This is not targeting the player in question, as my LOOC salting that round was too embarassing for me to want logs to be pulled. This is just an example. I will condense it in a block so as not to distract from the meat of the thread (can’t spoiler):
During a recent round my arrest was ordered because a Bravo SL that wanted the mortar was upset that I refused, politely actually, to fire incen shells on empty weeds for “wall clearing”. The Bravo SL called the XO and lied up a storm about my incompetence, neglect of duty, sucking at my job, etcetera etcetera.
I handed myself in peacefully at FOB when the MPs came. I was then held in cuffs to and in processing for 10 minutes while the CMP gathered evidence.
The gathering evidence was the CMP asking me questions and the CMP radioing others. I said “yeah, I refused to spend $300 shells on empty weeds with 0 targets. The Bravo SL wasn’t even my squad lead.”
So after 10 minutes, he brigged me for insubordination for 15 minutes. So I was out of the round for a total of 25 minutes – at the hour mark in a round, this means my round is over. If I suicided I’d be banned. Genuinely, being captured is better because then I can play xenomorph.
The point:
When I asked why he held me for effectively 10 minutes before brigging me, the CMP replied, “I’m authorized 10 minutes to investigate.” The implication was that it’s HIGHLY SUGGESTED they take that time to investigate before applying charges.
If you are brigging someone you should investigate while they serve their time, not before, but marine law seems to force a pre-emptive investigation.
Re: the example, in retrospect thanks to NyoomVoyager’s below post, CMP wasn’t really at fault considering the chaos, i edited my wording in that text block to be a little more respectful of him just now
Real problem here was the SL, sorry to say. They speficially requested insub charge, because they specifically directed a lawful (but stupid) order to you that you refused, it makes it major insub which means the MPs can’t just non-judic. punishment it away. SL actually tried to also see if they could pass around a NoD charge on you too, because you were neglecting your duties as mortar operator, since you were unable to operate the mortar for, you know, being arrested after not operating the mortar to SL’s liking. OOA sucks but you at least had a CMP that didn’t fall for that one.
The kind of mass-jailbreak after was just sort of extra fuel to the fire, unfortunately for the already prolonged process of OOA that also means they can suspend appeals while they handle that, which I think is what was happening before you got hit with it too.
I have a guess about some of the other workings of what was going on here but since MPs get put in a real bind about OOA I will shrimply say: there are some people who play officer roles or SNCO roles and utilize every privilege under their belt to make the rounds worse for others. Learn who’s who and yesman to the more annoying ones.
This round was a disaster. Sorry that you got caught up in all of it.
I was the CMP this round, and I’m deeply sorry that the Marine Law situation that unfolded (which I had a role in as CMP) fucked your round up, and I apologize that my actions directly contributed to this poor experience.
I would like to explain some context, here are some details from my perspective:
The XO ordered your arrest after receiving a call directly from Bravo SL.
I did investigate your arrest. This began as soon as my MP seated you in my Brig. I had an MP get a recorded testimony from the XO and got more details over comms; you could not hear this because you are not on MP or Command comms. This did not take more than 10 minutes from arrival to Brig to moving you to a cell.
After conducting this investigation, I found that the original charges ordered by the XO were not fully accurate (NoD and Minor Insub), and modified your charges based on something you stated during processing, which was you directly confessing to refusing direct orders from someone superior in rank (the Bravo SL, who despite not being your SL, pulled rank).
The sentence I gave you for Major Insubordination was less time than you would have served if I maintained the XO’s original charges of Minor Insubordination and Neglect of Duty.
In the chaos of the round, I forget to remind your character of their right to appeal, 100% my bad, but there is context to that two.
By the time I had realized my mistake which was only a few seconds after starting your sentence and uncuffing you, you had already escaped the brig and I couldn’t fix it.
Now, for background context, during that round, I had:
Three major arrests occur including two capital offenders.
One attempted jailbreak that involved someone breaking into the brig and trying to steal a prisoner from my literal hands.
A CO-ordered execution that I had to carry out and ensure execution procedure was followed for.
A permanent prisoner commit suicide while I was busy with everything else and my MPs where who knows where.
A second breakout attempt during the execution via someone welding into our execution closet.
People filing formal notes of protest over the aforementioned execution ordered by the CO
The CMO actively attempting to investigate my department, demanding forensic reviews of permabrig, and a full investigation into myself and my staff.
The Provost Marshal FR requesting a full faxed report on the prisoner’s death.
Then the XO’s officer-ordered arrest of you.
Another arrest occurring of a Maintenance Technician that I can’t remember the crimes of (I didn’t book her)
As soon we placed you in a cell after processing and removed your cuffs, a double jailbreak because someone had deconstructed the yard walls without us knowing and you and another prisoner walked out of that hole.
It was an incredibly stressful and overstimulating round, and the MP Team dropped the ball as a result. When everything described occurs in the span on one hour, and you have multiple MPs that are new and/or returning to the game after long absence, things get a bit fucky. The Officer-ordered Arrest is the LAST thing I wanted to have happen, but it happened and as MP we were rule-bound to conduct it.
I support the suggestion you present though, officer ordered arrests need a rethink especially with respect to the shorter round times we now often have.
Outside all of the arrest RP, like arresting, changing uniform, putting in jail and processing the sentence, you would figure any extra fluff would deduct from their jail sentence. If they already ‘paid’ 10 minutes with no RP waiting for a correct decision, that time should go towards their hold period.
That would require a chance to the rules though as advanced payment doesn’t exist. Til then, in the example, best you can do is fire at those weeds and then complain about how stupid the SL is for wanting weeds to be blown up. Fire an explosive shell and add in “one weed node confirmed dead sir! your orders have potentially saved the fob!”
99% of officer ordered arrests are, in my opinion, just people being dickheads to others wasting their time with little justification and the knowledge that the round will end before it comes back to bite them in the ass. Considering MPs are literally breaking server rules if they perform a false arrest, why do we allow people who roll doctor or PO to force false/tenuous arrests with only a retaliatory jail timer (that very rarely ever comes).
I agree that proof should probably be required before you force the person being arrested to go through the whole process of their time being wasted only to go “oh it was bullshit sorry we’ll maybe arrest the guy who ordered it” etc.
It went as expected really. Because it HAS to follow one of two systems. Either the one accused is guilty until proven innocent, or innocent until proven guilty.
Right now its guilty until proven innocent, which has a 100% chance to catch a guilty party, but a big risk of jailing someone innocent. But going for innocent until proven guilty would leave us with very minimal risk of jailing someone innocent, but a less than 100% chance to catch the guilty party.
So if we make it so MPs can just, ignore officer ordered arrest, then guilty people can roam free because MPs don’t wanna bother, or don’t belive the affected party. Albeit, its mostly theoretical until put in place.
Please correct me if I am wrong but I have noticed shorter rounds causing issues such as this. Is there a way to address this without a complete overhaul?
Either expand MP discretion to allow them to forgive more charges, or have whatever charges end up being applied, count down from when the accused enters the brig - NOT from when they enter a cell.
IMO the simplest fix is to prevent anyone other than the XO/CO from ordering a mandatory arrest. Other officers can still report crimes, but it’s insane that doctors, IOs, and dropship pilots can round remove someone for half an hour over nothing, whereas even a BE lets someone play xeno in 5 minutes.
Also unrelated to this, but I do think xenos need more tools to prevent being wiped in 40 minutes. Marines have god turrets and pylon timers, but if xenos lose first contact badly, they just get obliterated, which is where all these super short rounds come from.
I agree that it is completely crazy that any officer can order arrests and the CMP, who after the CO is the highest marine law authority on board, cannot countermand this aside from saying “please revoke this”. Instead, time must be wasted to arrest the person, investigate, charge them or release them, and if released, then consider pursuing the officer for prevarication.
Often, it feels like the CMP has no real authority over law enforcement. An MP has 100% autonomy on paper to arrest and charge someone whether the CMP agrees or not, because MPs have an IC and OOC obligation to ‘not ignore major crimes’ and the right to not be ordered to ‘ignore minor crimes’. In this respect, an MP will follow their own conscience on the matter because it is ultimately their adherence to the rules in question, even if in the end they are wrong in the end (which causes more of a headache than anything).
If I think an arrest (whether it has occurred yet or not) is wrongful as CMP, I can encourage the MP to drop the issue (and for their credit, they often do!), but if they do not want to I cannot order them to, so instead I must encourage the prisoner to appeal their charges, but this process is almost always longer than the person’s sentence in terms of them filling out the form, then the MP, then the handler handling. It functionally exists to get the person behind the arrest punished more than it serves to benefit the person sitting out of the round in the brig.
Presently and in my experience, the CMP’s ability to manage their department comes down to:
Assigning MP patrol locations
The MPs respecting their CMP’s advice/commentary on matters of enforcement
Massive truth nuke detonation. As bad as I’ve seen actual MPs get, just as much damage is done by people who aren’t MPs misusing arrest orders because they know they don’t carry any of the risk real MPs do.
In the original poster’s situation it seems like they were too busy to deal with niche officer ordered arrest tomfoolery, but when time permits I generally liked to see CMPs making a point to kick people in the teeth for it.
Start a ten minute timer the second you know someone’s in handcuffs (the law specifies “detained”), and chase the officer to the ends of the Earth when they fail to deliver any evidence of what they wanted the arrest for. Play dirty with this, Marine Law is poorly written on the best of days and if you’re gonna run loopholes, you ought to do it in defense of the Marines instead of their command. Importantly in this specific instance, the burden of proof is more or less on whoever’s looking into the arrest, that being you. Officers ordering arrests will almost never come up with any material evidence, and unless you or an MP was right there witnessing the crime, there is reasonable doubt against any one witness.
As they should. I think I mentioned this in my mandatory compliance post but MPs should exist to protect the force, not the whims of Lieutenant Joe Shmoe who thinks somebody’s out of regulation headgear needs the attention of the police. Not believing the reporting party is also fairly common practice with crimes between people who aren’t officers.
This is definitely a good place to start, but it’s worth noting that in this case the XO was the one who ordered the arrest (albeit off someone else’s testimony). Mandatory Marine Law education has been gradually stripped from command, to include the CO. Everybody has different thoughts about that mostly hinging on whether they play command or MP, but it’s hard to deny that as it stands a lot of authority to remove people from the round is resting with people who have no guaranteed knowledge of it or consequences for misusing it.