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The Police Department & You


Big_Smokes

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Hello everyone,

 

I'm Big_Smokes and together with Roozles, I am one of the faction leaders of the Los Santos Police Department. We started working on this project a long time ago (We've been together as a team for over a year now) and always look for avenues to improve on our faction's core values, the interaction amongst our faction's members and our faction's interaction with the public in game.

 

As we are at the very top of the organisation we see things from a very different perspective than most. For that reason I always feel like it is important to stay in touch with the people that interact with all echelons of the faction: You, the player. We don't interact with you over the forums as much as we'd like and thus I decided to post this topic. I'm asking all of you to come forth with your innovating and revolutionary suggestions to help us improve facets of the faction from your perspective. If you don't have a suggestion but rather a question to ask, that's also fine, I'll try to answer it to the best of my ability.

 

Before you post though, I have to clarify one thing:

Our faction has more than a hundred players in it and will continue to grow. My fellow leaders and I are not present for every interaction you might have with any INDIVIDUAL faction member, and thus I would like you to refrain from posting complaints about individual interactions in this thread. If you wish to file a complaint, please refer to this forum (https://lspd.gta.world/viewforum.php?f=261) or send a PM directly to me.

 

The idea is that I'm wanting to get a sense of what type of macro changes the community would be interested in to help our faction improve from their standpoint. I might not agree with all your suggestions nor might I find them tenable, but that does not make them any less valued. I will try to respond to this thread as often as I can and also answer any questions you might have.

 

Edited by Big_Smokes
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The way you have worded this to me sounds more like a thread for people either inside or interested in the PD, maybe I'm just being stupid. I'm not sure if this is exactly the type of feedback you're looking for, but I'll say it regardless.

 

I came back to playing on this server for the first time in a year a few days ago, but there's always been something in regards to police which seems lacking. It might be because I haven't been back for too long or it might be because that's just how it is, but police need to interact more with the players and create more RP situations and approach people more often instead of sitting by Mirror Park waiting for something to happen.

 

It's a two-way street, obviously - we as civilians can do a lot, but so can the PD. 

 

Where I live (And most likely everywhere else) police sometimes have a planned day (or week, depends on what's going on in the country) where there is a bigger number of units out and they form a line or just sit in more places than usual, to breathalyze people. You could do it, too. 

 

Have more "PD must do this and this at least XYZ times per week/month etc" events. These could be breath tests for alcohol or drugs, checking on businesses to make sure they are all working well without issues and there's nothing illegal going on, checking on licenses of individuals and businesses (even if they seem to be driving RPly and all's fine). 

 

There are a million things PD could do, but the ones I mentioned are just from the top of my head. Do it for the sake of RP. You might not find any issues with anyone for weeks, but the fact that police are out there and "keeping an eye on us" and RPing makes it more fun imo. Try to also spread out - drive through cities, but also countrysides. Make it look like PD is actually active and doesn't just sit by hotspots or in the empty Mirror Park for hours. 

 

Just my 2 cents

Edited by Carlos
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19 minutes ago, Carlos said:

The way you have worded this to me sounds more like a thread for people either inside or interested in the PD, maybe I'm just being stupid. I'm not sure if this is exactly the type of feedback you're looking for, but I'll say it regardless.

 

I came back to playing on this server for the first time in a year a few days ago, but there's always been something in regards to police which seems lacking. It might be because I haven't been back for too long or it might be because that's just how it is, but police need to interact more with the players and create more RP situations and approach people more often instead of sitting by Mirror Park waiting for something to happen.

 

It's a two-way street, obviously - we as civilians can do a lot, but so can the PD. 

 

Where I live (And most likely everywhere else) police sometimes have a planned day (or week, depends on what's going on in the country) where there is a bigger number of units out and they form a line or just sit in more places than usual, to breathalyze people. You could do it, too. 

 

Have more "PD must do this and this at least XYZ times per week/month etc" events. These could be breath tests for alcohol or drugs, checking on businesses to make sure they are all working well without issues and there's nothing illegal going on, checking on licenses of individuals and businesses (even if they seem to be driving RPly and all's fine). 

 

There are a million things PD could do, but the ones I mentioned are just from the top of my head. Do it for the sake of RP. You might not find any issues with anyone for weeks, but the fact that police are out there and "keeping an eye on us" and RPing makes it more fun imo. Try to also spread out - drive through cities, but also countrsides. Make it look like PD is actually active and doesn't just sit by hotspots or in the empty Mirror Park for hours. 

 

Just my 2 cents

 

 

It is not intended for people just interested in the faction in terms of joining; the faction at the end of the day is the biggest one on the server. Everyone interacts with it and thus everyone's opinion is valued.

 

The problem for us in hosting events is scheduling. It all revolves around scheduling. Only a tiny fraction of our department (let's say 5%) is actually a part of our Media Relations and Community Affairs Division. This division, MRCAD, is the one responsible for hosting and organizing events. Our bureaus (Especially Operations) sometimes hosts events but these are more internal and specifically aimed at faction members.

 

The reason we have issues with scheduling our events is that MRCAD has the responsibility to oversee them and with it's small size, doesn't always have sufficient manpower to properly host events. Thus most of our events revolve around either special dates in the United States (We had a christmas party at our police bar, a 4th of July party, etcetera) and around problems that are currently recognized social (or other) issues in the community or in the real world (such as our Breast Cancer Awareness carwash we did with the LSFD a few months ago). Truth be told, the majority of our command staff is always involved in the brain storming process of these events but we've found that we don't want to continue recycling old ideas, in that sense we are more committed with trying out new things. I realize however that from a community standpoint this might be different. You might not always be online during a certain event we're hosting so to you it might not be repetition at all.

 

License checking (for businesses) is something that is not our primary objective. That's the LSGOV and we only serve in a support role, thus we have no control over that. As for the drunk driving checkpoints you mentioned, we are unfortunately not allowed by IG law to do those in the traditional sense that you mentioned, this is because Los Santos is a state where you require probable cause before you may use the breathalyzer. In laymans terms: We have to arrest you before breathalyzing you, and may only use the breathalyzer as an additional piece of evidence to prove our case. Our Traffic Division has however worked over the past few months on finding new ways to do traffic checkpoints etc, and I'll make a point of bringing it up with CTSOB (Counter Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau) command to see what their progress on this is. I too like seeing my people out there  being productive, and it's good you brought it up. EDIT: I've spoken to the people in charge of Traffic. What you've brought up in regards to Traffic Operations has actually already been solved but a major issue to traffic at the moment is server stability. Every time the server crashes all their equipment is despawned and you can imagine that after the third time of setting it up it becomes a little annoying. With the server becoming a lot more stable of late, I believe we'll see them resume over the month of August.

 

In regards to people sitting at Mirror Park: Some officers will like to frequent that area simply because it's busy. Especially officers with regular patrol assignment often visit hotspots because well: they're hotspots. It's where the most happens outside. We encourage our officers to take up all areas on their patrol routes, some may prefer to frequent Vespucci Canals and others may prefer to frequent Mirror Park. There is nothing wrong with that so long as a healthy balance is maintained. After all, we're here to show police presence everywhere.

 

In regards to civilian interaction with the police during events: Like you said, this is a two way street. We recently had an event where we were asked to provide more police presence around the area and we have. But unfortunately outside of Media Relations or events hosted by us ourselves, patrol officers can't do much more than provide additional presence around an area when requested by a civilian party. It is not their mandate to be out there and always interact with the public, when they also have to remain vigilant and available for calls.

 

I'll make sure to speak to MRCAD about the more regular hosting of basic events. I think you caught on  to something there and I'll see if it is tenable for them to start doing so more.

Edited by Big_Smokes
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Is there any active plans for the LSPD to work along with Gun Stores in handling weapon transfers to another person? The UCP is supported for it, yet my requests to even speak to FLD have gone unnoticed (and yes, I know you're extremely busy at the most of times) | Also, reassuring to see LSPD come into the store once in a while, thank you to the officers that came in yesterday ? 

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It would be nice to see cops just interacting with people more rather than sitting in their cars waiting for the next call.

 

Quite a few times I've seen cops pull into the Mirror Park parking lot in their car, have a look around whilst staying in the car and then driving off.

 

And like the above poster said, checking in on businesses, maybe even going into food stores, coffee shops etc and buying some food or a coffee whilst on duty.

 

Simple day to day roleplay I guess is what you can call it. For me personally I've not seen it, and yes I know just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean that sort of RP doesn't happen.

 

Yesterday I had a nice interaction with two cops regarding my none emergency call, I remember one being called Anthony Hill I believe? And another have some... let's just call it unique last name... (Minninnewah) they stayed around and chatted and I dunno it was just nice.

More interaction like that or just a general check up, having a laugh with civilians would be nice, would also come off IC'ly that cops aren't just robots waiting for the next pursuit or shootout.


I also do question the amount of units used when in a car pursuit, sometimes it seems a little excessive when you see 4+ cars chasing one person.

Edited by Jura
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9 minutes ago, Jura said:

It would be nice to see cops just interacting with people more rather than sitting in their cars waiting for the next call.

 

Quite a few times I've seen cops pull into the Mirror Park parking lot in their car, have a look around whilst staying in the car and then driving off.

 

And like the above poster said, checking in on businesses, maybe even going into food stores, coffee shops etc and buying some food or a coffee whilst on duty.

  

Simple day to day roleplay I guess is what you can call it. For me personally I've not seen it, and yes I know just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean that sort of RP doesn't happen.

 

Yesterday I had a nice interaction with two cops regarding my none emergency call, I remember one being called Anthony Hill I believe? And another have some... let's just call it unique last name... (Minninnewah) they stayed around and chatted and I dunno it was just nice.

More interaction like that or just a general check up, having a laugh with civilians would be nice, would also come off IC'ly that cops aren't just robots waiting for the next pursuit or shootout.

 

I run the MRCAD division Smokey mentioned above and we have patrol that are geared for interacting and chatting with you guys around the city, checking in with businesses etc, You likely seen a couple of them on bikes at the beach party at the weekend. I have some ideas in place that will make this more of an active RP experience for you guys and hopefully this will help what a couple of you guys have said. I'll look into this today.

 

As for walking into coffee shops etc. Something I like to do when we are not too busy (and when my partner doesn't randomly tells me that he suddenly doesn't like tacos! Booker!)  Hills and Minnie do a great job interacting with people (plus points attempting to spell that name btw!) . 

Edited by Cascade
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16 minutes ago, Mitch said:

Is there any active plans for the LSPD to work along with Gun Stores in handling weapon transfers to another person? The UCP is supported for it, yet my requests to even speak to FLD have gone unnoticed (and yes, I know you're extremely busy at the most of times) | Also, reassuring to see LSPD come into the store once in a while, thank you to the officers that came in yesterday ? 

 

I'd like to say yes but on the regular for now it's a no: It's not tenable for us to do it with the current amount of manpower we have on a regular basis. We kind of.. monitor it in the background right now and that's about as far as we go. That doesn't mean however we're not interested in helping out with this aspect of firearms sales. My suggestion is you reach out to James Wilson (FullyCanadian) who's our Bureau Commander for Administrative Services either on the forums or on Discord. If for whatever reason you cannot reach him, feel free to reach out to me and I can kick it along down the chain.

 

Regardless of us being available to do it all the time, I'd love to see a conversation about this being started up somewhere so we can explore what is tenable for us to help with.

 

14 minutes ago, Jura said:

It would be nice to see cops just interacting with people more rather than sitting in their cars waiting for the next call.

 

Quite a few times I've seen cops pull into the Mirror Park parking lot in their car, have a look around whilst staying in the car and then driving off.

 

And like the above poster said, checking in on businesses, maybe even going into food stores, coffee shops etc and buying some food or a coffee whilst on duty.

 

Simple day to day roleplay I guess is what you can call it. For me personally I've not seen it, and yes I know just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean that sort of RP doesn't happen.

 

Yesterday I had a nice interaction with two cops regarding my none emergency call, I remember one being called Anthony Hill I believe? And another have some... let's just call it unique last name... (Minninnewah) they stayed around and chatted and I dunno it was just nice.

More interaction like that or just a general check up, having a laugh with civilians would be nice, would also come off IC'ly that cops aren't just robots waiting for the next pursuit or shootout.

 

 

You'd be surprised how many faction members I witness on the daily doing exactly what you said: And that's for both ends of the spectrum. I see people who always try their best to interact with anyone and sometimes some people just kind of sit in their car shooting the shit. Like I said in the original post, the reality is that I cannot oversee every individual interaction my faction members have and on the other end, they don't always NEED to get out of their car (for valid IC reasons) as well.

 

All I can say is that we from a leadership perspective always encourage our faction members to get out there and interact with players in a passive manner as much as they do in active ways. However like I said, it is impossible for us to control the movements of our individual faction members 100% of the time all the time. Zani (Hill) and Griz (Minninewah) are two examples of wonderful guys who always go out and represent our faction to the best of their ability, and trust me, there are many more where that came from.

 

Sometimes though it is simply not tenable for people to get out of their cars to talk to everyone all the time. There can be various IC reasons for this and being low on units is a big one of them. If you do notice however that there are police officers in the game hanging around ignoring your interactions purposely on an OOC level and then speed off with sirens on, I do encourage that you reach out to one of the faction leaders (that being myself, roozles or kilerbite) and actually report it, or reach out to members of our middle management who are also perfectly capable of dealing with those issues. If you don't bring it up, we don't have the chance to give that person feedback and nothing will ever change. To reiterate once more: There are a lot of people in our faction and it is impossible for us to oversee all their interactions all day long.

Edited by Big_Smokes
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For sure it's a two way street and it's also down to the individual player. I know leadership can't keep an eye on each member with a faction of your size.

 

But for me personally the whole general interaction is my only gripe with PD.

And the pursuits, are there some protocols in place to have more than 4+ cars in a pursuit? That does sometimes feel a little overkill for one person.

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I would obviously like to see more liaison with the press, it can be offputting finding an interesting story and by the time a statement is possible, it's 'old news', while @Cascade knows how much I appreciate the effort they put into our roleplay, they can only act as the press officer for scenes that they've seen, overall, as boring as it may be, I really would like to see officers outside of MRCAD react to requests from MRCAD and get those press releases out and get those statements to the press. We're infinitely dependent on each other to either advertise the work you do or to get interesting stories that actually have an impact on the macro-world and the immersion we have from it.

 

Great work with the police, it's a benchmark on how a legal faction should be run.

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7 minutes ago, Jura said:

For sure it's a two way street and it's also down to the individual player. I know leadership can't keep an eye on each member with a faction of your size.

 

But for me personally the whole general interaction is my only gripe with PD.

And the pursuits, are there some protocols in place to have more than 4+ cars in a pursuit? That does sometimes feel a little overkill for one person.

 

Uhh, without giving away too much about pursuit protocol. We have two terms here that are important: Pursuit and pursuit line - the pursuit line is what we call the string of vehicles in the pursuit. Depending on the amount of available resources the number of cars directly in pursuit may differ. The amount of total cars involved also depends on a whole host of criteria (shooting at cops will result in more units being requested as backup, etcetera). I cannot give you cold numbers as I don't wish to publish our precise tactics of dealing with pursuits, but we do aim to not have more than 3-4 units in the pursuit line if not necessary.

 

As for general interaction, you're thinking about this wrong. It sounds to me like your perception of the PD is as if it's one giant entity and everyone is the same. Just as with all the other factions on the server, you will have different interactions with all different faction members. They may share a uniform but for some people that's all they share. Some will ICly be positive towards you and others will not be. It also really depends on how you interact with them. If I misinterpreted what you said, I do apologize, but a lot of people have the tendency to overgeneralize the faction. In general we encourage our officers ICly through the mantra of CPR (Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect) but their response to you will largely depend also on how you approach them or what area you're in.

Edited by Big_Smokes
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