Is it rude to....

[retdetsgt]

That's a fact. The agency I worked for at the time had no issues with it. They considered it an extra job, which had to be approved by the department.
Many of the officers had these courtesy officer positions.
Many LEO's in the Houston/Galveston area have these.

We did have a deal here for a while that police could get super low mortgage rates on a house if they bought one in specified areas of town. The bad news is, no cop with any brains would live in any of them. A couple did try it, but they stayed less than a year and bailed out.

They're real pissy here about extra jobs we work. We can only work in uniform IF the employer hires us through the city and pays our workman's comp., etc. They pay the city and the city pays us. If they hire more than 5, they have to also hire a sergeant. We are then furnished with city cars, radios, and so forth. But otherwise, we can't do anything LE or even security related.

If we're out there as Portland police officers, they want control of what we're doing and how we do it. Knowing some of the guys I worked with, I can't say as I blame them. But you better not be doing anything in that costume they aren't paying you for.

We don't have much of a culture of working extra jobs though. We got a significant raise in 1969 and part of the contract was that we couldn't moonlight. The raise was enough that people were willing to give that up and it became the norm. About 15 years ago, they loosened that up and we could, but most guys didn't want to. Frankly, any time I needed extra money, I could always seem to find some sort of OT opportunity that paid a lot more than any extra job would.

After my last divorce, I went into the drug unit and made enough to make a good down payment on a house within a year. It damned near killed me, I was working at least 60 hours a week, usually more every week for that year. Same when my kid was in college, I went to homicide and was able to pay for her school without her or me borrowing any money. But after 4 years, I was ready to get out of there too! I was getting too old for those 24+ hour shifts!

[DeltaV]

My department's policy on this is that the free/discounted rent is fine, however you have to perform a service for the apartment complex. You can't just get a discounted apartment and not have to do anything. That basically means that you will be a courtesy officer and have to deal with disturbances, parking problems, etc. It's probably not worth it.

Our legal adviser put out a legal bulletin earlier in the year identifying the potential liability in being an apartment courtesy officer. Most likely the apartment complex is going to view you as a contractor, not as an employee. That means that if you end up screwing something up and getting sued, you're going to be on your own. Same if you get injured. The department isn't going to cover you because you're off duty and are engaging in outside employment. It's not really a risk I'd want to take.

[retdetsgt]

Our legal adviser put out a legal bulletin earlier in the year identifying the potential liability in being an apartment courtesy officer. Most likely the apartment complex is going to view you as a contractor, not as an employee. That means that if you end up screwing something up and getting sued, you're going to be on your own. Same if you get injured. The department isn't going to cover you because you're off duty and are engaging in outside employment. It's not really a risk I'd want to take.

Our contract specifies that anytime we get involved in a police action off duty, we are automatically indemnified by the department. When is why they don't let us do anything like that. They don't want to have to eat the WC or lawsuit created when we were working for someone else.

And the fact we are indemnified is enough of a benefit that no one wants to lose it.

[DeltaV]

Our contract specifies that anytime we get involved in a police action off duty, we are automatically indemnified by the department. When is why they don't let us do anything like that. They don't want to have to eat the WC or lawsuit created when we were working for someone else.

And the fact we are indemnified is enough of a benefit that no one wants to lose it.

We'd be covered too if we are forced to take police action off duty, but that basically entails trying to intervene during a crime in progress or other serious matter. Dealing with a dispute between an apartment manager and a tenant, serving eviction notifications, or doing other types of avoidable pseudo-police work wouldn't count. What the department will and will not cover is a bit complicated, but when it comes down to it if you're found to be acting on behalf of someone else then you're not going to be covered.

With regular extra duty jobs, everything is run through the department. The clients pay the city and the city turns around and pays us in our regular paycheck. The clients actually have to pay an extra few dollars per hour for workers comp, so if anything happens to us while working a job (from taking police action to slipping and falling on the floor), we're covered under the department's workers comp and it's considered an on-duty injury. The local sheriff's office does things differently, requiring deputies to act as independent contractors on their jobs. I'm glad we don't do it that way.