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philaiv t1_je3kor8 wrote

Reply to comment by PoopIsAlwaysSunny in New foxtrot is now in the air by Douseigh

People seem to often bring this up as an example of a dumb use of the helicopters but last summer a child trespassing in the Patterson Park pool nearly drown. Because of this we should probably find a better example as to why the helicopters are wasteful spending as the city/police will no doubt use child safety for their position which is hard to argue against.

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Douseigh OP t1_je4j88l wrote

Personally I’ve seen them do about 80-90 vehicle pursuits of stolen vehicles over the past 2 years if that means anything…

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philaiv t1_je4ui4m wrote

It's good to hear that they're being used for crime. I personally don't know if they're worth it or not. I suspect they are since they're used by cities our size and larger around the world. Maybe not a great use for stolen vehicles but for car jackings definitely which is what I assume the majority of those were. My reply was because I find that the yelling at kids in pools argument so many make to be not a good argument and does their position on the matter a disservice.

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DONNIENARC0 t1_je5u1j4 wrote

Yeah...

If we're gassing up the chopper for the sole purpose of telling kids to get out of closed pools... sure, that's pretty messed up and sounds horribly wasteful. I'd bet it's more of a side task that they swing by to accomplish after completing their main goal though.

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Honeyblade t1_je4o7ss wrote

For what that stupid monstrosity costs to put in the air you could hire 5 full time lifeguards and just keep the pool open later.

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philaiv t1_je4t83s wrote

Obviously that's not the only use for the helicopters. Just a very small fragment of its use (despite so many people in this sub going straight to that as the reason for it being wasteful spending). As OP pointed out in another comment, they're at least used to follow stolen vehicles which are often the result a car jacking.

Also, 5 lifeguards wouldn't work. We would need 24/7 lifeguards because children trespass at all hours.

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rockybalBOHa t1_je4yze1 wrote

Have you tried hiring lifeguards in the last 2 years? Not easy. Almost every pool is shortstaffed.

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StinkRod t1_je50et4 wrote

it bet it's easier if you have access to that helicopter money.

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rockybalBOHa t1_je6f5y0 wrote

Man, you people are really obtuse! You sound like Republicans. Every problem can be solved with a bumper sticker slogan! Build a wall!

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Honeyblade t1_je510r9 wrote

For what we spend on that helicopter we could train new ones and give them a decent salary. This is just a stupid use of resources - and rather than creating more resources for the community it's focused on punishing people, which is an objectively dumb way too deal with most societal problems that could be solved by creating more resources.

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MbenedictR t1_je53baz wrote

seriously, make the academy class the lifeguards for a summer on rotating shifts. they spend time in the community and get to know ppl, and pools always safe because there is a cop on duty.

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rockybalBOHa t1_je6ei9c wrote

Sure, easy as pie!

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Honeyblade t1_je6pcoa wrote

I never said it was easy, I said it was less expensive and actually served the interests of the community, but keep whatever shitty narrative that you want, I guess.

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TheBaltimoron t1_je8d3ik wrote

Hey let's get rid of all government services, that'd save tons of money!

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Honeyblade t1_je9iq0x wrote

...both Police and public parks are government services. So I'm not sure what point you think you were making here?

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TheBaltimoron t1_je8clc3 wrote

Yes, we should keep the pool with no lights that's free to use all day long open after dark in a closed park.

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DfcukinLite t1_je3oc8j wrote

But you still don’t need bigger planes to do that. That’s the point…

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Matt3989 t1_je4yjx6 wrote

The Foxtrots were too old for the FAA to allow them to fly anymore. One had been ground permanently already, which is a big deal here considering that Baltimore Police have had already one fatal helicopter crash.

IIRC these have lower maintenance costs and longer maintenance intervals (which is why they bought 3 instead of the 4 foxtrots).

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philaiv t1_je3pjpi wrote

Yes but we don't know why it's bigger. We only know that OP has identified that it's bigger. Because of that I was only commenting on how helicopters are being used to yell at children is a commonly used phrase in this subrreddit, not anything about the helicopter being bigger. I apologize that my original comment wasn't more clear.

Edit: There is no need to vote u/MrBurittoThePizza's comment down. This does read like it was written by an AI lol

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MrBurittoThePizza t1_je3sjct wrote

You talk like AI ngl. My virtual assistant speaks just like this

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philaiv t1_je3tp6q wrote

01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100111 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110111 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100011 01110010 01100101 01110100

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YoYoMoMa t1_je4x0uf wrote

You do not need a flying vehicle at all to tell kids to get out of a pool what the fuck is wrong with people?

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EthanSayfo t1_je6z2sm wrote

So that one occurrence is all the police have used helicopters for, for what, a few decades now? Ever?

Wow, they must have a lot of fun just flying around doing nothing 99.9999999999999999% of the time!

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YoYoMoMa t1_je75gfz wrote

We are talking about that one specific instance. If you want to talk about the use of the helicopter go literally anywhere else in this thread.

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