Somebody ... Make Up Your Minds

Just what the f**k do you people want?

Sometimes it just ain't worth while getting out of bed and strapping on your gear.

First they scream at you for being too aggressive and writing too any tickets, then you get threatened for not being aggressive enough. From the NY Post:

It’s a slowdown showdown.

At precincts across the city, top brass are cracking the whip on summons activity and even barring many cops from taking vacation and sick days, The Post has learned.

Throughout the city, precincts are being ordered to hand up to borough commanders “activity sheets” indicating the number of arrests and summonses per shift, sources told The Post.

“Police officers around the city are now threatened with transfers, no vacation time and sick time unless they write summonses,” one union source said.

“This is the same practice that caused officers to be labeled racist and abusers of power.”

So you've got politicians, activists and community organizers attacking you from one side and the brass preparing a massive blue enema on the other. Reminds me of that Ricky Nelson song, "Garden Party " where he sings, "You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself."

Again, as the Post puts it:

It’s hard to miss the irony: The same people who have called for an end to Broken Windows-style policing in New York City now blast cops for engaging in a work slowdown.

The NYPD essentially stopped writing tickets for minor offenses in the week following the Dec. 20 assassination of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

A New York Times editorial called the slowdown a “public act of extortion” and called on the leaders of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association to abandon it.

Right. But only five months earlier the same people at the NY Times were lambasting the cops for exactly the opposite reasons:

The mayor and the commissioner should also begin a serious discussion of the future of “broken windows” policing, the strategy of relentlessly attacking petty offenses to nurture a sense of safety and order in high-crime neighborhoods, which, in theory, leads to greater safety and order. In reality, the link is hypothetical, as many cities and towns across the country have enjoyed historic decreases in violent crime since the 1990s, whatever strategies they used. And the vast majority of its targets are not serious criminals, or criminals at all.

Of course Mayor de Blasio climbed on this exact same bandwagon when running for office

De Blasio was elected in 2013 after making a promise to end the NYPD's aggressive use of stop-and-frisk a centerpiece of his campaign. In his ads and speeches, de Blasio appealed to the NYPD's critics by labeling stop-and-frisk as unfair and discriminatory due to its disproportionate use in minority communities. As mayor, de Blasio followed through on his promise to end the tactic: Compared with previous years, stop-and-frisk is rarely employed and crime has remained low.

However, current and former officers have voiced frustrations with a de facto arrest quota system that has long existed in the NYPD. And after the change in the stop-and-frisk policy, some say the arrests that were once made as a result of offenses discovered through the searches have been replaced with an increased focus on minor quality-of-life offenses like public intoxication and turnstile jumping. Critics inside and outside of the department argue this new approach is also discriminatory towards African-Americans and Latinos.

And people are wondering why the cops are saying "screw it."