LSPD, Realism & My Removal

[Flemwad]

5 minutes ago, Kenshi Haroku said:

  

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. 

This is exactly the truth. You had to experience it first hand by being in the faction. His actions didn’t impact or hurt the people on the outside. It hurt the people on the inside. 
 

These changes that are mentioned were something that we were already moving to as a faction. People went from LT to Police Officer II merely because they weren’t friends. People had OOC targets on them. For a lot, it felt less like a game and more like a beached. 

[Entity]

15 minutes ago, Paris said:

Rhonda Williams here. I've been in this faction since 2018 and done LEO roleplay since 2007. I was one of the deputy chiefs who resigned in solidarity when LSRPs admin team made a decision like the one taken here to remove a Chief of Police without consulting faction leadership, simply because they had a strained working relationship. Spontaneous removals never work out. They cause instability and mistrust. Before yesterday I felt like I could approach LFM but seeing them take this decision in the manner they've done leaves a sour taste in my mouth which I had hoped to never experience again.

 

My faith in the admin team is shattered and i'm not sure i'm willing to invest more of my free time to keep my little corner of the PD running when everything can be upended like this.

I also feel the same and I am sorry to do so. GTAW has a lot of potential but if all efforts are backed up by shady decisions that can't even be talked about under the umbrella of 'bashing' then it might all be for nothing. I'm merely a faction member in SD, not PD, but seeing someone who's done and invested so much into this be tossed away in seconds has gravely demotivated me. I will personally take a break for now and see what's what - spending hundreds or thousands of hours into developing a character that can get tossed away might not be the best idea. If this happened to a faction leader and, if it weren't for this topic, would've went unnoticed, just imagine what can happen to normal players.

 

13 minutes ago, Sharvit said:

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. 

 

You warned people against bashing each other two sentences before you directly bash PD leadership. I don't think that's fair. I also believe that an issue as big as you're describing had to have been highly documented before it led to making such an important decision so, for the sake of the transparency that's being thrown around, I don't know why all of this evidence wasn't made public. So far there's a few people vaguely defending a decision while a lot more are bringing up specifics. You guys should just release the evidence you used to make this decision and show people your point of view?

[lux]

Having heard many horror stories about PD recently from members of the faction from P1 to Lieutenant regarding the upper "inner-circle" of friends, people being fast-tracked while other people in the faction were removed or demoted, I'm glad FM stepped in and did something if they thought there was an issue. The amount of resignations from long-standing community members speaks volumes IMO. Cascade, for example - long standing community member, long standing PD high command, trusted admin - being OOCly demoted in favor of one of your friends fast-tracking the ranks because she was "too nice" as I've been told.

 

I have to say, considering the amount of LEO updates and mods that the server gets (even at the expense of ruining civilian clothing), I find it pretty inappropriate to say you were offered no support from FM. Having known Sharvit and worked with him closely, I know that he's not that type of person and tries to remain fair to all factions - but there's no denying PD gets favourably more support than any other faction on the server, so I find it pretty petty to try and put the blame on LFM.

 

The LSPD is a staple of the server, Chief's come and go. The faction has the advantage of not being able to be shut down by LFM because it /has/ to exist - many factions don't get that opportunity. So when decisions are being made that rub people the wrong way, you have to expect the backlash. Not saying you did no good but clearly the bad decisions and lack of communication did more harm to the point of FM deciding they wanted a replacement.

Again, just what I've been told over the past few months but seeing the resignations of certain community members who committed thousands of hours to PD along with the removal - this seems to have weight.

 

This comes across as a Donald Trump move, in all honestly.

[rams]

I've done it all— illegal rp, legal rp, Sheriffs and Police— experienced different styles and different goals. Whilst you might not have been the most transparent person one hundred percent of the time (no one is), I'm always gonna respect you, your team and the fact that you didn't backtrack on your dedication to making Police something bigger of a picture than you, the STAFF members, a new recruit or I as individuals. The faction'll outlast us and the best thing you can do for it is leave it in better quality and better respected by the community than what you take the reigns of it as.

 

It's like you said, a faction like the Police Department is made up of 200 something people with different goals, ambitions and ideas— things get heated and people burn bridges. It'd be nice for everyone to get together and be pals but it's just not going to happen and never will. People like myself embraced the changes you made toward emulating the LAPD, others hated it, but everyone's gonna have preferences to what they look for in this game and try to burn you at the stake no matter what you choose to do.

 

The Sheriff's Department & You thread really showed just how far our faction has to come from the impact it's been having on the community; people were very unhappy with the ethics of the Police Department and it showed— that's fine, I agree with the points made, and we need to be better. Saying that, I'd really thought this year would be enough time from appointment to where the STAFF team had got settled enough to really start making that change. Now this has happened and I don't know where it'll go anymore. Connor's fully capable and I know he'll do his finest, but this really is just a big blow and let down; felt like we were coming so far so quick from what was, and now it's been smashed to dust.

 

Not one for the ultraserious post but just wanted to say what I feel. 🤝 fellas

Edited January 11, 2021 by rams

[Copacetic]

I want to put my hat in this ring and say what may be difficult to be said. I as a faction leader supported Roozles as much as I possibly could. When that support become untenable, I made my concerns known to LFM through the proper channels. As a low ranking member of the PD, Police Officer III, I have never seen a policy change in this faction that was designed to assist illegal RPers or their RP. I have enormous respect for my fellow faction leaders and always put forward my best effort to assist them but, I can not tolerate what I see to be dishonesty. 

 

The changes that Roozles and his administration made to the Police Department were not well received by a large portion of the faction. Transparency didn't exist and people were often left in the dark, regardless of their rank or position in the faction. The operations section (patrol division) of this faction does very little to facilitate RP and character development. A large portion of this faction gets on, jumps into a patrol car, goes to pursuits and shootings, then gets off. The agency and it's leadership have not made any real visible effort, at least during my time in the faction, to really fix the patrol division. Faction members still act as robots, rollcalls are few and far between, passive RP isn't really a thing, and no real effort is made to fix the crippling mediocrity that plagues this faction.  

 

The training area of this faction forces members of this faction of the rank of Police Officer III and above to participate in training, regardless of their interest in that area of the faction. These people who're forced to participate in order to move up don't have a vested interest in training, thus they don't give it their best effort. The side effect is that officers are not well trained in this agency. The training program is convoluted and encourages very little character development. It's just a check list. During my time in the agency, I have not seen one initiative by command or higher to rectify this shortcoming. 

 

On a number of occasions I have heard members of the command and staff team spew negative rhetoric about the illegal RP community. I will not name them on this post, as it's not important. What I will say is that I don't think that the intentions were really as noble as some might like to portray. 

 

I wish Roozles, and whoever else, the best of luck in whatever they choose to do. I just felt that I needed to point out how I felt. Please understand that I am in no way attempting to bash anybody with this post. 

[Entity]

1 minute ago, lux said:

Having heard many horror stories about PD recently from members of the faction from P1 to Lieutenant regarding the upper "inner-circle" of friends, people being fast-tracked while other people in the faction were removed or demoted, I'm glad FM stepped in and did something if they thought there was an issue. The amount of resignations from long-standing community members speaks volumes IMO. Cascade, for example - long standing community member, long standing PD high command, trusted admin - being OOCly demoted in favor of one of your friends fast-tracking the ranks because she was "too nice" as I've been told.

 

I have to say, considering the amount of LEO updates and mods that the server gets (even at the expense of ruining civilian clothing), I find it pretty inappropriate to say you were offered no support from FM. Having known Sharvit and worked with him closely, I know that he's not that type of person and tries to remain fair to all factions - but there's no denying PD gets favourably more support than any other faction on the server, so I find it pretty petty to try and put the blame on LFM.

 

The LSPD is a staple of the server, Chief's come and go. The faction has the advantage of not being able to be shut down by LFM because it /has/ to exist - many factions don't get that opportunity. So when decisions are being made that rub people the wrong way, you have to expect the backlash. Not saying you did no good but clearly the bad decisions and lack of communication did more harm to the point of FM deciding they wanted a replacement.

Again, just what I've been told over the past few months but seeing the resignations of certain community members who committed thousands of hours to PD along with the removal - this seems to have weight.

 

This comes across as a Donald Trump move, in all honestly.

Having an inner circle is not necessarily a bad thing? I am not in the faction but I've been back in 2017. I've been in multiple LEO factions on both GTA W and LS-RP. Every single leadership has an 'inner-circle'. Every single leadership had an inner circle. The leadership that will be appointed now will also have an inner circle. The question is whether everyone will be directly involved in this inner circle - that's how people deem it acceptable or not. A leader has people they can count on and that's the only way productive work gets done. Being thrown into a new position and forced to cooperate with people you don't know, barely know or maybe even don't get along is one hundred percent going to lead to a big nothing.

 

It's true that most of the people who are against this decisions were probably in or around this inner circle, while most of the people who are against the decisions are the ones who had to lose something because of this. People seem to want a perfect faction that reaches all of its objectives in half the time while pleasing everyone. That's just not possible.

 

I'm very sure that a few people in this topic are objective about this situation and that's sad from both perspectives. Subjective leadership never leads (or led) to anything good.

[Undead]

9 minutes ago, lux said:

Cascade, for example - long standing community member, long standing PD high command, trusted admin - being OOCly demoted in favor of one of your friends fast-tracking the ranks because she was "too nice" as I've been told.

this. 

 

Nobody turned on Roozles because of his decisions suddenly during his time as Chief or because he wanted more realism. It was them vs the people they forced out for their own choices from the very beginning, when those people worked and deserved those positions. I never once submitted a report as I personally witnessed nothing that would deem one, but there has been numerous instances in which I knew someone who did and they were absolutely right to do so imo. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Undead

[Trupiano]

It's incredibly disheartening to hear this especially since as far as I'm aware this is the second time in which changes were attempted to be made to PD and members within the faction basically threw a tantrum in an attempt to stop leadership/staff from making said changes. I was unaware that Roozles was making changes but I will admit, looking back on the last month or so I was impressed by the changes in attitude I was seeing. Sad to hear that said previously mentioned group still has it's claws in PD.

 

Let's all be very clear, The Los Santos Police Department has major issues with P2W mentality. It's not all of PD, but there are plenty of very active member who's OOC distain for Illegal RPers blatantly bleeds into IC. Those players are an active cancer within the faction that will only continue to cause larger and larger rifts within the community. For as long as those players are allowed to retain their position within the faction, their bitter and jaded attitude towards criminal RPers will continue to effect more and more people. 

 

There are no doubt bad apples in the illegal community, but at least we have the honesty to admit it and we actively try to correct those within our ranks who have cancerous mentalities towards RP. The same can't seem to be said about PD. 

 

 

[Kenshi]

1 minute ago, Undead said:

this. 

 

Nobody turned on Roozles because of his decisions suddenly during his time as Chief or because he wanted more realism. It was them vs the people they forced out for their own choices from the very beginning, when those people worked and deserved those positions. I never once submitted a report as I personally witnessed nothing that would deem one, but there has been numerous instances in which I knew someone who did and they were absolutely right to do so imo. 

Absolutely, the cascade story that 99% of the community never heard about is another perfect example. 

I was horrified, and I still to this day feel so sorry for cascade. 

[zaXer.]

From the view of the leader of the biggest security faction on GTAW;

 

A lot of changes were mentioned here that happened, however;

The people (civlians, non-PD people) do not see the changes. The civilians see what happens, not what is written in the PD manuals.

Something that brings a huge negative boost to this is the constant uploads by PD employees of pursuits on youtube and streamable, which clearly show PD members driving unrealistically and ramming cars like it's a toy game.

Now I'm sure that most of this is most likely against the rules already in the PD manuals however seeing the freedom that officers feel with uploading those videos, they must feel that they will not get punished.

 

The other big problem that I face is the lack of will of LSPD members to roleplay basic police calls (trespassing, vandalism, public disturbance calls, etc). Calling 9-1-1 over a trespassing person results nowhere close to the result you get from calling 9-1-1 and saying 'shots fired'. The reaction from PD is much different on both calls, while yes - a trespasser does not require half the police department to fly over, it should at least result in 1 unit to come and see what's going on, rather than having to call 9-1-1 multiple times and end up with SD coming most of the times.

This is also noticed from the Sheriff's Department very often, but less than PD. Sheriff's who arrive at those calls are visibly bored as hell and not interested in servicing the call, however they at least arrive, and quite frankly - it's boring to respond to calls like that IRL too and there's no interest in them (i'm a police officer irl), so the portrayal is right by SD.

 

The other problem I see is the lack of continual in situations. You call 911 and report a shots fired situation, etc, units arrive, everything is good so far. The situation end and everyone quickly begins to disappear out of thin air and nobody spends time picking casings, collecting evidence...even the basics. The units just hop in their cars and clear out, leaving 50 bullet casings on the floor, witnesses not interviewed, not even taking any statements, etc.

 

While those are the issues I mentioned, there's lots of good sides that I like, and most notably that's the fact the LSPD we have right now is much more reliastic and proper operating to real life than any other PD faction I've witnessed and took part in (including LSRP).

 

It's a fact that PD is moving to a better than what it was 2 years ago when PD used to have Schafter V12's and the chief of police uploaded bikini photos on facebrowser.

 

This is not a post to bash anyone in PD, but rather outline the most biggest issues that the normal player sees. I'd like to state once more that currently the police department is in a much better state than it was before.

Other than those issues I see nothing else wrong.

 

There's a lot of good roleplayers in PD and people who have impressed me with their interest in roleplay. But I've also been in situations where peope just dont care.

 

This reply has nothing to do with roozles but rather the faction image from a normal player perspective. I'll repeat again before I get bashed - things are so much better than what it was before. There's a slight room for improvement but overall the faction in my opinion is doing quite good. And really, all of those issues are issues from years, and you cant just hop as a newly assigned faction leader and fix everything instantly. 

Edited January 11, 2021 by zaXer.