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LSPD, Realism & My Removal


roozles

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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.

Edited by roozles
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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.

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There are a number of things that I want to say about the current events in the Department. I am currently a faction leader (Michael Briggs) in the LSPD and have been continuously backing roozles and the majority of our Command Staff in an attempt to remove unrealistic aspects of our faction, such as high-speed interceptors, overuse of airships, generally poor and unrealistic character portrayal from police officers and so forth.

 

Over the past few months, these are all things that were clarified to us by the community (many of them illegal role players), e.g, the play-to-win attitude shown time and time again by police department members. Myself, the majority of Command Staff and roozles himself were appointed with the mandate to revamp the Department, remove poor role players, and change the mindset of the faction to focus entirely on a realistic police agency, providing quality police role play for this community.

 

This was no easy feat — the faction currently comprises almost 200 members, each with differing ambitions, goals, problems, ideas, and visions for the faction. Many of these faction members were stuck in a vision of the faction that is no longer applicable, where faction members are allowed to provide an unfair experience to illegal role players and focus entirely on winning. Naturally, many of our changes were met with fierce retaliation, resulting in an often overwhelming number of reports. Many of these reports were based around the fact that we were removing the 'fun aspects' of the Department (such as focusing on shootings, pursuits, and other unfair aspects that impact illegal role play). Of course, this was not the case. We were simply attempting to revolve the faction around PROVIDING fun aspects for illegal role players as well, instead of claiming a 'monopoly' on the fun on the server. The truth is; the community responded positively to the changes, and the only individuals that were against these changes were those that feared for losing their unrealistic privileges within the Department.

 

Frankly, throughout our tenure, we received very little support from Legal Faction Management. Our attempts at improving the faction were met with disapproval due to the unrest it was creating. When changing the mindset of a faction, unrest is inevitable. It did not help that any removals or changes that we attempted to do were immediately met with an overwhelming number of reports from faction members that are stuck in the past. 

 

While aiming to transform the faction into something able to provide realistic and unique police role play, we simultaneously wanted to ensure both administrative and operational excellence. This was something severely lacking in past administrations of the faction, where the aim was only to please existing faction members in achieving whatever they personally wanted, with zero acknowledgment for the wants of the larger (illegal) community.

 

Know that this removal, while it may seem insignificant to many of you that are not in PD, will achieve nothing but going back in time, causing only instability and chaos to a Department that badly required a clear direction and stable leadership. We had a large, stable team that backed a faction leader in achieving a faction direction that would ultimately lead to good role play for the community and a fair experience for illegal role players, which was severely lacking in the past. 

 

Be that as it may, it has become clear to myself — and dozens others, both in low and high ranking positions in the Department — that all of our time and efforts to genuinely improve the faction have been wasted. Legal faction management, server management and many faction members have no interest in improving the faction, or backing any leadership that is willing to take the necessary steps to achieve a realistic police agency that is capable of providing good and realistic role play. Instead, we opt for continuous instability, and allow external individuals with no faction leadership experience and clear bias to determine the future of one of the largest factions on the server.

 

I regret that this community, despite having good initial intentions, has turned out to be the exact same as LS:RP in terms of management.

Edited by Briggs
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I am part of the Police Department and a platoon leader in LSPD Metropolitan Division, specifically I run D Platoon (SWAT).
 
The truth is this: Metropolitan Division has, for a very long time, but much less so under roozles, existed to turn into an overpowered entity that is focused on winning / play to win aspect, and not on creating a realistic and fun environment for the faction and illegal role players. We have been trying to change this for months, but with over fifty faction members that are in Metropolitan, and almost two hundred in total that are largely stuck in the past, this was almost impossible without overwhelming complaints.

 

What we were proposing, with roozles' guidance and vision, was not absurd. We wanted to REMOVE an overusage of tactical elements and  constant tactical deployments for a lot of warrants and general deployments, this will allow the general uniformed Police Officer to handle which is a more realistic approach to start with. We wanted to create a good environment, compromising of quality role players, with a stable leadership and high faction standards. But this inevitably meant that we had to remove a lot of things that were perceived as 'fun', like deploying the BearCat (armoured vehicle which was recently added into the server) along with the usage of automatic rifles which are now heavily restricted to SWAT only thanks to the STAFF mindset. The entire aim was to focus on a more realistic but balanced system to give everyone a fair and fun approach in long term. 

 

Additionally, I began to push for more realistic portrayal for SWAT. I currently have 8 confirmed SWAT and yes I want it to grow a little bigger, inducting quality over quantity approach was my first order of business which personally came from STAFF. This has always been the case and my STAFF Team were all in favour for, they kept me guided towards a better path for Metro as a whole. Right now, Metro has been the best it's ever been, plenty of people coming and going but the mindset has began to shift towards a more realistic approach. We finally had an active STAFF team where M Platoon (Metro leadership) were in constant communication with for guidance and support for a better approach to things, scratching out unnecessary paperwork, having people consistently training, patrolling and general realistic RP. Plenty of issues are still within the Division but the mindset was defiantly changing for a better future, there was light ahead. 

 

The removal was surprising to everyone actually, no one knew of this. Sadly, this isn't the first time it's happened and it's shocking to have it again as we the PD finally achieved the initial foundations of a stable leadership with a GOOD vision for the community. I truly believed this was the first STAFF Team that has actually aimed for a better balance for the faction and the community, not just a PD play to win mindset.

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It is not a secret that a lot of people in the LSPD do not favor these realism changes. I was personally targeted at least twice on public mediums for my involvement in suggesting and attempting to create a better faction and a better relationship with the community.

 

These are all my views and are not meant to be an insult to anyone or provoke anyone.

 

I'm gonna be using LS-RP a lot as an example regarding this. The LSPD on LS-RP, just like World, also started out with a "fictional" non-realistic mindset. The roleplay was not favorable, there was a lot of play 2 win policies, and overall a lot of issues with it. The LS-RP mindset was forcefully changed to a more realistic mindset, which caused a lot of controversy, but to this day, the LS-RP LSPD strives while portraying the Los Angeles Police Department and prioritizing quality and fair police roleplay to their community.

 

I do believe that the LSPD on World is following in very close footsteps of the LSPD on LS-RP. There is a lot of controversy regarding realism changes, even though a lot of factions, including, but not limited to, other law enforcement agencies, street gangs, organized crime etc. are all based on real gangs/organizations and strive to portray those real gangs and organizations as closely as possible.

 

A lot of people in the LSPD are stuck with an old mentality that originated in the LSPD of LS-RP. And obviously, when trying to change that to keep up with the current climate & the direction that the server is going in as a whole will naturally create tension and controversy. But what people do not notice is that these realism changes are not just about us as LEO's or members of the LSPD - it is about the community as well. The rest of our community strives to portray their respective real life counterparts to create a immersive and realistic atmosphere, close to that of Los Angeles which Los Santos is based on. 

 

I and a few people have been personally trying to make changes by creating suggestions which have created a lot of controversy. And I can understand why people do not like the changes. It is simply not the mindset they are used. I can fully relate to it because this is how I felt when I first joined the LSPD. I had a realism mindset which I had with me back from LS-RP, and coming here? It was just entirely different and something I wasn't used to, or necessarily enjoyed. So I understand the concerns here.

 

But when the rest of the server is already moving into this direction of realism and portrayal of Los Angeles, it only makes sense that we, as the largest law enforcement faction, follow suit to make sure that we keep up with the roleplay standards of the faction and are able to provide the expected amount of quality and realistic roleplay to other members of our community. 

 

It is unfortunate that this process, which so many people put a lot of effort into, was cut short. 

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I always wanted to play a game that portrays the real life and follows our day to day activities, especially of a Law Enforcement Officer. Quoting my colleagues, we don't strive to win every situation we get involved in and this shows how much we care about the community's well being and the environment that's around it. No matter how this thing turns out, I will definitely continue to portray my character based on an LAPD officer, either when on or off duty. 

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I have a lot of concerns and I am rather unhappy. I am disappointed in a number of things that happened and the way they happened, and I do not believe things were done correctly, justly or in a way that is conducive to good conduct, stability and quality.

 

I'm sorry, I don't have a way of phrasing that more constructively, as I believe there is little constructive to be said about the entire process. It is not, and was not,  acceptable. 

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It was disheartening to see a faction leader removed who strove to implement further realism changes. It is critical that law enforcement factions push for realism, with a focus to provide quality role-play and making encounters both enjoyable and fair. Law enforcement has an important role in the community and we need to make every effort to push forward.

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