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To the Community, Yesterday, I was removed from my position as Chief of Police by Legal Faction Management after having been appointed Chief of Police on the 21st of August, 2020. This has come off as a surprise, especially after I was given the opportunity to create my own team only two months ago. During the past two months, our goal was to create a realistic department based on the Los Angeles Police Department and remove aspects which are unfair to illegal role-players within the community. I am more than aware that the faction had a bad reputation under different leadership and policies, which is what we were trying to change, instead creating a role-play environment that's enjoyable for everyone. This change started off with small details but quickly led to bigger, more impactful projects including revamp of IC callsigns, policies and procedures that led to unfair LEO advantages and kept us from roleplaying a realistic police department (primary assignments, stopping unrealistic repetition of Miranda rights, etc.). However, it is clear there was still a lot of work to do, and this was only the beginning of the changes required. Those realistic changes were not "fun" and therefore were not popular within the faction, resulting in a good percentage of the faction turning against myself and the Command Staff team I had working on those changes. After a while, reports for all sorts of reasons started coming in against our changes and promotions which were necessary to change the faction in order to fit the standards expected by illegal and other legal role-players. I would like to mention that we wanted to remove the interceptors, boxing suspects in with our vehicles, fight the over-usage of Police Assault Rifles against suspects and limit unneeded paperwork to instead focus on role-playing. We also wanted to revise Field Training Program process for Police Officer Is to have a greater focus on role-play quality. During the course of us working on those changes, certain Legal Faction Management members who were apart of the group that did not like our realistic changes went out of their way to have other community members, "get shit on us," quoting a certain LFM member who spoke to other community members. I would just like to add how disappointed I am with this decision, due to the fact that we've been working so long on improving the general role-play on the faction, but Legal Faction Management and a vocal group inside the faction made it impossible for us to actually implement those changes, since we would 'remove fun elements of the game'. Many times, faction members kept bringing up the argument that illegal role-players were not that good at role-playing, therefore we shouldn't improve. This was used repeatedly as an excuse to hold onto overpowered and unrealistic advantages that we were trying to remove. I disagree with their argument. Instead I believe that illegal role-players are good at what they are doing and they deserve a police faction that is willing to let go of high speed vehicles, unrealistic handling of situations, unrealistic policies and instead focus on what actually matters: provide the community with quality police roleplay instead of treating illegal role-players as suspects out-of-character. I believe that as a police faction, we are not here to win every situation, but instead should provide a fun and enjoyable experience to illegal - and legal - roleplayers. It is very disappointing, to say the least, that a significant portion of our faction members do not see role-playing a realistic character and police officer "fun" and would rather spend their time crafting reports on myself and my team. The repeated insistence of overstepping faction leadership and immediately reporting to legal faction management only served to undermine the attempts to improve the faction and hold members accountable. The thread that was posted by Legal Faction Management does not accurately explain why I was removed. This thread did not provide the promised transparency, but instead talked over a significant removal of a faction leader without any explanation at all. To this point, faction members and the community as a whole have yet to be informed by LFM of why I was removed. I wish no unrest to come out of this thread, however, I would like to clarify what happened and want there to be proper transparency to the community as a whole. Lastly, I would like to mention that due to the mishandling of the situation by faction management, I do not have any intentions of returning to my previous position. I merely want realism to thrive over the 'play-to-win mentality' that is still too prevalent, and for stability to return to the faction.

Mostly everyone above is a member of the clique. It’s a group of individuals that hang out in a locked channel and seldom speak with anyone outside of their group, minus a few who are perfectly fine. All policies changed weren’t bad and I can’t dispute that. I’m only speaking about the conduct OOOCLY. We are a roleplay server after all. You immediately implanted primary and secondary assignments which was a disaster from the start. Low level people, outside of your clique, began to see demotions. Secondary assignments or assignments not see as “important” were neglected. As a result, people left those areas for the primary assignments. Then there’s Marquis Wilson. I’ll try to remain professional on this subject, but he was known to be on a fast track up. In fact, I recall management stepping in because he was skipping ranks. The same was done for the inner circle people. The issue and why I believe their removal is justified centers on their OOC conduct. They didn’t act very Faction Leader like. They ignored people and simply attended to their agenda. They only cared about people in their group and it can be seen across the department. The fifty+ complaints were not a mystery. It was a faction in turmoil. I applaud server management for taking the appropriate action against them. While I think it was delayed a bit too long, it’s nonetheless greatly appreciated.

I tried to avoid this thread and just let wherever the wind blows to hopefully flesh this out to a respectable level, but it's only been degrading farther into something I cannot simply standby and not give a reply. As someone who has been here since 2018, working from my positions in this community including one of faction leadership of which I am (with the exception of I believe Roadtrain), one of the longest serving government faction leaders still currently active in this community I believe this gives me a rather unique faction leader perspective into events that transpire from above down to the rank-and-file membership of these factions. Let me just start out with saying, I'm extremely disappointed. This thread, extremely disappoints me, and not for the reason you may believe. I won't address the internal PD "realism," arguments because frankly they're tiring and every single person has a different version of what that even really means to the point it's not worth an argument. People will have opinions there, and they will fall where they may. Here is what disappoints me about this thread. It doesn't provide a single solution to what is the grievance. Really, it doesn't provide a single one. So it brings the question of what the purpose here really is. This thread, is a pity party plain and simple. Orchestrated as a group of dissatisfied individuals (rightly or wrongly), who are going to give a story most favorable to themselves for others to buy into. The Los Santos Police Department is one of the worst factions on this server. I believe the numerous general discussion threads, and private messages I receive from players across this community this is damn near indisputable and I for one won't defend it like it's not true as I never have. Now is this Roozles fault? No. It's been made that way over a long string of decisions over multiple administrations of this faction, and I have been one of the people on the forefront of attempting to change the culture (And still trying to change it.) That being said, there's a difference in how we go about it. Regardless of decisions made, if you truly care about the faction you would try to bring as much unity to the faction transition as you possibly can even if you hold private reservations. This is how governments have to handle transitions, for that same exact reason (US currently is an exception to the rule atm, but still.) Not a single reply from the original posts lend support to the new administration. Not a single reply from the original posts are encouraging to lower ranking members of the faction who simply want to enjoy their roleplay. Not a single reply from the original posts are here to stir confidence. The only thing this thread is here for, is to stir dissent. And this, is why I am most greatly disappointed. And if I were to go further, I would hope that if I ever did something like this in relation to my own faction towards LFM or Management in this manner, I would hope they would have the balls to remove me so fast and take away all my positions and @Notbond, @Nervous, @Sharvit can quote me on that and save it for future reference to show I'm not bullshitting. This is a time where we should be lending as much support to the LSPD as possible, in this transitionary period. Yet all that is being done, is an airing of dissent with absolutely nothing positive added to the conversation. If you want to fix/help the LSPD fix it's problems, be a part of the solution. Actually propose solutions that will get the faction to the state you wish to see it. Don't go through a mass pity party, gathering all your group of supporters, to then just disclose your grievances publicly simply for the sake of. @roozles, I say this with the greatest amount of respect to you as a person as I attempted and was working with you on improving this faction and have received praise from you for it, but if you seriously believe this was the correct way to handle this situation regardless of anything else, you deserved to be removed and honestly banned from gaining any faction leadership position in the future and anyone in high-ranking positions who followed deserve the same treatment. I am so disappointed, as I have defended quite a bit, but this is intolerable. And to those outside of faction just tuning in, simply ask this question. "Do you really think anyone willing to simply go about business in this manner, was truly the right choice for a leadership position of any kind?" My answer to that, and I'm willing for everyone to know it, is absolutely not. And that's all I have to say, as I will take further messages in my discord or TS if anyone wants more.

Hey guys, As of lately I haven't really been posting any messages on this thread as I was busy with changing things internally and I haven't really been keeping an eye on the general forums. With that being said, it was my last day serving as the Faction Leader of the LSPD. We attempted and somewhat managed to accomplish a few goals we outlined in the past and attempted to meet the community's demands to portray a more realistic police department, compared to what we were in the past. It was a tough road internally and it is quite hard to change the mindset in a faction with over 150 members. We still got a lot of support and I would be lying if I said our roleplay improved a lot. Every faction has its bad apples but the image is important and we weren't there yet. I do know a lot of faction members tried to change this image and tried to be a more approachable and realistic department from a community POV, despite what some faction members internally wanted. I made an agreement with Server Management to accomplish this goal with their support and they have given me the chance and space to do so. I do want to thank @Nervous and @Notbond for the chance they gave me to lead this amazing faction and I want to give a special thanks to @Jester. for all his support, guidance. I could always rely on him and he was and still is a great help towards the faction. Continue what we started and don't let our work go to waste.

Well, well, well. I spent my last 3 months being spammed by "apparently 100 members" resigning if Roozles remains chief. Where are they now? Where are the 50+ complainers who spammed LFM with reports, stressing everyone out for? Suddenly everyone loves Roozles. @roozles you know I respected your work to change the realism in PD and I hope the next leadership will keep doing the same work. It is extremely important to improve illegal roleplayers' quality of RP when it comes to their interaction with PD. I can't thank you enough for all the hard work and pressure you've been under the past months, despite this unfortunate ending. I'll not comment more about this as it's not really something I followed much this time, but turning this thread into a "FM removed me for my realism actions" is really a shortcut that disappoints me. We both know that wasn't the case, and it's a big middle finger to myself and others who did our best to work out the issues the past 3 months while keeping you as Chief. I spent countless hours on this, so honestly I expected more honesty from you here.

Hello. I will be starting this message with a warning to everyone. No direct bashing at anyone will be allowed. I suggest everyone to think twice about what they are going to post on this topic. As we all know how this is going to turn out, a topic where supporters and non-supporters of past leadership will bash each other, so I highly suggest everyone not to. Legal Faction Management leadership have decided to change the current LSPD leadership due to many reasons. The current leadership has proven itself borderline impossible to work with and denied any sort of co-operation with LFM. Complaining that LFM did not support the faction is basically being a hypocrite. LFM members supported this faction above and beyond, spending all of their free time, till early morning times, to deal with every issue that raised up from and about the faction - all of this while getting zero support and respect back from the leadership. A change was due to be done for a long time and was always delayed in order to give plenty of more chances to the leadership to correct itself. I can keep going, showing proofs, pictures, or whatever but I won't lower myself to the level of this topic that really has no intention. A reason was asked and a reason was given. I wish Roozles the best of luck with whatever he does and hopefully, he'll understand that this is a game and that no action is a personal one. Roozles was absolutely not removed as a consequence of his push for realism or his changes. Legal Faction Management is still committed to progressing many of the changes that Roozles' had begun and will work with the new chief to see those realised.

@RaniHaMagnuv @Santiago @geckolol

3cd6ce8e8e043436fa73e4385b4d513e.mp4

AS VAGOS WE ARE UNIQUE, THE OPEN ROAD BENEATH OUR FEET. THE BROTHERHOOD, OUR FAMILY, AND FRIENDS KNOWING WE'LL BE THERE TILL THE VERY END. SOMEDAY, WE'LL ALL TAKE THAT FINAL RIDE, OUR VAGOS BROTHERS BY OUR SIDE. NOW AS WE RIDE, THERE WILL BE ANOTHER IN OUR PACK, AND ONE ABSOLUTE LAST FACT, GOD WILL NOW HAVE ALL OF OUR BACKS. FOR IT'S IN HIM NOW WE PLACE OUR TRUST AS WE TRAVEL THIS ONE LAST PATH, IT'S A MUST, FOR HE NOW SHARES IN OUR 22 TRUST, UNLIKE BEFORE, WE ALL KNEW WHO WE COULD TRUST. MY VAGOS BROTHERS, AS WE REACH THIS GREEN WORLD'S END, KNOW IN YOUR HEART, WE WILL MEET ONCE AGAIN. SOMEDAY SOON THE THUNDER WILL ROLL AS VAGOS RIDE DOWN THOSE GREEN STREETS LINED WITH GOLD. WITH WIND IN OUR FACE, WE'RE ALL FREE AT LAST, THE TROUBLES HERE, ARE NOW ALL IN THE PAST. WITH OUR VAGOS BROTHERS ALREADY THERE, WE'LL ALL MEET AGAIN, AND RIDE IN GREEN ETERNITY, PEACE IN THE WIND. RIP EDDIE ARYAN EMERSON LVDV

For one, a serious roleplaying community doesn't need an 'IC emoji' to 'bash' other players. We can use our words. If someone is roleplaying an LS native, it's perfectly fine to ask where a common area is OOC because their character would already have that knowledge. Asking about buying silencers in an Ammunition is also completely incidental and takes nothing away from roleplay. You'd Google this information in real life without ever speaking to anybody. Serious roleplay isn't about dogged adherence to the server rules. I'm totally against extremely petty and litigious enforcement in a way that does nothing to enhance roleplay.

There's many other ways to gain money or control over a business other than telling them to pay you ten grand a week or there's gonna be damage done to the owner or the business. This is the most lazy, short-termed and boring way I can ever think of when it comes to extortion. It is also the best way to attract unwanted attention from law enforcement. Let's say it's a bar, which is the most typical business on the server. Instead of getting paid ten grand a week for doing fuck all and provide zero roleplay for anyone else than the guy picking up a few wads every friday, you could start befriending the owner, familiarize yourself with the business and the people coming in and out before anything. This bar requires a few things to operate, which any organization could offer to cover. Anything from supplying a bar with stolen liquor or bouncers, dancers, whatever your organization has to offer can be a potential win-win situation and will create roleplay for more characters. All of a sudden there's multiple links involved around this bar, that could generate weeks or even months of roleplay and development. If we keep ourselves trapped in the mindset that extortion is "pay me or this.. and this..- will happen" mentality, anyone should be embarrased to call themselves an organized crime group.

FEW DAYS LATER FEW HOURS LATER LATER THAT NIGHT ONE DAY LATER FEW HOURS LATER I still remember the days I prayed for the things I have now.

Can we talk about the irony that the person making that post is the person that was fast-tracked into Cascade's position and is now Deputy Chief? I hope the community don't fall for these sob-stories or misinformations. Would be a good outcome to see him also offered the same demotion as Cascade, see how he reacts. Wonder if he'd write the same sentiments about himself? FM made a decision with Nervous - there was a reason Roozles was removed. Don't let his Donald Trump attempts of being a martyr and kicking up a storm actually work on you. Trust the staff who make these decisions as they actually want what's best for the community, not a clique of friends.

They gave Roozles multiple chances to improve and handle things more transparently. If the changes they wanted to see weren't being made and the impact was negative, what're they meant to do? LFM did their job. That's literally a part of their job. Removing faction leaders for a number of things. Faction leaders can't be untouchable and we are answerable to LFM/Server Management. We can't just do whatever the hell we want and get away with it. LFM did their job. You don't have to like it, but they did their job.

To clarify, I'm Marquis Wilson; I'm a PD faction leader, currently assigned Chief of Staff, which encompasses the general OOC and IC quality control of the faction, including approvals for promotions to any supervisory or command position. I've been in this role since the start of January 2021. I'll start off by saying that this has caught me by complete surprise. As someone who has worked tirelessly alongside roozles these past few months to improve the faction — from making quality role play our number one priority to killing the mentality of "let's go in game just to shoot people and get into pursuits" — I am incredibly disappointed by how impulsive and unreasonable this decision is. Just yesterday, myself, roozles, and every other Staff Officer (excluding connor) partook in a meeting with a group of faction members that wish to establish a police union, providing additional role play opportunities. The meeting took five hours; but we did it because we wanted to improve the faction. As a server management team that loves to flaunt their dedication to transparency, it is now obvious to me that that's just a mere PR move. Not a single member of PD faction leadership was informed beforehand about this decision, nor were any attempts made to ensure a smooth transition to new leadership. We found out about roozles' removal through the public announcement, which, as most have seen, provides absolutely zero information on the circumstances of his removal. It is clear to me that the legal faction management team has little to no care for the stability of the faction; they've done this and they're going to turn their back on the faction. It's up to connor now to figure out how to fix it. I expect he'll burn out within a month; not that he isn't already burnt out. Frankly, it speaks volumes to the intentions of those responsible for this decision, and sends a clear and unmistakable message to us and the rest of the community: the primary aim of a law enforcement faction leader should be to ensure his own faction members have fun — measures designed to hold people accountable for poor role play quality, to maintain and increase standards, and generally ensuring the faction runs as it should, are all secondary to this. Such and other attempts to restrict the unrealistic perks, power, or authority of police are frowned upon by many, including server management, with zero considerations of fairness and equality given to the rest of the community. After all, it appears the amount of fun the police department has takes precedence over how much fun everyone else in the server has. I say all this as someone who has been part of the faction for well over a year, and as someone who has over five years of experience with police faction leadership on role play servers. I've seen it done well, and I've seen it done poorly. I'm not going to pretend the faction is in a good shape right now, because it isn't. But it's something that takes time to fix. The previous administration, and evidently the administrations before them, cultivated a culture free of accountability or standards. This has been instilled in faction members for many years now, and I can't even begin to tell you how many faction members have reported me for not approving their promotion just because they've met technical requirements such as length of service or a position — even when their role play was incredibly subpar, they had a play-to-win attitude, or they generally were just not good at what they were supposed to do. But in previous administrations, the sole requirement to advance was that you had to stick around for long enough and not get disciplined. This is exactly how the faction has ended up where it has been for the last few years. I've always been of the opinion that people should advance in the faction based on merit; that is, they are capable of providing high quality role play, and don't just meet the 'minimum' criteria inherent to their role, but go above and beyond in improving the faction in a variety of ways. After all, a city police department faction plays a key role in contributing to the overall role play standards of the server; no one wants unrealistic cops that lack accountability. Yet when we've tried to enforce this standard over the last few months, the number of reports to legal faction management has skyrocketed, and, wouldn't you know it, the server owner has stated the LSPD "isn't a friendly community anymore due to these changes." We and the community are placed into a lose-lose situation. I'd also like to touch upon the fact that server management has publicly announced they have indeed identified a group actively trying to "coup" current leadership. Well, surprise surprise, one of the individuals confirmed to have participated in one of many attempted coups has filed his reinstatement to the faction 2 minutes after roozles was removed. It's incredibly obvious this is an orchestrated political move with the sole intention of establishing faction leadership that will refrain from fighting against unrealistic role play, and instead continue to perpetuate and facilitate poor (role play) standards in furtherance of faction members having fun. After all, that means far less people in PD complain to legal faction management, and everyone — besides the community, of course — is happy. In any case, it's clear that our efforts to improve the faction were in vain. There is no interest in it on part of server management, legal faction management, or a large proportion of PD faction members (though not all). The way this was done is reminiscent of the LS:RP style of management — see Surreal and krisk — and we've all seen where LS:RP is today. I truly hope management acknowledges how impulsive and unreasonable this decision was, and will take a different approach going forward; otherwise, I would not be surprised in the slightest that this community will end up in the same spot as LS:RP.

The Aftermath

I really don't understand why this thread was created. It showcases a false narrative that he was removed or was getting pushback for the changes he was implementing and that is simply not true. I have been fortunate enough to learn of the inner workings behind the scenes, specifically with LFM, leadership and regular officers and it wasn't pretty. So to feed this narrative and put the blame on us is quite disappointing. To allow people outside the faction to bash us when they had no idea what the atmosphere inside was like is also unacceptable.

If you want to throw mud instead of taking against advise on the basics of organized crime, that's up to you. Even if I had $100,000,000 in my bank account I would never hand it out to someone who claims themselves to be peacekeepers of the neighborhood and try to pull off an extortion in less than ten minutes. My character is a leaseholder of a dealership lot, does that make him a millionare? No. Does my character wear the cheapest looking suit? Yes. He's a salesman. Is it unrealistic to invest money into a bar after I had to close my dealership for a good while due to this situation? No. One of the customers at my lot, Adam Hilt, pushed Aerin away. The result of this incident; As you can see from the video, I was simply defending my property and I don't believe I was unreasonable. Four against one, and Aerin opened fire on me while I sent one to Grgur's knee. I wasn't ever going to publish this video since I thought you had learned that it was such a poor attempt, but since you have a need to dig into it I only feel it's reasonable everyone gets to see the story behind your comment.

Your character Robert Bonfiglio has Steals and Deals dealership with vehicles worth $100,000. On top of that you have over $1M in the bank and there you are bartending in a bar that is not yours. Your 'mobbed up' character wears a suit, but asspulls guns and kills people at his own business lot during an opening. He even comes back later to clean up the crime-scene and get rid of any evidence. [21:39:37] Robert Bonfiglio says: Two whiskey's gonna be 600. So much from your extortion roleplay:

Your credibility went out the window when your mates posted long-winded replies within moments of your post. Stop trying to sway others and cause divide. The decision was made. There is no coup.

Fucked up. Still editing. I have to sadly agree with this. I respect the good that was done, but it's far overshadowed by the bad it brought with it. Flemwad wasn't joking. A huge amount of people felt underappreciated, and rightfully so. Favoritism was/is rampant, and if you aren't conforming to "their" norms, you're left out in the cold. People who spent over a year busting their asses to get places were thrown back to favor those that did conform. Rather than accept the fact people are inherintly different and accept that, along with the fact that people have their own personalities. Those same people were ostracized internally and put on a black list. Who's only offense was being different and not sharing the same ideologies. People who aren't in the faction will almost never see or hear this. People that complained, people that wanted to change things, people that had their own idea's to improve the faction that didn't correspond with "their" view. People that prioritized fun. Those were all ostracized, and yes. I'll say it. Bullied to the point where the only option left was to leave the faction all together. 3/4th of the resignations the past weeks, disguised as "Work suddenly increased. School suddenly started, Priorities suddenly changed", were all disguised reasons to not further add to the drama, been told so one-on-one nearly every time. There's no denying positive changes were made. But again, far overshadowed by the negative things brought forward. The rank & file (taking up majority of the faction's slots) were ignored, same people being promoted each week. List goes on. Back in Smokey's day. We had a thing called "Chiefs hour" or something similar. Where Smokey'd invite everyone in his office at once, and hold a civil discord on what people's grievances are. Immediate issues that need resolving, thoughts & opinions. Ever since Smokey left. None of that. I tried approaching people multiple times, and I rarely if ever got a reply back. Claiming transparency and being pure & innocent, but at the same time only talking and interacting with the same friends group, behind locked doors.

NEXT STEPS

NOT EVERYONE CAN BE A BIKER

David "Kushi" Mosley. Curtesy of social media.

Mildred after extensive research into the gang scene:

Problem is that if you roleplay a legal character, the risks of getting caught with drugs on you are too big. You create bonds with people, friendships, stories that goes a bit deeper and to then throw it all away just to get a quick ride to prison where then you don't have anyone to RP with since there is almost never anyone in prison doing any type of roleplay. But with that said.. On my older DJ character I roleplayed taking ecstasy for almost every opening I did a gig for as well as had a shit ton of weed at my house for afterparties and such. Why I never got caught is that I opt out of very obvious /me's and instead opted in with some mannerism changes based on the drug I was taking. Those who knew the character would pick up on it and it would be roleplayed. Also, if you can't DJ or don't even want to try and DJ live, don't do a DJ character. Easy.

If only there was a rave. I went to an "underground" club and David Guetta came on. Pretty sure that's the one and only time I felt physical pain from playing a video game. The scene is just not up to par. Only club I feel as worthwhile is The Crypt. Other than that, the whole scene feels lacking. Nobody's drinking, nobody's really doing anything, it's mostly a venue people go to and chat while listening to music. *shrug*

If you're not speedballing while tripping on acid are you even at a rave

"im legal character, drugs illegal"

((Soon to come))

Back In Town (回到城里)