Town votes down tax increase, no police coverage at night and weekends leads to rape

[NesuD]

If you read the introduction to that county's most recent budget you will see that in the past they funded their public safety departments with a combination of federal timber monies and monies from the general fund. Then not only did public safety lose the federal money but the county also reduced the general fund transfers to public safety by 1 million dollars above and beyond the loss in federal funding. At the same time increasing the General fund contingency from 1.9 Million to 2.6 million.

Seems questionable that General Fund contingency needed a year over year 30+% increase in funding or that it should even be a higher priority than public safety which had already taken a huge budgetary hit.

Definately looks like county government trying to manipulate the levy vote.

http://www.co.josephine.or.us/files/Introduction912.pdf

 

[GundamW]

If you cut down your workforce that drastically(fired/layoff 20 and now down to 6 officers), somethings gotta give. Unfortunately, it took this incident to wake the town up.

Don't cut the budget for police, firefighters, emergency/disaster service, teachers.

 

[Theb]

I find it hard to believe that the state police would have "nobody available" if they got a call for someone in an active break-in and potential violent situation that HAS A WARRANT OUT FOR THEIR ARREST.

Someone would be made available for that. There's plenty of state police officers that can be pulled from sitting in the dark waiting for a speeder so they can write a traffic citation in lieu of an actual potentially violent criminal act being committed. Sure, response time might not be great in a state the size of Oregon, but saying "Nobody is available" isn't an acceptable answer unless every state police officer in the state is responding to, say, a terrorist threat or something similar.

Look at where Josephine County is. The nearest OSP officer could've easily been 2 or more hours away.

 

[mnewsham]

If you cut down your workforce that drastically(fired/layoff 20 and now down to 6 officers), somethings gotta give. Unfortunately, it took this incident to wake the town up.

Don't cut the budget for police, firefighters, emergency/disaster service, teachers.

They just voted down the increase again yesterday so no, it didn't seem to wake them up.

 

[Fritzo]

LOL- I would think the country sheriff or even the state highway patrol would take over if there's no law enforcement.

Reminds me of that new Purge movie where they make all crime legal for 12 hours once a year to trim the population.

 

[phucheneh]

Why doesn't the county do what all other counties do and hire more officers to write traffic citations to fund the rest of the police?

The problem is when they forget to do ANYTHING other than write traffic citations.

My city is essentially the one in the OP...no police response at night. Except there are probably 10 cops within a half-mile radius. Fucking pigs.

 

[SunnyD]

LOL- I would think the country sheriff or even the state highway patrol would take over if there's no law enforcement.

Reminds me of that new Purge movie where they make all crime legal for 12 hours once a year to trim the population.

That was my original mistake too... I misunderstood the article apparently in exactly the same way. It WAS the county sheriff that was tasked with this enforcement that "reacted" this way to the lack of budget, erm, "enhancment". Not a municipal department as I originally was led to believe.

 

[mnewsham]

I would think the country sheriff or even the state highway patrol would take over if there's no law enforcement.

This was the county sheriff, they have 6 deputies for the entire county.

 

[techie81]

The police have no duty to protect you. Ask the three women who got raped for 14 hours in the Warren v. DC case about that.

Came here to say this. This is why we need guns.

 

[Fritzo]

This was the county sheriff, they have 6 deputies for the entire county.

Wow. I wonder if that complies with state law. I know in Ohio there is a hierarchy that says "If A isn't available, then B takes over, and then C, D...etc" until you get up to the national guard. I suspect the governor is going to raise a giant shit-storm with the county over this.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Am I allowed to point out the obvious?
1) No police are available, and
2) Liberals take away guns and say "call the police," therefore
3) Liberals want women to be raped.

I'm a short woman and I'm getting a bit concerned with the way things are heading. I'm stick of men telling me I don't need a gun to protect myself against humans that are twice my size and twice as strong (men).

Never heard that from me or anyone sane.

 

[unokitty]

Oregon woman calls 911 to say her ex-boyfriend, wanted by the police, is trying to break into her house. Dispatcher says that due to recent budget cuts, the police no longer respond to emergencies during evenings or weekends. Ex-boyfriend eventually breaks in and rapes her.

Colt 45 Automatic. Stopping bad guys since 1911.

Or, you could trust the Government to protect you.... Though, it would be prudent to be aware that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Police do not have a duty to protect you.

Uno

 

[Incorruptible]

Am I allowed to point out the obvious?
1) No police are available, and
2) Liberals take away guns and say "call the police," therefore
3) Liberals want women to be raped.

I'm a short woman and I'm getting a bit concerned with the way things are heading. I'm stick of men telling me I don't need a gun to protect myself against humans that are twice my size and twice as strong (men).

This is the problem with these idiot liberals. They want to take away guns and then people can't defend themselves.

 

[nehalem256]

It seems like it would have been cheaper to just have a ballot initiative telling men not to rape.

 

[Sonikku]

The governments role was limited, my taxes went down and Democracy won. If anything, it's the woman's fault for not having a gun.

 

[SSSnail]

On another thought, I think they should just ban rape. I think they did, no?

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Pretty flawed reasoning. Anyone can have a gun in their own home. I haven't heard anyone propose any law barring that.

Chicago, NYC, Washing DC, just off the top of my head...

 

[Sonikku]

On another thought, I think they should just ban rape. I think they did, no?

What kinds of rape? I'm pretty sure they haven't outlawed Legitimate Rape.

 

[Matt1970]

Pretty flawed reasoning. Anyone can have a gun in their own home. I haven't heard anyone propose any law barring that.

NY Safe Act. You can have the guns but the magazines that hold the bullets are illegal.

 

[Matt1970]

Digging a little deeper I found the "problem" is that due to Republican deficit hawks the Federal government has not funded the timber payments that this town and others have used to pay for services.
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/post_126.html

"The federal government is broke, here," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. "We cannot continue to pay counties to not use their federal lands."

And while there was bipartisan support for continuing the program for another year, the challenge will be find - and cut - spending elsewhere in the budget to offset the $270 million need or raise that much in new revenue.

When municipalities or counties do not have law enforcement available the duties fall on the State Police. With a 9-11% State Income Tax in Oregon they have the funds, just piss-poor management.

http://www.tax-brackets.org/oregontaxtable

 

[Darwin333]

That's a bit of a stretch. The dispatcher failed miserably in his/her duty as the emergency call should have been routed to the sheriff or the state police if the local agency isn't available for coverage at the time.

This is the way my town works. We have 2 cops for our podunk town. They're not always on duty. If they're not on duty, the next responder is the neighboring city police or the county sheriff. If the sheriff isn't able to respond in a timely manner, they forward the call to the state police.

That dispatcher is 100% negligent in their duty if they simply said, "Sorry, no money no service."

Umm, did you actually read the article? The call WAS routed to the state police and they didn't have anyone to send. The state police are the ones that told the lady to "ask him to go away".

 

[Darwin333]

When municipalities or counties do not have law enforcement available the duties fall on the State Police. With a 9-11% State Income Tax in Oregon they have the funds, just piss-poor management.

http://www.tax-brackets.org/oregontaxtable

The call came in on a Saturday at 4:58 in the morning. Because of the staffing limitations, Josephine County deputies are only available 8 am to 4 in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. So the dispatcher transferred her call to the state police.

Piss poor management by who exactly? When you have an entire county with zero police protection during the night and on weekends I can definitely see how they get stretched out to the point of being unable to respond.

 

[SlitheryDee]

Hmm. I wonder what else the town is spending money on. I'd say that if you can't pay for deputies with a tax increase, you have to take the money from somewhere else. There's always something non-essential you can shut down to make money for more basic needs. This is like someone starving to death because they refused to cut into their car detailing budget to buy food.

 

[berzerker60]

When municipalities or counties do not have law enforcement available the duties fall on the State Police. With a 9-11% State Income Tax in Oregon they have the funds, just piss-poor management.

http://www.tax-brackets.org/oregontaxtable

Oregon is a big state. There aren't always going to be state police nearby for emergencies. That's why we have local police (in a sane society).

Hmm. I wonder what else the town is spending money on. I'd say that if you can't pay for deputies with a tax increase, you have to take the money from somewhere else. There's always something non-essential you can shut down to make money for more basic needs. This is like someone starving to death because they refused to cut into their car detailing budget to buy food.

No, there isn't always something non-essential. Police, fire, water/sewer, education, maybe garbage. Counties aren't (always) big money operations, especially in hard economic times. This basic conservative article of faith that government is always corrupt and inefficient and can be eternally cut without any consequences simply doesn't always apply.

Anyway, for all you calling for state police intervention, I thought local government is supposed to be all anyone could need, not oppressive Big State police coming and interfering in our affairs. Next you're going to want federal law enforcement if there are problems that state can't handle like organized crime or political corruption at the state level!

 

[monovillage]

Was it legitimate rape?

No, according to Whoopie (i'm a fucking liberal) Goldberg it wasn't a "rape,rape"