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To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

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Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#21

Santa Clara city has some racist cops. I was pulled over, accused of DUI, arrested, illegally searched my car, brought back to the station for a blood test. Blood test came back with zero alcohol in my body. They treated me like I was criminal, finger printed, mugshotted. After being held for two hours, I had to pay $300 to retrieve my car from the impound. I guess we still have a lot of bad cops in the Silicon Valle…

when i had to pay a ticket at the santa clara court house the cops there are a bunch of smart asses. Except for that black cop who was at the door, he was very helpful.

Agree, officers of color are usually nicer. The Asian cop who helped me retrieve the impound release paperwork was nice to me. Even waived the $100 paper work fee.

But I'm still pissed about the whole situation. Wasted three hours and $300 because of some cop decided to arrest a sober person to kill time rather than patrolling the street and catching the real criminals.

Edit: had to change colored to officers of color to be more PC.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#22
post #19

This shit has been happening to poor black and Hispanic people for a long time. In a sick way, it's a good thing that it's happening to doctors now. It's easy for comfortable suburbanites to vote pro-police, but now that the cancer has spread and police are brazenly abusing everyone else, it won't be so easy to ignore. We need a system of collective punishment for such conduct. "Good" police officers should fear losi…

> "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/baltimore-joe-cryst...

There are good cops out there, no doubt about it.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#23
We need a few very large businesses to refuse to do business with police, against their own financial interest, before they'll notice something is wrong. More fines that taxpayers pay aren't fixing it. If Dunkin Donuts could be convinced not to allow cops to enter their business except with a warrant, or Glock refused to sell a department any more weapons, they might do something.

(Of course, this is illegal in California. And I'm hesitant to encourage this fully without a measurable standard of when sufficient change has occurred to start working with them again.)

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#25
post #15

Why does "white"/"male" matter? I understand that this is potentially a very contentious question, but I genuinely don't understand why those are listed in the title, or why "white" was the first in a list of insulting words used at the end of the article.

What really gets to me is the fact that white societies are the number #1 immigration destinations for non-whites, and are entirely responsible for this person's opportunities and high standards of living.

Yet all he sees is white racism.

edit: since I can't reply anymore; to that one person...

You've missed the point entirely.

1. You don't know that race had anything to do with what happened. All you have is one side of a story that keeps dragging race into it. Which is very racist in itself.

2. If white societies where racist, they would not be the #1 immigration destination or have the highest standards of living for non-whites (or even let non-whites in).

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#26
post #9
post #4

This is why I teach my children never to speak to police officers, to avoid them as much as possible, and to leave the area should they become visibly present. And I live in Canada; when I travel to the USA on business I stay in the hotel or the venue and restrict my traveling as much as possible. I don't fear the citizens, I fear the police.

That's always made me sad. My ex was American - when we moved to Ireland, I made a habit of routinely (once a week or so) asking random policemen for directions to places, just to teach her that they're entirely approachable here. The closest thing we had to a bad experience, was one chap who took it upon himself to walk with us until we could see our destination, just to make sure we found it. I'd only wanted to was…

Weird, it seems counterproductive. Why doesn't the US police in bigger cities try to integrate with the citizens?

Is the violence risk so big or are there legal reasons?

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#27
post #4

This is why I teach my children never to speak to police officers, to avoid them as much as possible, and to leave the area should they become visibly present. And I live in Canada; when I travel to the USA on business I stay in the hotel or the venue and restrict my traveling as much as possible. I don't fear the citizens, I fear the police.

Frankly, you've allowed yourself to fall prey to US election year propaganda. If you look at the numbers you're very safe travelling in the US, and to the extent you're in danger it's from criminals and not police.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#28
post #13

I'm sorry that this happened to the author, but the author has no common sense whatsoever. In addition to suing these officers and the police department, he should probably consider getting some common sense and never approaching a police officer again. I mean, seriously, what did he expect would happen? That they would let him check the suspect? That's so incredibly far-fetched and ridiculous, I cannot even imagine…

"Common sense" is only common to the people who know it already.

There are plenty of people who think the vast majority of the police are public servants trying to do their job, serve and protect. Maybe they're right. Some are. I've had good interactions with police officers and bad ones. The author was trying to do the right thing and maybe save someone's life. If a woman screams for help in a dark alley, it isn't common sense to run in and try to help her -- you're putting yourself in the line of fire. But it's brave and we celebrate and worship the people who do it rightfully as heroes, we don't berate them for "not having common sense" and putting themselves at risk.

What he did took courage or naive ignorance (or both) and from the rest of the article I'm fairly certain it's not ignorance -- he's well aware of rampant police brutality.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#29
post #7

>“He is resisting arrest!” >They were running this weird fake dialog in the background. it seems to be a pattern how they run plausible deniability and can do whatever they want - one policeman may "see" something, like a gun, and announce it thus providing the other with full legal reason to act, i.e. shoot in the case of gun. If that "seeing" by the first happens to be just a mistake, such mistake can never be puni…

Yes they are trained (whether explicitly or informally between each other) to do this. It will continue so long as it works.

Re: To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

#30
post #15

Why does "white"/"male" matter? I understand that this is potentially a very contentious question, but I genuinely don't understand why those are listed in the title, or why "white" was the first in a list of insulting words used at the end of the article.

"Each of 4 white, ignorant, racist asshole police officers."

While he was probably trying to use it in an aggressive sense, I'd avoid getting too offended. You can't expect people to talk nicely right after being wronged like that. If I were telling people about something like that I would try to speak as calmly as possible, but I'd be pretty upset if someone found a slip-up as an excuse to ignore me.

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