Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#61

Post by karlshea » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:28 AM UTC

rewqfdsa wrote: post #53

throw_this_away wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that this isn't an isolated incident, and we're seeing black people on the receiving end of a great deal of police misconduct over the past couple of years (Laquan McDonald and the subsequent cover up is the most recent example), perhaps it's time you consider that the reason arrest rates for black people are so high is because they are targeted unjustly. Not because they're actually committing crimes at higher…

The higher criminality drives the police mistreatment. If you're a police offer and interact with mostly black criminals all day, your priors are set so that you think most blacks are criminals. So when you see an honest black person, you assume he's guilty of _something_, and consider framing him the honest thing, since you believe you're just putting the black man away for crimes he's doubtlessly committed, but for…

It's sad that you actually think this is true.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#62

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:28 AM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #52

rewqfdsa wrote: post #28

> black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved Black Americans commit a wildly disproportionate amount of crime. Black men make up 1 million out of 2.3 million people in prison. 4.7% of all black men* are in prison. A black man has a 70% chance of being in prison at some point in his life. Are you suggesting the police are framing all of these people? While police…

Actually, black Americans are primed for entry into "the system" from kindergarten. It's called "the school to prison pipeline" and it has been conclusively shown that blacks get disproportionate punishment at every phase of life. Similar things have been done to other minority populations, especially indigenous populations, in other countries, with much the same results.

[deleted]

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#63

Post by athenot » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:29 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

Regarding #2, "trust, but verify".

I think we need a (i) strong and (ii) independent audit system. We have the technology to make it strong, just borrow it from other federal agencies who specialize in intelligence. And with enforcement relying more and more on data gathering and extraction, audits would help ensure these are not misused, and help validate how well due process is followed.

The independent part would have to mean it is run by an agency that it not part of enforcement and in a way that is hard to influence. Who exactly it would report to, I'm not sure. Maybe a peer agency of the FBI & CIA?

That audit system would data-mine all enforcement activities and keep the data locked up in a vault. That data could then be requested via subpoena (for investigations like these) or FOIA requests (after a "reasonable" time to prevent interference with actual investigations).

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#64

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:30 AM UTC

karlshea wrote: post #61

rewqfdsa wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The higher criminality drives the police mistreatment. If you're a police offer and interact with mostly black criminals all day, your priors are set so that you think most blacks are criminals. So when you see an honest black person, you assume he's guilty of _something_, and consider framing him the honest thing, since you believe you're just putting the black man away for crimes he's doubtlessly committed, but for…

It's sad that you actually think this is true.

[deleted]

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#65

Post by calstad » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:32 AM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #20

Is it bad that this honestly doesn't surprise me? In 2005 my 15 year old self was passing through Northern Georgia to see grandparents, and we hit traffic at the only town stoplight because a Grand Wizard and lots of KKK members were rallying in the streets celebrating running the last minority out of the county. As a white middle class guy, that was quite the contemporarty class on race relations. Racism is alive an…

Yep racism is only a problem in the South

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#66

Post by sukulaku » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:33 AM UTC

NamTaf wrote: post #41

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

1) Societies (all around the world) tend to be more racially driven than we like to admit. It's really easy to ignore the suffering of a group of people if you are readily able to distance yourself from them. Race plays a significant role in this in many places. 2) Develop systems that are structurally uncorruptable and uninfluencable as best as they can be, by having significant separations of power by design. There…

> Develop systems that are structurally uncorruptable and uninfluencable as best as they can be, by having significant separations of power by design

Oh kind of like The Constitution, for example? Obviously that hasn't worked out too well in the long term, what with the US being a burgeoning police state and all.

But if "we" write a new and more sternly worded piece of paper that says "rulers can't mistreat their subjects", that should work, right?

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#67

Post by jMyles » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:34 AM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #19

cygnus_a wrote: post #5

Another reason to decriminalize drugs in favor of self-help programs.

Um, if it wasn't drugs it'd be something else. Stolen firearms, maybe? This is a racist domestic terror group using their position of power to target a minority. Please don't shift the focus of this to some other vaguely related issue. The important part: a racist cabal formed a conspiracy to put young black men in jail. Because they hate them.

It's not "vaguely related" - drug laws are, simply put, the current form of jim crow.

Drug laws were made for this purpose, and openly so.

And it's ludicrous to say that "if it wasn't for drugs it'd be something else." So then abolish all criminal laws which prohibit common, consensual, adult behavior. But drug laws are the whale here, not anything else.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#68

Post by cryoshon » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:34 AM UTC

Systemic severe racism over the course of 20 years? A cover up by the police? Par for the course in the USA, and it's disgusting. The justice system in this town has been an injustice system for as long as some of the people who live there can remember.

There may be riots because of this. They will be justified.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#69

Post by AlexCoventry » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:35 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

> About what issues are we making the same mistake right now?

Military and Intelligence affairs.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#70

Post by kps » Wed, Dec 02, 2015, 2:36 AM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #23

taurath wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any policy changes will be opposed by an army of well-paid lobbyists and advocacy groups that are incredibly good at spreading fear uncertainty and doubt, and in the end justice will not likely come for those already effected or in jail, unless there is hard smoking gun evidence. Its not in any cops's interest to have all their actions even in the heat of the moment put under a microscope. The good is that this could…

> Its not in any cops's interest to have all their actions even in the heat of the moment put under a microscope. Honest police may feel it's in their interest. It protects them from false accusations, and from leal and reputational consequences of being associated with dishonest associates. Being honest, they might also want to see dishonest, criminal actions stopped and punished.

  > Honest police may feel it's in their interest.

Yes. I choose to have a dashcam in my car; it has once proved me not at fault, but if I screw up, it could equally prove me at fault. I think it is in my interest because I think it is overwhelmingly likely that the truth will be in my favour.