to close the police department and contract out to the county which would cost about half as much.

The locals were pretty pissed off. the reason they live in this town is because it has low crime and one reason for that is having its own police department that works proactively. At a city council meeting someone came forward and went through a list of every single person on the city payroll and asked the city administrator to explain what that person does and to justify why that person was more important to the city than the police. He got about halfway through the list and things got very ugly.

It all led to a breakdown where the city administrator is stepping down and they are cleaning house because it appears there are a lot of people on the payroll who make good money and don't appear to do much of anything and he was protecting their jobs. It became known that the city administrator didn't like the police chief and was playing politics to get him out at any cost.

It seems this kind of thing happens a lot. When people vote for lower taxes those in charge take away high profile things that effect them directly so that they will see the errors of their ways and later be okay when those taxes are increased again.

[PornoMonster]

Originally Posted by kane

A lot of this is just small town politicians being dumb and holding personal grudges.

A friend of mine is a cop in a small town and they recently were nearly closed down. They have 13 officers plus about 3-4 other staff for the police department. The city administrator said that because they weren't writing enough tickets that the police were responsible for the $165K deficit that the city was running this year. He claimed most of it was due to overtime and other unforeseen expenses like the fact that two of their police cars had to be replaced. He wanted to close the police department and contract out to the county which would cost about half as much.

The locals were pretty pissed off. the reason they live in this town is because it has low crime and one reason for that is having its own police department that works proactively. At a city council meeting someone came forward and went through a list of every single person on the city payroll and asked the city administrator to explain what that person does and to justify why that person was more important to the city than the police. He got about halfway through the list and things got very ugly.

It all led to a breakdown where the city administrator is stepping down and they are cleaning house because it appears there are a lot of people on the payroll who make good money and don't appear to do much of anything and he was protecting their jobs. It became known that the city administrator didn't like the police chief and was playing politics to get him out at any cost.

It seems this kind of thing happens a lot. When people vote for lower taxes those in charge take away high profile things that effect them directly so that they will see the errors of their ways and later be okay when those taxes are increased again.

We need to clean house every town, city, government

[CDSmith]

Originally Posted by PornoMonster

Traveling gun sales man, should do well in that town.

Free bumpersticker with every purchase..

[kane]

Originally Posted by PornoMonster

We need to clean house every town, city, government

I fully agree. Every town should be forced to go down their list of employees and explain what they do and why they are needed as well as cost of services and why the are needed/cost what they do. Our government is so bloated that it just grows and grows and just trimming that fat would help greatly reduce costs.

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by CDSmith

Free bumpersticker with every purchase..

[L-Pink]

Originally Posted by CDSmith

Free bumpersticker with every purchase..

You do understand that's about 5 times the weapons that were found while taking down the terrorist headquarters of Osama Bin Laden.

.

[Kelli58]

Interestingly enough that is right by the small Texas town - seriously within a 10 or 20 minute drive of the small Texas town who would pull people over and put them in jail for made up charges if they don't turn over valuables or large amounts of cash. I think it was about a year ago or two that the town got busted for it. LOL

[PiracyPitbull]

Originally Posted by CDSmith

Free bumpersticker with every purchase..

Man, they've even got the child market covered. Lets be honest, who wouldn't want their kids to be sporting a pink or blue assault rifle this season and be the envy of their friends.....

[IllTestYourGirls]

5 cops in a town of 1200? Um that is way too many cops to begin with. No wonder the town is fucking broke. I wonder how much more money they are pissing away. I live in a town 10x that size and we only have 7 cops.

You realize just to pay public employee pensions we would need to raise taxes an avg of $1400 per household, per year, every year, for the next 30 years. Some states are even worse off than that. I think NJ is well into the $2000+ per house hold. The whole system is broken and taxing more will not fix it.

edit found the link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498037

But I guess this is what we get when we allow the bankers, wall street and big corps run our country while people cheer for more government involvement in their lives and taxes.

[kane]

Originally Posted by IllTestYourGirls

5 cops in a town of 1200? Um that is way too many cops to begin with. No wonder the town is fucking broke. I wonder how much more money they are pissing away. I live in a town 10x that size and we only have 7 cops.

You realize just to pay public employee pensions we would need to raise taxes an avg of $1400 per household, per year, every year, for the next 30 years. Some states are even worse off than that. I think NJ is well into the $2000+ per house hold. The whole system is broken and taxing more will not fix it.

edit found the link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498037

But I guess this is what we get when we allow the bankers, wall street and big corps run our country while people cheer for more government involvement in their lives and taxes.

You live in a town of 12,000 and they only have 7 cops? Your town probably gets extra coverage from country officers. With only 7 officers they would barely have enough people to cover every shift never mind people getting sick or taking vacations.

[brassmonkey]

Originally Posted by IllTestYourGirls

5 cops in a town of 1200? Um that is way too many cops to begin with. No wonder the town is fucking broke. I wonder how much more money they are pissing away. I live in a town 10x that size and we only have 7 cops.

You realize just to pay public employee pensions we would need to raise taxes an avg of $1400 per household, per year, every year, for the next 30 years. Some states are even worse off than that. I think NJ is well into the $2000+ per house hold. The whole system is broken and taxing more will not fix it.

edit found the link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498037

But I guess this is what we get when we allow the bankers, wall street and big corps run our country while people cheer for more government involvement in their lives and taxes.

im guessing 5 is 2 on 2 off and a reserve.

[PornoMonster]

Originally Posted by IllTestYourGirls

5 cops in a town of 1200? Um that is way too many cops to begin with. No wonder the town is fucking broke. I wonder how much more money they are pissing away. I live in a town 10x that size and we only have 7 cops.

You realize just to pay public employee pensions we would need to raise taxes an avg of $1400 per household, per year, every year, for the next 30 years. Some states are even worse off than that. I think NJ is well into the $2000+ per house hold. The whole system is broken and taxing more will not fix it.

edit found the link: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43498037

But I guess this is what we get when we allow the bankers, wall street and big corps run our country while people cheer for more government involvement in their lives and taxes.

1 officer 1st shift
2 officers 2nd shift
2 officers 3rd shift,
and lets not forget sick days and vacation coverage.. But yeah

[candyflip]

Originally Posted by Rochard

The hometown I grew up at in had a population of 600 - and no police department. We were patrolled by the Sheriff or something similar, rarely had a need for law enforcement, and emergencies were handled by the fire department - which was an all volunteer fire department.

My town had about 30,000 and is still to this day set up the same exact way.

[IllTestYourGirls]

Originally Posted by kane

You live in a town of 12,000 and they only have 7 cops? Your town probably gets extra coverage from country officers. With only 7 officers they would barely have enough people to cover every shift never mind people getting sick or taking vacations.

Nope no help at all.

[Robbie]

1200 people and they needed a "city" police force?
There are more people in the store right now at the Super Walmart down the street! lol

There were 13,500 people at the MGM Grand Arena watching Paul McCartney a few weeks ago.

1200 people?

Waste of fucking money. The Sheriffs Dept. can cover it. Cops don't stop crime anyway. They come in after you call them to see what happened and try to catch the perp. The Sheriff's Dept. is more than capable of handling that. After all, they are paying county taxes. Might as well get something for their money.

[Coup]

I've never seen someone so upset that a couple of bored ass ticket happy local cops got the boot. terrified even. rofl

what the fuck is the matter with you?

[porno jew]

Originally Posted by MrMaxwell

We are happy to pay taxes. We just are sick and fucking tired of being financially raped to god damned death. With over 200 taxes we pay resulting in over 80% of our income being raped from us, at least 80% of THAT stolen money is going to shit we would NEVER agree to pay for. Period.

can't pay tax with no income.

[Robbie]

Originally Posted by Coup

I've never seen someone so upset that a couple of bored ass ticket happy local cops got the boot. terrified even. rofl

what the fuck is the matter with you?

And that's what 99.99% of their "job" was in a tiny ass town...writing traffic tickets to people doing 40 in a 25 mph speed limit trap.

I just got done driving up to Lake Tahoe from Vegas and I rode through a dozen small towns. Every goddamn one of them had a 25 mph speed limit and a "cop" in a freakin' SUV driving up and down the one main street they had with his radar going (setting off my radar alarm) What a goddamn travesty.

[InfoGuy]

Originally Posted by brassmonkey

And all five police officers, including Barron, are unemployed, after the city council cut the police budget to zero.

Gee, I wonder how many on the city council took a pay cut?

[HerPimp]

Police are paid by property tax, if you dont pay, your property gets sold in tax auction.