Amend the cop killing rule

[Conwell]

Hello.I’d like to speak about the cop killing rule.

Recently I have had too many cops messing with my gangster character with pure disregard for their life. From pulling a 3 deep car with gang members in the heart of their territory in an alleyway alone over an expired license, to calling gang members CIs in front of their homies when they’re not that, to breaking up 13 man brawls on their own and then standing there to talk shit back when it did break up, diving head first toward the shots being fired while being completely oblivious of the fact that they're in a gang hood.

It makes one wonder. Do they do it because they think that gangsters are pussies or is it because they know they can just chuck up a report if a gunfight happens, pull out their baton if a fist fight happens and catch you if you try to evade in a car because they got both fast cars and air support as well as access to a voice chat channel on teamspeak? Would this be something that could be addressed so that we even out the playing field? As it stands currently, you are unlikely to kill a cop whatever the case is, unless you are in an active shootout and they pull up. This is purely due to that cop killing rule standing in the way and protecting the LEO Roleplayers from legitimate kills. The rule has no exceptions, no scenarios where it is plausible to kill a cop (as it would be the case IRL) nor anything that makes any scenario where you can shoot at a cop possible unless it's life or death as it is. Taking advantage of their poor tactics (pulling people over in a death trap such as an alley, getting killed for throwing wild informant accusations you know for a fact are not true etc). Let’s even out the playing field and do something with this rule so many cops have in the back of their head and know can protect them. My goal here is NOT to expose LEO Roleplayers to meaningless shootouts that used to happen over the smallest things (traffic stops, weapon possession) but just to encourage a change and put a stop to the lack of fear that a very small amount of them does, instead of having to individually go through the hassle of reporting, arguing in the report, uploading evidence and whatever else would take me away from the actual gameplay that I am here to experience.

My suggestion is adding a clause such as “Exhibiting behavior that is unusual for a police officer (corruption, blatant disregard for their safety, malicious targeting of non LEO players) are an exception and cops may be killed over it if the reason provided for the killing is sufficient.” With that, of course, we would create a little problem of misinterpretation of "blatant disregard for their safety" so examples of what is NOT disregard for safety would need to also be added. Those would, in my opinion, be public traffic stops, patdowns in proportionately same numbers, house breaches with 4+ officers etc.

I'd love community insight from both legal and illegal Roleplayers.

[Irrtadum]

well, there have been CK's on peace officers in the past for disregarding their life, several times, if you see someone doing that you can try and push for a ck if they blatantly disregarded their life

 

and in regards to the 'rule' cops get shot at for nothing sometimes, so it's a massive case by case and rulebreaks should be reported on both sides tbh

[Farrell]

It's definitely an issue for both sides as mentioned. While I do agree that there can be an increase in cops acting untouchable, it usually just takes one person to either get punished for it or CKed for it to quieten down again, it's something that repeats itself. Only thing you can really do is report it in game to admins and also to their faction leadership, they're obliged to look into it if you complain formally and if they don't/you feel misled, LFM's your next step. 

 

Only thing that could really be done right now is internal faction announcements from LEO factions regarding fearing their life and particularly how they roleplay around those who RP in a gang for example. That whole brawl thing you mentioned has been punished for countless times in the past, granted it is as plain as described with the LEO RPer putting themselves in a dangerous situation by approaching a brawling group without backup then there shouldn't really be a question about whether they're roleplaying fear properly or not and legal faction leaderships usually do recognize this.

[Helm]

The rule doesn't protect LEOs from the consequences of their own actions in regards to some of the things you said. The only one that would sort of protect them is the traffic stop scenario because it's the most blatantly law enforcement related, and least likely to lead to serious consequences for anyone unless someone's stupid. It doesn't need to be escalated into a killing just because you can. Even in the situation that the driver or passengers are asked to step out of the vehicle for an obvious pat-down and someone is armed, those characters can just run for it, in the car or otherwise. Or, they can stay for the roleplay. It doesn't always have to just resort to killing... But, also, in that regard, if the LEO is dumb enough to do that without getting someone else there to help them, then there's obviously prime opportunity for an escape or worse. Cops are still shot plenty for things like that, and I don't think anyone would find it reportable in that specific scenario, except maybe the LEO if they're upset. An admin would likely trash it, though. I've seen it happen countless times. LEOs who put themselves in bad situations are to blame for their own actions, particularly if they don't even call for help.

 

Moving on, obviously, if a LEO is coming after your character for killing someone during a shootout, you can shoot them. Anyone can. It's not even worth mentioning the shootout is in a gang neighborhood, because they almost all are. There's also nothing stopping a group from teaming up to beat a LEO down in the case of this random brawl situation you're talking about. The rule says you can't kill them for no reason - not that you can't jump them for being dumb enough to break things up on their own, and get out of their car while doing so. Just keep in mind that, as with any situation, killing should be the last resort.

 

The rule doesn't need to be amended. Everyone should just use common sense. If a LEO is doing something to specifically target your character in the fashion you seem to be worried about, they can be hurt or even killed in-line with the overall deathmatching rule. Calling someone a CI in front of their fellow gang members would lead to serious consequences, just not from the police - the rule already gives you some leeway to determine what "serious consequences" means for your character, after all. Any gang member worth their salt would try to go after that cop, and would be justified in doing so.

 

The rule is there, specifically, to protect against the first resort to a traffic stop or a pedestrian stop being to just pull out a gun and shoot whoever's stopping them. Even with the rule in place, this still happens - so I can't think any LEO is not somewhat aware that they could be shot at at any time.

[Conwell]

38 minutes ago, Irrtadum said:

well, there have been CK's on peace officers in the past for disregarding their life, several times, if you see someone doing that you can try and push for a ck if they blatantly disregarded their life

 

and in regards to the 'rule' cops get shot at for nothing sometimes, so it's a massive case by case and rulebreaks should be reported on both sides tbh

I’ve contacted IFM and asked about the rules regarding killing cops like that and haven’t been able to get a straight answer. That’s why I feel like amending this rule would be beneficial. To clear up confusion and stop those few bad apples PD and SD have from doing stupid stuff that would get them killed IRL but not in game due to the rules. If we are to strive toward immersion and realistic RP I think amending the rule would be beneficial to that idea. 

 

23 minutes ago, Farrell said:

It's definitely an issue for both sides as mentioned. While I do agree that there can be an increase in cops acting untouchable, it usually just takes one person to either get punished for it or CKed for it to quieten down again, it's something that repeats itself. Only thing you can really do is report it in game to admins and also to their faction leadership, they're obliged to look into it if you complain formally and if they don't/you feel misled, LFM's your next step. 

 

Only thing that could really be done right now is internal faction announcements from LEO factions regarding fearing their life and particularly how they roleplay around those who RP in a gang for example. That whole brawl thing you mentioned has been punished for countless times in the past, granted it is as plain as described with the LEO RPer putting themselves in a dangerous situation by approaching a brawling group without backup then there shouldn't really be a question about whether they're roleplaying fear properly or not and legal faction leaderships usually do recognize this.

I wish to clear up confusion with this amendment as I genuinely see how one would be confused by this rule and think killing them in a situation like that is against the rules. IFM members weren’t able to give me a concrete response on whether killing a cop if he calls you an informant is by the rules or not and therefore I can’t expect a regular player to know either. Only by clearly stating it in the rules can we avoid confusion and meaningless forum reports that would drag names through the mud over nothing. 

[Conwell]

12 minutes ago, Helm said:

The rule doesn't protect LEOs from the consequences of their own actions in regards to some of the things you said. The only one that would sort of protect them is the traffic stop scenario because it's the most blatantly law enforcement related, and least likely to lead to serious consequences for anyone unless someone's stupid. It doesn't need to be escalated into a killing just because you can. Even in the situation that the driver or passengers are asked to step out of the vehicle for an obvious pat-down and someone is armed, those characters can just run for it, in the car or otherwise. Or, they can stay for the roleplay. It doesn't always have to just resort to killing... But, also, in that regard, if the LEO is dumb enough to do that without getting someone else there to help them, then there's obviously prime opportunity for an escape or worse. Cops are still shot plenty for things like that, and I don't think anyone would find it reportable in that specific scenario, except maybe the LEO if they're upset. An admin would likely trash it, though. I've seen it happen countless times. LEOs who put themselves in bad situations are to blame for their own actions, particularly if they don't even call for help.

 

Moving on, obviously, if a LEO is coming after your character for killing someone during a shootout, you can shoot them. Anyone can. It's not even worth mentioning the shootout is in a gang neighborhood, because they almost all are. There's also nothing stopping a group from teaming up to beat a LEO down in the case of this random brawl situation you're talking about. The rule says you can't kill them for no reason - not that you can't jump them for being dumb enough to break things up on their own, and get out of their car while doing so. Just keep in mind that, as with any situation, killing should be the last resort.

 

The rule doesn't need to be amended. Everyone should just use common sense. If a LEO is doing something to specifically target your character in the fashion you seem to be worried about, they can be hurt or even killed in-line with the overall deathmatching rule. Calling someone a CI in front of their fellow gang members would lead to serious consequences, just not from the police - the rule already gives you some leeway to determine what "serious consequences" means for your character, after all. Any gang member worth their salt would try to go after that cop, and would be justified in doing so.

 

The rule is there, specifically, to protect against the first resort to a traffic stop or a pedestrian stop being to just pull out a gun and shoot whoever's stopping them. Even with the rule in place, this still happens - so I can't think any LEO is not somewhat aware that they could be shot at at any time.

I agree for the most part, and ai agree that the rule is needed. However the way it is worded completely removes any possibility of killing a cop if they’ve put themselves in a position to get killed, usually by disregarding their safety, or if they’re provoking and maliciously targeting an individual to get him into trouble with either the law or his own gang (legitimate investigations aside, I’m more so talking about IC grudges they may have against certain characters). I’m not saying we should kill cops without a reason, that’s DM but just that the rule should specify when it’s okay to do it unlike it does now. Right now if I were to kill a cop over that I would be breaking the rules and that’s not what I want. 

Edited January 20 by Conwell

[Helm]

6 minutes ago, Conwell said:

I agree for the most part, and ai agree that the rule is needed. However the way it is worded completely removes any possibility of killing a cop if they’ve put themselves in a position to get killed, usually by disregarding their safety, or if they’re provoking and maliciously targeting an individual to get him into trouble with either the law or his own gang. I’m not saying we should kill cops without a reason, that’s DM but just that the rule should specify when it’s okay to do it unlike it does now. Right now if I were to kill a cop over that I would be breaking the rules and that’s not what I want. 

I can agree with some clarifications about when it might be okay, specifically with some of the examples that've been brought up already. I'd specifically like it clarified that, yes, a group of 13 people can team up to beat up one cop if they so choose in that brawl scenario. The only thing I worry about there now that I thought about it some more, though, is that, the LEO would likely perceive that as a deadly threat and might shoot someone, which turns into more shooting... But, we can leave the specifics to the admins.

 

I can agree to some further clarification if it's confusing even the admins, though.

[Sebz]

Couldn't LFM and/or RPQM handle this issue? We can't act unless we're notified of these things on an individual case basis. I don't think a rule amendment is needed for a few bad apples.

[King of Idlewood]

16 minutes ago, Sebz said:

Couldn't LFM and/or RPQM handle this issue? We can't act unless we're notified of these things on an individual case basis. I don't think a rule amendment is needed for a few bad apples.

Why is making players go through a special process less complicated than just reporting them or taking it IC with a PK? Most people aren't going to go through the bother of typing up a whole private and easily ignored essay about how X cop did Y stupid shit even if it's ruining roleplay.

 

A rule amendment is the only thing that will actually prevent this behavior.

Edited January 20 by King of Idlewood

[mj2002]

14 hours ago, Conwell said:

From pulling a 3 deep car with gang members in the heart of their territory in an alleyway alone over an expired license, to calling gang members CIs in front of their homies when they’re not that, to breaking up 13 man brawls on their own and then standing there to talk shit back when it did break up, diving head first toward the shots being fired while being completely oblivious of the fact that they're in a gang hood.

 

Did you report any of this on the forums?

Edited January 21 by mj2002