Trying out a new platform. I had some support from the editors. It looks nice. I wanted to get it off my chest and it was a path of least resistance. Some other outlets wanted me to do much more rewriting.
I sincerely hope you sue and get paid an exorbitant amount of money for your trouble. You were kidnapped and held without charge, abused and lord knows what else.
My girlfriend lives right there. We go to that bar sometimes. She recently broke her elbow on a bike accident. We would of called 911 in the same situation. This could of easily been me and her. Wow. What can I do!?
OP definitely needs to sue the city, as well as the aggressors personally. Every cop involved in this situation should be spending years in prison for battery, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and torture. Until justice for victims of the police becomes routine, they're nothing but another gang and the only good cop is a dead cop.
That's the attitude police departments prop up and justify every time they close ranks around officers who commit this kind of misconduct, instead of feeding the bad cops to the dogs and maintaining high standards of public service.
No, there is no requirement for both sides to meet. Police serve the citizens. That's how public service goes.
Their job is hard. They deal with assholes the likes of which most of us never see, they get shot at and kicked and punched and spat at and sworn at, and still their job is to protect and serve the public without fail. No shortcuts.
Of course police departments do this. Oppressive groups use public disdain of the oppressive groups to justify intensifying their oppression. That doesn't mean the disdain isn't justified.
If police forces were organizations of justice, they would compensate victims of false imprisonment as a matter of course. Say you spend a night in jail for an errant arrest, you get an immediate $2k for time lost and distress incurred. This way, they wouldn't be able to shuffle the damages from their run-roughshod approach onto innocent people.
But instead, they do everything they can to stick with and make-proper the mistake, and pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it. They know full well that time in their jail is (an extrajudicial) punishment in and of itself. This entire blue-shield assume-everyone's-guilty mentality makes them just another gang of thugs to be avoided. The fact they're given a fancy costume by the out of touch populations of whatever jurisdiction they're in ceases to be relevant.
While still extremely callous, one would take far less issue with what I said if it were explicitly about "violent gangbangers". And given that the problem is institutional yet new recruits are still signing up for the trip, I have little empathy.
edit: and I will admit that short of things like automated home-defense turrets becoming commonplace, empathy is the only thing that is going to fix anything and what I said actually hurts that. But given that the problem stems from police getting things mostly right (because most of who they interact with are criminals), I don't see reforms to make them impartial justice organizations ever gaining much support, as the sheer majority will always see them as doing a good job.
> If police forces were organizations of justice, they would compensate victims of false imprisonment as a matter of course. Say you spend a night in jail for an errant arrest, you get an immediate $2k for time lost and distress incurred. This way, they wouldn't be able to shuffle the damages from their run-roughshod approach onto innocent people.
Oh yeah, this would not cause more problems than it solves.
Correctness is more important that expediency. If you start off trying to be good, you can learn to be fast. If you start off trying to be fast, you will never learn to be good.
> Say you spend a night in jail for an errant arrest, you get an immediate $2k for time lost and distress incurred.
There are a lot of people who would instigate an officer for that kind of money.
Besides, having served on a Jury, I know what they think my time is worth. Getting a check for $200 (a more realistic number) would be an insult after getting stuck overnight in a jail cell.
> But instead, they do everything they can to stick with and make-proper the mistake, and pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it
This could be said about the first group, but he even admits that his own actions are what got him put into solitary confinement. If he hadn't made a ruckus they wouldn't have put him there. Note that they did overstep by doing that, but not massively.
This amount wouldn't meet what I said, as they'd still clearly be externalizing the collateral damage from their approach (just like the jury theatre, as you point out).
> If he hadn't made a ruckus they wouldn't have put him there
Which stemmed from them denying him access to medical care, outside communication, and due process. I covered this under "pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it".
It's also not right that the police abuse their power to such degrees.
They really should up the qualifications on becoming a cop. Right now it's "Eh I can't any other job, guess I'll just be a cop" and you're left with these incoherent slimeballs thinking they run things without any regard for actual law.
I've been thrown in a cell for one week. I was drunk the night before, woke up in a cell. No window, no view, locked door. I was slipped cheese sandwiches for a week and juice boxes.
Do you know what that does to a persons sanity? After day 3 I had literally just accepted it, that I'm staying here with 0 answers and that's just the way it is.
Who is accountable for that? Nobody. Nobody gave me any answers.
Don't shame me for playing the Simpsons untapped (Simpsons farmville clone, whatever) but I think the cops name is Lenny and he says things like "Don't make me late for Pilates" when you click on him.
but the one that cracked me up the most was
"This is where my weekend of police training really kicks in."
Holding is truly screwed up. When I went I saw so many shitty things. Cops abuse their power every day. I should have known when the managers at my shitty University food stop started on a power trip when I worked there and fired me for eating 8 old wings that were left over when I only ordered 6 for my meal... Went against protocol (needed three strikes, only got one). When I was arrested I was really drunk, I was slammed, and forced to sign a piece of paper banning me from a local college campus indefinitely. They said if I signed they'd let me go. Then they arrested me right after I signed it. Slammed multiple times because I said I couldn't leave into the snow with only socks on since my shoes were in my friends room.
They really should up the qualifications on becoming a cop.
Cops will take the best candidates they can get. They don't get a lot of people wanting to be a cop. It's a shitty job that most people would not do by choice.
I agree, that's wrong. I am hoping that maybe they're referencing the idea that if there are bad cops, the good cops are just as guilty as the bad ones - if they're not doing anything about it. To that degree I agree, though I wonder how much unions have to do with keeping bad cops in jobs.
If this is really how things went down, then suing the city seems reasonable. The rest of your comment is a little over the top though, no? Have the police in question spend years in prison? The only good cop is a dead cop? I'd imagine the OP doesn't think this way given his usual, positive interactions with the SFPD.
I wonder if, somewhere out there, there exists a Bizarro Earth where people go out of their way to tell everybody about their pleasant interactions with police. I just had one last night, actually. Very friendly dude, and it wasn't the first time this had happened.
Agreed, I've had multiple interactions with police in various settings (college, traffic stops, etc.) and none have ever been rude. Just doing their job.
I too have had decent interactions. It's when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong with police. Which is why you must have a higher standard like you have higher standards with space shuttle software engineering vs. your casual game app.
While I disagree with the sentiment I can easily see how this sort of thing reinforces it. If justice isn't justly applied; if the police get a pass for brutalising people; then The Law's not the law - it's just another way of keeping people down.
One of my friends, when I was younger, had the attitude pig until proven cop. And the more of this stuff that's floating around the less tenable the contrary position becomes.
Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right? Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?
You're 0 for 2 with me so far. Don't join the debate team.
Do you read this 1000+ word well written point as "having no more substance than 'cops should die'"? Or did you simply decide that you should just ignore that post since it didn't fit your utterly insane narrative? Never mind the fact that even the exact post youre referencing doesn't even say the thing you keep claiming it says...
I'm sure I'll continue being 0 for as long as I'm arguing a different point than yours, because you've shown that its not evidence, or eloquence that matters, rather how well aligned the other person's argument is aligned with your own. I doubt there is a forum where you will fit in well. Maybe you can just scream irrational nonsense at people on 4chan or something?
"The person I'm responding to LITERALLY said he wanted all police to die"
"Well, he didn't literally say that, in fact, he didn't say anything close to that".
"fuck the police shouldn't be the top comment"
evidence is presented to the contrary
"Dude, its not like I meant THIS top comment".
There's no chance you're anything but a troll or stupid, so either way, I'm wasting my time. Cheers.
BlackDeath3's argument was that a voting system is the means through which the best comments, as deemed by the majority of users, receive the most exposure. You misunderstood them and referred them to the current top comment, pointing out that it was quite substantial. Without realizing it though, you were demonstrating their point.
Thank you. It's difficult to get your point across when somebody takes your words, twists them, and forces you into a whole separate argument based on those misconstrued words.
"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right? Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?"
Sentence by sentence just to make it easy on you:
"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right?"
What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?
"Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?""
Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint? Oh right, its a stupid strawman with no merit whatsoever, which i pointed out. If BlackDeath3 wants to throw a tantrum when someone says cops could die, he's more than welcome, but the idea that this is what he bases his argument on when no one said anything like that is utter lunacy. I cannot imagine going around being this irrationally angry. It's like being a republican and just screaming BENGHAZI!!! whenever confronted with something unsavory about your own party. Try living on planet earth with some rational people.
>What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?
If I think that somebody has said something worth exposure, I upvote it. If not, I downvote it. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with it or not. Does it contribute to the conversation? Is it needlessly inflammatory? These are the sorts of questions I ask and answer when voting.
You can argue that "worth exposure" is subjective, and it is, but I didn't say (or mean) vote objectively. One can try, but mostly I just meant that one should pay more attention to the merit of a post's content, rather than their personal agreement with it.
>Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint?
You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen.
And by the way, the "cops should die" comment quite literally was the top comment in this thread at one point. Perhaps you weren't here early enough to see it, but I did, and that's what made me say what I said.
"You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen."
Probably the first time I've ever seen someone lament the idea that someone focused on the specific example they gave...
Anyway, I've seen this happen on reddit plenty, but I would honestly say its a distant second place to the bigger problem, which is what is happening here. Someone like you gets the idea in their head that "saying thing x is popular amongst community y". At that point, all logic goes out the window and actual, reasonable evidence is ignored at the cost of any sort of evidence that remotely confirms your hypothesis. Was the top comment of a thread something bad about cops for a few seconds? Hey, that must mean everyone here wants cops to die, which means the voting system is flawed which means I should throw a tantrum and threaten to leave the community. Like I said, I have no problem with responding to people who actually said this and discussing it, but when you start throwing tantrums about things that weren't said, there is a disconnect between a logical world where people can have conversations, and the world where youre sitting in a room by yourself mashing the keyboard and convincing yourself everyone else is stupid. I'd say you'd probably be better off letting these insane thoughts go...
I tried coming back to you, nearly a day later, and civilly explaining myself and my position, again. Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here). Still, you have insisted on misinterpretation of my posts, picking out and making a big deal of small details, and generally being an asshole to me since the very first post you sent me (which pretty much set the tone for our entire conversation).
It's clear that nobody will be persuading anybody here, that we're both right in our own eyes, and this is going nowhere. I'm tired of trying to explain myself to you. I'm tired of you constantly ending your posts with (not so) clever remarks about how I'm a stupid trolling troll. I'm tired of you. You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye.
I've clearly explained above the way that I think the voting system should work, and I'm not even close to the only person who thinks that way (see: Reddiquette). You've crossed the line from argumentative to disingenuous.
I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts.
"I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts."
Uhhhhh, I know nothing about you at all. I simply mocked the fact that you threw a tantrum over the voting system on this site, said you were leaving (yet you're still making posts at the frequency that you're literally making the algo block you because you're posting too often...), said "I wish the top post wasn't always some no content crap like 'all cops should die'" when a) It didn't say that and b) The actual top post was, quite literally, the exact opposite of your mid-tantrum prediction. If you've taken me mocking your hilariously bad point to mean a strong dislike, I really don't know what to tell you. Perhaps the rest of us don't hold the same irrational grudges you do? But the idea of this level of emotion for a stranger on the internet is simply too foreign for me to understand.
"You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye."
So should I take this to mean that you're going to be responding to my posts literally hundreds of times over the next hour? Because thats what happened when you said you were done with HN? Or was that because you were just being an attention whore making a shit point?
"Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here)."
I love the "I've been totally civil" next sentence "heres a not at all subtle dig from me! LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM" Bravo for pretending you're taking the high road? I guess you convinced yourself and that seems to be all that matters for you. But yeah, one guy agreed with you while everyone else downvoted you. I guess this is better than you normally do so I can see why you're proud.
In closing, no, I don't strongly dislike you, or even care about you at all. I simply think that throwing a tantrum about a community, saying it is so terrible you have to leave because your opinions aren't popular, and then making up a bunch of idiotic, disingenuous straw men to make yourself feel better is stupid and is nothing but a detriment to this community. As I said originally, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Sure, but in your case "improve the system" means "make voting work the way I want", which, among every single human being who isn't you, I'd imagine you'd see some disagreement.
What attribute of Reddit are you talking about? Is it that people here accuse other people of acting like members from some other website, rather than actually confronting their arguments?
Despite your insincerity, for those who actually care the negative trait I was talking about is sophistry: The collapsing of complex situations with many players and perspectives into single-dimensional, black and white, clear-cut projections that everyone can circle around and beat with their strawman beating sticks, all while acting enlightened. This whole thread is absolutely crowded with such positions.
I love Reddit, but outside of certain subs it is not a productive place to discuss complex situations as the crowd naturally wants the story simplified. So you end up with a day 1 version where one actor is clearly the aggrieved party, the other pure villain, and everyone runs out to send nasty emails and to fill voiceboxes with nasty messages. On day 2 a new piece of information comes out that demonstrates that the story was't as stated, and some new situations completely upset who the good guy and the bad guy is. The pitchfork mob goes in the opposite direction. It is useless and destructive, and became such a problem that a number of anti pitchfork rules had to be imposed.
In this case the post I replied to outrageously declared that the only good cop is a dead cop, which is incredibly offensive if you actually have friends who are in law enforcement. And even if you don't, it should be offensive to virtually anyone in a lawful society who relies upon those people more than many of you care to admit.
Add that there is some hilarious irony in a board primarily dominated by the unfit and privileged supporting such notions. I can understand the sentiment in some poverty city inner-city neighbourhood (heck, I grew up in poverty and was surrounded by the "pig" attitude), even if it is often self-defeating, but it is to the point of parody on HN.
"I heard a story about some cop two thousand miles away who did {x}. See, they're all terrible!"
> I love Reddit, but outside of certain subs it is not a productive place to discuss complex situations as the crowd naturally wants the story simplified.
That is the brutal truth. It's why the site favors memes over dissertations.
This is a harrowing tale, but remember this is just one side of the story. And you don't know how inebriated this guy really was. But always best to follow instructions from the police, especially when you are not involved in the situation.
He said he had 3 beers over 3 hours. Assuming he is of average build for someone working "in an early stage start up" then I would think he wasn't wasted at all.
Given that he called 911, he definitely had some connection to the situation.
If I see the police unfairly brutalizing you someday, you won't mind if I just cower and slink away, then just forget about it? Maybe you were drunk and therefore deserved it?
See, when you spew crazy BS like that, not only you give bad cops like the ones in the post a basis but you lose most of the support of people that you will need to make the change.
In order to make these officers spends years in prison you will need law to apply. And that will take pressure and public shaming through posts like this. If you feel so hot headed about this issue you can sign up with organizations like ACLU and the like and help bring the change.
Or, you can play gansta, go at it vigilante fashion, and see how far that takes you.
I may have ended up editing out that last part after some reflection, but it had been already quoted. So alas what's done is done. Frankly I expected to get downvoted a bit, and the fact that it was so positively received is actually a bit disconcerting.
But while I agree that an attitude like that will lead to nothing constructive, at some point one's only recourse is spite.
Perhaps OP will receive monetary compensation after a drawn out lawsuit, only because there are specific things the arresting officer can be pinned with. But the worst that will happen to the officer is that she will lose her job, rather than be brought to trial for her crimes. And everybody else in the chain that dug in their heels to make him miserable rather than treat him as a human is utterly unaccountable.
And I see no avenues of recourse for fixing these systematic abuses. Reform will always be hampered by the fact that the sheer majority of people that police deal with are actually guilty, and that the sheer majority of people don't get arrested. That's two very strong priors that lead to the police being nearly universally accepted as "the good guys".
The only way that's going to change is by eroding the idea of police as de facto heroes, and promoting the idea that they are a malevolent culture that needs to be deprecated so new institutions can take their place. Otherwise, there's no incentive for them to ever change.
I disagree entirely. The presence of the current crop of cops is what makes things "worse for everyone, in every way".
Police have a responsibility to the people they protect. Right now in the US, cops act like the public are there simply to be subjugated, and regularly and routinely shirk that responsibility inherent in the task of policing.
The whole reason we as a society give cops the monopoly on violence is because they're supposed to operate at a higher standard. Police in the US don't do that, as is evidenced by the police force in any major US city.
> I begged them to watch out for my recently broken right elbow.
They don't give a shit about your elbow nor should they. Everyone who gets put in cuffs complains about some current or former injury.
I'm not sure I buy every second of your recount. but there is a big difference between a good samaritan and a do-gooder. If the cops tell you it is time to leave the scene, it's 1 AM on a city street, you've been drinking, then it's time to leave.
Yes cops are generally assholes. The nice guys don't last out there.
They have guns. They have the power to end your existence. So yes, they CAN treat people like this. We gave them that power when they were hired and our tax dollars started paying their salary.
Well, it's not very rational to tell your objections to the same people that you want to take power away.
Yes, the police must treat every innocent person with respect and even reserve some dose of respect to criminals. Yes, it's our duty to try to fix the situation when that do not help. But no, it's not advisable to try to fix that in the exact instant the problem is happening.
I'm saying that the gun is what gives them power. They shouldn't abuse their power, but it's hard to argue with someone that will end your life if they decide to.
The cemetery is full of brave people. I'd much prefer to live, even if that means taking a little abuse for a few moments.
Apologize but not profusely. Then, shut up. Acknowledge the officer's authority, show some respect, and do as your told. Do it whether they deserve it or not. It's about making it home safely, not about being right.
If you want to be an activist or some kind of martyr for all those abused by cops then do so. Afterwards file a lawsuit for unlawful detainment, excessive force or whatever.
"They don't give a shit about your elbow nor should they. Everyone who gets put in cuffs complains about some current or former injury."
Of course they should give some shit about person arrested, especially if that person is not danger for them in any way. I would expect cops to use only necessary force.
And if everyone complains about current or former injury, then those handcuffs are either too tight or cops to brutal. Especially if those handcuffed people, again, represent zero threat.
Learn the lesson: police are never your friend, helping others WILL get you punished eventually - all good deeds are punished in the long run, police can and will do whatever they want to you with no repercussions. Keep your head down and enjoy your free country.
Well, for the most part they're like lawyers: you only need them around for shitty situations, so that's what they're remembered for.
I'm not saying all cops are bad people (though almost all police forces are bad institutions), but why would you just hang out and have a good time with a cop, in his cop role? I'm sure they have friends, but they're not being cops when they're watching the game with their friends.
My comment was more about the fact that police don't walk the beat and help old ladies with their groceries anymore. When cops are around, shit's going down. So even if they are doing their job professionally, it isn't a pleasant experience. And if they're doing their job poorly, it's a nightmare.
>Well, for the most part they're like lawyers: you only need them around for shitty situations, so that's what they're remembered for.
And because of this they get a lot of irrational hate, but it's often still irrational.
>I'm not saying all cops are bad people (though almost all police forces are bad institutions), but why would you just hang out and have a good time with a cop, in his cop role? I'm sure they have friends, but they're not being cops when they're watching the game with their friends.
Is this a question for me, or the general public? If the latter then I'll defer to someone else. If the former, then I'll clarify that I never said that I "hang out" with cops.
>My comment was more about the fact that police don't walk the beat and help old ladies with their groceries anymore. When cops are around, shit's going down. So even if they are doing their job professionally, it isn't a pleasant experience. And if they're doing their job poorly, it's a nightmare.
The cop I had a pleasant experience with was doing his job professionally. You seem to assume that my "pleasant experience with a cop" involved hanging out at a bar together watching the big game, or something like that. I had a pleasant experience with a cop doing his police duties, and it wasn't the first time.
I have. I'll admit this is rare, but one time I paid the city to put up some no parking signs the day I was moving so that the moving truck would be guaranteed to have a place to park. (This is apparently normal in Los Angeles.) When the morning came and one of the spots in front of my building had a car in front of it, I called the police to have it towed. Since the moving truck hadn't arrived, the cop actually went to my neighbor's buildings and checked to see if the owner was home. (He didn't know who it belonged to, so he checked a few different buildings.) He was going to let them move their car instead of having it towed. But as luck would have it, he couldn't find the owner, so he had it towed. I can't believe he went to the trouble, and had it been my car, I would have really appreciated it.
I have had just about nothing but pleasant experiences with the cops. I was an EMT for three years, and the cops that I worked with on a daily basis were the ones that got me — and others, including druggies that ODed, domestic violence victims, and suicide-attempts home at night.
Of course, the natural extension is to say 'well, who has pleasant experiences with cops besides other cops and EMTs and firefighters'?
Even after I moved out here to SF and into Bayview, I still had good experiences with them, meeting them on walks home and pulling up next to them on my motorcycle.
Yes, there are bad cops, and we see articles like this, but that doesn't mean that all cops are bad, and saying 'all of them are fucking pigs' undermines the entire system, and only makes things worse. The bad cops should be ejected from the system, the good cops should be commended. The system itself isn't broken, and treating it like it is just makes it worse.
I've certainly had enough negative interactions to make me very wary, but I also remember some positive ones. Off the top of my head:
* An incident where I was driving and spun across a lane of traffic and off the road in a heavy snowstorm, very fortunately hitting nothing but a reflector post in the process. A highway patrolman stopped, checked to make sure no one was injured, congratulated us on being lucky, and encouraged us to be careful out there.
* An incident where I was being followed around -- no, pursued through -- town by a car I didn't recognize, and I called the dispatcher and eventually drove to the police station.
* A few incidents where I'd pulled off highways to sleep, and officers knocked on the window just to make sure everything was OK. One, when I told him why I was there said "Smartest person I've met tonight" (I suspect any highway patrol officer has seen more drowsy driving accidents than they care to).
* Incidents where I'd been hanging out in my car, using my laptop tethered to a cell phone, in a parking lot or neighborhood long enough to make someone in the neighborhood apparently uncomfortable. In two cases I remember, the officers were gently inquisitive, explained what was going on, ran a check on my plates/ID, and said I wasn't doing anything wrong but might want to consider moving on before too long.
* Incidents where there was nothing particularly positive about the interaction but the officers simply did their jobs and either issued reasonable instructions or a citation.
I've also had a number of incidents where this has gone somewhat less well (attempts to escalate to a search of my car or a DUI investigation, weird and menacing lines of questioning, threats to charge me with illegal camping/vagrancy, occasional browbeatings, on-site detention with no explanation, and at least one encounter where an angry officer was threatening me with extralegal violence), so I understand it doesn't always go like this, so I encourage reforms and increased accountability. But I also think it's fair to remember appreciate the officers who acted reasonably, kindly, and professionally.
I don't really get this. It's nice that many police officers do what they get paid to do, but what about the three bad examples you cite, which were probably abuses of power?
You cited five pleasant events, two where you were suspected of doing something wrong and three which are abuses of power. A considerable amount of your interactions with the police were abusive. So clearly there is a big, systemic problem ehre.
I've been pulled over and harassed by the police for doing absolutely nothing except driving with an out of state license plate. I got no citation and the officer had no reason to pull me over.
I was also pulled over and harassed including being made to take a roadside sobriety test (I was completely 100% sober) for doing absolutely nothing except driving around at 3:30am. I got no citation and the officer had no reason to pull me over.
Both times my first question was "why did you pull me over?" which they made up some crazy story. One was my passenger apparently wasn't wearing her seatbelt (she was - the whole time) and one was I apparently "drifted left slightly while making a lefthand turn." WHAT!?
I've also have good interactions with the police but they aren't really notable. I'm most upset about the roadside sobriety test. The officer then proceeded to litter (illegal) part of the breathalyzer, after I blew a 0.00.
And this is why I fucking HATE COPS. I don't care if it's the few, this god damn country-wide gang is a piece of shit and I will do everything I can to avoid them and teach my two children about staying away as well.
Like I said, don't give two shits. The risk is too high. All pigs are evil to me and I'll keep the hell away from them. If they abused a white woman in her 30's what the hell do you think they'll do to a latino like me? Pfff.
I don't find the parent's attitude irrational at all. If police brutality was a rare unicorn-like event, then I could understand your point of view, but it's not. Not even remotely so.
I've been lucky in that my interactions with police have ranged from professionally neutral (mostly traffic cops) to indifferent and bored (cop at a police station clearly not giving two shits that I'd just been mugged). (Of course, me being a white male helps with this "luck".) But the stuff I hear about makes me wonder: if I need the police at any point in time, what are my chances of getting a cop that's helpful vs. one that's on a power trip and wants to fuck with me?
I seriously wonder about that, and I seriously will think twice about calling 911 in an emergency. And that's the problem. It doesn't matter one bit what the percentage is: maybe 0.00001% of cops are bad, and the rest are good. But the perception is that a significant portion of cops are just power-hungry assholes who love being able to strap on a gun and show that they have authority over you. Perception matters more than reality sometimes.
Hence, the irrationality comment. Somebody who has one pleasant experience with a cop has had a good day. Somebody who has had one friend murdered by a cop probably never trusts any police again.
And I think that's rational. A pleasant experience with a cop should be the absolute norm and should be unremarkable. Having a friend who is murdered by a cop is so far in the negative tally column that I don't think there's any recovering from that.
But treating all police like scumbags because of one bad encounter isn't rational. It's a response born out of fear, and while fear can be useful it isn't always rational.
I hate to be the "Norway" guy again, but here we go: The current situation in the US is a perfect example of one of the bad outcomes when running a police force: Systemic misconduct by police officers undermine the police's trust among the population. This leads to a lack of will from the citizens to cooperate with the police, also in situations where it would be in everyone's interest to cooperate with the police.
In my country, you have to go through a 3-year training program in order to become a police officer, and these principles are underscored time and time again in training. As a result, most people do in fact trust and respect the police. This makes the job of the police much easier, which in turn leads to a safer society. You never hear normal people say "don't talk to the police", which is something that seems really weird when reading about the US. Granted, I've heard it so often that it doesn't surprise me anymore - especially given stories like the ones in this thread.
I think if a type of animal killed people on a regular basis but was fairly useful otherwise, it would be more rational to assume and plan for the animal attacking me and so minimize my encounters with it. To that end, if I'm going to paint that animal species with any wide brush, it's going to be the one that makes me more likely to survive.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea of standing by when you see what you consider to be evil being done, but I think you fail to take a lot of factors into account here.
I'll respond to this in the same way that I responded to another user posing the same questions.
Who says that they don't speak out about this sort of stuff? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?
I'd like to believe you (I really would), but you've made quite the extrapolation here, given one single link to a Wikipedia article about a guy who once succeeded at routing some bad police.
I think that must have been sarcasm; because NYPD treated Schoolcraft badly, and reacted badly to his reports. Also, how many links and sources do you need?
I'm sorry, but the fact that I received the same one link to a single instance from two different people in response to this question doesn't give me a lot of faith about the general response a cop gets when he tries this sort of thing.
If you are a police officer tasked with enforcing the law, and you see coworkers of yours breaking the law by kidnapping people like the one in the OP, why would you not arrest your coworkers?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of police officers who are thugs.
It's frustrating; I personally know a few cops who are decent enough people, but they protect their own. They don't do this because they like protecting shitbags; they do it because if they don't protect everyone, they run the risk of getting their own careers ruined by bullshit accusations. The result, of course, is that the good cops get protected from bullshit, but at the cost of protecting the bad ones as well.
They are completely inflexible about it. Their attitude is, "Well, that's too bad for the poor bastards who get brutalized. I have a wife and kids to feed, and I care far more about their future than the well-being of some random guy."
So, people who violate this sort of immunity get bullied and harassed.
I understand this mindset, although I find it repulsive. I think that the only way to prevent this is to smarten the review process and make it easier to get to the bottom of complaints. This would require constant video recording and a smart Internal Review staff who can differentiate between abuse and the necessary use of force.
If you have a specific point to make regarding your parent commenter's response , then make the point, even better substantiate it with verifiable data, dont ask loaded questions. You keep railing about "several" people here claimed good cops dont exist. Please help me find that "several"
EDIT: Responding to BlackDeath3's comment below
----
> I'm sorry, I don't think I'll do that
Because you cant, so stop trolling. If lack of intelligent commentary so annoys you, it is only fair that you hold your comments to an equal standard. Sadly evidence shows otherwise.
Come clean, in some posts you respond with "I exist" when people complain about public invisibility of good cops and in others you insult commenter's for suggesting you are a cop or a law student.
And you have still not addressed this: If you have a specific point to make regarding your parent commenter's response , then make the point, even better substantiate it with verifiable data, dont ask loaded questions.
I'm sorry, I don't think I'll do that. If the consequence is that you completely discount what I'm saying and don't believe me, then that's fine. I don't feel like I should have to point others to relevant comments within the same comment page. I may have time to waste here, but I don't have that much.
All we're trying to do here is understand. We hear reports about bad cops doing bad things. I don't hear reports about good cops condemning those bad cops. I do hear reports about the rest of the cops quietly rallying around those bad cops, closing ranks, and hiding and protecting them. At absolute best, I hear about press conferences where the police commissioner will say the absolute minimum to cover his/her ass while providing no real belief that bad cops are actually accountable for anything.
If you're going to say that good cops do condemn bad cops, show us examples of this happening. I would love to see them, but I haven't heard of even one. If you're not willing to do the work to come up with these cases, then I'm just not going to believe you. Not saying you have an obligation to prove your case to anyone, but from the volume of comments from you in this post, it seems like you really do care about this issue.
There are other bags of food. There aren't other police forces. If the only food you had for the next, say, term of office was that bag of apples, you'd be tucking into it in short order rather than starve.
And to be a pedant, green/unripe apples are poisonous. They make you feel unwell; they just don't maim or kill you. Plenty of people would tuck into a bag of apples where some of them were still not yet ripe.
That's the problem, combined with the fact that police forces are funded by force rather than by providing a service that people are willing to pay for.
Noting your criticism of another comment on this story let me tell you this comment of yours comes across as equally if not more vapid. No one, I think, doubts that there exist good cops. But thats almost irrelevant because its the bad ones that one has to watch out for. You have not claimed so,its not a response to you, but I also dont think "only a few bad apples here and there" holds as well as one would like either.
Well comments like "the only good cop is a dead cop" come across as blisteringly stupid. I'm primarily responding to those sorts of comments because it seems as though some people really do think that no good cops exist.
No one said the thing you're claiming people say...
When the entire basis of your point is a clear strawman, and your argument is literally "cops aren't bad, because there are a non-zero number of good cops, is, as the above poster said, vapid and lacking in rational thought. The idea that you need to make up an opponent to make up an argument and call it "blisteringly stupid" to make your point, seems pretty silly.
My argument is "good cops exist". This is in response to somebody in this comment section who quite literally (yes, the real literally) said "the only good cop is a dead cop".
"And this is why I fucking HATE COPS. I don't care if it's the few, this god damn country-wide gang is a piece of shit and I will do everything I can to avoid them and teach my two children about staying away as well.
Fuck these pigs."
This is what you were responding to. This person never said the main thing that seems to have incited your tantrum. At this point you're either trolling or stupid, so there isn't much of a point in us continuing here. Cheers.
When I say "responding to" I didn't necessarily mean the post directly above me. A minimal amount of effort put into looking at the rest of the comment page would have remedied your apparent confusion.
Please, do stop responding to me. I have enough to fill my time without trying to explain (what I thought was) the obvious to you.
You seem to be having some trouble with basic logic, which may be the cause of your current "I'm leaving this community because they think my tantrum isn't a valid opinion!". If you say "I'm responding to someone who said [thing x]" and you're not responding to someone who said that, it is really me who is to blame for trusting what you said? But yeah, as I said in the other post, I doubt I'll get anywhere disagreeing with someone who has a complete inability to admit theyre wrong. Hope you find some good buddies over at 4chan.
Who says that they don't? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?
As typical of somebody posting a throwaway comment to an online forum, I'm not sure that you've taken everything into account when you make such a broad statement.
I've quite thoroughly considered it. The police are a civil service given power and authority by the public. That power is turned around to abuse the public. Now, to whom does a private condemnation best serve? Hint: It's not the abused or oppressed.
Condemnation that you aren't aware of != private condemnation. It seems pretty damn arrogant to imply that something doesn't exist because you aren't aware of it.
Every good cop who is managing to effectively stop a bad cop, means yet another bad cop.
That is, we're hearing about bad cops who aren't being stopped by good ones. A lot. "Well, the good ones are out there!"; they're either ineffective, or effective, in which case the number of bad cops is even higher than we hear about. Neither of those is particularly placating.
You aren't aware of it, so it isn't so? Really? Next, you'll tell me that Fox News really is "fair and balanced".
Good police exist, and will continue to exist, despite civilian hostility and shifting definitions of what it means to be a "good cop". I'll never claim that no police are bad, or that there aren't many bad police, but I know that I'll never envy the good ones as long as the people filling this comment page comprise the majority of our population.
There may indeed by Y good cops. I am not making any claim about the existence or non-existence of Y good cops (in fact, I've interacted with good cops, so if I was to make any claim at all, it's simply that they exist, and the effects they have on bad cops are unknown).
These Y good cops are either doing nothing to stop bad cops (and thus are ineffective at stopping bad cops; this may be simply because they are in different departments, and/or unaware of it if it's happening within the same one, and/or they may be powerless to stop it, etc etc), or they are effective at stopping Z bad cops (for a total number of X + Z bad cops, since X are still not being stopped).
Either of these situations is terrible, because either the good cops are not stopping bad cops from being bad, or they are, but there are enough bad cops that the good cops are unable to stop them all (and thus the numbers of bad cops are even higher than we hear about).
Well, please do try to put it another way, because it sounds to me like you aren't satisfied with the good cops simply because bad cops still exist. I'm not really sure what your point is.
I agree that our current situation is sub-optimal. I don't remember ever arguing otherwise.
Because I had twenty-five responses to give, and many of the posts I've responded to were directed (if only implicitly) at me. It would be rude of me to ignore such intelligent discussion.
Since I've submitted to your analysis, a turn about is fair play. I think you are a cop. You'd like to think you are good, which is understandable, because most people would like to think that. You realize that you are judged, often unfairly, by various parties. You find yourself valuing the judgment of fellow officers most, but occasionally you are surprised and disappointed by the opinion of the general public. They just don't understand your situation, they don't appreciate your efforts, and besides they don't know how the system works. Still, it hurts.
At the same time, you are genuinely uncomfortable about some of the things you have done and seen being done. You don't blame the police; it's the fucked-up system and the dirtbags they have to deal with. So far you've toed the line, although you imagine there are some things that would cause you to break ranks. Every year, though, those things recede. Sometimes you wonder what you'll find yourself stomaching a decade from now. Maybe you'll switch to just working security. Got to get that pension first, though.
Forget it, you're probably a law student or something. Still, that was fun.
I argue for the existence of good police, therefore I'm a cop and a law student?
Unfortunately for yourself, your off-the-cuff analysis is quite far off the mark. I do appreciate your trying though, as I've never had the pleasure of having somebody so publicly try to profile me. It was fun!
The problem is that (especially for minorities in large cities) calling for the police is a gamble.
That many white, suburban kids are taught from a young age that "all police are your friends, you can always go to them if you need help" and that many minorities in cities are taught from a young age "cops are people near complete immunity, great authority and guns; they are to be feared; you would do best to avoid them at all costs and if you must interact with them, be as non-confrontational as possible and if you are arrested say nothing until you have a lawyer".
From the article ...
> I was standing 15 feet from the scene beside Officer Kaur, a stocky female of South Asian complexion. She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome.
The cop told the author to leave, the author indicated otherwise.
I guess the author got the "police are your friends" story growing up, not the "avoid at all costs and be non-confrontational if you cannot" story.
Every time the author got confrontational, the situation worsened. Want a doctor? Solitary.
From here, the next thing is "but what about the author's rights? even if the cops don't like you, you still have rights!". Sure, and exercising your rights is inconvenient, at times requiring things like going to jail until things are sorted out.
For a cop arresting you, it's just another day at work. For you, it's missing work unexpectedly, maybe some legal bills, worrying who is watching your kid in a few hours, etc. Your life goes upside for a bit even if charges are ultimately dropped or if the first time in front of a judge your lawyer convinces the judge to throw out the case. You have everything to lose and they/the system/etc. have nothing to lose (except for once in a while when it gets really bad and there's a huge lawsuit, like this recent local story[0], unless you've got some clout, in which case the mayor will call to see how you're doing[1]).
I would agree with that. The problem I have is that I fear that hyperbole promotes an attitude that causes people to act as though the extreme exists. I hope you understand my meaning.
Go to any online cop forum. You will find zero "good cops" - only cops making excuses for other cops.
This is why cops involved in vases like these need to be made internet famous, including high resolution photos so that face recognition software can be used to spot them at a distance.
This kind of crap is why I left law enforcement after 14 years in it. I was a jailer for a while, and ended up hating myself for witnessing but not being able to stop things like the article author went through. I went from jailer to dispatcher, then terminal operator. Even there, detached as I was from the violence and corruption, I still knew I was supporting it as well. I'm finally out of that career, working as the sole IT staff for a private company.
While I know that there are a lot more good cops than bad cops, there are also, among the good cops, way too many bullies who seemingly don't even realize what they are doing. They are generally good, family oriented, helpful people, but they are trained in the POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) classes to never, ever trust the citizen. That mistrust bleeds over into their personality and they sometimes don't even realize they have become jerks and bullies. I'm not defending them; it's just been my observation that while the job does attract a certain bad element (low to average intelligence combined with laziness and a lust for authority), it also attracts those who want to do good but end up warped into becoming oppressors despite their good intentions.
And there are a few truly good cops who would prevent something like what we read escalating like it did. They do exist, but they generally don't last very long in that line of work, because they can't take the constant pressure to be part of the team and cover up the bullshit.
This is exactly why it wont get fixed until the structural incentives of the system is fixed, which is a top level policy issue. A very very difficult political issue.
Does he? Because I read it as the latter, and with the amount of internet bravado that surrounds any talk about the police, I'd be unsurprised if it was meant as the latter.
I know him, and he's moved from one corrupt third-world shithole (Detroit) to an almost civilized city in a civilized country (Berlin) for this reason.
I admit that this is probably the consequence of living in a less populated state, but when they ask the nature of your emergency here (NM), the dispatcher typically makes a decision of what response is needed.
All three are sent for most vehicular accidents for traffic control (state police, county sheriff, or city), fire suppression (volunteer FD, usually), and medical services (sometimes volunteer, especially in the county). Judging by the comments below, I suspect there's an advantage to living in an area that doesn't have tax money to blow. ;)
Same in my location, a neighbor had a small fire in the wall due to plumbing soldering: police, firetrucks and ambulance. Then extra police kept stopping by (I guess they were bored, and the paramedic chick was cute and flirty).
That is so weird. Where I live, Israel, they actually have different phone numbers (police - 100, medics - 101, fire dept. - 102), and they come only if you call them specifically (if at all). Of course if something really bad happens you call the police first and they call everyone else, but police arriving for someone who fell of their bike? Really? What a weird place.
Depends on the situation. I've had operators ask if anyone was injured so they wouldn't have to send out an ambulance. Usually, the police are there anyway.
Of the three groups (fire paramedics police) which is most likely to be bored with nothing to do? Of course the cops are going to light the lamps.
This nation would have much better policing if we had half as many cops. I had a single day of jury duty two weeks ago and was dumbfounded by how many sheriff's deputies there were wandering around the courthouse in a daze, loitering around the metal detector, setting off the metal detector, speaking at inappropriate volume, eating in unsettling fashion, etc.
I'm sorry, but have you been to a dispatch room? I spent a day with in a sherriffs department once and then had went on a ridealong - there's no 'loitering around', arranging a half an hour's break for dinner was difficult.
Both you and the person you are replying to have taken personal anecdotes and expanded them out to decide that America has either too few or too many cops.
And let me tell you, I've had acquaintances nearly die from overdoses because they've watched too much American TV; here in Aus, if you call the ambulance the police will not come unless you report violence.
But hey, Australia is surprisingly progressive in this way: I just got my prescription for Naloxone needles and did my training today. I'm an ex-addict, and don't hang with those people very often, but if I ever do I can save an overdose :) this is in QLD of all places, despite Newman trying to turn us into a police state.
Don't call the paramedics either. Desperately try to find your own way (or help the injured person find a way) to the hospital if something is wrong. There is no shortage of stories where people call the police, even for relatively serious issues, only to have the police show up and promptly murder the injured person or another nearby innocent.
"Don't leave your house, ever!" and "Don't try to stop and help anyone with anything" would also have prevented this. That doesn't make either of them good advice.
I recently had an encounter that was a little surreal. At the art studio a forlorn man walked upstairs into the lunch room. Someone asked him how he was doing, he just looked like he was having a bad day, not super shitty, but bad. Lots of people come in and out of that studio space, it is common to see people you don't recognize. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just want to die." The art studio is mostly women, and his response put them all on edge. I could tell someone wanted to call the cops, the guy was definitely mentally ill. But the first thing that flashed in my mind was there was a high likelyhood this guy would be dead pretty shortly after calling them. Either by choice, suicide by cop or because that is just how the cops do things. Somehow it is ok for cops to shoot the mentally ill and get away with it. We eventually talked things out and he left before I could track him down again. I wish I handled that part better. I don't even want to call the cops when I am in danger for fear they will mistake me for someone else. Never been on the wrong side of the law, but I'd like to keep my cop exposure to zero. They never, ever, make a situation better.
The scenario you were afraid of happens. It's not too rare to read a story where someone calls the police because their friend is in medical distress, only to have the police show up and murder the person right there in their own home.
Video all interactions with police more serious than a traffic stop and video those if you can get away with it legally. Cameras are cheap and Internet streaming is easy.
I'd say that the ones where you think it might not be serious are precisely the ones you should definitely be recording: you might not treat it with the same gravity, especially when you feel that you've done nothing wrong or that the most likely outcome is a ticket or scolding.
recording of police is illegal in many cities - and i mean the voice recording. unless there's an app that lets u record without sound i'd say do not record.
Secret recording is illegal in 12 states, the ones that are two-party consent states. These states require all parties to know that they are being recorded.
Openly recording the police is prohibited in two states - Illinois and Massachusetts. Every other state, you have the right to record the police, as long as you do it openly.
Now, there are a few things that go along with this. You are not allowed to interfere with the investigation. So, for example, you can stand a respectful distance away and start recording. You cannot run up to the cop's face and yell "AM I BEING DETAINED?!"
Oddly enough, police in one-party states want to keep the status quo. Because it means they don't have to get a warrant to record suspects' communications with police/informants.
Recording the police doing their job in public in generally legal and is a protected First Amendment activity. Courts keep ruling in favor of recording police. Laws prohibiting it are not constitutional.
>Openly recording the police is prohibited in two states - Illinois and Massachusetts
Last week the City of Boston agreed to pay Simon Glik $170,000 in damages and legal fees to settle a civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2007 felony arrest for videotaping police roughing up a suspect. Prior to the settlement, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Glik had a “constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public.” The Boston Police Department now explicitly instructs its officers not to arrest citizens openly recording them in public.
The law in 38 states plainly allows citizens to record police, as long as you don’t physically interfere with their work. Police might still unfairly harass you, detain you, or confiscate your camera. They might even arrest you for some catchall misdemeanor such as obstruction of justice or disorderly conduct. But you will not be charged for illegally recording police.
Twelve states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington—require the consent of all parties for you to record a conversation.
However, all but 2 of these states—Massachusetts and Illinois—have an “expectation of privacy provision” to their all-party laws that courts have ruled does not apply to on-duty police (or anyone in public). In other words, it’s technically legal in those 48 states to openly record on-duty police.
....
Fortunately, judges and juries are soundly rejecting these [anti-police recording] laws. Illinois, the state with the most notorious anti-recording laws in the land, expressly forbids you from recording on-duty police. Early last month an Illinois judge declared that law unconstitutional, ruling in favor of Chris Drew, a Chicago artist charged with felony eavesdropping for secretly recording his own arrest. Last August a jury acquitted Tiawanda Moore of secretly recording two Chicago Police Internal Affairs investigators who encouraged her to drop a sexual harassment complaint against another officer. (A juror described the case to a reporter as “a waste of time.”) In September, an Illinois state judge dropped felony charges against Michael Allison. After running afoul of local zoning ordinances, he faced up to 75 years in prison for secretly recording police and attempting to tape his own trial.
I remember, once, a very cynical person telling me not to call the cops, in any circumstance, unless mine or someone else's survival or long-term well being is completely dependent on it. If you see someone shot dead in the street, for example, don't call the cops; leave. You're the first suspect if you do anything else, and you'll be treated like one.
I was very put out by this attitude. I'm starting to wonder if it's perhaps quite realistic.
I don't know what the cynic would have suggested in this situation. I don't believe he would have said, 'leave her to fend for herself,' but perhaps to call a hospital directly, or ask her to call a family member or something, I don't know.
Police are dangerous. They have too much power and not enough brains. I'm an optimist; I think there must be some possible infrastructure that incentivises police to be good, and incentivises everyone in the system to weed out those who are not. The current system doesn't resemble that remotely, and for now, perhaps the cynic is right.
Your cynical friend was correct. If you have to call 911 for someone else, do it anonymously. As long as police (internal affairs) are the only ones to police police, there will never be any justice. Also, remember that suing police hardly ever works. Police have immunity by law and they use that to their advantage to cover up any cruel and sick acts they feel like. They are above the law. Ask any minority and they will confirm this is the case.
I agree. I posted this elsewhere in this thread, but I want to say it again: If police officers are officers of the court, judges should have the authority (and use the authority) to strip the officer of the authority to act as an officer. Much like contempt of court, it should not require formal hearings or process to immediately remove bad officers from duty. At that point the police department would effectively have an ordinary citizen on their payroll, unable to wear a uniform or make arrests or risk being charged with impersonating an officer and kidnapping.
While I was a student living in a "gentrifying" part of the city, I once went outside to discover my car was full of bullets. Several in the hood, several through the windows, one in the rear tire and most disconcertingly one in the driver side headrest.
When I called the police and the investigator came, I could tell I was instantly suspect #1. He began grilling me lengthily about my whereabouts the night before and who I lived with.
An officer in blue joined as well and they were basically threatening to confiscate my car until I started talking about getting a lawyer.
Of course this situation is nowhere near the authors in terms of harm or even potential harm, but it definitely showed me that ANY interaction with the police has the potential to go VERY badly for you no matter what.
He assumed you were a gang member and the shooting was gang related. Which probably isn't a bad heuristic. Most of the time when gangs shoot up a rival gang members car, they don't accidentally get the wrong one.
Wrong answer. Never try sarcasm or irony with cops. Either they don't understand it - or they just don't want to. All it does is getting you into trouble.
Wasting time reminds me of a positive story about cops: At 3am, some guys thew a hammer through my driver-side window and tried to take my car to go street racing (it looked faster than it was...). The idiots jammed the handbrake on and couldn't release it. The endless revving of the engine woke up my housemate, who scared them off, then called the cops, then woke me up.
I was annoyed. Great, now we have to wait an hour for the cops to show up, and they're going to be pissed off that they had to leave the comfortable station to waste time dealing with something that they can't do anything about. Broken sleep, broken window, and now I have to manage an interaction with grumpy police.
The cops that arrived showed empathy. Yes, they couldn't do anything about it, but their underlying tone was "this was a shitty thing to have happened" rather than "why the fuck are you wasting our time". I was so taken aback by the shift in tone that I actually said the line, corny as it is, "I've lived here for 11 years and this is the first time I've had a positive experience with the Fitzroy police"
The cop searching with a torch behind my car doubled over in silent laughter while the one in front of me smirked "Actually, we're from Collingwood..."
I had two incidents within a year involving members of my family that make me keep cops at a huge distance.
First was my father, he was a farmer at the time, late 50s. He found a crop of marijuana on the farm and turned it into the police. The planters of the crop decided that what happened was that my sisters boyfriend must of stolen it to sell. So they drove to my fathers house at dinner time, four of them, and started demanding payment.
My sisters boyfriend confronted them and told them what had happened, which then resulted in a four on one beat down. My dad ran back into the house grabbed a bat, ran back out and hit two of them. First guy dropped unconscious with the first blow, second guy stumbled dazed. The last two took off so fast they left the car behind.
My mother had rung the police before the violence had started, and they arrived before my sisters boy friend had managed to get off the ground. They arrested my father and he spent the next 3 days in jail. No other charges where laid.
Tens of thousands of dollars later the case was thrown out by a jury and the judge scolded the police for there actions and for wasting the courts time and tax payers money.
During the proceedings evidence came forward that the police had received the crop, and instead of filing paper work just disposed of it being lazy (the same cop that arrested my father). Before the court the cop was fingered by other police officers as a liar, breaking laws, my family pointed it out, even the four guys fingered the cop as a liar. Official complaints where laid, the response was no wrong doing could be found.
A few months after the incident my cousins mates where doing burn outs around, being little bastards really, but the cop couldn't catch them. Angry he went to my cousins house, it was around 3am. Knocked on the door asking where they where.
My cousin is also a farmer, gets up around 5am, he opened the door tired and confused. Said he hadn't seen them. The cop got in his face yelling at him, so my cousin said "listen I got work in a few hours and I need some more sleep, they aren't here, you can see that, how about you just fuck off". Which resulted in the cop kicking the door out of his hands and beating my cousin so bad he had to be taken to hospital with a broken jaw, and swelling so bad he couldn't open his eyes. During the beating the cop threatened my cousin, his mates, and father directly.
My father, and my family are pillars of the community. My dad grew up in the town, was the local scout master, organises the christmas parades, helps with local stage performances. So the event did not go down well at all.
The next bit of what happened is all heresy but this is what I've been told happened. Photos where taken of my cousin. A group of local farmers went to the police station, handed over the photos and said if the cop steps out of line once more he will be lynched (black mail essentially). I've heard variations where they roughed the cop up to send the message to him.
He was told he wasn't welcome on any bodies property in the area and to search for a new position immediately. If he failed that then the town was going to turn on his big time, and the photos would be used if an investigation began to make him loose his job. I can remember being in the supermarket on a visit and watching someone eye ball the cop as he was shopping, staring straight down the isle at him, as the cop moved to the next aisle the guy just moved along to the end of that aisle and eye balled him till he left the store.
The cop was gone in 6 months, but it took an entire rural community to stand up to him when the police and the complaints organisation wouldn't. You could say there are procedures to deal with these situations, but there aren't when they are design to protect the police.
The real sad bit is that prick just moved to another station. He's probably still trying to beat confessions out of kids right now.
> During the proceedings evidence came forward that the police had received the crop, and instead of filing paper work just disposed of it being lazy (the same cop that arrested my father).
I hate to break this to you, but I don't think the crop was 'disposed of' in the way you were thinking of, and it wasn't motivated by laziness.
The narrative is totally not credible. There are gaps where its obvious that the author did something to elicit a reaction, but what that was is omitted from the story. My guess would be that the author was being a smart ass, and given the drinking more belligerent than he recalls in retrospect. No, the cops shouldn't have roughed him up just for being a pompous asshole,[1] but the author should tell the whole story.
[1] "My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." My god imagine listening to this self indulgent tripe at 1 am while keeping your cool.
Just to provide a data point: I know the OP personally. I can't be sure that there are no omissions, but him saying things like that is not surprising and it doesn't feel like there are holes. His particular demeanor and pattern of speech would likely make it seem not so much pompous as just eccentric. He's very obviously earnest, and not in the naive way often encountered in the Bay Area these days. Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty. To me, one of the core points of this story is that you can never assume you won't be perceived as a member of a group not so advantaged.
Were I not very familiar with him, an interpretation such as yours would definitely be one of my high probability estimates, which is what compelled me to add my views. Take it as you will.
I don't know him, but I doubt he is naive in the "believes in fairy tales and doesn't understand how the world really works" manner that you suggest. Here's a story about the author's background and how he ended up coaching basketball in Afghanistan: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie...
> Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty.
That doesn't exist any longer. Our elites are corrupt.
You are absolutely wrong. Almost the exact same thing happened to me, about 400 miles south, last January. Many of the details are even eerily similar. Your claims of omission are totally baseless, and I would guess driven by the same sort of illusions I used to have about the police, their role in our society, and the mechanisms that are in place to deal with bad apples.
My claims of omission are based on the sequence of events being nonsensical as presented. I can buy that the cops were bullies. That's not acceptable behavior for a cop, but I acknowledge it does happen. Cops often act punitively towards those they perceive as giving them lip, and while its not right it happens. You shouldn't mouth off to a cop but cops shouldn't use their office in retaliation. But this story where the cops spontaneously seem to react to nothing is difficult to believe.
Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode. In the same way, her asking for a doctor was the trigger for the jailer to strip her and put her in solitary. If you haven't been in the system, then you don't understand how brutal, arbitrary, and nightmarish it is. Good heavens, almost the exact same thing happened to me, and I live in a sleepy, peaceful little town. It's startling to think that this kind of treatment is only a phone call away, for everyone.
>Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode.
Even if he was doing something wrong, assuming he wasn't violent, what happened to him was way out of proportion and should be illegal.
However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.
>However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.
I know where you're coming from. It is hard to believe. I could hardly believe it when it happened to me (see my other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7234781). I still have a hard time believing it.
But the simple fact is that it happens, and what really enables it is the fact that there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The police are incredibly well-protected from any sort of accountability. The will to reprimand has to come from the inside, and that is usually done silently, if it's done at all. Cops are big on loyalty.
I have plenty of problems with the way police departments are ran in this country, but I think he was probably a bit drunker than he mentioned in the story.
The advice given for dealing with cops seems like the advice given for being in a bad area of town.
"Keep your head down, don't give them any lip. Don't say anything unless you don't have to and certainly don't diss them in any way, you'll probably be fine..."
Interesting that a person acting imperfectly (which I can buy happened, and that this account is colored in that direction) is enough to make him the greater of the people who screwed up here. Roughly 9/10 of your comment is directed at attacking him personally--in terms you have no justification of, since you have no concrete knowledge of the situation--while only 1/10 is a concession that the police screwed up. Despite the police screw up being far more violent and egregious.
I was in grad school with Peretz for a few years, and I can assure you that he was neither drunk nor a smart-ass. And I have no doubt that his narrative is entirely credible.
(And to be clear, we're talking about a guy that has a PhD from one of the top five biophysics programs on Earth.)
He is earnest and sincere, and I can imagine that the officer mistook him for someone he is not that night, but I don't think any of his actions come close to justifying how he was treated.
Further, it was my experience while living near his current neighborhood that the police were as dangerous (if not more so) than any of the myriad criminals operating there. I'm not anti-police, but I am not a fan of the cops that covered those areas while I lived there.
FWIW I'm not going to offer an opinion on whether 20+% is a good tip, but tipping with a credit card has a lower value to the server.
All tips are notionally taxable income, whether a server chooses to declare all their cash tips is their choice, when you tip with a credit card it stops being their choice - and there's no way of telling how much of the tip is diverted by the establishment.
Well then, the administrators of roads and ambulances should probably lobby to have the police taxes be separable, before too many people decide to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Generally I disagree that litigation is ever the answer. But in this case OP should take their jobs because they don't deserve to wear the badge.
I admit that I dislike cops and that I've never had a positive interaction with one. But there are some cops who legitimately want to do a good job and make their city safer. And these guys are shitting all over that.
After reading the first paragraph I already knew where this was headed.
White America welcome to black America. You'll be arrested for nothing at all. The first time it happens you'll be really upset and threaten to sue, and file a police report. And when you do there will be some sort of roadblock, they won't have the forms, the officer in question wasn't on shift that night, the detective is quite hostile to you, the victim.
You'll learn what I've learned. Don't trust the police for shit. All of the things I've listed I've done and it only made life difficult until I left for college.
It seems you have been the victim of a similarly unjust arrest, but frankly I can't see how you "already knew where this was headed" after the first paragraph.
Given the photo at the top, at first glance I assumed that the woman at the lectern was the OP, only towards the end of the story did I get understand that the OP was a man. I cannot see any reference to the OP being black in the text (his About thumbnail is too small to see clearly).
yardie isn't saying the author was black. They're saying that this is the typical experience of black people's interactions with police in the united states. Whereas the author is surprised at being treated this way, many people learn to expect it.
I really can't stand how often this view is repeated. Of course their power can be abused, but once you know how to avoid the abuse, regular expressions are a great and easy to use tool.
Especially if well-commented thanks to /x or if live-previewed in an editor like IntelliJ (though it still needs additional live-previewing if you ask me). As to the subject at hand... Yeah. I feel like I've woken up to the reality of what it means to talk to cops. I'd call if I had video evidence for insurance or something, but I'm not sure otherwise. I've never had anything turn out right when involving cops. Nothing bad either, but they didn't help as much as I expected. My problem (a theft) meant far more to me than to any detective. So I learned to protect my stuff better, make backups, keep things hidden. The world's a scary enough place without cops adding to it. Then again, maybe part of the problem is how arrests are performed. I'd try to fix it, but I'm worried about attracting attention ;-)
> "...Cops improving a situation? Never seen it."
I suspect that's really just an emotional lashing-out at a pervasive problem. But if it's not, I assure you - I have seen cops improve a situation, and I'm certain that others have too. I might be biased from watching cops running into the chaos of 9/11, while I was running away from it. Or from having my family protected from crazy, violent people while I was busy and oblivious at work. To be clear, I'm no police-state apologist, and I know there are vile sociopaths attracted to positions of power and authority - but I've also met some pretty OK cops who really mean to help people, and often do. I'm just saying.
>I suspect that's really just an emotional lashing-out at a pervasive problem.
It's not. It's my personal experience and was stated that way. I, unambiguously, have never once seen the police improve a situation. I've never even really heard about it happening.
It's good that it's happened to you - it probably makes you feel more secure in the place where you live.
Cops are in a weird place. People don't like them until they need them. I work with a lot of cops and most of them are good (and yes they can occasionally get overreaching) but that generalization widens the divide between on-duty police officers and civilians. I would say if we treated them like I get treated being part time Military (hand shaken, dinners, etc) that they will be better people. You'll also see less of this.
Humans like positive situations, they like being praised, they like feeling loved and needed. They will defend the things they hold dear.
I'm pretty sure we all know or have known cops. The ones I've known definitely love praise. They seem upset and angry that people aren't praising them constantly, in my experience. Very high opinions of themselves. </(probably) unfair stereotype and generalization>
Hero worship is not the answer and may actually contribute to the problem. The solution is basic accountability ie police do not investigate themselves and a change of culture from "war on crime" to community policing. As someone else commented here, the police training actually turns well meaning future officers against the average citizen. An example re: accountability is the California city that significantly reduced complaints by requiring officers to wear cameras. Small sample size but encouraging.
But I don't think the military should get the worship it does, and cops are supposed to be civilians and neighbors, not soldiers.
People don't hate on EMTs and firemen. You know why? Those people don't shoot your dog, beat you and arrest you when you look at them the wrong way.
Until there is a STANDARD of good cops throwing out bad cops and NOT facing retribution;
Until there is an established, effective and formal method of oversight and accountability for verifiable acts of police brutality and false arrest,
I will not invite any police officer to my home until I've known them for quite some time.
---
Final remark, To your comment directly: Officers need to change their behavior first. This isn't going to be resolved by people loving cops in the hopes they'll get in a better mood. 'They' need to remember they are 'us'.
Are there some countries where the daily interaction between police and citizens is not antagonistic?
In the States most of the interaction with that I witness police is negative: get pulled over for speeding, ticketed, etc. Even when they're doing sobriety checkpoints on St. Patrick's day, they're inconveniencing people who are responsible.
If the daily interactions between citizens and cops are like this it'll be very difficult to get people to change behavior.
Then when people need the cops, they call the cops, and their dog gets shot, their door gets broken, their kids get taken away, they get a beat-down, and maybe get to spend a weekend in jail, it goes from "don't like" to "really don't like".
As a white person thrown into psychiatric solitary a couple times, I'd say that he got pretty cushy treatment compared to what black folks get. No trial, out in 12 hours? Try that if you're black.
Sounds crazy, but considering how many questions he was asking the officers after they'd cuffed him he got off quite easy. I wonder if my friends that went to UCSF around the same time as him knew him. I know a lot of folks like him, but they don't know much standard "know your rights" type stuff that teaches you to do nothing, say nothing once you are cuffed.
Unless you are making them laugh, you're probably on their bad side.
I've spent an entire weekend in holding for resisting arrest. There is no food and nowhere to sleep in holding. On Monday, when I finally met the magistrate, all charges were dropped because nothing happened.
When I tell my white friends this story they logically conclude I must have done something, police don't simply "detain" you without cause. Yes, they do. My other friends are much more understanding. Either it has happened to them or someone they know.
are really important subjects for people who want to understand their freedoms. If you are a danger to yourself, others or gravely disabled you may be taken into a hospital and honestly you should be. If you are arrested, you might be held for up to 72 hours in the US. I think there are a lot of really good reasons for those laws honestly, but they can trip up people who are focusing on broad constitutional aphorisms instead of real state and local policy.
I was honestly dumbstruck by the naiveté expressed as soon as the action starts.
"She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome."
It's an odd mixture of feelings to read about someone who lives in the same country I do who was able to grow into adulthood without having to learn the basic rules some of us had to learn by 4th grade.
I don't believe the police have any right to give a lawful order to compel a citizen from leaving a public area unless there is a public disturbance or danger. The samaritan, according to her own story, was not creating a problem. 3 drinks in 3 hours makes few people intoxicated. The people have a right, nay, an obligation, to resist unlawful orders. If her story is true and accurate, that law enforcement officer and the jailors with poor behaviors need to be fired, arrested, and prosecuted. I don't care what bad examples "cop logic" can use to justify their immoral and prejudicial thoughts. This story is a travesty and LE's actions reprehensible.
There's a difference between what the cops have a right to do and what they will, in practice, do to you if you don't give them the respect they have come to expect. E.g. this story.
Nobody, least of all the black community, are saying it's right, they're just saying it's naive to think the world works any other way.
I'm conflicted. I agree avoiding law enforcement is a good idea, and I'm pretty straight and narrow. Too many stories like this and shooting dogs. But I feel like a coward absenting myself from the tyranny. Like someone else said, we the people are starting to get more and more fed up.
Comply with what you're told and complain later or take a stand and face the consequences. They have tasers and guns and handcuffs and colleagues who will arrive on scene later and assume that you're guilty. Death is a real possibility.
I'm glad it wasn't just me who felt like that. I'm white, middle class, and grew up in Britain as a native. But as a member of multiple minority groups, I've seen hints of this world, and it is not pretty :(
The worst part of all this? First thing I did was check the author's gender and skin colour. And then I read the article. I normally work hard to be free of the prejudice of this society we are forced to live in, and yet I realised I took this article more seriously because it was by a white male :(
That is why it is vital to understand privilege, and that we live in a society that is constantly pushing its values that we cannot help but to make such mistakes. That it doesn't matter how good your intentions are, how much of a meritocracy you think your community has, but if it isn't free from the constant pressure of our base society (ie, realistically impossible), you'll end reading something like this and trying to excuse away those thoughts I just admitted.
Interestingly, I assumed the author was female until well into the story. But speaking of privilege, I can't imagine even the most obnoxious cops treating middle-class white women that way.
Yeah, and I was on the ground for the 2008 Republican convention, too. I know what tear gas feels like.
But police behavior toward masses of people in crowd-control situations at protests (where everyone in sight is treated as a criminal) is fundamentally different from police behavior toward individual bystanders at a small, nonviolent emergency scene. So I don't think your exception is valid or applicable.
The essence of privilege is the default treatment you typically receive from strangers. Middle class white women are perceived as the least threatening stereotype by police. Men are more likely to be seen as a threat to be subjugated, non-whites more so, the obviously poor more so.
I did too, I think it's because the photo at the top is of a woman speaking. Knowing nothing about the author prior to visiting the site, it's not unrealistic to assume that it's a photo of the author. At least, that's what I think went down in my subconscious.
I changed the photo to prevent this misconception. I fear that I may have received more sympathy and readership because of the false notion that I'm the attractive female in the photo. You can see me in the photo where I'm being loaded into the van. I'm a Soviet born Jew who immigrated to the US in the late 80s. At the time, I also had a beard. Here is a more flattering photo of me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/6128547691/in/photos...
There are shades of racism. At the extreme racist end, there are those who genuinely and explicitly believe that dark skin makes you a worthless scum. At the other end, there are people who feel, at a gut level, that skin colour is irrelevant. Between the two, there are people who will infer various things from skin colour, such as the propensity to crime, IQ, or whatever.
The sad fact is, a correct assessment of reality is racist to some extent. Not because of skin colour, mind you, but because of confounding factors such as income, or self-fulfilling prophecies such as racism itself. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is still there, and we can still draw inferences from them.
As for my personal assessment of the credibility of this story, I assumed the guy was white to begin with. If I believed he was black, I would have been like "of course", and marked off the story as even more credible. Because I have this stereotype in my head about police being racist. I'm now wondering to what extent this is actually true…
Jesse Jackson said this:
“There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
I was thinking similar. If police will crap on someone like this when they misperceive that they're wealthy and can afford a lawyer (wannabe billionaire) imagine what they do to people who can't defend themselves. It's a very sickening abuse of power. Perhaps the one good piece of the story is that it gets the word out.
I gained a perspective that is a bit more in depth than the typical white guy. I went to university in a town in Canada where the police seemed to be very interested in guys with long hair. I had long hair. As a result, I got stopped, intimidated and threatened by the police. I was never arrested. No doubt I would have had it worse if I was black.
A few years later I moved to Toronto. I still had long hair, but the police seemed to ignore me. I was really curious and paid extra attention to the police. It took a while, but it finally hit me: "they're only interested in the black guys!" The black guys were being watched with the same sort of intensity that I had experienced. I didn't observe the same sort of interactions I had, but I could imagine.
Canada is a bit different from the USA and I didn't get the full "black treatment", but I think I got to see the curtain pulled aside just a crack. One thing that really struck me was how incredulous non-blacks were when I related my story years later.
Many many years ago, him and his friends (a bunch of black teenage boys) went to Walmart. Two of his friends stole a couple of packs of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. They got caught, and the police were called and serious criminal charges were brought against them. My friend wasn't charged as he didn't do anything wrong, but signed a paper saying he wouldn't go into Walmart ever again.
They did shoplift and commit a crime, but I can't help but think if it was some middle class white kids taking Yu-Gi-Oh! cards they would have just called their parents to come pick them up.
SFPD are going down this road, OPD (Oakland) and many others already do, but the officers often find an excuse for their camera to malfunction when they want, and in many cases they are instructed to turn the camera on themselves before interacting with anyone, and they simply don't.
It turns out that telling the cops what to do isn't very effective.
But the existence of the cameras can solve this problem (assuming that the footage is made available for subpoena). For instance, if this particular officer has a history of having their camera malfunction right before arrests and do so at rates far higher than other officers then this fact could be brought up in court.
The real world just doesn't work that way. Cops are not accountable. We need to take more responsibility for policing our own communities and spend less time demanding that more money is spent on police budgets.
These SFPD were whining about how they can't afford to live in SF, but they make as much as I do SPECIFICALLY to address that problem.
Police are "State Violence". They exist to encourage the rest of us to follow the rules for fear of SPECIFICALLY this sort of situation.
They are never, in any precinct, going to be an acceptable institution. They will not find your stolen shit, they might arrest you if you witness a tragedy, and if you want to go tell your elected representatives they are a bunch of assholes, they will come out in paramilitary gear and spray fucking pepper spray or teargas in your face.
They have one of the strongest unions in the country and their own bill of rights. Cameras are a good idea, but they're just not going to fix this.
I would love to see people in the tech industry get involved in CopWatch, talk to people that have been doing this, esp in the bay area for decades. It is ASTOUNDINGLY difficult to get even a reprimand on file. Look at Johannes Mehserle and John Pike, extreme cases, but if their behavior is above reproach, how do you think that grabbing a random person and stomping you into the ground for noncompliance while you are in a state of shock is going to get them anything but a few laughs at the cop bar.
I wish technology could fix the police, but it cannot.
I simply cannot share in your level of pessimism. I believe that if the behavior of the bad actors were visible that it would change. I am not saying that things are not terrible: they may be. But I am saying that things can get better.
You write:
> "[Police] are never, in any precinct, going to be an acceptable institution."
which I think is patently untrue -- there are several precincts where the police as an institution function excellently.
It's high time to make the cops wear video cameras that are permanently turned on while on duty, and to make it a penalisable infraction for them to obstruct the camera without filling in reams of paperwork to justify it afterwards.
"hire better cops" usually translates to "pay cops more".
SF and Oakland are already amongst the highest paying police departments and neither has almost any residents of their city working for them. I have met some of the police who are natives in both cities and it's a great way to get uninvited from Thanksgiving, and with good reason.
And to immediately fire the chief of the SFFD who actually killed the helmet cam program because it showed how grossly negligent the SFFD responders were in the death of one of the three victims of the Asiana crash at SFO.
All of the police I know are in favor of this. They want cameras on at all times that they ideally couldn't interfere with. Not only will those cameras protect the public from police misbehavior, it will protect officers from frivolous lawsuits and an alarming amount of people calm down when they're informed their actions are being recorded.
Other than the logistics of making it happen and ensuring the entirety of the video from an encounter is available, I can't see a problem with the whole idea. The only people that lose out are crooked cops and members of the public wanting to file unwarranted abuse claims.
There was a guy on HN recently showing off his startup which makes sunglasses with built on camera. Cops should be required to where those by law and we should pass a law that basically states that an arrest is automatically invalid in any situation where a camera "malfunctioned" or was turned off.
That evidence will never be available to be used against cops.
This was in Texas. I don't recall the exact details. My bosnian friend was racially profiled (as hispanic) by the police. He was ticketed after not coming to a full stop, then arrested because the officer incorrectly assumed that his real driver's license was fake and that he was not a legal citizen. At the precinct, he was told some racist stuff by a working officer before being put in the cell. A lawyer took up his case, asserting that the conditions leading up to his arrest were not actually legal.
What happened then? On the books, he didn't exist. He supposedly never spent a night in jail, was supposedly never arrested and taken in, the fees he paid for bail were supposedly never received or requested, the surveillance camera footage the night he was put in jail happened to be corrupted, and even if he succeeded in getting the bail money back, he'd be out at least an additional thousand for court an lawyer fees.
Needless to say, they didn't pursue the case further.
Some police departments wear them, and they dramatically (~80% iirc) reduce complaints / reports by citizens. You can only have video footage go missing so many times before it starts to get old for judges / the media / etc.
This is the only logical way for police to do their job, if the servant of the people is given more power, so should come more scrutiny and observation.
I'd take it a step further and say that all on-duty officers should have to wear cameras that stream continuously into a third party repository.
The BART police are mandated to wear cameras in the wake of the killing of Oscar Grant. Unfortunately it's up to them to activate the camera. Recently a BART cop was shot & killed by another officer when searching a robbery suspect's home. Supposedly none of those officers had their cameras running.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Fatal-BART-shooting-not-...
Internal investigations are also BS. If police officers are officers of the court, judges should have the authority (and use the authority) to strip the officer of the authority to act as an officer. Much like contempt of court, it should not require formal hearings or process to immediately remove bad officers from duty. At that point the police department would effectively have an ordinary citizen on their payroll, unable to wear a uniform or make arrests or risk being charged with impersonating an officer and kidnapping.
I would press charges. I have seen multiple times police being shady, including one time when I was pulled over and told I could either pay the officer $40, or go into the court house for an $80 ticket. Supposedly I was speeding the road back, but I didn't even drive on the road they were talking about...
Another time I turned in $2,000 I found in an envelope and asked when I could pick it up if no one claimed it. Called back a couple weeks later and they had no record of it.
Point being, police officers (in my opinion) are no better than anyone else, they could be good or bad, but you need to help keep them in check.
One thousand good cops do not make up for one bad cop. Cops nearly ruined my life in 2006. I will write about it someday, but suffice it to say, I am out at least $30K (didn't bother doing the math because it's too depressing) and still paying for something I ABSOLUTELY HAD NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH. My only mistake was saying anything besides "I would like to speak with a lawyer" over and over.
Do not speak to cops, ever. They are not there to help you or find out the truth.
And this comment does not grasp the issue. For practical purposes, you'd better assume there are no cops who are that good. In cop land, that would be 'saintly'
I used to have faith in the fundamental goodness and rightness of the police. I knew, in the abstract, there were some bad apples, but doesn't every organization?
Then several years ago I learned from experience that it doesn't matter. The concrete reality of what happens when a bad cop singles you out outweighs all the good cops in the world.
I was out about 15k - which I really needed at the time - but that's not what sticks with me. What sticks with me is the fear and humiliation. I have had some bad times, but my arrest was the absolute bottom.
Other than the immediate experience, I think part of it was the knowledge that it didn't matter that I was innocent, the full force of the law and the state had come down and declared me a scumbag among all the dregs of society. It's something that has to happen to you to understand, I think. Maybe it's just because I always regarded myself as a good, law-abiding (and not very humble) citizen, who did things the Right Way. I don't know.
What I do know is to this day, I get anxious when someone even mentions the police, let alone when they show up.
For the love of God don't ever, ever ever ever ever talk to the police. If the police want to arrest you they will arrest you. Talking can only make it worse. I thought I was being polite and helpful. It doesn't matter.
The former sheriff of a nearby county (now a felon) said he had the job because he loved arresting bad guys. They will see bad guys everywhere they can.
Even the person in the article could have gotten out of trouble if they kept quiet. "Where you do work?" isn't a question they should be answering. Just exercise your right to remain silent. ALWAYS. Keep quiet.
> At this point, I’m left no choice but to present this case to the investigative court of public opinion, be it brave or foolish.
Um, no, you can leave it to an actual court of law by finding a good attorney and filing a civil complaint. But until you find competent representation, here's a piece of advice: for the love of god and your own well-being, learn to STFU.
The story makes it clear OP has no idea when to stop talking and observe his surroundings, even to his own detriment. Instead, he acted (and wrote) in such a way where he's constantly assuming the role of a victim and then being shocked when people treat him as such.
Remember folks, you have the right to remain silent in any interaction with authorities (not just the police, pretty much only a judge can compel you to speak), and your failure to do so only ever leads to a world of hurt.
Um, have you actually filed a civil suit against a police department? Do you know how expensive and time-consuming it is? Those who choose this route have me total admiration, as it is grossly expensive, it takes years, and it extends the suffering caused by mistreatment at the hands of those supposed to protect you manifold.
Yeah, I love the attitude of "look, if you want to make a complaint about police beating you and falsely imprisoning you, you should quit your job and invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case against them, anything else is stupid." Super realistic and clearly enabling a better world to happen very soon.
Thanks for providing a nice example of a rock bottom terrible comment. Yes, the problem with this person being beaten up, put in solitary and abused for no reason simply comes down to their inability to shut up. If only they had the wisdom to know that the police, who are paid by our tax dollars just HAVE to beat you up and abuse you if you say anything they dislike. I mean, its not as if they had a choice of whether they wanted to beat the person up or not, they basically HAD TO! Because, you know, that person was mouthy.
"he acted (and wrote) in such a way where he's constantly assuming the role of a victim"
What type of brain got you to the conclusion that this person was something other than the victim here?
Look, I get your point that shutting up is a good idea, but we can't blame the person for not shutting up, the police should be blamed for their actions. The fact that we have people like you standing up for the police here makes me think we probably have no chance as a society anymore.
We can both blame the author for not shutting up and the police for not responding reasonably to someone who was nothing more dangerous than a smartass.
I would argue that the police deserve somewhere in the neighborhood of one million times more blame for false imprisonment and beating than a civilian deserves for, gasp, talking when they people they pay to protect them didnt want them to talk.
No problem, thanks for providing an example of the naiveté that underscores way too many HN comments.
First off, I never said that there isn't a problem with the way the police treated OP. In fact, I'm encouraging him to sue both the police department and the officers personally for the way they treated him, which was clearly unacceptable behavior. Translation: I want to see him get justice.
But I also am able to see nuance in a situation, which clearly you're lacking. He might be a victim, but he's not blameless, insofar as:
• Refused to pipe down and leave the accident when ordered to by a police officer.
• Continued to instigate police officers who were securing the scene.
• Yelled like a crazy person while in a holding cell.
or, as I said in the parent comment: OP COMPLETELY FAILED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIS RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT AND AVOID AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE.
His behavior was unacceptable, and holding him to account for that as someone who enjoys their constitutional rights and insists upon defending them in NO WAY MAKES ME A POLICE APOLOGIST. Police aren't the only one who can trample upon rights, those who fail to understand or abuse them are culpable as well. The fact you don't understand that makes me wonder if our free society held together by liberty and a respect for the rule of law has any chance any more, yet I'll remain an optimist.
You seem to have projected some bizarre stuff on my comment. I understand that the OP failed to take advantage of their right to remain silent, I really do. However, none of the things you say the person should be "blamed" for, should EVER result in the punishment they got. The fact that you're not able to see beyond "well they both fucked up" is pretty shocking really.
"His behavior was unacceptable, and holding him to account for that as someone who enjoys their constitutional rights and insists upon defending them in NO WAY MAKES ME A POLICE APOLOGIST."
"Holding him to account" in your book happens to mean beating the shit out of him and putting him in a cell, whereas I simply don't think someone who is yelling things the police don't like deserves this treatment. If that makes me naive, I'll take it.
"But I also am able to see nuance in a situation, which clearly you're lacking."
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Because you were able to see subtle details like "this person wasn't being polite!" only super wisdom filled you is able to understand that the police were right to beat them up and put them in solitary. I genuinely cannot believe that someone could make such an utter shit argument and then have the gall to blame the OTHER person for a lack of understanding of the nuances, like yourself, who is of course brilliant.
In civilised countries, the police are the good guys, and having them nearby makes you feel safer. Encounters with the police should not be scary if you've done nothing wrong.
There was a place I've heard about where the police was scary, though I never lived there: that was communist Romania, where my parents grew up. And the US, too, it seems.
Did you even pause to ponder that OP could've been you ? What if everything he says is indeed true. And he has presented a bunch of facts that point in his favor. If you would've been arrested to simply calling 911 and trying to help - at 1am - how would you feel ?
Oh and about suing the Police - you ever tried it ? I'm assuming you have a $50K minimum retainer and a good lawyer ready ?
He wasn't arrested simply for calling 911, though. It's an undeniably shitty situation, but based on his own account, if he and his friend simply got the cellphone back, said "thanks", or even just shut up and went home, we most likely wouldn't be arguing about this right now.
I have no idea what it would take to curb a significant portion of this sort of overreach, but it is worth being stripped naked and thrown in solitary confinement? You tell me.
To any reader, this is a perfect example of the Just World bias and victim blaming. See how Gorbzel makes it clear that the fault of the encounter lies on the victim, not the perpetrator.
This is indeed a perfect example of what is typically called "victim blaming". Where I disagree with you is that I do not read Gorbzel as suggesting that the perpetrator is not at fault: by my reading Gorbzel says nothing one way or the other on that subject.
If you read the comment with the preconception that every interaction has one side which is Right and one side which is Wrong, then you will see the cops portrayed as "Just". If you read the comment without that preconception, you will not.
I am very afraid of people with that preconception, because they pick sides and then try to stick to them by confirmation bias. Like the cops.
(Just in case it wasn't absolutely clear: my position is that the victim here was careless-in-a-way-that-would-have-no-negative-consequences-in-a-perfect-world, like I was careless the time I left my flat unlocked and a guy tried to steal my laptop. Whereas the cop's actions were criminal, like the guy who tried to steal it. Both sides are "at fault" in some sense, but hardly equally.)
I probably should explain my position more fully. The cause of a result and the fault of a result are entirely separate concepts. I think of "cause" as anything that, when prevented, would prevent the final result. By this definition, both the officer and the author caused the abuse and arrest.
However, "fault" is in the deviation from a perfect world that caused the result. The author, showing concern and asking about the well-being of another person, is not at fault for the abuse he received. The police officer, abusing his position, is at fault.
To apply these to your example of your stolen laptop, I would say that it was partially caused by you, but was not your fault.
The way that I read Gorbzel's comment as that both cause and fault were on the author, not just cause.
Thanks for explaining. I agree that there is a distinction between "cause" and "fault" as you describe.
Gorbzel's comment is pretty blunt: for sake of argument, it basically amounts to "[Victim] is an idiot and should have known better, for his own sake". But to me it is very clearly an assignment of "cause" not "fault" in your terminology.
I understand this from phrases such as "for […] his own well-being" and "to his own detriment", as well as the fact that it's phrased as "advice". These make clear that Gorbzel is saying that the victim erred from a self-interest point of view not a moral point of view.
This happened to me last January in Seal Beach, CA. Only I was not courageous enough to step forward and be heard - there is a certain shame in being put in jail, even if you didn't do anything wrong. The shame is really on the officers, and the system the enables them to abuse the citizens who might even be operating under the delusion that the police are there to protect and serve, rather than bully, escalate, and abuse.
And I hear the defensive tone in her voice. She feels, as I do, that many people in the public won't believe, or if they do believe, that they will rationalize the police behavior. Or even if they don't rationalize, they will keep quiet, feeling powerless and not strong enough to make a difference. But, what Peretz has shown me personally, is that there is a certain strength in numbers, and sharing your experience so that other people don't feel like they're the only one who got treated that way, that they are not the only one who got brutalized by American city police - and then were left with absolutely no options to keep them accountable.
The system is fucked and it needs to change. Police should be required to record all audio and video of their actions, and provide this footage to anyone they interact with, on request. And if that device doesn't work, they should be severely reprimanded. (Officer Sasenbach of the SBPD, the one who threw me in jail without arrest and without reason, had a recording device which "failed" the night of our interaction.)
Much of my experience was eerily familiar - the suddenness of the violence on the street, when Sasenbach decided I was trouble. The taunts from the jail keepers. The taking of clothing (jacket and shoes), and kept in a cell too cold to sleep in for 12 hours. Asking for a phone call, and being ignored. Asking if I was arrested, and being ignored. Asking what right they have to keep me, and having them smirk and say, "because I'm on this side, and you're on that side".
When I filed a complaint, the sargeant assigned to the case was sullen, bored. Sasenbach's personal recorder was broken; the video feed in the cell i was kept in was broken. I could file another complaint if I wanted.
I remember feeling so out-of-body, like the system I'd grown up to believe in, the system that was supposed to represent "the good guys" was completely upended. These were brutal, horrible people drunk on their power over me, and delighted to cause as much harm as they could get away with, for no other reason that they could. It was an important moment in my life, when my illusion about the state, the police, and the bare issue of who we trust with a monopoly of violence became starkly defined: none of us are safe. The police can invade our lives at will, and do what they want to us, and we are helpless to defend ourselves. The only thing preventing general rebellion is statistical: the number of people who "win" the shit lottery that is interacting with the cops is very low, and it's hard to convince others that they are indeed at risk of suffering the same treatment. Who knows, perhaps things will change.
Interesting that even after reading all or most of the account you still refer to the victim as "she". For awhile, I also thought the victim as a "she" and I'm wondering if that clouded the account at all or there was any purpose to including the top picture.
Public servants. That's a good one. The only public the police serve are their own sick and cruel interests. If they served the public, perhaps they'd actually stop real crime.
Even with "gold level" insurance a ride in an ambulance is $$$$. If your injury is not life threatening taking alternate transport to the Emergency Room is perfectly acceptable.
All of this is some sort of thinly veiled attack on our public servants and what seems to be public government infrastructure in general.
I'm all for calling bullshit on general unfounded anti-government rhetoric in general. But law enforcement are not your friends. They're trained that the citizen is an untrustworthy crook, why should we treat them any better?
Uhm, you know that paramedics get called to accidents on almost a daily basis in a city like San Francisco, right? I'm pretty sure it would be national news if everyone calling 911 was being thrown in solitary.
Your brain is broken. Close the laptop and go outside and walk around San Francisco. It should be pretty obvious that things are pretty free and pretty orderly. If you and the rest of your video game playing hacker buddies can't see that, I dunno what to say. Get some more life experience?
...call 911 and be assaulted and thrown in solitary for... well, some doubtlessly minor reason, if any at all? No thanks.
If someone's having a serious stroke and immobile, yes, of course call an ambulance. A broken arm or leg? A Lyft is probably your best bet. I'd draw the line at something like "minor heart attack."
The vast, VAST majority of people in San Francisco and the rest of the United States deal with emergency responders with no problems whatsoever.
You're just experiencing a bunch of whiny, self-entitled assholes who're making more money than their underdeveloped brains know how to deal with and now think that they literally shit gold bricks.
This is causing WAY more problems in San Francisco than the SFPD.
If there's going to be any sort of protests in SF it is going to be against these asshats, not the SFPD, mark my words.
Perhaps the safest (certainly not right) thing to do is call 911 and get the fuck out of there rather than trying to help and being imprisoned/abused for it.
All of this is some sort of thinly veiled attack on our public servants and what seems to be public government infrastructure in general.
Why would you think he's kidding? I don't see a veiled attack: I see desperation. He (and others in this thread) believe that you are putting yourself into greater risk by calling 911 than by solving the situation any other way you can.
I don't share their opinion, but I would think deeply before dismissing the sincerely expressed belief of those who feel the emergency response system in the US so broken that you are better of trying to make your own way to medical care rather than taking a chance on calling 911.
Literally all professional literature on the subject suggests the following:
Remain calm, be aware of your surroundings, and closely evaluate the scene to protect yourself and others from further injury.
Do not move a critically injured person unless instructed by emergency medical professionals.
Do not try to drive someone who is critically ill or injured to a hospital unless there is no way to summon emergency help.
Call 911 or ask someone else to call:
- If you think there is a medical emergency,
- If the crisis could get worse left untreated or not treated properly.
Listen carefully to the 911 dispatcher's questions. Answer them calmly and quickly.
Remain on the line until the dispatcher tells you it's okay to hang up.
Ask someone to wait outside to meet emergency personnel if it is safe to do so.
Paramedics may want to know a brief summary of the circumstances that caused the emergency. Remain calm and cooperative as they gather information.
He did all of that except for the part where once the emergency services arrive, get out of the way. Don't let someone bleed out in a cab just because you're too proud to go away once the cops tell you to; they might not have the right, but you can avoid the naked solitary.
Do you people really think there is an epidemic of people being thrown in solitary confinement for calling 911 to report accidents? REALLY?
What the fuck is going on here? Is one of my office mates pranking me with a man-in-the-middle attack and then trolling me hard? Or are there really that many retards on this forum?
If the cops who did stuff like this were actually punished, if the dept. came right out and said, this shouldn't have happened, we're gonna do this and this to fix it.. I wouldn't be afraid.
Instead I see, well, he must have pissed them off somehow, just be quiet and maybe nothing bad will happen to you.
All my encounters with cops have been good, but I understand the police dept. where I am is a pretty good one. Still, it only takes one bad encounter, one bad cop, to ruin my life.
I'm not gonna stop from calling the cops because I'm afraid of them. Someone else's life, their health, matters more than what could or couldn't happen to me. But I can't support this system and I don't know what to do about it.
I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong.
This is not a person we should fear. I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, but the abuse and brutality of what followed are just plain wrong.
I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police or that all cops should be killed and I find those to be childish nonsense. For us to have a free and effective society, the rule of law is important and should apply equally to all. I know this isn't always the case but it is the goal. Wishing harm onto authority figures simply muddies the waters.
What I want, and what I think all should want, is justice. The best outcome from Peretz's suffering would be reform and we should work towards that end.
I'm Brandeis '01, I was a little surprised to see that link.
Along with justice for this individual event what about something bigger. Right now there is no way to track these violent interactions officers have with the public. This police officer can do the same thing over and over and get away with it because the precinct will protect her. What if we had a way to keep track of these incidents making it easy for us to review the history of officers each time an event like this happens. If this officer had a fear of a violent interaction with the public going on her 'permanent public record' that might influence her behavior.
"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..."
It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave?
And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you?
I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me.
The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything.
Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.
It's rational for a police officer to respond to civil disobedience in some circumstances with detention. That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger.
My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good.
We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve.
Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster.
To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.
I'm not the person you're replaying to and I don't think that someone should be arrested in the described situation, but I think the logic follows like this.
Police are the people we've put in charge with keeping public order. In the course of that job, they're going to arrest and / or detain people. We want them to always detain the right people, but even a very good police department will detain the wrong people sometimes. So, we give the authority to individual officers to detain people, and we don't second guess their decisions at the time.
Of course, this system only works when there is a functioning review system. Where the policed populace feels like their concerns are listened to by the authority figures. Where officers who misbehave, even by the loose standards of american police, are publicly disciplined. None of these things are common in modern america - but you can still believe in the right for police to detain people and push for better accountability.
I think you should consider how much you are reading into statements before you ascribe particular views to people. You both agree the author was treated deplorably, and you both agree (I assume) that police can do better.
Never is a strong word, though it's pretty close: http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/01/police-involv... (not a great looking source, but obviously this is not a topic authorities like talking about). In general, I agree with all your points, and I favor a system were non-LEOs investigate LEOs.
Well, now you're talking in the abstract. Before you were explicitly calling it reasonable on some level in this particular situation. That's what struck me.
It is in the same thought process as telling a cops you have Miranda rights or don't have to answer their questions. From their perspective, you are acting like you are smarter than they are, and they will actively try to be vindictive towards you for it.
You can espouse the abuse of police power from a safe distance, but when you are in their faces you need to shut up because in the near future and moment they have the capacity to make your life hell with no recourse.
The police cannot be trusted, and that is not childish nonsense. It is a rational response to the fact that the police consistently act like thugs, and the problem is only getting worse. One of the most important problems is that the mechanisms for righting these wrongs are almost wholly ineffective or out-of-reach. Peretz talks a little about that in his piece.
The most practical thing you can take away from this is to not trust the police. Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment - but what specifically can we do? I would say: you can at least think about the nature of the systematic problem that takes away essentially all accountability from city police departments. Why does it seem like the public is no longer outraged when police abuse occurs? Why does it seem like government officials don't admit any wrongdoing or apologize for anything anymore? Why are lawsuits so expensive?
What it seems like to me is that, somehow, the public has been convinced of their ineffectiveness. They have been cowed into submissiveness. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry, and I haven't been abused by the police. It's just not that big of a problem. And the monotonically increasing complexity of government has provided amazing levels of defensive cover for bad actors. It's an almost perfect shield of immunity to prosecution and incredibly expensive litigation barrier-to-entry. "Reform" sounds nice - but what do you think we should do? And in the meantime, are you really advocating that the police should be trusted in the absence of any reform? That's childish nonsense.
> Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment...
Not to sound overly pessimistic, but "reform" isn't usually how citizens extricate themselves from a police state. Totalitarian governance is inherently insular and well protected from peaceful reform, using the state monopoly on violence to maintain and cultivate its will.
The antithesis of peaceful reform also conveniently starts with "re," but I can't seem to remember what it is... Re... rev-o-something, I think. ;)
We don't have a police state! We have one of the shittiest justice systems in the world that protects bad actors and gives our police unlimited power to abuse their office without fear of repurcussion. However, freedom of speech is still very well protected, and therein lies our hope for peaceful resolution.
And you know what, if Aung Yung Suu-Ki is any indication, even if we did live in a totalitarian state, there would still be hope for a peaceful resolution. And that's important because I don't believe that a state born of brutality can be anything other than brutal.
> We don't have a police state! We have one of the shittiest justice systems in the world that protects bad actors and gives our police unlimited power to abuse their office without fear of repurcussion [sic].
Struck a nerve?
You're absolutely right. We're not a police state--yet. But if left unchecked, the powers in control of the democratic process inevitably degrade into totalitarian rule. We're seeing a glimpse of that through the paranoia of the state (think extensive surveillance). A totalitarian United States will be made known when the Bill of Rights is nullified in its entirety, and we've already started on that path. Some might argue we've been on that path since the early 1900s, some since 2000, and some since more recently.
Honestly, I don't think we're at a point where reform is possible. An insufficient percentage of the population has yet been inconvenienced to enact reform. But by the time the majority is demanding it, then it will already be too late. And I fear that the average US citizen is too complacent and too ignorant to care. Neither one of those bode well for reform.
How do you kill a frog? You put it in a pot of water and in very slight increments you slowly and systematically turn up the heat so the frog doesn't feel or perceive the change even as it boils to death.
I'm pretty sure that that's not the sense that "state" is being used here. He's talking about sovereign states; Alaska is subordinate to America (a sovereign state) which is evident in the fact that it was purchased by America.
> In 1943, during the Second World War, HM Fort Roughs [Sealand] was constructed by the United Kingdom as one of the Maunsell Forts, primarily for defence against German mine-laying aircraft
> On 2 September 1967, the fort was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters.
> In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort.
> In August 1978, while Bates and his wife were in England, Alexander Achenbach, who describes himself as the Prime Minister of Sealand, hired several German and Dutch mercenaries to spearhead an attack of Roughs Tower. They stormed the tower with speedboats, jet skis and helicopters, and took Bates' son hostage. Bates was able to retake the tower and capture Achenbach and the mercenaries.
And of course...
> While it has been described as the world's smallest country, the world's smallest nation, or a micronation, Sealand is not currently officially recognised by any established sovereign state, although Sealand's government claims it has been de facto recognised by the United Kingdom (after an English court ruled it did not have jurisdiction over Sealand as territorial water limitations were defined at the time) and Germany
Both of those claimed recognitions took place after an act of agression toward British / German citizens mentioned in the above excerpts.
So you've got a platform in the ocean that was created as part of a war effort, that has been the subject of a failed and a successful military coup, whose only unofficial recognition by established states came after assaulting their citizens, and that is still not officially recognized by any other state. (And which is currently sitting in British territorial waters, after they unilaterally annexed its surrounding ocean.) And all this is for a "state" with a population estimated at "over 50".
It seems like a lot of people share this sentiment that police abuse is getting worse all the time. An optimistic part of me wants to think that maybe the problem isn't necessarily getting worse, just getting more exposure than it has in the past. How much harder would it be for this same story to reach this kind of audience 5 or 10 years ago? Hopefully the spreading awareness will lead to improvements down the line.
There's a ton of law around 'lawful orders' by the police, and how a citizen is supposed to respond to them. Ignoring everything else (please), George Zimmerman was accused of not following a 911 operator's "lawful order" to leave the scene. While I think most of America would have been happy for him to have heeded that device, it is not necessarily a 'lawful order', unless there was a reason for him not to have been there.
A lot of Americans presume "not unlawful orders" or "reasonable orders" to be presumed legal, if those orders come from a law enforcement officer, but in actuality, most lawful orders that are given are not lawful as they are not predicated on authority. If an officer tells you to leave your home, for example, that is not a lawful order unless you're under arrest, or if you're interfering with their effecting a warranted search. As such, people see orders like "Go stand over there" as being followed on television shows, and assume that the state (or its officers) have the authority to tell you where to stand. Generally speaking, they do not, usually.
The problem is in the myriad of exceptions -- we have the freedom to assemble, generally, but that assembly must be lawful. It's pretty obvious to say that we don't have the freedom to assemble on a trafficked highway, for example. Similarly, many 'free speech zones' require permits for use. That may seem unlawful, where those permitted places are common areas, but their issuance is predicated on the idea that if a 'pro' group and an 'anti' group are attempting to protest in the same space, then violence might reasonably ensue. The fix for that is to permit the space, and permit issuance is done on a first-come basis. The contra-position there is that the opposing protestors are effectively allowed to protest _anywhere but within the permitted space_, so, across the street is generally fine, and is also generally does not require a permit. A police officer at a protest may well be making a lawful order if you're in the wrong assembly area.
So yeah, it's interesting, and it's completely convoluted, and while I generally scoff at people who don't know even the basics, it's pretty near impossible to understand the intricacies of what does or doesn't comprise a lawful order depending on a myriad of circumstances. To be sure though, I think it's safe to say that most lawful orders are in fact not predicated on any actual authority, and are hence unlawful.
It was perhaps an unnecessarily polarizing example, but it was the first and only thing that came to mind regarding "move" as pertaining to a lawful order without digging up the name of the rather obscure case that recently got a verdict (wherein it was determined that the officer had no authority to tell the citizen to move, that it was indeed an abuse of authority, and paired with 120+ other abuse of power complaints against that officer, resulted in his termination).
No, they're not generally law officers, however, they may redirect your call to an actual law officer or police dispatcher. I do not know whether George Zimmerman was talking to a civilian 911 rep or a police officer, but either way, the 911 agent did not offer any lawful orders, the most authoritative statement given to Zimmerman was "We don't need you to do that."
Having interfaced with law enforcement at local and federal levels as part of employment, I happen to know that particular phrase literally has no meaning, except "please don't sue us if you do that, because we aren't liable, and need it on the record that we did NOT tell you to do whatever it is that you're about to do."
It's not a statement of encouragement or discouragement. That said though, if you consider the outcry that he "deliberately disobeyed a police officer", it's clear that many do not understand the concept very clearly (or they were blinded by the rest of it and went in to full witch hunt mode, which may or may not have been warranted).
> There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there
The question here is the same question we face with the TSA:
Separating actual threats from threats to someone's personal perception of their own authority.
The author wasn't a threat. The cop screwed up. Then again, you'll never get 100% good people, and so there are going to be some screwup cops. I wish I could say our office was 100% solid. But you always get a few.
I had a similar experience, and honestly, I have been afraid to go to City Hall and speak to the elected officials I have personally met many times because I fear that my initial arrest for public intoxication while standing outside a bar which I planned to take a cab home from, smoking a cigarette, was retaliation for participating in protests, and that I will be retaliated against worst. I happened to be out celebrating a new job, so making me miss the last day of my old job was not much punishment, but I'd rather not go through that again. Fortunately I was out with the manager of the restaurant at my gym, who brought my bag to meet me the next morning, where I was able to take a shower before going to sign onboarding paperwork.
How does this happen? I'd love to know the motivations and perspectives of people involved. Did they make a mistake? Were they confused? If so, what was their line of thought? Did they try to intentionally cause harm to innocent people? If so, what was the reason.
Also, is this a rare unusual occurrence, or does this happen 75%+ of the time you call 911?
It just seems like a situation that should not have happened the way it was described (which may or may not be accurate).
The police overreacted. And it sounds like one cop in particular overreacted and then triggered a cascade of nonsense.
This kind of thing is not rare, but it's not common, either. It happens nightly, but it's unlikely to happen to you.
A good rule of thumb is to not be anywhere near a scene that has an inbound emergency response. There will be police, and if they have nothing else to do, they might harass you for fake reasons.
But it all depends on where you are going. In most places, this is not a common problem. In certain areas of larger cities, the police can be a bit over zealous.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 370 ms ] threadI upvoted this comment for that; it seems like a prudent step to take.
> the only good cop is a dead cop
And then I got here and wish I could undo. I don't understand why you would say such a thing. That's just not right.
Is the attitude morally right? Immaterial.
Also, like hell morality is immaterial.
Their job is hard. They deal with assholes the likes of which most of us never see, they get shot at and kicked and punched and spat at and sworn at, and still their job is to protect and serve the public without fail. No shortcuts.
But instead, they do everything they can to stick with and make-proper the mistake, and pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it. They know full well that time in their jail is (an extrajudicial) punishment in and of itself. This entire blue-shield assume-everyone's-guilty mentality makes them just another gang of thugs to be avoided. The fact they're given a fancy costume by the out of touch populations of whatever jurisdiction they're in ceases to be relevant.
While still extremely callous, one would take far less issue with what I said if it were explicitly about "violent gangbangers". And given that the problem is institutional yet new recruits are still signing up for the trip, I have little empathy.
edit: and I will admit that short of things like automated home-defense turrets becoming commonplace, empathy is the only thing that is going to fix anything and what I said actually hurts that. But given that the problem stems from police getting things mostly right (because most of who they interact with are criminals), I don't see reforms to make them impartial justice organizations ever gaining much support, as the sheer majority will always see them as doing a good job.
Oh yeah, this would not cause more problems than it solves.
There are a lot of people who would instigate an officer for that kind of money.
Besides, having served on a Jury, I know what they think my time is worth. Getting a check for $200 (a more realistic number) would be an insult after getting stuck overnight in a jail cell.
> But instead, they do everything they can to stick with and make-proper the mistake, and pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it
This could be said about the first group, but he even admits that his own actions are what got him put into solitary confinement. If he hadn't made a ruckus they wouldn't have put him there. Note that they did overstep by doing that, but not massively.
This amount wouldn't meet what I said, as they'd still clearly be externalizing the collateral damage from their approach (just like the jury theatre, as you point out).
> If he hadn't made a ruckus they wouldn't have put him there
Which stemmed from them denying him access to medical care, outside communication, and due process. I covered this under "pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it".
They really should up the qualifications on becoming a cop. Right now it's "Eh I can't any other job, guess I'll just be a cop" and you're left with these incoherent slimeballs thinking they run things without any regard for actual law.
I've been thrown in a cell for one week. I was drunk the night before, woke up in a cell. No window, no view, locked door. I was slipped cheese sandwiches for a week and juice boxes.
Do you know what that does to a persons sanity? After day 3 I had literally just accepted it, that I'm staying here with 0 answers and that's just the way it is.
Who is accountable for that? Nobody. Nobody gave me any answers.
but the one that cracked me up the most was "This is where my weekend of police training really kicks in."
Holding is truly screwed up. When I went I saw so many shitty things. Cops abuse their power every day. I should have known when the managers at my shitty University food stop started on a power trip when I worked there and fired me for eating 8 old wings that were left over when I only ordered 6 for my meal... Went against protocol (needed three strikes, only got one). When I was arrested I was really drunk, I was slammed, and forced to sign a piece of paper banning me from a local college campus indefinitely. They said if I signed they'd let me go. Then they arrested me right after I signed it. Slammed multiple times because I said I couldn't leave into the snow with only socks on since my shoes were in my friends room.
Cops will take the best candidates they can get. They don't get a lot of people wanting to be a cop. It's a shitty job that most people would not do by choice.
I wonder if, somewhere out there, there exists a Bizarro Earth where people go out of their way to tell everybody about their pleasant interactions with police. I just had one last night, actually. Very friendly dude, and it wasn't the first time this had happened.
One of my friends, when I was younger, had the attitude pig until proven cop. And the more of this stuff that's floating around the less tenable the contrary position becomes.
Hacker News is rapidly becoming Reddit. Reddit has its place, but this is not a good thing.
When somebody finds the next Hacker News, please let me know.
(I expect this comment to be downvoted, and it probably should be. Just expressing my frustration.)
Smaller subreddits seem to have much better discussion as well.
You're 0 for 2 with me so far. Don't join the debate team.
Do you read this 1000+ word well written point as "having no more substance than 'cops should die'"? Or did you simply decide that you should just ignore that post since it didn't fit your utterly insane narrative? Never mind the fact that even the exact post youre referencing doesn't even say the thing you keep claiming it says...
I'm sure I'll continue being 0 for as long as I'm arguing a different point than yours, because you've shown that its not evidence, or eloquence that matters, rather how well aligned the other person's argument is aligned with your own. I doubt there is a forum where you will fit in well. Maybe you can just scream irrational nonsense at people on 4chan or something?
Why do so many people attempt a proof-by-example and then act surprised when it fails to convince?
"The person I'm responding to LITERALLY said he wanted all police to die" "Well, he didn't literally say that, in fact, he didn't say anything close to that".
"fuck the police shouldn't be the top comment" evidence is presented to the contrary "Dude, its not like I meant THIS top comment".
There's no chance you're anything but a troll or stupid, so either way, I'm wasting my time. Cheers.
"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right? Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?"
Sentence by sentence just to make it easy on you:
"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right?"
What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?
"Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?""
Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint? Oh right, its a stupid strawman with no merit whatsoever, which i pointed out. If BlackDeath3 wants to throw a tantrum when someone says cops could die, he's more than welcome, but the idea that this is what he bases his argument on when no one said anything like that is utter lunacy. I cannot imagine going around being this irrationally angry. It's like being a republican and just screaming BENGHAZI!!! whenever confronted with something unsavory about your own party. Try living on planet earth with some rational people.
If I think that somebody has said something worth exposure, I upvote it. If not, I downvote it. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with it or not. Does it contribute to the conversation? Is it needlessly inflammatory? These are the sorts of questions I ask and answer when voting.
You can argue that "worth exposure" is subjective, and it is, but I didn't say (or mean) vote objectively. One can try, but mostly I just meant that one should pay more attention to the merit of a post's content, rather than their personal agreement with it.
>Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint?
You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen.
And by the way, the "cops should die" comment quite literally was the top comment in this thread at one point. Perhaps you weren't here early enough to see it, but I did, and that's what made me say what I said.
Probably the first time I've ever seen someone lament the idea that someone focused on the specific example they gave...
Anyway, I've seen this happen on reddit plenty, but I would honestly say its a distant second place to the bigger problem, which is what is happening here. Someone like you gets the idea in their head that "saying thing x is popular amongst community y". At that point, all logic goes out the window and actual, reasonable evidence is ignored at the cost of any sort of evidence that remotely confirms your hypothesis. Was the top comment of a thread something bad about cops for a few seconds? Hey, that must mean everyone here wants cops to die, which means the voting system is flawed which means I should throw a tantrum and threaten to leave the community. Like I said, I have no problem with responding to people who actually said this and discussing it, but when you start throwing tantrums about things that weren't said, there is a disconnect between a logical world where people can have conversations, and the world where youre sitting in a room by yourself mashing the keyboard and convincing yourself everyone else is stupid. I'd say you'd probably be better off letting these insane thoughts go...
It's clear that nobody will be persuading anybody here, that we're both right in our own eyes, and this is going nowhere. I'm tired of trying to explain myself to you. I'm tired of you constantly ending your posts with (not so) clever remarks about how I'm a stupid trolling troll. I'm tired of you. You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye.
In response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7241518 (because apparently I'm submitting posts too often):
I've clearly explained above the way that I think the voting system should work, and I'm not even close to the only person who thinks that way (see: Reddiquette). You've crossed the line from argumentative to disingenuous.
I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts.
Uhhhhh, I know nothing about you at all. I simply mocked the fact that you threw a tantrum over the voting system on this site, said you were leaving (yet you're still making posts at the frequency that you're literally making the algo block you because you're posting too often...), said "I wish the top post wasn't always some no content crap like 'all cops should die'" when a) It didn't say that and b) The actual top post was, quite literally, the exact opposite of your mid-tantrum prediction. If you've taken me mocking your hilariously bad point to mean a strong dislike, I really don't know what to tell you. Perhaps the rest of us don't hold the same irrational grudges you do? But the idea of this level of emotion for a stranger on the internet is simply too foreign for me to understand.
"You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye."
So should I take this to mean that you're going to be responding to my posts literally hundreds of times over the next hour? Because thats what happened when you said you were done with HN? Or was that because you were just being an attention whore making a shit point?
"Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here)."
I love the "I've been totally civil" next sentence "heres a not at all subtle dig from me! LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM" Bravo for pretending you're taking the high road? I guess you convinced yourself and that seems to be all that matters for you. But yeah, one guy agreed with you while everyone else downvoted you. I guess this is better than you normally do so I can see why you're proud.
In closing, no, I don't strongly dislike you, or even care about you at all. I simply think that throwing a tantrum about a community, saying it is so terrible you have to leave because your opinions aren't popular, and then making up a bunch of idiotic, disingenuous straw men to make yourself feel better is stupid and is nothing but a detriment to this community. As I said originally, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Exactly the opposite. Do not fuck the police.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
If that were the case, democracy would actually work.
I love Reddit, but outside of certain subs it is not a productive place to discuss complex situations as the crowd naturally wants the story simplified. So you end up with a day 1 version where one actor is clearly the aggrieved party, the other pure villain, and everyone runs out to send nasty emails and to fill voiceboxes with nasty messages. On day 2 a new piece of information comes out that demonstrates that the story was't as stated, and some new situations completely upset who the good guy and the bad guy is. The pitchfork mob goes in the opposite direction. It is useless and destructive, and became such a problem that a number of anti pitchfork rules had to be imposed.
In this case the post I replied to outrageously declared that the only good cop is a dead cop, which is incredibly offensive if you actually have friends who are in law enforcement. And even if you don't, it should be offensive to virtually anyone in a lawful society who relies upon those people more than many of you care to admit.
Add that there is some hilarious irony in a board primarily dominated by the unfit and privileged supporting such notions. I can understand the sentiment in some poverty city inner-city neighbourhood (heck, I grew up in poverty and was surrounded by the "pig" attitude), even if it is often self-defeating, but it is to the point of parody on HN.
"I heard a story about some cop two thousand miles away who did {x}. See, they're all terrible!"
That is the brutal truth. It's why the site favors memes over dissertations.
It's hostility. Maybe it's been earned.
Given that he called 911, he definitely had some connection to the situation.
In order to make these officers spends years in prison you will need law to apply. And that will take pressure and public shaming through posts like this. If you feel so hot headed about this issue you can sign up with organizations like ACLU and the like and help bring the change.
Or, you can play gansta, go at it vigilante fashion, and see how far that takes you.
This sentiment is a wish for things to get worse for everyone, in every way. It's lazy, cowardly, and beneath HN.
But while I agree that an attitude like that will lead to nothing constructive, at some point one's only recourse is spite.
Perhaps OP will receive monetary compensation after a drawn out lawsuit, only because there are specific things the arresting officer can be pinned with. But the worst that will happen to the officer is that she will lose her job, rather than be brought to trial for her crimes. And everybody else in the chain that dug in their heels to make him miserable rather than treat him as a human is utterly unaccountable.
And I see no avenues of recourse for fixing these systematic abuses. Reform will always be hampered by the fact that the sheer majority of people that police deal with are actually guilty, and that the sheer majority of people don't get arrested. That's two very strong priors that lead to the police being nearly universally accepted as "the good guys".
The only way that's going to change is by eroding the idea of police as de facto heroes, and promoting the idea that they are a malevolent culture that needs to be deprecated so new institutions can take their place. Otherwise, there's no incentive for them to ever change.
Police have a responsibility to the people they protect. Right now in the US, cops act like the public are there simply to be subjugated, and regularly and routinely shirk that responsibility inherent in the task of policing.
The whole reason we as a society give cops the monopoly on violence is because they're supposed to operate at a higher standard. Police in the US don't do that, as is evidenced by the police force in any major US city.
It's time for a system reboot.
They don't give a shit about your elbow nor should they. Everyone who gets put in cuffs complains about some current or former injury.
I'm not sure I buy every second of your recount. but there is a big difference between a good samaritan and a do-gooder. If the cops tell you it is time to leave the scene, it's 1 AM on a city street, you've been drinking, then it's time to leave.
Yes cops are generally assholes. The nice guys don't last out there.
What? Just because you are being arrested doesn't mean that they can treat you like that.
Is your point that because citizens gave police power at some point that they can't possibly object to them abusing it...?
Yes, the police must treat every innocent person with respect and even reserve some dose of respect to criminals. Yes, it's our duty to try to fix the situation when that do not help. But no, it's not advisable to try to fix that in the exact instant the problem is happening.
What the hell are you saying?
The cemetery is full of brave people. I'd much prefer to live, even if that means taking a little abuse for a few moments.
Apologize but not profusely. Then, shut up. Acknowledge the officer's authority, show some respect, and do as your told. Do it whether they deserve it or not. It's about making it home safely, not about being right.
If you want to be an activist or some kind of martyr for all those abused by cops then do so. Afterwards file a lawsuit for unlawful detainment, excessive force or whatever.
I prefer to stay out of it.
Of course they should give some shit about person arrested, especially if that person is not danger for them in any way. I would expect cops to use only necessary force.
And if everyone complains about current or former injury, then those handcuffs are either too tight or cops to brutal. Especially if those handcuffed people, again, represent zero threat.
Because San Francisco is a war zone? Give me a break.
Here's another honest question: do you actually believe that nobody has pleasant experiences with police?
I'm not saying all cops are bad people (though almost all police forces are bad institutions), but why would you just hang out and have a good time with a cop, in his cop role? I'm sure they have friends, but they're not being cops when they're watching the game with their friends.
My comment was more about the fact that police don't walk the beat and help old ladies with their groceries anymore. When cops are around, shit's going down. So even if they are doing their job professionally, it isn't a pleasant experience. And if they're doing their job poorly, it's a nightmare.
And because of this they get a lot of irrational hate, but it's often still irrational.
>I'm not saying all cops are bad people (though almost all police forces are bad institutions), but why would you just hang out and have a good time with a cop, in his cop role? I'm sure they have friends, but they're not being cops when they're watching the game with their friends.
Is this a question for me, or the general public? If the latter then I'll defer to someone else. If the former, then I'll clarify that I never said that I "hang out" with cops.
>My comment was more about the fact that police don't walk the beat and help old ladies with their groceries anymore. When cops are around, shit's going down. So even if they are doing their job professionally, it isn't a pleasant experience. And if they're doing their job poorly, it's a nightmare.
The cop I had a pleasant experience with was doing his job professionally. You seem to assume that my "pleasant experience with a cop" involved hanging out at a bar together watching the big game, or something like that. I had a pleasant experience with a cop doing his police duties, and it wasn't the first time.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/01/police-officer...
Of course, the natural extension is to say 'well, who has pleasant experiences with cops besides other cops and EMTs and firefighters'?
Even after I moved out here to SF and into Bayview, I still had good experiences with them, meeting them on walks home and pulling up next to them on my motorcycle.
Yes, there are bad cops, and we see articles like this, but that doesn't mean that all cops are bad, and saying 'all of them are fucking pigs' undermines the entire system, and only makes things worse. The bad cops should be ejected from the system, the good cops should be commended. The system itself isn't broken, and treating it like it is just makes it worse.
* An incident where I was driving and spun across a lane of traffic and off the road in a heavy snowstorm, very fortunately hitting nothing but a reflector post in the process. A highway patrolman stopped, checked to make sure no one was injured, congratulated us on being lucky, and encouraged us to be careful out there.
* An incident where I was being followed around -- no, pursued through -- town by a car I didn't recognize, and I called the dispatcher and eventually drove to the police station.
* A few incidents where I'd pulled off highways to sleep, and officers knocked on the window just to make sure everything was OK. One, when I told him why I was there said "Smartest person I've met tonight" (I suspect any highway patrol officer has seen more drowsy driving accidents than they care to).
* Incidents where I'd been hanging out in my car, using my laptop tethered to a cell phone, in a parking lot or neighborhood long enough to make someone in the neighborhood apparently uncomfortable. In two cases I remember, the officers were gently inquisitive, explained what was going on, ran a check on my plates/ID, and said I wasn't doing anything wrong but might want to consider moving on before too long.
* Incidents where there was nothing particularly positive about the interaction but the officers simply did their jobs and either issued reasonable instructions or a citation.
I've also had a number of incidents where this has gone somewhat less well (attempts to escalate to a search of my car or a DUI investigation, weird and menacing lines of questioning, threats to charge me with illegal camping/vagrancy, occasional browbeatings, on-site detention with no explanation, and at least one encounter where an angry officer was threatening me with extralegal violence), so I understand it doesn't always go like this, so I encourage reforms and increased accountability. But I also think it's fair to remember appreciate the officers who acted reasonably, kindly, and professionally.
You cited five pleasant events, two where you were suspected of doing something wrong and three which are abuses of power. A considerable amount of your interactions with the police were abusive. So clearly there is a big, systemic problem ehre.
I was also pulled over and harassed including being made to take a roadside sobriety test (I was completely 100% sober) for doing absolutely nothing except driving around at 3:30am. I got no citation and the officer had no reason to pull me over.
Both times my first question was "why did you pull me over?" which they made up some crazy story. One was my passenger apparently wasn't wearing her seatbelt (she was - the whole time) and one was I apparently "drifted left slightly while making a lefthand turn." WHAT!?
I've also have good interactions with the police but they aren't really notable. I'm most upset about the roadside sobriety test. The officer then proceeded to litter (illegal) part of the breathalyzer, after I blew a 0.00.
Why is my username relevant? Show me where I suggest that no bad cops exist. However, "police are never your friend" is an exaggeration.
Fuck these pigs.
I don't know that I can blame you for taking the "safe" approach and avoiding police, but don't punish them for your irrationally-negative outlook.
I've been lucky in that my interactions with police have ranged from professionally neutral (mostly traffic cops) to indifferent and bored (cop at a police station clearly not giving two shits that I'd just been mugged). (Of course, me being a white male helps with this "luck".) But the stuff I hear about makes me wonder: if I need the police at any point in time, what are my chances of getting a cop that's helpful vs. one that's on a power trip and wants to fuck with me?
I seriously wonder about that, and I seriously will think twice about calling 911 in an emergency. And that's the problem. It doesn't matter one bit what the percentage is: maybe 0.00001% of cops are bad, and the rest are good. But the perception is that a significant portion of cops are just power-hungry assholes who love being able to strap on a gun and show that they have authority over you. Perception matters more than reality sometimes.
Hence, the irrationality comment. Somebody who has one pleasant experience with a cop has had a good day. Somebody who has had one friend murdered by a cop probably never trusts any police again.
In my country, you have to go through a 3-year training program in order to become a police officer, and these principles are underscored time and time again in training. As a result, most people do in fact trust and respect the police. This makes the job of the police much easier, which in turn leads to a safer society. You never hear normal people say "don't talk to the police", which is something that seems really weird when reading about the US. Granted, I've heard it so often that it doesn't surprise me anymore - especially given stories like the ones in this thread.
Nope. The supposed good cops are bad too.
Who says that they don't speak out about this sort of stuff? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?
They get their concerns treated seriously by responsible professionals who's work tirelessly to keep everything at the department above board. [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
Unfortunately, there are a lot of police officers who are thugs.
It's frustrating; I personally know a few cops who are decent enough people, but they protect their own. They don't do this because they like protecting shitbags; they do it because if they don't protect everyone, they run the risk of getting their own careers ruined by bullshit accusations. The result, of course, is that the good cops get protected from bullshit, but at the cost of protecting the bad ones as well.
They are completely inflexible about it. Their attitude is, "Well, that's too bad for the poor bastards who get brutalized. I have a wife and kids to feed, and I care far more about their future than the well-being of some random guy."
So, people who violate this sort of immunity get bullied and harassed.
I understand this mindset, although I find it repulsive. I think that the only way to prevent this is to smarten the review process and make it easier to get to the bottom of complaints. This would require constant video recording and a smart Internal Review staff who can differentiate between abuse and the necessary use of force.
EDIT: Responding to BlackDeath3's comment below
> I'm sorry, I don't think I'll do thatBecause you cant, so stop trolling. If lack of intelligent commentary so annoys you, it is only fair that you hold your comments to an equal standard. Sadly evidence shows otherwise.
Come clean, in some posts you respond with "I exist" when people complain about public invisibility of good cops and in others you insult commenter's for suggesting you are a cop or a law student.
And you have still not addressed this: If you have a specific point to make regarding your parent commenter's response , then make the point, even better substantiate it with verifiable data, dont ask loaded questions.
I'm sorry, I don't think I'll do that. If the consequence is that you completely discount what I'm saying and don't believe me, then that's fine. I don't feel like I should have to point others to relevant comments within the same comment page. I may have time to waste here, but I don't have that much.
If you're going to say that good cops do condemn bad cops, show us examples of this happening. I would love to see them, but I haven't heard of even one. If you're not willing to do the work to come up with these cases, then I'm just not going to believe you. Not saying you have an obligation to prove your case to anyone, but from the volume of comments from you in this post, it seems like you really do care about this issue.
And to be a pedant, green/unripe apples are poisonous. They make you feel unwell; they just don't maim or kill you. Plenty of people would tuck into a bag of apples where some of them were still not yet ripe.
That's the problem, combined with the fact that police forces are funded by force rather than by providing a service that people are willing to pay for.
I'm not speaking to the rational here.
When the entire basis of your point is a clear strawman, and your argument is literally "cops aren't bad, because there are a non-zero number of good cops, is, as the above poster said, vapid and lacking in rational thought. The idea that you need to make up an opponent to make up an argument and call it "blisteringly stupid" to make your point, seems pretty silly.
My argument is "good cops exist". This is in response to somebody in this comment section who quite literally (yes, the real literally) said "the only good cop is a dead cop".
What exactly am I making up here?
This is what you were responding to. This person never said the main thing that seems to have incited your tantrum. At this point you're either trolling or stupid, so there isn't much of a point in us continuing here. Cheers.
Please, do stop responding to me. I have enough to fill my time without trying to explain (what I thought was) the obvious to you.
As typical of somebody posting a throwaway comment to an online forum, I'm not sure that you've taken everything into account when you make such a broad statement.
That is, we're hearing about bad cops who aren't being stopped by good ones. A lot. "Well, the good ones are out there!"; they're either ineffective, or effective, in which case the number of bad cops is even higher than we hear about. Neither of those is particularly placating.
Good police exist, and will continue to exist, despite civilian hostility and shifting definitions of what it means to be a "good cop". I'll never claim that no police are bad, or that there aren't many bad police, but I know that I'll never envy the good ones as long as the people filling this comment page comprise the majority of our population.
I'm saying, we hear about X bad cops.
There may indeed by Y good cops. I am not making any claim about the existence or non-existence of Y good cops (in fact, I've interacted with good cops, so if I was to make any claim at all, it's simply that they exist, and the effects they have on bad cops are unknown).
These Y good cops are either doing nothing to stop bad cops (and thus are ineffective at stopping bad cops; this may be simply because they are in different departments, and/or unaware of it if it's happening within the same one, and/or they may be powerless to stop it, etc etc), or they are effective at stopping Z bad cops (for a total number of X + Z bad cops, since X are still not being stopped).
Either of these situations is terrible, because either the good cops are not stopping bad cops from being bad, or they are, but there are enough bad cops that the good cops are unable to stop them all (and thus the numbers of bad cops are even higher than we hear about).
I'm not sure how else I can put that for you.
I agree that our current situation is sub-optimal. I don't remember ever arguing otherwise.
So they're like leprechauns?
What is your point?
Of the three, with whom have I ever had a conversation? (Hint: this is a singular answer!)
Are you mentally-ill?
Quid pro quo.
Since I've submitted to your analysis, a turn about is fair play. I think you are a cop. You'd like to think you are good, which is understandable, because most people would like to think that. You realize that you are judged, often unfairly, by various parties. You find yourself valuing the judgment of fellow officers most, but occasionally you are surprised and disappointed by the opinion of the general public. They just don't understand your situation, they don't appreciate your efforts, and besides they don't know how the system works. Still, it hurts.
At the same time, you are genuinely uncomfortable about some of the things you have done and seen being done. You don't blame the police; it's the fucked-up system and the dirtbags they have to deal with. So far you've toed the line, although you imagine there are some things that would cause you to break ranks. Every year, though, those things recede. Sometimes you wonder what you'll find yourself stomaching a decade from now. Maybe you'll switch to just working security. Got to get that pension first, though.
Forget it, you're probably a law student or something. Still, that was fun.
Unfortunately for yourself, your off-the-cuff analysis is quite far off the mark. I do appreciate your trying though, as I've never had the pleasure of having somebody so publicly try to profile me. It was fun!
The problem is that (especially for minorities in large cities) calling for the police is a gamble.
That many white, suburban kids are taught from a young age that "all police are your friends, you can always go to them if you need help" and that many minorities in cities are taught from a young age "cops are people near complete immunity, great authority and guns; they are to be feared; you would do best to avoid them at all costs and if you must interact with them, be as non-confrontational as possible and if you are arrested say nothing until you have a lawyer".
From the article ...
> I was standing 15 feet from the scene beside Officer Kaur, a stocky female of South Asian complexion. She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome.
The cop told the author to leave, the author indicated otherwise.
I guess the author got the "police are your friends" story growing up, not the "avoid at all costs and be non-confrontational if you cannot" story.
Every time the author got confrontational, the situation worsened. Want a doctor? Solitary.
From here, the next thing is "but what about the author's rights? even if the cops don't like you, you still have rights!". Sure, and exercising your rights is inconvenient, at times requiring things like going to jail until things are sorted out.
For a cop arresting you, it's just another day at work. For you, it's missing work unexpectedly, maybe some legal bills, worrying who is watching your kid in a few hours, etc. Your life goes upside for a bit even if charges are ultimately dropped or if the first time in front of a judge your lawyer convinces the judge to throw out the case. You have everything to lose and they/the system/etc. have nothing to lose (except for once in a while when it gets really bad and there's a huge lawsuit, like this recent local story[0], unless you've got some clout, in which case the mayor will call to see how you're doing[1]).
[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/nyregion/man-51-dies-in-th...
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/nyregion/de-blasio-defends...
If you'll look closely through this comment section, several people have suggested that good cops don't exist. I'm speaking to them.
I do not deny that calling police can be a big gamble.
It just sidetracks the conversation.
This is why cops involved in vases like these need to be made internet famous, including high resolution photos so that face recognition software can be used to spot them at a distance.
While I know that there are a lot more good cops than bad cops, there are also, among the good cops, way too many bullies who seemingly don't even realize what they are doing. They are generally good, family oriented, helpful people, but they are trained in the POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) classes to never, ever trust the citizen. That mistrust bleeds over into their personality and they sometimes don't even realize they have become jerks and bullies. I'm not defending them; it's just been my observation that while the job does attract a certain bad element (low to average intelligence combined with laziness and a lust for authority), it also attracts those who want to do good but end up warped into becoming oppressors despite their good intentions.
And there are a few truly good cops who would prevent something like what we read escalating like it did. They do exist, but they generally don't last very long in that line of work, because they can't take the constant pressure to be part of the team and cover up the bullshit.
Same for me: I never, ever trust the cops. I teach my kids the same (as I was taught by my lawyer mother).
Don't talk to the police. Ever.
The NYPD is the largest terrorist organization in the United States. They are a blight on this nation.
All three are sent for most vehicular accidents for traffic control (state police, county sheriff, or city), fire suppression (volunteer FD, usually), and medical services (sometimes volunteer, especially in the county). Judging by the comments below, I suspect there's an advantage to living in an area that doesn't have tax money to blow. ;)
This nation would have much better policing if we had half as many cops. I had a single day of jury duty two weeks ago and was dumbfounded by how many sheriff's deputies there were wandering around the courthouse in a daze, loitering around the metal detector, setting off the metal detector, speaking at inappropriate volume, eating in unsettling fashion, etc.
But hey, Australia is surprisingly progressive in this way: I just got my prescription for Naloxone needles and did my training today. I'm an ex-addict, and don't hang with those people very often, but if I ever do I can save an overdose :) this is in QLD of all places, despite Newman trying to turn us into a police state.
Police themselves should wear cameras at all times, and that footage should be made freely available to the public.
Openly recording the police is prohibited in two states - Illinois and Massachusetts. Every other state, you have the right to record the police, as long as you do it openly.
Now, there are a few things that go along with this. You are not allowed to interfere with the investigation. So, for example, you can stand a respectful distance away and start recording. You cannot run up to the cop's face and yell "AM I BEING DETAINED?!"
>Openly recording the police is prohibited in two states - Illinois and Massachusetts
No, not really.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/05/7-rules-for-recording-...
Last week the City of Boston agreed to pay Simon Glik $170,000 in damages and legal fees to settle a civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2007 felony arrest for videotaping police roughing up a suspect. Prior to the settlement, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Glik had a “constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public.” The Boston Police Department now explicitly instructs its officers not to arrest citizens openly recording them in public.
The law in 38 states plainly allows citizens to record police, as long as you don’t physically interfere with their work. Police might still unfairly harass you, detain you, or confiscate your camera. They might even arrest you for some catchall misdemeanor such as obstruction of justice or disorderly conduct. But you will not be charged for illegally recording police.
Twelve states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington—require the consent of all parties for you to record a conversation.
However, all but 2 of these states—Massachusetts and Illinois—have an “expectation of privacy provision” to their all-party laws that courts have ruled does not apply to on-duty police (or anyone in public). In other words, it’s technically legal in those 48 states to openly record on-duty police.
....
Fortunately, judges and juries are soundly rejecting these [anti-police recording] laws. Illinois, the state with the most notorious anti-recording laws in the land, expressly forbids you from recording on-duty police. Early last month an Illinois judge declared that law unconstitutional, ruling in favor of Chris Drew, a Chicago artist charged with felony eavesdropping for secretly recording his own arrest. Last August a jury acquitted Tiawanda Moore of secretly recording two Chicago Police Internal Affairs investigators who encouraged her to drop a sexual harassment complaint against another officer. (A juror described the case to a reporter as “a waste of time.”) In September, an Illinois state judge dropped felony charges against Michael Allison. After running afoul of local zoning ordinances, he faced up to 75 years in prison for secretly recording police and attempting to tape his own trial.
I was very put out by this attitude. I'm starting to wonder if it's perhaps quite realistic.
I don't know what the cynic would have suggested in this situation. I don't believe he would have said, 'leave her to fend for herself,' but perhaps to call a hospital directly, or ask her to call a family member or something, I don't know.
Police are dangerous. They have too much power and not enough brains. I'm an optimist; I think there must be some possible infrastructure that incentivises police to be good, and incentivises everyone in the system to weed out those who are not. The current system doesn't resemble that remotely, and for now, perhaps the cynic is right.
When I called the police and the investigator came, I could tell I was instantly suspect #1. He began grilling me lengthily about my whereabouts the night before and who I lived with.
An officer in blue joined as well and they were basically threatening to confiscate my car until I started talking about getting a lawyer.
Of course this situation is nowhere near the authors in terms of harm or even potential harm, but it definitely showed me that ANY interaction with the police has the potential to go VERY badly for you no matter what.
Citation needed.
What if he also assumed I was lying, drunk or armed?
Shooting holes in my own car so I could waste 20 minutes of your time. Why do you ask?
You missed an option: They willfully misunderstand it because they're looking for a promotion or they have to make their arrest quota.
I was annoyed. Great, now we have to wait an hour for the cops to show up, and they're going to be pissed off that they had to leave the comfortable station to waste time dealing with something that they can't do anything about. Broken sleep, broken window, and now I have to manage an interaction with grumpy police.
The cops that arrived showed empathy. Yes, they couldn't do anything about it, but their underlying tone was "this was a shitty thing to have happened" rather than "why the fuck are you wasting our time". I was so taken aback by the shift in tone that I actually said the line, corny as it is, "I've lived here for 11 years and this is the first time I've had a positive experience with the Fitzroy police"
The cop searching with a torch behind my car doubled over in silent laughter while the one in front of me smirked "Actually, we're from Collingwood..."
First was my father, he was a farmer at the time, late 50s. He found a crop of marijuana on the farm and turned it into the police. The planters of the crop decided that what happened was that my sisters boyfriend must of stolen it to sell. So they drove to my fathers house at dinner time, four of them, and started demanding payment.
My sisters boyfriend confronted them and told them what had happened, which then resulted in a four on one beat down. My dad ran back into the house grabbed a bat, ran back out and hit two of them. First guy dropped unconscious with the first blow, second guy stumbled dazed. The last two took off so fast they left the car behind.
My mother had rung the police before the violence had started, and they arrived before my sisters boy friend had managed to get off the ground. They arrested my father and he spent the next 3 days in jail. No other charges where laid.
Tens of thousands of dollars later the case was thrown out by a jury and the judge scolded the police for there actions and for wasting the courts time and tax payers money.
During the proceedings evidence came forward that the police had received the crop, and instead of filing paper work just disposed of it being lazy (the same cop that arrested my father). Before the court the cop was fingered by other police officers as a liar, breaking laws, my family pointed it out, even the four guys fingered the cop as a liar. Official complaints where laid, the response was no wrong doing could be found.
A few months after the incident my cousins mates where doing burn outs around, being little bastards really, but the cop couldn't catch them. Angry he went to my cousins house, it was around 3am. Knocked on the door asking where they where.
My cousin is also a farmer, gets up around 5am, he opened the door tired and confused. Said he hadn't seen them. The cop got in his face yelling at him, so my cousin said "listen I got work in a few hours and I need some more sleep, they aren't here, you can see that, how about you just fuck off". Which resulted in the cop kicking the door out of his hands and beating my cousin so bad he had to be taken to hospital with a broken jaw, and swelling so bad he couldn't open his eyes. During the beating the cop threatened my cousin, his mates, and father directly.
My father, and my family are pillars of the community. My dad grew up in the town, was the local scout master, organises the christmas parades, helps with local stage performances. So the event did not go down well at all.
The next bit of what happened is all heresy but this is what I've been told happened. Photos where taken of my cousin. A group of local farmers went to the police station, handed over the photos and said if the cop steps out of line once more he will be lynched (black mail essentially). I've heard variations where they roughed the cop up to send the message to him.
He was told he wasn't welcome on any bodies property in the area and to search for a new position immediately. If he failed that then the town was going to turn on his big time, and the photos would be used if an investigation began to make him loose his job. I can remember being in the supermarket on a visit and watching someone eye ball the cop as he was shopping, staring straight down the isle at him, as the cop moved to the next aisle the guy just moved along to the end of that aisle and eye balled him till he left the store.
The cop was gone in 6 months, but it took an entire rural community to stand up to him when the police and the complaints organisation wouldn't. You could say there are procedures to deal with these situations, but there aren't when they are design to protect the police.
The real sad bit is that prick just moved to another station. He's probably still trying to beat confessions out of kids right now.
So I have become a "don't talk to the police...
I hate to break this to you, but I don't think the crop was 'disposed of' in the way you were thinking of, and it wasn't motivated by laziness.
Someone else said they had seen the cop doing that. From memory it was another officer that said that (I didn't attend the hearings).
So who knows :) I think the plants where pre harvest though, my dad noticed the moment they arrived and acted immediately.
[1] "My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." My god imagine listening to this self indulgent tripe at 1 am while keeping your cool.
Were I not very familiar with him, an interpretation such as yours would definitely be one of my high probability estimates, which is what compelled me to add my views. Take it as you will.
Really? Because reading this, he comes across as the epitome of naivete. Are people really this clueless about how to interact with cops?
FTR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
You probably should, too.
You are seriously defending US police actions that made a former Soviet citizen worry about what would happen next?!
That doesn't exist any longer. Our elites are corrupt.
The author is a man.
>Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode.
Even if he was doing something wrong, assuming he wasn't violent, what happened to him was way out of proportion and should be illegal.
However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.
I know where you're coming from. It is hard to believe. I could hardly believe it when it happened to me (see my other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7234781). I still have a hard time believing it.
But the simple fact is that it happens, and what really enables it is the fact that there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The police are incredibly well-protected from any sort of accountability. The will to reprimand has to come from the inside, and that is usually done silently, if it's done at all. Cops are big on loyalty.
C'mon, dude.
Note to self: don't pitch to cops at scene of accident.
B-b-but I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food!
"Keep your head down, don't give them any lip. Don't say anything unless you don't have to and certainly don't diss them in any way, you'll probably be fine..."
(And to be clear, we're talking about a guy that has a PhD from one of the top five biophysics programs on Earth.)
He is earnest and sincere, and I can imagine that the officer mistook him for someone he is not that night, but I don't think any of his actions come close to justifying how he was treated.
Further, it was my experience while living near his current neighborhood that the police were as dangerous (if not more so) than any of the myriad criminals operating there. I'm not anti-police, but I am not a fan of the cops that covered those areas while I lived there.
All tips are notionally taxable income, whether a server chooses to declare all their cash tips is their choice, when you tip with a credit card it stops being their choice - and there's no way of telling how much of the tip is diverted by the establishment.
No, it's really not.
It works right up until it doesn't :/
I admit that I dislike cops and that I've never had a positive interaction with one. But there are some cops who legitimately want to do a good job and make their city safer. And these guys are shitting all over that.
It does not mean never or always.
White America welcome to black America. You'll be arrested for nothing at all. The first time it happens you'll be really upset and threaten to sue, and file a police report. And when you do there will be some sort of roadblock, they won't have the forms, the officer in question wasn't on shift that night, the detective is quite hostile to you, the victim.
You'll learn what I've learned. Don't trust the police for shit. All of the things I've listed I've done and it only made life difficult until I left for college.
Given the photo at the top, at first glance I assumed that the woman at the lectern was the OP, only towards the end of the story did I get understand that the OP was a man. I cannot see any reference to the OP being black in the text (his About thumbnail is too small to see clearly).
That's unfair to regular expressions, though, because I actually have seen them solve a problem before. Cops improving a situation? Never seen it.
It's not. It's my personal experience and was stated that way. I, unambiguously, have never once seen the police improve a situation. I've never even really heard about it happening.
It's good that it's happened to you - it probably makes you feel more secure in the place where you live.
Humans like positive situations, they like being praised, they like feeling loved and needed. They will defend the things they hold dear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-ca...
People don't hate on EMTs and firemen. You know why? Those people don't shoot your dog, beat you and arrest you when you look at them the wrong way.
Until there is a STANDARD of good cops throwing out bad cops and NOT facing retribution;
Until there is an established, effective and formal method of oversight and accountability for verifiable acts of police brutality and false arrest,
I will not invite any police officer to my home until I've known them for quite some time.
---
Final remark, To your comment directly: Officers need to change their behavior first. This isn't going to be resolved by people loving cops in the hopes they'll get in a better mood. 'They' need to remember they are 'us'.
In the States most of the interaction with that I witness police is negative: get pulled over for speeding, ticketed, etc. Even when they're doing sobriety checkpoints on St. Patrick's day, they're inconveniencing people who are responsible.
If the daily interactions between citizens and cops are like this it'll be very difficult to get people to change behavior.
Then when people need the cops, they call the cops, and their dog gets shot, their door gets broken, their kids get taken away, they get a beat-down, and maybe get to spend a weekend in jail, it goes from "don't like" to "really don't like".
Sounds crazy, but considering how many questions he was asking the officers after they'd cuffed him he got off quite easy. I wonder if my friends that went to UCSF around the same time as him knew him. I know a lot of folks like him, but they don't know much standard "know your rights" type stuff that teaches you to do nothing, say nothing once you are cuffed.
Unless you are making them laugh, you're probably on their bad side.
When I tell my white friends this story they logically conclude I must have done something, police don't simply "detain" you without cause. Yes, they do. My other friends are much more understanding. Either it has happened to them or someone they know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand_(detention)
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment
are really important subjects for people who want to understand their freedoms. If you are a danger to yourself, others or gravely disabled you may be taken into a hospital and honestly you should be. If you are arrested, you might be held for up to 72 hours in the US. I think there are a lot of really good reasons for those laws honestly, but they can trip up people who are focusing on broad constitutional aphorisms instead of real state and local policy.
Pretty much.
I was honestly dumbstruck by the naiveté expressed as soon as the action starts.
"She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome."
It's an odd mixture of feelings to read about someone who lives in the same country I do who was able to grow into adulthood without having to learn the basic rules some of us had to learn by 4th grade.
Watching your mouth because you fear the authorities with guns is quite the opposite of respect.
I'm sure the cops have all kinds of anecdotes about how helpful the drunks loitering around a scene at 1AM are!
Nobody, least of all the black community, are saying it's right, they're just saying it's naive to think the world works any other way.
Comply with what you're told and complain later or take a stand and face the consequences. They have tasers and guns and handcuffs and colleagues who will arrive on scene later and assume that you're guilty. Death is a real possibility.
http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/20/kelly-thomas/
They tell you to leave, you can either comply without saying a word, or start an argument knowing where it will take you. Both attitudes are fine.
But starting an argument and then be shocked, shocked! that it lands you in trouble? That's just stupid.
The worst part of all this? First thing I did was check the author's gender and skin colour. And then I read the article. I normally work hard to be free of the prejudice of this society we are forced to live in, and yet I realised I took this article more seriously because it was by a white male :(
That is why it is vital to understand privilege, and that we live in a society that is constantly pushing its values that we cannot help but to make such mistakes. That it doesn't matter how good your intentions are, how much of a meritocracy you think your community has, but if it isn't free from the constant pressure of our base society (ie, realistically impossible), you'll end reading something like this and trying to excuse away those thoughts I just admitted.
Umm do you remember the OWS protests?
But police behavior toward masses of people in crowd-control situations at protests (where everyone in sight is treated as a criminal) is fundamentally different from police behavior toward individual bystanders at a small, nonviolent emergency scene. So I don't think your exception is valid or applicable.
The essence of privilege is the default treatment you typically receive from strangers. Middle class white women are perceived as the least threatening stereotype by police. Men are more likely to be seen as a threat to be subjugated, non-whites more so, the obviously poor more so.
The sad fact is, a correct assessment of reality is racist to some extent. Not because of skin colour, mind you, but because of confounding factors such as income, or self-fulfilling prophecies such as racism itself. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is still there, and we can still draw inferences from them.
As for my personal assessment of the credibility of this story, I assumed the guy was white to begin with. If I believed he was black, I would have been like "of course", and marked off the story as even more credible. Because I have this stereotype in my head about police being racist. I'm now wondering to what extent this is actually true…
Does that mean he is a racist?
A few years later I moved to Toronto. I still had long hair, but the police seemed to ignore me. I was really curious and paid extra attention to the police. It took a while, but it finally hit me: "they're only interested in the black guys!" The black guys were being watched with the same sort of intensity that I had experienced. I didn't observe the same sort of interactions I had, but I could imagine.
Canada is a bit different from the USA and I didn't get the full "black treatment", but I think I got to see the curtain pulled aside just a crack. One thing that really struck me was how incredulous non-blacks were when I related my story years later.
Try living in a minority majority area.
Most of your cops are non-white too.
If you get your fingers broken, it's likely an Indian or Hispanic cop with a grudge.
The media hasn't caught up to that yet, but when do they ever?
Many many years ago, him and his friends (a bunch of black teenage boys) went to Walmart. Two of his friends stole a couple of packs of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. They got caught, and the police were called and serious criminal charges were brought against them. My friend wasn't charged as he didn't do anything wrong, but signed a paper saying he wouldn't go into Walmart ever again.
They did shoplift and commit a crime, but I can't help but think if it was some middle class white kids taking Yu-Gi-Oh! cards they would have just called their parents to come pick them up.
It turns out that telling the cops what to do isn't very effective.
These SFPD were whining about how they can't afford to live in SF, but they make as much as I do SPECIFICALLY to address that problem.
Police are "State Violence". They exist to encourage the rest of us to follow the rules for fear of SPECIFICALLY this sort of situation.
They are never, in any precinct, going to be an acceptable institution. They will not find your stolen shit, they might arrest you if you witness a tragedy, and if you want to go tell your elected representatives they are a bunch of assholes, they will come out in paramilitary gear and spray fucking pepper spray or teargas in your face.
They have one of the strongest unions in the country and their own bill of rights. Cameras are a good idea, but they're just not going to fix this.
I would love to see people in the tech industry get involved in CopWatch, talk to people that have been doing this, esp in the bay area for decades. It is ASTOUNDINGLY difficult to get even a reprimand on file. Look at Johannes Mehserle and John Pike, extreme cases, but if their behavior is above reproach, how do you think that grabbing a random person and stomping you into the ground for noncompliance while you are in a state of shock is going to get them anything but a few laughs at the cop bar.
I wish technology could fix the police, but it cannot.
You write:
> "[Police] are never, in any precinct, going to be an acceptable institution."
which I think is patently untrue -- there are several precincts where the police as an institution function excellently.
FTFY.
Or... Even better...
It's high time to hire better cops.
Then you can ask them why they don't use the evidence recording device that would remove ambiguity from so many situations.
SF and Oakland are already amongst the highest paying police departments and neither has almost any residents of their city working for them. I have met some of the police who are natives in both cities and it's a great way to get uninvited from Thanksgiving, and with good reason.
Maybe tying pay and funding to available footage?
Other than the logistics of making it happen and ensuring the entirety of the video from an encounter is available, I can't see a problem with the whole idea. The only people that lose out are crooked cops and members of the public wanting to file unwarranted abuse claims.
In jurisdictions that have this law, the cameras are amazingly unreliable. The failure rate is just huge..
This was in Texas. I don't recall the exact details. My bosnian friend was racially profiled (as hispanic) by the police. He was ticketed after not coming to a full stop, then arrested because the officer incorrectly assumed that his real driver's license was fake and that he was not a legal citizen. At the precinct, he was told some racist stuff by a working officer before being put in the cell. A lawyer took up his case, asserting that the conditions leading up to his arrest were not actually legal.
What happened then? On the books, he didn't exist. He supposedly never spent a night in jail, was supposedly never arrested and taken in, the fees he paid for bail were supposedly never received or requested, the surveillance camera footage the night he was put in jail happened to be corrupted, and even if he succeeded in getting the bail money back, he'd be out at least an additional thousand for court an lawyer fees.
Needless to say, they didn't pursue the case further.
The BART police are mandated to wear cameras in the wake of the killing of Oscar Grant. Unfortunately it's up to them to activate the camera. Recently a BART cop was shot & killed by another officer when searching a robbery suspect's home. Supposedly none of those officers had their cameras running. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Fatal-BART-shooting-not-...
Another time I turned in $2,000 I found in an envelope and asked when I could pick it up if no one claimed it. Called back a couple weeks later and they had no record of it.
Point being, police officers (in my opinion) are no better than anyone else, they could be good or bad, but you need to help keep them in check.
Do not speak to cops, ever. They are not there to help you or find out the truth.
Those aren't good cops.
I used to have faith in the fundamental goodness and rightness of the police. I knew, in the abstract, there were some bad apples, but doesn't every organization?
Then several years ago I learned from experience that it doesn't matter. The concrete reality of what happens when a bad cop singles you out outweighs all the good cops in the world.
I was out about 15k - which I really needed at the time - but that's not what sticks with me. What sticks with me is the fear and humiliation. I have had some bad times, but my arrest was the absolute bottom.
Other than the immediate experience, I think part of it was the knowledge that it didn't matter that I was innocent, the full force of the law and the state had come down and declared me a scumbag among all the dregs of society. It's something that has to happen to you to understand, I think. Maybe it's just because I always regarded myself as a good, law-abiding (and not very humble) citizen, who did things the Right Way. I don't know.
What I do know is to this day, I get anxious when someone even mentions the police, let alone when they show up.
For the love of God don't ever, ever ever ever ever talk to the police. If the police want to arrest you they will arrest you. Talking can only make it worse. I thought I was being polite and helpful. It doesn't matter.
The former sheriff of a nearby county (now a felon) said he had the job because he loved arresting bad guys. They will see bad guys everywhere they can.
I'm sorry you have to learn this the hard way.
Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Um, no, you can leave it to an actual court of law by finding a good attorney and filing a civil complaint. But until you find competent representation, here's a piece of advice: for the love of god and your own well-being, learn to STFU.
The story makes it clear OP has no idea when to stop talking and observe his surroundings, even to his own detriment. Instead, he acted (and wrote) in such a way where he's constantly assuming the role of a victim and then being shocked when people treat him as such.
Remember folks, you have the right to remain silent in any interaction with authorities (not just the police, pretty much only a judge can compel you to speak), and your failure to do so only ever leads to a world of hurt.
"he acted (and wrote) in such a way where he's constantly assuming the role of a victim"
What type of brain got you to the conclusion that this person was something other than the victim here?
Look, I get your point that shutting up is a good idea, but we can't blame the person for not shutting up, the police should be blamed for their actions. The fact that we have people like you standing up for the police here makes me think we probably have no chance as a society anymore.
First off, I never said that there isn't a problem with the way the police treated OP. In fact, I'm encouraging him to sue both the police department and the officers personally for the way they treated him, which was clearly unacceptable behavior. Translation: I want to see him get justice.
But I also am able to see nuance in a situation, which clearly you're lacking. He might be a victim, but he's not blameless, insofar as: • Refused to pipe down and leave the accident when ordered to by a police officer. • Continued to instigate police officers who were securing the scene. • Yelled like a crazy person while in a holding cell.
or, as I said in the parent comment: OP COMPLETELY FAILED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIS RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT AND AVOID AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE.
His behavior was unacceptable, and holding him to account for that as someone who enjoys their constitutional rights and insists upon defending them in NO WAY MAKES ME A POLICE APOLOGIST. Police aren't the only one who can trample upon rights, those who fail to understand or abuse them are culpable as well. The fact you don't understand that makes me wonder if our free society held together by liberty and a respect for the rule of law has any chance any more, yet I'll remain an optimist.
"His behavior was unacceptable, and holding him to account for that as someone who enjoys their constitutional rights and insists upon defending them in NO WAY MAKES ME A POLICE APOLOGIST."
"Holding him to account" in your book happens to mean beating the shit out of him and putting him in a cell, whereas I simply don't think someone who is yelling things the police don't like deserves this treatment. If that makes me naive, I'll take it.
"But I also am able to see nuance in a situation, which clearly you're lacking."
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Because you were able to see subtle details like "this person wasn't being polite!" only super wisdom filled you is able to understand that the police were right to beat them up and put them in solitary. I genuinely cannot believe that someone could make such an utter shit argument and then have the gall to blame the OTHER person for a lack of understanding of the nuances, like yourself, who is of course brilliant.
There was a place I've heard about where the police was scary, though I never lived there: that was communist Romania, where my parents grew up. And the US, too, it seems.
Who should be the one shutting up when the boss is talking?
I have no idea what it would take to curb a significant portion of this sort of overreach, but it is worth being stripped naked and thrown in solitary confinement? You tell me.
Is it true that in some states you have to identify yourself, as in at least state your name?
I significantly disagree with Hiibel, but alas, SCOTUS says that you have to give your name.
If you read the comment with the preconception that every interaction has one side which is Right and one side which is Wrong, then you will see the cops portrayed as "Just". If you read the comment without that preconception, you will not.
I am very afraid of people with that preconception, because they pick sides and then try to stick to them by confirmation bias. Like the cops.
(Just in case it wasn't absolutely clear: my position is that the victim here was careless-in-a-way-that-would-have-no-negative-consequences-in-a-perfect-world, like I was careless the time I left my flat unlocked and a guy tried to steal my laptop. Whereas the cop's actions were criminal, like the guy who tried to steal it. Both sides are "at fault" in some sense, but hardly equally.)
However, "fault" is in the deviation from a perfect world that caused the result. The author, showing concern and asking about the well-being of another person, is not at fault for the abuse he received. The police officer, abusing his position, is at fault.
To apply these to your example of your stolen laptop, I would say that it was partially caused by you, but was not your fault.
The way that I read Gorbzel's comment as that both cause and fault were on the author, not just cause.
Gorbzel's comment is pretty blunt: for sake of argument, it basically amounts to "[Victim] is an idiot and should have known better, for his own sake". But to me it is very clearly an assignment of "cause" not "fault" in your terminology.
I understand this from phrases such as "for […] his own well-being" and "to his own detriment", as well as the fact that it's phrased as "advice". These make clear that Gorbzel is saying that the victim erred from a self-interest point of view not a moral point of view.
And I hear the defensive tone in her voice. She feels, as I do, that many people in the public won't believe, or if they do believe, that they will rationalize the police behavior. Or even if they don't rationalize, they will keep quiet, feeling powerless and not strong enough to make a difference. But, what Peretz has shown me personally, is that there is a certain strength in numbers, and sharing your experience so that other people don't feel like they're the only one who got treated that way, that they are not the only one who got brutalized by American city police - and then were left with absolutely no options to keep them accountable.
The system is fucked and it needs to change. Police should be required to record all audio and video of their actions, and provide this footage to anyone they interact with, on request. And if that device doesn't work, they should be severely reprimanded. (Officer Sasenbach of the SBPD, the one who threw me in jail without arrest and without reason, had a recording device which "failed" the night of our interaction.)
Much of my experience was eerily familiar - the suddenness of the violence on the street, when Sasenbach decided I was trouble. The taunts from the jail keepers. The taking of clothing (jacket and shoes), and kept in a cell too cold to sleep in for 12 hours. Asking for a phone call, and being ignored. Asking if I was arrested, and being ignored. Asking what right they have to keep me, and having them smirk and say, "because I'm on this side, and you're on that side".
When I filed a complaint, the sargeant assigned to the case was sullen, bored. Sasenbach's personal recorder was broken; the video feed in the cell i was kept in was broken. I could file another complaint if I wanted.
I remember feeling so out-of-body, like the system I'd grown up to believe in, the system that was supposed to represent "the good guys" was completely upended. These were brutal, horrible people drunk on their power over me, and delighted to cause as much harm as they could get away with, for no other reason that they could. It was an important moment in my life, when my illusion about the state, the police, and the bare issue of who we trust with a monopoly of violence became starkly defined: none of us are safe. The police can invade our lives at will, and do what they want to us, and we are helpless to defend ourselves. The only thing preventing general rebellion is statistical: the number of people who "win" the shit lottery that is interacting with the cops is very low, and it's hard to convince others that they are indeed at risk of suffering the same treatment. Who knows, perhaps things will change.
Are you fucking kidding me? Do NOT listen to this advice. If you see someone injured, CALL 911!
Do NOT move the person if there is suspicion of spinal or head injury. Wait for the HIGHLY TRAINED emergency response team to show up.
> Call Lyft to take you to the hospital. (Worked well when I broke my elbow.)
Are you fucking kidding me? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
All of this is some sort of thinly veiled attack on our public servants and what seems to be public government infrastructure in general.
I'm all for calling bullshit on general unfounded anti-government rhetoric in general. But law enforcement are not your friends. They're trained that the citizen is an untrustworthy crook, why should we treat them any better?
Please, for fuck's sake, if you see someone hit by a car or otherwise bleeding on the street, do the sane thing and call 911.
I can't believe we're having this conversation...
If someone's having a serious stroke and immobile, yes, of course call an ambulance. A broken arm or leg? A Lyft is probably your best bet. I'd draw the line at something like "minor heart attack."
And ambulance service costs U$ 50/month and is included with 90% of the populations' health services.
- Legalized marijuana
- Legal gay marriage and recognition of LGBT rights
- A much better healthcare system than the U.S. (ok that part isn't too hard)
- One laptop per child
- The Economist's country of the year :)
The vast, VAST majority of people in San Francisco and the rest of the United States deal with emergency responders with no problems whatsoever.
You're just experiencing a bunch of whiny, self-entitled assholes who're making more money than their underdeveloped brains know how to deal with and now think that they literally shit gold bricks.
This is causing WAY more problems in San Francisco than the SFPD.
If there's going to be any sort of protests in SF it is going to be against these asshats, not the SFPD, mark my words.
Why would you think he's kidding? I don't see a veiled attack: I see desperation. He (and others in this thread) believe that you are putting yourself into greater risk by calling 911 than by solving the situation any other way you can.
I don't share their opinion, but I would think deeply before dismissing the sincerely expressed belief of those who feel the emergency response system in the US so broken that you are better of trying to make your own way to medical care rather than taking a chance on calling 911.
Literally all professional literature on the subject suggests the following:
Remain calm, be aware of your surroundings, and closely evaluate the scene to protect yourself and others from further injury.
Do not move a critically injured person unless instructed by emergency medical professionals.
Do not try to drive someone who is critically ill or injured to a hospital unless there is no way to summon emergency help.
Call 911 or ask someone else to call: - If you think there is a medical emergency, - If the crisis could get worse left untreated or not treated properly.
Listen carefully to the 911 dispatcher's questions. Answer them calmly and quickly.
Remain on the line until the dispatcher tells you it's okay to hang up.
Ask someone to wait outside to meet emergency personnel if it is safe to do so.
Paramedics may want to know a brief summary of the circumstances that caused the emergency. Remain calm and cooperative as they gather information.
Agreed. But then get away from the scene ASAP once anyone officious turns up.
What the fuck is going on here? Is one of my office mates pranking me with a man-in-the-middle attack and then trolling me hard? Or are there really that many retards on this forum?
If the cops who did stuff like this were actually punished, if the dept. came right out and said, this shouldn't have happened, we're gonna do this and this to fix it.. I wouldn't be afraid.
Instead I see, well, he must have pissed them off somehow, just be quiet and maybe nothing bad will happen to you.
All my encounters with cops have been good, but I understand the police dept. where I am is a pretty good one. Still, it only takes one bad encounter, one bad cop, to ruin my life.
I'm not gonna stop from calling the cops because I'm afraid of them. Someone else's life, their health, matters more than what could or couldn't happen to me. But I can't support this system and I don't know what to do about it.
When the police arrive, stay out of their way. If they don't need a witness, go home.
99.9% of my interactions with the police have been entirely professional and exactly what I would expect.
The 0.1% occurred in the Tenderloin, Mission, and SOMA (neighborhoods of SF). A SFPD beat cop, at night, in one of those areas... Yeah, no.
I've had more pleasant and rational interactions while being mugged in the Mission than I ever had with cops on the Mission beat.
Always film your interactions with the police, because they WILL lie to make themselves the hero and you the villain.
Also, know your rights, exercise them. Especially your 5th amendment.
This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie...
This is not a person we should fear. I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, but the abuse and brutality of what followed are just plain wrong.
I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police or that all cops should be killed and I find those to be childish nonsense. For us to have a free and effective society, the rule of law is important and should apply equally to all. I know this isn't always the case but it is the goal. Wishing harm onto authority figures simply muddies the waters.
What I want, and what I think all should want, is justice. The best outcome from Peretz's suffering would be reform and we should work towards that end.
Along with justice for this individual event what about something bigger. Right now there is no way to track these violent interactions officers have with the public. This police officer can do the same thing over and over and get away with it because the precinct will protect her. What if we had a way to keep track of these incidents making it easy for us to review the history of officers each time an event like this happens. If this officer had a fear of a violent interaction with the public going on her 'permanent public record' that might influence her behavior.
It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave?
And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you?
I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me.
The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything.
Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.
My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good.
We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve.
Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster.
To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.
"It's rational for officers to arrest law-abiding citizens who are slightly annoying officers."
And I get that a lot of people believe that. But you're wrong. You're so, so wrong.
It saddens me that a lot of cops (like the one in this story) feel as you do, that it's fine for police to grossly abuse their powers.
In a rational world, the cop would no longer be a cop.
In this world, he probably could've raped the kid with a toilet plunger and still remained on the force.
Police are the people we've put in charge with keeping public order. In the course of that job, they're going to arrest and / or detain people. We want them to always detain the right people, but even a very good police department will detain the wrong people sometimes. So, we give the authority to individual officers to detain people, and we don't second guess their decisions at the time.
Of course, this system only works when there is a functioning review system. Where the policed populace feels like their concerns are listened to by the authority figures. Where officers who misbehave, even by the loose standards of american police, are publicly disciplined. None of these things are common in modern america - but you can still believe in the right for police to detain people and push for better accountability.
I think you should consider how much you are reading into statements before you ascribe particular views to people. You both agree the author was treated deplorably, and you both agree (I assume) that police can do better.
It doesn't work. You are naive.
If anything, they get to take paid time off until they are cleared of wrongdoing.
There are no citizen review boards with teeth. There is no way that police departments can self-regulate.
Which was absolutely not the situation here.
You can espouse the abuse of police power from a safe distance, but when you are in their faces you need to shut up because in the near future and moment they have the capacity to make your life hell with no recourse.
The most practical thing you can take away from this is to not trust the police. Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment - but what specifically can we do? I would say: you can at least think about the nature of the systematic problem that takes away essentially all accountability from city police departments. Why does it seem like the public is no longer outraged when police abuse occurs? Why does it seem like government officials don't admit any wrongdoing or apologize for anything anymore? Why are lawsuits so expensive?
What it seems like to me is that, somehow, the public has been convinced of their ineffectiveness. They have been cowed into submissiveness. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry, and I haven't been abused by the police. It's just not that big of a problem. And the monotonically increasing complexity of government has provided amazing levels of defensive cover for bad actors. It's an almost perfect shield of immunity to prosecution and incredibly expensive litigation barrier-to-entry. "Reform" sounds nice - but what do you think we should do? And in the meantime, are you really advocating that the police should be trusted in the absence of any reform? That's childish nonsense.
Not to sound overly pessimistic, but "reform" isn't usually how citizens extricate themselves from a police state. Totalitarian governance is inherently insular and well protected from peaceful reform, using the state monopoly on violence to maintain and cultivate its will.
The antithesis of peaceful reform also conveniently starts with "re," but I can't seem to remember what it is... Re... rev-o-something, I think. ;)
And you know what, if Aung Yung Suu-Ki is any indication, even if we did live in a totalitarian state, there would still be hope for a peaceful resolution. And that's important because I don't believe that a state born of brutality can be anything other than brutal.
Struck a nerve?
You're absolutely right. We're not a police state--yet. But if left unchecked, the powers in control of the democratic process inevitably degrade into totalitarian rule. We're seeing a glimpse of that through the paranoia of the state (think extensive surveillance). A totalitarian United States will be made known when the Bill of Rights is nullified in its entirety, and we've already started on that path. Some might argue we've been on that path since the early 1900s, some since 2000, and some since more recently.
Honestly, I don't think we're at a point where reform is possible. An insufficient percentage of the population has yet been inconvenienced to enact reform. But by the time the majority is demanding it, then it will already be too late. And I fear that the average US citizen is too complacent and too ignorant to care. Neither one of those bode well for reform.
[takes off tinfoil hat]
This is kind of a funny sentiment. Can you name a state that wasn't born of brutality?
Emphasis where it appears is mine.
> In 1943, during the Second World War, HM Fort Roughs [Sealand] was constructed by the United Kingdom as one of the Maunsell Forts, primarily for defence against German mine-laying aircraft
> On 2 September 1967, the fort was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters.
> In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort.
> In August 1978, while Bates and his wife were in England, Alexander Achenbach, who describes himself as the Prime Minister of Sealand, hired several German and Dutch mercenaries to spearhead an attack of Roughs Tower. They stormed the tower with speedboats, jet skis and helicopters, and took Bates' son hostage. Bates was able to retake the tower and capture Achenbach and the mercenaries.
And of course...
> While it has been described as the world's smallest country, the world's smallest nation, or a micronation, Sealand is not currently officially recognised by any established sovereign state, although Sealand's government claims it has been de facto recognised by the United Kingdom (after an English court ruled it did not have jurisdiction over Sealand as territorial water limitations were defined at the time) and Germany
Both of those claimed recognitions took place after an act of agression toward British / German citizens mentioned in the above excerpts.
So you've got a platform in the ocean that was created as part of a war effort, that has been the subject of a failed and a successful military coup, whose only unofficial recognition by established states came after assaulting their citizens, and that is still not officially recognized by any other state. (And which is currently sitting in British territorial waters, after they unilaterally annexed its surrounding ocean.) And all this is for a "state" with a population estimated at "over 50".
What a weird place America must be.
Tis' a silly place.
A lot of Americans presume "not unlawful orders" or "reasonable orders" to be presumed legal, if those orders come from a law enforcement officer, but in actuality, most lawful orders that are given are not lawful as they are not predicated on authority. If an officer tells you to leave your home, for example, that is not a lawful order unless you're under arrest, or if you're interfering with their effecting a warranted search. As such, people see orders like "Go stand over there" as being followed on television shows, and assume that the state (or its officers) have the authority to tell you where to stand. Generally speaking, they do not, usually.
The problem is in the myriad of exceptions -- we have the freedom to assemble, generally, but that assembly must be lawful. It's pretty obvious to say that we don't have the freedom to assemble on a trafficked highway, for example. Similarly, many 'free speech zones' require permits for use. That may seem unlawful, where those permitted places are common areas, but their issuance is predicated on the idea that if a 'pro' group and an 'anti' group are attempting to protest in the same space, then violence might reasonably ensue. The fix for that is to permit the space, and permit issuance is done on a first-come basis. The contra-position there is that the opposing protestors are effectively allowed to protest _anywhere but within the permitted space_, so, across the street is generally fine, and is also generally does not require a permit. A police officer at a protest may well be making a lawful order if you're in the wrong assembly area.
So yeah, it's interesting, and it's completely convoluted, and while I generally scoff at people who don't know even the basics, it's pretty near impossible to understand the intricacies of what does or doesn't comprise a lawful order depending on a myriad of circumstances. To be sure though, I think it's safe to say that most lawful orders are in fact not predicated on any actual authority, and are hence unlawful.
Having interfaced with law enforcement at local and federal levels as part of employment, I happen to know that particular phrase literally has no meaning, except "please don't sue us if you do that, because we aren't liable, and need it on the record that we did NOT tell you to do whatever it is that you're about to do."
It's not a statement of encouragement or discouragement. That said though, if you consider the outcry that he "deliberately disobeyed a police officer", it's clear that many do not understand the concept very clearly (or they were blinded by the rest of it and went in to full witch hunt mode, which may or may not have been warranted).
The question here is the same question we face with the TSA:
Separating actual threats from threats to someone's personal perception of their own authority.
The author wasn't a threat. The cop screwed up. Then again, you'll never get 100% good people, and so there are going to be some screwup cops. I wish I could say our office was 100% solid. But you always get a few.
A rational individual in America is absolutely justified in not trusting police. Wake up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
I don't feel safe in San Francisco anymore.
Also, is this a rare unusual occurrence, or does this happen 75%+ of the time you call 911?
It just seems like a situation that should not have happened the way it was described (which may or may not be accurate).
This kind of thing is not rare, but it's not common, either. It happens nightly, but it's unlikely to happen to you.
A good rule of thumb is to not be anywhere near a scene that has an inbound emergency response. There will be police, and if they have nothing else to do, they might harass you for fake reasons.
But it all depends on where you are going. In most places, this is not a common problem. In certain areas of larger cities, the police can be a bit over zealous.