# Police prioritizing their own personal safety over that of the public

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [October 16, 2026, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900 "2026-10-16T20:24:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 20

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**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\
**Post date:** [October 17, 2026, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/police-prioritizing-their-own-personal-safety-over-that-of-the-public/1033900/20 "2026-10-17T02:29:49Z")

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> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> I’ve watched countless LEO-interactions videos, and the only only logical conclusions is that they’re a gang. They look out for themselves, and they’re at war with anyone who is not in LE.

In my job at a public water and sewer utility, we are required to utilize local police for traffic control on construction projects (so-called “private-duty police”). We get off-duty police who are working overtime. But they don’t actually care a whit about traffic control or public safety. They simply want to get paid $200/hour to sit (and sleep) in their air-conditioned police vehicles with the lights going. And because they refuse to get out of their cars and actually direct traffic, we _also_ have to hire flaggers (i.e. civilian flagmen).

If a contractor cancels due to rain, we still have to pay them for a full 8-hour shift. If a contractor goes just one minute past 8 hours, we get charged for another 4 hours at overtime rates (time-and-a-half).

It’s a complete scam, and everyone knows it. But nobody can do anything about it, because the police union is all-powerful. We’ve complained to the mayor and the police chief, and nothing changes. Why? Because they’re the biggest gang in town, and nobody will take them on.

I recently spent over a million dollars on private-duty police on a recent $12 million water main project. That was nearly 10% of my construction budget. We had to go back to our board for additional funds due to the egregious overcharges.

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