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The Sheriff's Department And You II


Wildcat

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3 minutes ago, Zach.. said:

Why were you removed in the first place? If the reasons for removal were so egregious that Nervous himself wanted a full removal, why would you be put back into the same position that you were removed from? I mean no disrespect and am genuinely asking.

 

From Nervous and posted publicly on the SD forums:

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Hi everyone, as it seems many of you are shocked and do not understand what's been happening in the past days.
I'm going to put some transparency on what happened and why it happened, then I'll debunk some information that were shared and weren't complete or weren't true.

During the past two months, feedback was gathered and still is actively being collected throughout members of the Staff & Sheriffs Department faction members on how to discuss and improve the situation for the better of the Sheriffs Department and the Community as a whole. The problems that we brought forward and that were brought towards us in the past two months ended up becoming worse. Some of these examples included encouraging toxic behavior, promoting friends, ignoring reports on members, and other situations that were brought up privately. The mass resignation of members at the beginning of May forced Management to start wondering what was happening internally, so Shanks and I contacted Banks & Jonesy. This is where the narrative that you have been given over the past few days will start shifting, as you can see by Jonesy, despite being a good friend of Wildcat, also recommended a change of leadership within the LSSD. I've always fully trusted Jonesy with our past discussions and he has always defended Wildcat within his term as the Sheriff. So naturally, seeing his process of thought change about the situation, meant a lot for me: https://i.imgur.com/gWyjlUl.png

Following this message, LFM which was represented by Banks responded that they did not trust Roske to be the Sheriff due to past abuses (and other issues that were brought up to us today), and that he thought we should keep working along with Wildcat (https://i.imgur.com/TOIJKDe.png, https://i.imgur.com/uFVvewA.png, https://i.imgur.com/H2Cmlen.png). We then had multiple detailed discussions about Arkan's removal, jail changes and then the subject of leadership came once again towards our plate following confidential problems that were raised by an individual who was very close to Wildcat: https://i.imgur.com/wPHjpxL.png. We also discussed that a Sergeant without experience isn't going to help fix the issue.

This is where I expressed my opinion that I would vote for a leadership change, and where Banks also agreed that he wasn't against it. I mentioned that we should invite more people to discuss it that we had a common trust in and who had current experience within the LSSD (admins & Strobe) as these people would keep on-going discussions confidential (Jonesy wrongly understood it as "Putting them in power", but as you can see the messages were not intended this way. In this screenshot, it shows Jonesy's own intentions in asking Wildcat, Keane, Adio to resign and possibly keep Chaika and Lambchops. Shanks and I **never** asked for Jonesy to remove Adio, Aces or anyone else that was removed yesterday. This decision was 100% done under his own discretion, and as shared with Aces earlier, his name wasn't even brought up in any of our discussions. Management was not aware of these removals being done and did not request any of them. I hope this clears up a false narrative shared by others around the community."

We all continued to bring up our concerns about Roske to Jonesy who denied it repeatedly: https://i.imgur.com/AbLWDmF.png : You can also see here Jonesy saying he was the one who was lamenting about SD's state for the past few months, and he was also the one who did bring up some concerns first (we never asked him to originally) to become Sheriff (or have Bospy) if there is no other option presented: https://i.imgur.com/wkqbV9f.png. Since issues were continuing to be brought up about Roske, I personally recommended Strobe to become Sheriff after being trained as his behavior was perfectly fitting for the position, the issue was however the inexperience in the position altogether: https://i.imgur.com/L8pR07Y.png : You can once again see in the screenshot provided that Jonesy is sharing his own opinion that Strobe and Roske should lead the Sheriffs Department, and Banks suggesting another leader.

Then Banks asked if we should remove or demote Wildcat, and as you can see, Jonesy fully laying out his new leadership plan for the faction presented in this image: https://i.imgur.com/AXwRJfp.png. Then, Jonesy himself, after now considering himself the approved Sheriff said he will conduct major changes by himself without giving us more information, which everyone trusted him to do and agreed as we all thought it would best to leave the freedom to the new leadership and to be able to manage their own team: https://i.imgur.com/UpHR4ze.png : We were obviously not going to pick members by members and rank by rank, who was going whereas the faction knowledge wasn't in our direct hands (Shanks and I).

Once again, just before Jonesy was going to announce the changes, I brought up another concern about Roske seen in this screenshot; https://i.imgur.com/6rpsbzW.png : Which was once again brushed away. Jonesy announced these changes and put up very concerning messages as. As you can see in my screenshot, Shanks and I didn't participate as much in these discussions and put our entire trust into Jonesy's knowledge of the Sheriffs Department and for him to do what's right. He was given all the cards and we even followed all the advice that he presented to us until the very end. We even ignored the remarks about Roske because he claimed it wasn't true.

Later I found out that Jonesy wrote a completely different narrative in the various chats, as you can see this is what he wrote :
https://i.imgur.com/Fc9NwSN.png
As you can see, most of the message is completely false.
1) : this wasn't the hardest thing he had to type, since it was his decision.
2) : Nervous and Management never decided to execute removals on a large portion of the CS/ES teams, he asked for it himself.
3) : He was not approached about it, he decided all the decisions. He was invited at minute 0 into all our discussion about it.
4) : We never recommended any outsiders, as we even didn't even recommend any name.
5) : He wasn't asked to return as Sheriff, he asked himself
6) : It wasn't against his better judgment and at the detriment of his mental health, since the suggestion wasn't even brought up on our side until he asked himself to become sheriff.
7) : He did not prefer every single alternative to this happening, as he suggested this decision himself and took it.
8): His hand was never forced, Shanks or I never forced any single decision in this whole discussion as you can see, we even barely suggested anything or talked in it.

Since the message was a lie, I immediately contacted Jonesy because I was really shocked : https://i.imgur.com/twSwFL2.png
I explained to him my concerns and he just said he "typed it up in his car", which made me even angrier as the excuse made no sense at all.

So, I tried to dig it up more and I thought "well, it must be a strategy of him". As you can see in my message to him, it shows full transparency that we did put all the power in his hands because I did not feel right to take the decision of a leadership change for SD since I did not know the faction well enough: https://i.imgur.com/5bzP594.png

I felt extremely betrayed (even more today but I didn't expect it to go worse), and told him in honesty that I was no longer trusting him at all and was considering removing him from Sheriff. As you can see in my last message, I still told him I would give him the opportunity to handle it because I trusted his knowledge.

I also mentioned that if I removed him now, everyone would think it was because he did tell some dark truth about management forcing his hand on the removals & on becoming sheriff, and since I had no will to throw him under the bus back, I wasn't going to start a truth fight by sharing all the screenshots to show that he did lie, which means that in any case, we would look bad whereas we weren't responsible for it. Which ended up still something I have to do today since things went worse.

It isn't my way to work to go on a faction forum and put internal management / faction management screens public, but this is the first time since the opening of GTAW where I truly feel betrayed by someone I 100% trusted and appreciated as an administrator, two times in two days. I am a forgiving person, and as you can see in the screenshots I ended up still letting him run his operations as Sheriff despite the obvious lies that he wrote yesterday which ended up in Management receiving a lot of bad messages, myself included. I feel that this time, you all deserve to see my truth and how I lived through this change. My truth maybe isn't the truth you want to accept or wanted to see, but this is the one that I'll use for the next days to go forward and take the best decisions. At this point I don't know if it was all a scheme to get a specific player as Sheriff and I was fully lied too even further, but I want to believe Jonesy did all this because he just wanted to protect his friendship with players he liked a lot but didn't share their way of handling the faction, and that he did break down under the pressure. I feel very bad having to make a post that goes so much againt Jonesy, but I had no other solution today and I do apologize to him for this.

As for all the removals and shuffles that were performed today under his 1 day sheriff reign, they'll be canceled until a new leadership comes in. The new leadership will be given the freedom to handle their members and if they think a specific member must be removed for inactivity or whatever good reason it'll be their call, not mine to make. Some removed members might also be part of that new leadership, nothing is decided yet.

I'll now fully take the matter in hands myself to come with the best possible decision for SD's future, all the decisions taken until now will be fully reconsidered as I was mostly lied to.

 

Edited by Red.
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7 minutes ago, Junx said:

Maybe don't kick people from your discord for ooc reasons when they have an ic reason to be there.

The command member who kicked you is no longer among us so you should be good to join the discord if you have a reason to be there, please do note that we do not engage with any outside agencies in an IC manner over our discord, so there are not many IC reasons to be on there.

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Just now, Wildcat said:

 

It appears that Nervous was misled by a certain former member of the administration team. Ultimately, based upon resounding feedback from members of the LSSD, the decision was reversed. That being said, we are keeping an open mind and willing to accept any feedback to make the faction better. 

I appreciate the reply. If I had any feedback from what I've encountered, be more open. Like someone else said it seems that SD's ES is very "my way or the highway". I won't go into specifics but that's my general feedback, be able to work with others, admins/factions/players.

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This is not specific feedback though I do have a general question. Given the recent events, are there any plans for reconstruction or change within the faction or will things stay much the same?

Edited by josef
rephrasing
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Just now, josef said:

This is not specific feedback though I do have a general question. Given the recent events, are there any plans for reconstruction or change within the department or will things stay much the same?

 

In terms of structure, things will remain the same. The 'temporary' administration proposed several unlearned, inexperienced proposals (e.g. combining Recruitment and Field Training, two units that are hard enough to run independently - much less together!) that would have not worked. The current structure is not perfect, but it functions enough to allow leeway for changes as need be.

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2 minutes ago, josef said:

This is not specific feedback though I do have a general question. Given the recent events, are there any plans for reconstruction or change within the faction or will things stay much the same?

 

Blasted by Nervous like a second after you posted that:

0S1gMtP.png

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5 minutes ago, Biscuit said:

Nothing but constructive criticism from my end in that case, I'm not really looking for a response to my points, I'm more-so pointing this out as a "Hey, you can improve on these points".

 

The most heard about issue from my perspective is corruption issues, both IC and OOC, in a way where apparently it had gotten to a point where the SAGOV Senators were somehow having issues and filing complaints on individual deputies. One issue that I've heard of is apparently someone leaking complaints, granted it wasn't an IA complaint, but a complaint regardless, be it either in OOC channels or whatever, a supervisor leaking complaints basically. There's also been complaints about individual deputies thinking they're untouchable and pretty much throwing all logic out the window when it comes to speaking with people (basically speaking to people in a rather demeaning way). I don't have any concrete examples, but enough people have been talking about these individual instances for it to somehow be known to me.

 

I've also, personally, witnessed issues with cooperation for certain other factions, or rather, lack there of, it shows that the department is heavily lacking people designated for Public Relations or rather Department Relations, being in LSFD myself, I know that a lot of people in LSFD are quite unhappy with the general lack-of-cooperation the SD has shown for certain things, but when asking people, nobody was able to cite me certain examples so take what I said with a pitch of salt and boil it down to what I said originally about having people responsible for Public Relations. I dunno how much on the scale of realism the LSSD is trying to copy the LASD, but I highly doubt any Public Relations Division would allow a Sheriff to put another department or office on blast on social media or via any press releases, as it only hurts the department more then anything else.

 

I don't know the reason for the mass-resignations, I don't know why everyone instantly tried to re-instate as soon as you got replaced, but honestly, I highly suggest looking into those issues, from an outsider, it honestly seems very sus that it had happened, but I suggest talking with some of the people, 1:1 on Discord, getting their feedback and looking into improvements via their feedback, and I'm not talking group chats, that's not gonna get you anywhere really.

 

Take this as a single post, I'm not trying to put LSSD on blast, this is mostly stuff that I've heard from people roleplaying with LSSD so I'm unsure how accurate any of this is, I've attached as many suggestions to all of the issues to hopefully help your leadership, good luck!

 

EDIT P.S. I do actually appreciate the fact that you've opened up this thread for criticism, although it'll most likely be locked due to some people not providing actual criticism and just bashing the department cause you're in it. But regardless of it, it shows that at least you're looking to work on these issues.

Firstly, thank you for the reply, I will try to answer each point step by step.

 

As for the corruption issues, it is no news that we are open to a rougher type of of character roleplay than some other factions on the server. This being said, we still try to keep everything to a reasonable level and usually do not condone blatant hostility. The complaint sent to someone's supervisor being leaked to them was deemed acceptable within this scope, even if it might not be entirely within policy. We are also not opposed to the idea of deputies being demeaning, seeing not every law enforcement officer will be a nice felllow.

 

On the LSFD-LSSD relations front, I understand that some circumstances (including the ones outlined above) helped create friction between both departments. I would personally believe such friction is acceptable, as long as it does not devolve into any proper corruption (neglect of public duty, outside physicial hostility et cetera) or OOC hostility. Any incidents were either of those two conditions are breached can be reported to me directly.

 

We're also always looking for new public relations personnel, although motivation for said positions does not seem high within the faction. Regarding the part where the Sheriff put other departments on blast on social media, you can chalk this down under IC politics or power plays, The real life Sheriff of LA County frequently blasts the District Attorney's office over social media as well, even going as far as using the department's official account.

 

As for the mass resignations, a lot of those people left in solidarity to some we remove for (rightful) reasons. As regrettable as this might be, we do have standards to uphold and can not stop people from choosing where they roleplay. We have also seen an incredible spike in reinstatements since the weekend, with plenty of people being willing to still reinstate into the faction after we were returned to faction leadership. We are very happy to see these people back, and not worried about numbers at all.

 

Once again, thank you for the criticism. I hope my explanation helped clarify your points.

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2 minutes ago, lambchops said:

The complaint sent to someone's supervisor being leaked to them was deemed acceptable within this scope, even if it might not be entirely within policy.

 

Just to clarify here, being leaked OOC is considered fair by you guys? I'd understand if a person had told someone "Hey, there's a complaint on you filed by this and that person.", but taking an exact screenshot and then posting it into discord group chats without previous RP in regards to it is considered fair?

 

That's my concern here that I was trying to outline, but I'm unsure of the circumstances of what actually happened, however, that's what I've been told has actually happened by multiple admins, LFM and the people that complained.

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Just now, Biscuit said:

 

Just to clarify here, being leaked OOC is considered fair by you guys? I'd understand if a person had told someone "Hey, there's a complaint on you filed by this and that person.", but taking an exact screenshot and then posting it into discord group chats without previous RP in regards to it is considered fair?

 

That's my concern here that I was trying to outline, but I'm unsure of the circumstances of what actually happened, however, that's what I've been told has actually happened by multiple admins, LFM and the people that complained.

I was under the impression this happened on an IC level, if it didn't: No, that's not okay. I am fairly sure those involved are no longer in the faction however.

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