You’re right, but the parts you’ve picked are misleading. Minimums are normal for a lot of gig work.

Those officers are paid $107 an hour, but payroll is handled by the city.

This is in reference to the “buyback” program, where neighborhoods or organizations can pay for extra on-duty patrols. The off-duty private security payroll isn’t handled by the city.

The bigger issues that stood out to me:

MPD officers would usually sit in their squad cars, fully uniformed

Gordon said running a business using city resources — uniforms, guns, squad cars — without city management, should be considered a violation of the city ethics code, even though the city explicitly allows it, even paying insurance for off-duty work.

I don’t have a problem with any public official doing any kind of side work, as long as it doesn’t affect their job, and they aren’t using government resources to do it. Every job I’ve had has said you can moonlight, but you can’t use company resources or use the company name to imply any kind of endorsement. But clearly that’s not what’s happening here. This is absolutely a protection racket.