JJB531

Okay, best of luck with your search.

Okay, Master, we've given you three agencies so far... TransCare, Empress, and SeniorCare. You can keep on asking "Who are these agencies" over and over again, and the simple answer is that any agency, any day of the week, will hire the right person if they come along and can benefit the agency. Since you insinuated that I may be out of the loop because I asked if it was that hard to get an EMS job, I'm going to ask you another question. Because you can't get hired, are you the problem or are the lack of agencies hiring the problem? I ask because it seems like there are plenty of places hiring (we already provided you with 3 places), but none of them want you. If you can't get hired by a commercial agency, I highly doubt any municipal/hospital based/voluntary system is going to hire you. I don't know your background or how long you have been a medic, but typically the way it works is you get your ALS experience first as a medic working for a commercial provider. After some time working for a commercial provider, these other agencies will consider you for a medic position once you have some experience under your belt. If you can't get a good reference from your one and only EMS agency you were employed by (TransCare), why would any agency hire you without knowing anything about you, your experience as a paramedic, etc.? Like Comical115 said, EMS around here is a small community, and everyone knows everyone, if not directly, then through 1 or 2 degrees of separation. I'm not trying to pick on you or put you down, but I'm trying to provide you with what may be a harsh reality. Once you make either a bad name or "no-name" for yourself by leaving places on bad terms, not having any ALS field experience, etc. it's going to make it more difficult to find an agency that is willing to hire you. Since you asked, I am currently employed by Ossining. We just picked up 2 or 3 new per-diem medics, all of whom have extensive experience working in other systems.

Correct I'm employed, and I'm hardly out of the loop. As INIT pointed out, numerous agencies are recruiting and hiring. You have asked about agencies in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. I find it difficult to believe that in a 3 state search you can't find an EMS agency hiring, especially considering the ever-so-prevalent high turnover rate with most EMS agencies. The agency I work for is a smaller agency in the grand scale and we've picked up several paramedics in the past few months. Just looking at websites for Empress, SeniorCare, and TransCare, all 3 companies indicate they are hiring paramedics and have online application features you can take advantage of. Have you been for interviews? Have you been offered employment anywhere and turned it down? Have you had someone in the field who you respect review your resume for you? Maybe he/she can offer some constructive feedback to help make you more of an appealing potential employee by restructuring your resume if you're having a difficult time getting hired.

I'm sorry, but I have to ask... Are EMS jobs that hard to come by nowadays? I only ask because you are always starting topics asking about companies/agencies for employment.

New York Daily News Article

Actually, overall the Law Enforcement tactics for a patrol response to an active shooter incident are quite similiar, with some minor tweaks here and there (without getting into specifics), so that's not really part of the problem. After Columbine, the Law Enforcement community established a standard for response to these incidents that most (if not all) local departments follow. The problem is the lack of integration with other emergency service sectors (EMS and Fire), lack of a uniform, across the board training standard for EMS, lack of a uniform EMS response standard to these incidents, and a general lack of general interest from the EMS community as a whole to "step up to the plate" to advance their capabilities at such incidents.

I'm going to slightly disagree with you about the Fire Based EMS systems, and only for one reason (unless you are talking about dual role providers in a fire based system). As firefighters, a part of the training is to recognize and mitigate hazards. As Police Officers, a part of the training is to recognize and mitigate hazards. Mitigating hazards is a routine part of the job functions of these two groups. EMS providers, not dual role providers, whether volunteer, career, fire based, hospital based, commercial, etc are trained to recognize hazards and then call someone else to mitigate them. Scene safety is drilled into their heads from day one of EMT training, and there is a reliance on someone else to mitigate problems they encounter. If the initial training provided them with the knowledge and their agencies provided them with the tools to mitigate hazards, you may seen a new-found sense of confidence among EMS personnel to more effectively calculate risk and mitigate hazards. Now other parts of the country, EMS providers are far more proactive and have the necessary training and tools to mitigate certain hazards on their own. Around here, very very few systems that are modeled that way exist.

Hub, the issue is that a casualty with an uncontrolled, life threatening extremity hemorrhage can exsanguinate within minutes if the bleeding is not controlled. These individuals can be saved if reached in time and immediate lifesaving medical care through the application of tourniquets and hemostatic agents are initiated. Law enforcement has a priority job to do at these incidents, and treatment of the injured is not an immediate priority. This is where EMS providers who have an expanded role will have the biggest impact in saving lives. Without someone to immediately tend to the injured, victims will die from injuries that could have been effectively managed in the field.

Lol, you're 100% right. HazMat is another one of those disciplines where EMS can and should be intimately involved in the warm zone performing triage, decon, and patient care... But you could offer a free HazMat Ops course for EMS that meets NFPA requirements and the turnout would most likely be poor. Kudos to Empress for their aggressive and forward thinking staff who sought out increased capabilities and have entered the HazMat world as emergency medical providers under the guidance of Yonkers FD.

Personally, I think the only thing (especially around here) that makes the integration of EMS into these scenarios difficult is the overall lack of interest/enthusiasm from the EMS community to take the time to attend training sessions and expand on their responsibilities as EMS providers. BNechis has already pointed out this issue in this thread; and what he says is 100% true. Whether it's a school or a supermarket, your EMS tactics really are not going to change much. It goes back to the line of thinking, "oh that can't happen here"; "we'll never use that training"; "that's not my job"; and so on.

With conventional pre-hospital medicine scene safety is the utmost priority. The idea is to take EMS providers and give them the proper training, knowledge, and equipment to operate safely in an active shooter/tactical environment. It's no different then having an EMS provider participate in a high angle rescue. Without the proper training, knowledge, and equipment it would be extremely unsafe. With the proper training, knowledge, and equipment you mitigate the hazards (to the greatest extent that you can) to allow the EMS provider to safely operate in that environment. The simple concept of providing the right training and equipment has worked for EMS agencies all across the country to safely (with regard to the inherent dangers) place EMT's and Medics in high angle environments, confined space environments, collapse environments, waterborne environments, and yes, even tactical environments.

Greetings George! My comments about "EMS Heroes" and "fancy uniforms" was not intended to be disrespectful or degrading in any way, nor was it directed at any particular individual, agency, or provider. If it came across that way to you or anyone else for that matter I apologize and will take this opportunity to clarify my point. My point is that in order to successfully operate as a medical provider in the warm or hot zone of a tactical environment is a great responsibility, one that goes well beyond taking a TEMS class and wearing a SWAT Medic patch, because hey it looks cool and chicks dig it. Most EMS providers reading this thread who are not as "in-tune" with the TEMS world may not realize the commitment, training, and responsibility that goes along with pursuing this type of medicine. I know from personal experience, because at one time I was self-admittedly one of those individuals who took a class, wore the snazzy uniform, and thought I was "good to go" as a TEMS provider. With more time, more training/education, and more real world experience, I realized over time what it takes to be able to effectively and efficiently operate as a medical provider in a tactical environment, and that it takes a whole lot more then just taking a class. I guess if I was "knocking" anyone with my comments, I was knocking the person I was 11 years ago when I took my first TEMS class at Camp Blanding and thought I was now a high speed tactical medical operator. Call it enthusiasm; call it immaturity; call it over eagerness; call it whatever you want; but in that environment being misinformed or having a false sense of ability can be a very, very bad thing. The analogy of police officers entering a fire scene to rescue individuals and comparing it to EMS providers entering an active shooter hot zone is a valid analogy. The only thing that I can say is that most humans look at fire as a inanimate, non-living object. Although we realize the dangers associated with fire, as humans we may have an inherent belief that we are "smarter" then fire because we are living, thinking, complex creatures and therefore we may believe that we are able to effect rescues by using our ability to reason and to think to keep ourselves safe. This leads us to potentially have a false sense of security that we can control the outcome of exiting the structure safely with minimal injuries because we're smart and can control the outcome based on our actions, and not the actions of the fire itself. It's almost written in our code, as a part of human nature, to get in that building without drawing up an intense amount emotion or thought to what we are about to do. A lot of times, when that adrenaline rush has worn off and we are back to a place of safety, does the raw emotion overcome us. If we all had the knowledge that firefighters have about fire and fire behavior, many of us may have a deeper respect for fire and it's deadly capabilities. An active shooter situation scenario is slightly different. It's can quickly develop into the purest form of human combat, where as a LEO, you are essentially a hunter, hunting another human being and doing what you have to do when you finally confront this individual. It has a very "tactile" emotional component to it, and is full of so many scenarios that we just can't control because we are going up against another complex creature. When you're talking about entering a situation where another human being is determined to injure, maim, and kill as many other human beings as he/she can, it's an unnatural feeling that overcomes us; a feeling that can draw very raw emotions from deep within ourselves. I don't think that anyone would go into one of these situations with that same false sense of security as if we were entering a burning structure. With fire, the average person may have the feeling that he/she can turn back, outrun the fire if need be, and escape to safety. People just may not realize the true dangers of breathing in toxic gases, being in an IDLH or oxygen deficient environment, and may only see the flames as the true enemy, and if they can avoid the flames they'll be okay. Difference is that everyone knows the dangers of bullets, and the ramifications if you're hit by one. I once read a study that asked people about running into a burning building versus running into a building where they knew a person was shooting unarmed individuals. The majority had no problem running into the burning building, while the majority said "NO WAY" to running into the building wih a shooter. It comes down to the emotion knowing that you're going up against another human being who may be smarter, faster, better trained, better equipped, etc., all which puts you at a serious disadvantage and all factors which you really can't control. Now in no way am I trying to say that running into a fire is an easy task; I understand it's not and the dangers are just as real as running into a building where someone is firing a gun. I'm just trying to rationalize why some people may be quick to run into that burning building, and yet not to fast to run into the building with an armed gunman.

Because these are rapidly evolving, dynamic incidents, the scene is not technically 100% safe until a thorough and methodical search by law enforcement has been conducted and they can say with 100% certainty the scene is secure. Look at the average size of any school, and think about how long one of these searches can take. Issues arise related to multiple shooters, sleepers or shooters who disguise themselves as a "friendly", Improvised Explosive Devices, conflicting information, etc. to say that just because the shooting has stopped, the scene is 100% safe and secure. Awareness courses are an excellent start, but as I mentioned in my previous post, in addition to just taking a class, EMS needs to be involved in thorough and on-going training with other local response agencies (Police and Fire) and needs to take an active role in designing written response guidelines and pre-plans for the schools and/or larger business/corporate buildings within their jurisdictions. For the sake of Operational Security, the discussion of Law Enforcement tactics is not appropriate for a public forum other then the information that has already been made public knowledge that Law Enforcement is not waiting and is relying on the first arriving officers on scene (patrol and school resource officers) to rapidly deploy to the sound of gunfire and stop the immediate threat.

A lot of great points and posts have been made in this thread already, so I'm going to try not to repeat anything that's been said already. With that, just a couple of points and a few things to think about: 1) In regards to liability and EMS providers operating within the inner perimeter of an active shooter incident; There are a great number of things that need to take place first before EMS providers should even think about taking on such a responsibility. Proper training, continuous on-going training with members of local Law Enforcement, proper equipment, especially personal protective equipment (i.e. ballistic vests), and written standards/response protocols need to all be in place. It's not as easy as taking a TEMS class, throwing on a fancy uniform and saying you're now a TEMS Operator, and think you're going to save the day when the bell rings. 2) Death benefits. What death benefits are provided to EMS providers should they be killed and/or seriously injured operating in the inner perimeter of one of these incidents? Police Officers either retain their pensions if injured or their designated beneficiaries will retain their pension benefits should they be killed; Officers with resultant permanent disabilities will receive 3/4 disability pay; Police Foundations and Unions provide financial support for LEO's and their families. As an EMS provider, if you take a more aggressive role and operate within the inner perimeter and are seriously injured and/or killed, you need to ask yourself what benefits you and your family will be entitled to if you are either no longer able to work or you are killed and leave your family behind without any guaranteed financial support. You can call it a greedy way of thinking, but it's a reality. Obviously anything can happen to any of us at any time, but this is a calculated risk that we do have some control over. If you are knowingly going to take that chance should something happen to you, you and your family may not be guaranteed any financial death/disability benefits depending on where you work/volunteer. 3) As others have pointed out already, to respond to one of these incidents as an EMS provider who plans on operating within the inner perimeter with law enforcement, it takes a lot more then reading an article about it or sitting in a 4 hour class and thinking you're good to go. Taking a Tactical EMS or Active Shooter course is a great start, but unless you have the cooperation of your local law enforcement agency and undergo constant training with them on a very continual basis, your plans of being the EMS hero that day will quickly dissolve, possibly with deadly results. Joint training between agencies can make or break your response to one of these incidents because every one needs to be on the same page and everyone needs to know what each others responsibilities are at one of these incidents. 4) Pre-planning. Both through individual and joint training, as well as response plans that detail building schematics, staging areas, landing zones, etc. Although these are dynamic, rapidly changing incidents, a well designed written pre-plan will aide responding units with their responsibilities and operations, and should be adjusted as the situation unfolds. 5) Law Enforcement's priority is not treating/evacuating the injured. Their priority is to end the threat, either by apprehending the shooter or neutralizing the shooter through the use of deadly physical force. Their primary role could take 5 minutes, it could take 5 hours. How long after the onset of a traumatic injury can a casualty exsanguinate? We all know it can happy pretty damn quick if untreated. That being said, EMS does play a key role in response to these incidents, and the professional recommendations of the US Fire Administration and the National Tactical Officers Association officially recognizes Tactical EMS and Tactical EMS Operators as a necessity during tactical law enforcement operations, and during Active Shooter incidents. There are still a lot of roadblocks, especially here in the Northeast, preventing EMS from having more of a recognized role during Tactical Law Enforcement operations. 6) When coordinating with local Law Enforcement, EMS agencies need to decide if they are going to operate as "business as usual" and stage in a cold zone and wait for Law Enforcement to extract victims to their staging area; or if they are going to operate in a warm zone inside the location in a casualty collection point with Law Enforcement providing overwatch and security where they can start triaging and providing immediate life-saving treatment to casualties; or if they are going to operate in the hot zone, once again with Law Enforcement providing security, but the EMS provider is moving through the location with the team and treating the seriously wounded as they come across them. The decision on how EMS will operate at these incidents is not solely up to EMS; it has to be a joint decision between EMS administrators and Law Enforcement administrators. You can't have EMS providers going cowboy inside the school doing their own thing without consulting with and coordinating with Law Enforcement. If you plan on having EMS operating within a warm or hot zone, they need to be properly trained, continually trained, and properly equipped to effectively operate as such. 7) Treatment priorities shift from conventional A-B-C treatment protocols to the C-A-B design of Tactical Combat Casualty Care protocols, where uncontrolled hemorrhage is a treatment priority, followed closely by recognition and treatment of tension pneumothorax. Effective and proper triage is a necessity as in any Mass Casualty Incident. 8) We can stress scene safety in our EMT classes. We can stress that our safety comes first. We can say that EMS should never be intentionally put in harms way. The fact is that when the bell does ring, and the incident is rapidly evolving, sometimes we find ourselves in places we shouldn't be or doing things that we probably shouldn't be doing because human nature takes over, and we simply start doing anything and everything we can to provide aide and medical care to the injured. On April 20th, 1999, I can guarantee you that the crews of Littleton Fire Department didn't think that by noon they were going to be performing civilian rescues under effective gunfire. I can guarantee you that they weren't trained to perform such rescues. I can guarantee you that they weren't properly equipped to effect such rescues. Despite all that, the EMS crews were tasked with performing these rescues while under effective gunfire from the library windows. My point is that regardless what we say about liability, safety, and what the role of EMS should be at the incidents, the fact is that EMS is going to be in the mix in one way or another, so we should take the initiative to be properly trained, equipped, and prepared to operate at these incidents. Prior to Columbine, Littleton had 1 Tactically trained Paramedic... by the end of the year they had 30 trained and equipped tactical medical providers. Typical line of thinking in EMS (and emergency services altogether), it can't happen here and when it does, and only when it does, will we do something to be prepared for the next time.

Legal Issues, Constitutional Rights, Civil Rights, and all that other good stuff aside, there is one key word that affects all of us. It affects us whether we're paid or volunteer. It affects us whether we're Police or Fire or EMS. It affects us no matter where we work or who we work for. It's a rather simple word, but it's a word that probably has more control over us as Emergency Service professionals then any other word. PERCEPTION. How we are perceived by the public plays a HUGE role in the level of respect and confidence we instill in the communities we serve. Perception can also be used to protect us in times of potential danger. Take for example, Line of Duty Deaths of Law Enforcement Officers. During interviews of convicted cop killers, they were asked why they went forward with committing the act of murdering a uniformed police officer. The majority said they PERCEIVED that they could overpower and overcome the law enforcement officer that was engaging them. This perception was borne out of the fact that the officer appeared unkept or unprofessional, or the officer lacked a command presence, causing the perpetrator to perceive the officer was not in control of the situation. A police officer who has a clean and neat appearance, speaks in an articulate and command voice, and looks like a well trained professional is more likely to gain compliance from individuals just based on the perception that they are a well-trained professional. Sometimes that is all takes to end a potentially violent incident. Perception can work for you or against you, it just depends what image you allow the individual you are dealing with to perceive. The same applies to EMS providers. An EMS provider who appears to be professional; is well groomed, wearing a clean and pressed uniform, and expresses and articulates him/herself as a professional provider, will be perceived by patients and family members as a capable, well trained individual who is going to provide the highest level of emergency medical care. Now take an EMS provider who is unkept, dissheveled, and uses improper grammar and can not articulate themselves as a professional. These providers are perceived to be incompetent, which makes for some difficulty in earning the trust of our patients, their family members, and other medical providers, in both the prehospital and in-hospital settings. Perception does not necessarily mean that an individuals perception of another is correct. You can be the a very well spoken, clean, and neat EMT or Paramedic, and still be a sub-par provider in terms of your clinical skills and judgment. But if you are a top notch provider, you may be fighting an uphill battle to win over your patient or family if you give off the wrong perception. How does perception apply to Social Media Outlets? Well, we are public servants. Whether we are paid or volunteer, we are agents of the Emergency Service community who set out to serve the people of our community. No other group of individuals are criticized more then public servants, especially us in the Emergency Service field. How we conduct ourselves, both on and off duty, is going to lead the public who we serve to perceive us in a certain manner. I can understand why a lot of people would agree with the statement, "What I do in my free time with my personal accounts is my business". It seems like a rationale way of thinking, and eventhough we're public servants we still are entitled to our "alone time" away from our duties as public servants. But even during that alone time, when we're off-duty, out of uniform, and away from our Stations, the public still views us as a representative of whatever entity we belong to. To engage in childish, immature, and inappropriate behavior, either directly in view of the public, or through Social Media Outlets where there is always the possibility of such behavior becoming public, is going to have an extremely negative affect on how the public PERCEIVES not only the individual, but the organization as well. And it is even worse when it is a high ranking official or officer within the agency, because the leadership is entrusted to set a professional example for the rest of it's membership. If the leader acts like a buffoon, what does that say for the troops under his/her command? Combine that perception along with the line of work that we engage in. We are responsible for protect our communities, whether it be from criminals, fires, or life-threatening accidents or illnesses. Ask yourself, if you saw an individual coming to the aide or you or your family member, who just an hour before you saw was carrying on through Twitter or Facebook (or any other outlet) like an immature and unprofessional buffoon, how much perceived trust and confidence would you have in this individual before they even said a word to you? I'm all for having fun and goofing around; but there has to be boundaries. If we can't control ourselves as not just professionals, but simply as adults to conduct ourselves with regard for our status as public servants both on and off duty, then we should find a different field of employment or means of volunteering to give back to the community.

I think the simple fact is that anyone in emergency services, whether you want to be or not, is a representative of his/her agency. Conduct that is unprofessional and immature not only makes you look foolish, but reflects negatively upon your agency and the emergency service community as a whole. An individual who is a Chief or other supervisory figure in his/her agency should absolutely be held to a higher standard, since they are expected to be the utmost professional and possess the qualities of a mature and professional leader. When I see individuals exhibiting childish and unprofessional behavior, it makes me second guess their abilities as a leader. We dont have to act like professional robots all of the time; we are all human. But unprofessional conduct when it applies to situations involving conflict resolution, or improper conduct that can be viewed by the public or those outside our little world, is inexcusable if you want to be taken seriously as a competent leader.

What does it matter? It matters to those of us who are Yorktown taxpayers, or have family members who are Yorktown taxpayers. It matters to those of us who want to see a capable, streamlined, consolidated emergency service system here in Westchester County instead of the conglomerate of districts and agencies that currently exist. Perhaps they didn't obtain or use this money illegally, but if they were able to save this money from their regular operating budget, then did they really need that money in the first place? Plus the taxpayers already said "No", we don't want you spending millions on a new firehouse, and that's just what they're doing, spending millions of taxpayers dollars on a new firehouse. Have they done their homework? If so, then what is the benefit? As far as we know, there are no members that live in the vicinity of this new proposed firehouse. There is an extremely minimal number of calls in the Southern end of town. Millwood FD is a mile away, and to get to parts of the Yorktown District, they have to drive through Millwood's District. Where's the benefit? I'm failing to see it unless someone can offer up a good arguement as to the benefit of this project. With that line of thinking, maybe every department should train and equip a HazMat Team, a Dive Team, a USAR Team, etc., because maybe one day they will be able to save a life. It's simply not fiscally responsible, that's why we utilize mutual aid from the County's TRT, Career Departments that have these capabilities, and other agencies (such as Yorktown's well established Water Rescue Team)to supplement our responses to these incidents. No different then Yorktown and Millwood entering a mutual aid agreement for the Southern end of Yorktown. Now I don't know if that option was ever explored, but if it wasn't, that's being financially irresponsible. It's not criticizing. In addition to being Firefighters, Paramedics, EMT's, Police Officers, etc., we all have one thing in common; We're all Taxyapers! I never understood the mentality some of us have when it comes to finances. Are our functions important to the community? Of course. Should be be properly trained and equipped to respond to emergencies? Of course. But just because we provide a vital function for the communities we serve doesn't give us carte blanche to be financially irresponsible and think that the ideologies of budgeting don't apply to us. Most of us aren't just going to "get over it" simply because you dictate we should. We question and discuss things because in the end, we are all looking to improve the "system" that exists here in Westchester, and many of us want to see the "home rule" and "fiefdom" way of doing things start to dissolve a bit, and this project has not only isolated the department from the taxpayers, it also ignores other alternatives for Fire Departments to consolidate services and save money for the taxpayers, while still providing high quality service. Simply because other firefighters on this board are being reasonable and questioning the necessity of this project? So, I guess in the fire service everyone should just go along with anything and everything the other "brothers" are doing, regardless of how irresponsible or unnecessary it may be?

Your bring up good points, but is a tanker driving lights/sirens through hydranted areas faster or slower then a FF driving his POV through hydranted area to get to the proposed new firehouse? With the impending mess on the Taconic, is this going to affect FF's from traveling in POV's on the Taconic to get to the new firehouse? How many FD members reside in the vicinity of the new firehouse to staff the apparatus in a timely fashion while avoiding some of these obstacles?

There's one starting tomorrow night at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow, you may still be able to get in. 914-366-3577.

Out of control and should be shut down? If you feel thats the case, hit the report button, thats what it is there for. This thread and it's posts have so far been professional, mature, and a lot of decent points have been made about other options that may have been available to YHFD instead of continuing to build a firehouse that the taxpayers said no to not once, but twice. Instead of stomping your feet that this thread is "out of control and should be shut down", how about providing an educated, well thought out rebuttal as to why the firehouse is a necessity. And please stop with the "people are against us cause we're volunteer" nonsense; quite frankly its getting really old. If someone from YHFD would like to provide some information as to this firehouse, I'm sure everyone would respect some insight. Personally I think it's silly to go forward with this build considering the close proximity of Millwood, and as my parents are taxpayers in Yorktown, I'm curious how many firefighters live in the south end of town to staff the apparatus. That opinion is based on facts provided by others... My opinion can be changed if someone can offer up a logical argument to convince me otherwise.

I agree. I don't mean any disrespect, but I can't understand the "pride" that goes along with not billing. You're not billing the individual, you're billing the insurance company. We're not kicking down patient's doors to collect payment, we're not the EMS "mob". As EMS agencies, we are a part of the healthcare system, and should utilize the same compensatory measures that any other part of the healthcare system does. Collecting payment, as little or as much as it might be, offsets the overall cost needed to run the agency from the people who are actually using our services (in other words our patients). Put that collected money to good use (i.e. training, equipment, uniforms, etc.) and not on unnecessary items (i.e. parties) and it's only going to help advance the individual agency and enable you to continue to not just provide the service you currently do, but also expand your capabilities.

Yes you're correct, I typed it in a rush... 42/44 and 46/48 share radio divisions, thanks for pointing it out

Yes, it's everyone else here... No one here has an issue with criticism, when the criticism is warranted, legitimate, and reasonable, which your criticism was significantly lacking.

One would question how much control the city can exude over it's Police Officers when they're off duty. Truth is, you can get suspended for just the "I" part of DWI. It's called "Unfit for Duty". Because NYC Police Officers are considered "on-duty" 24/7/365 (besides their annual vacation weeks), the NYPD prohibits it's Police Officers from becoming intoxicated... ever... in a bar, in your house, at a BBQ, at a wedding. Is it enforced ever? Actually yes it is, so off-duty conduct is monitored and regulated in more then one way by the City.

Yes, I'm very well aware of that, and more then likely that's the direction this whole logo controversy is going to head in, granted the unions allow individuals to use their logos for the purpose of making shirts, hats, etc. It still though prevents shirts and hats bearing the logos of specific units from within the NYPD from being displayed without authorization.