An Interesting Post on the Daily Cal Liveblog

I like his mention of the origin of Coffees popularity..

"As one of the officers who will be called in if things go wrong I would like to make a point.

I checked my riot gear last night and packed it in the trunk of my car. The same car that took my 15 year old to school today. The same car that took my 18 year old to UCB to register for classes. The same car she occasionally uses to get to school. And yes, I am paying her tuition. I am not happy with the %31 hike either.... However:

Rioting, burning, and the other versions of civil disobedience is not going to help the cause. Think of this, if I get called in today either to UCB or as a backfill for those that are called to UCB I will get paid my overtime rate of $60 per hour. Multiply they by oh say 100 officers are called in to UCB and 75 are called in to backfill. Those officers are working for lets just say 10 hours. That is $60,000 that UCB is required to pay the outside agencies to pay for these officers. And that is not including supervisors pay (up to $100 per hour OT for a Capt) feeding the officers and associated transportation costs. (around $7000or so) Now factor in EMS and Fire standby you can add another $5000 to $7000 if not more. Now that is roughly $75,000 for one day! And don't forget utilities workers, garbage workers and so on. BTW, I am sure my estimates are low ball figures too.

And if a officer, EMS, Firefighter gets hurt, guess who pays? Workmans comp will go after UCB to pay the bill, and they will pay.

Now factor in the damage done, someone needs to pat for it even if its insurance. Breaking the storefront of a Starbucks may make you feel like your protesting, but what about the employees of the store. They are most likely about your age and maybe even going to UCB. That will be the ones who clean it up or maybe be off a day without pay because the store will not be open. Lets not even talk about the mom and pop store that gets hit, that is a worse problem because the money will come out of the store owners pockets. But they will lay a claim against UCB and win, because UCB was the root cause of the problem.

Now its fine to protest, this country is based on protesting. The fact our national drink is coffee is a throwback to the 1770s when drinking coffee was a protest against English Tea. The public views a riot negatively, and they should. But think, who is going to pay for this, the public taxpayers. If there is a referendum to fund UC System they will remember come voting time.

It only hurts your cause (and mine, remember I am paying this too) when the protest turns violent. While I believe in the cause, if need be I will do my job and go home.

As a matter of fact we in LEO say our only job is to be safe and go home to my family.

And if you just dont like cops, dont call us."