Perhaps it's resentment of the widening income gap between 20-30 somethings in the tech industry and those in the service industry?
Another HN article referenced a Bay Area police officer making a remark about being a "wannabe billionaire."
Maybe. Because of the billionaire big winner image, people outside the industry see techies as very well off.
In fact, cops make a lot more on average -- benefits included -- than techies or programmers or engineers. In big American cities, cops are paid similar total compensation to doctors. The usual breakdown is 125k or so salary plus gold plated health care, various fancy bonuses and discounts and a pension plan that's worth more actuarially than all of the salary. Totals above $400k are not uncommon.
NYPD, as mentioned in op, is considered much more stingy than suburban NY departments so the cops in question may not be making quite that much.
Bureau of Labor Statistics says the median is 55k. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333051.htm
Since you said NY is stingy, I tried other big cities. Here's a list of Chicago PD salaries. https://data.cityofchicago.org/Administration-Finance/Police... The only people on that list with a salary of 125k are ranked captain and above.
Here's the LAPD salary schedule. http://per.lacity.org/psb/lapd_salary.htm Not even close to averaging 125k
Houston PD http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee... Again, much lower than what you're talking about.
If cops in the 4 biggest cities in America aren't making that much, who is?
Also, retirement with nearly full pay at age 50 is common.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-17/highest-paid-califo...
http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/?name=&agency=CALIFORNIA+HIGH...
That is significantly higher than the per-capita income in Menlo Park: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0646870.html
Could you provide a source on those figures? I would be interested to learn about it.
In the US, state, counties, city and other local governments are struggling with their budgets. A police force with $400k in compensation per officer is way out of wack, and no way that tax payers would go for it.
At that level of compensation, that puts police officers in the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
I know here in Seattle (and the richer suburbs of Bellevue, Redmond, etc), it's a common complaint that police officers can't afford to live in the communities they protect.
Had it been a slightly warmer day, this incident would have likely never occurred.
That being said, I think what's happening on the left coast is the widening income gap coupled with a context switch that the cops are still catching up to. There are a lot of kids who bleed entitlement, some of whom are quite wealthy and some of whom are dirt poor.