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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]

#151

Post by soneil »

gravypod wrote: post #87
skywhopper wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd like to ask you for a hypothetical. Say you are a police officer and one of your coworkers shouts "GUN" and you don't directly see one. You see your coworker freaking out, you see them drawing, and you see the other suspect moving. What do you do? Do you draw your gun/taser? I'd do that just going off of what my coworker has said. It's entirely reasonable to suspect there to be a gun. Now I'd like to run through…

The question here isn't their actions. It's their motives.

There's a South Park sketch where the kids are out camping with the local gun nut, and he explains that they're not allowed to hunt most these animals - but they can act in self-defense. So he teaches them to shout "it's coming right for us!" before firing. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt6kKhlX8vU )

So what the grandparent is alluding to, isn't whether it's correct to act appropriately if "it's coming right for us!". It's the culture of "stop resisting" used as robotically as your Miranda rights to later justify an escalation of violence.

No-one's saying an officer shouldn't be allowed to respond to threats appropriately. We are saying we should be able to trust officers not to imagine threats for the sole purpose of justifying such an escalation (which, if taken at face value, is what the OP article describes).

And yes, you're right; other than taking the protagonist's word for it, it is exceptionally difficult to prove one from the other. That's what makes the prospect so troubling.

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

#152

Post by Shorel »

gravypod wrote: post #87
skywhopper wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd like to ask you for a hypothetical. Say you are a police officer and one of your coworkers shouts "GUN" and you don't directly see one. You see your coworker freaking out, you see them drawing, and you see the other suspect moving. What do you do? Do you draw your gun/taser? I'd do that just going off of what my coworker has said. It's entirely reasonable to suspect there to be a gun. Now I'd like to run through…

It's clear that the policeman responding to the shout of the other one is acting correctly.

The issue is only with the one who cries 'WOLF!' without actually spotting one, and no, he will not be punished to the full extent of the law, or to any extent for that matter. That's the entire point of this discussion.

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

#153

Post by soneil »

dvcrn wrote: post #136
soneil wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was under the impression it is everywhere like this. The police would be the first I would approach when having a question.

They should be, and usually are. But there's two problems.

One, is that if even 1% aren't, those 1% can cause untold damage to your life. We're usually pretty bad at judging risk, so many people won't accept "a very low chance of a very big problem" for the same reason many people will accept "a very low chance of a very big reward" and play the lottery.

The second is more disconcerting to me; all too frequently I see people assume that when someone had a bad interaction with the police, they must have done 'something wrong' to be interacting with them in the first place. Either we believe police are eminently approachable, or we believe that someone interacting with the police "must have done something to deserve it". We can't have it both ways.

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

#154

Post by Broken_Hippo »

pessimizer wrote: post #88
rayiner wrote: 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. Good police officers do fear losing their lives and their livelihoods for not looking the other way. I'm a strong advocate for hotlines specifically for police officers to report other officers, backed by civilian investigative authorities with no loyalties or connections to the police force, but with the abil…

completely agree. I'd further add that the call should be taken well outside of their local districts (I'd say state lines, but this might be logistically difficult). This is just so there is even less chance that the folks will be connected to each other.

I'm also completely for much better initial and continued training for police that includes interpersonal interaction and ways to avoid conflict and disperse anger.

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

#155

Post by Broken_Hippo »

gravypod wrote: post #87
skywhopper wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'd like to ask you for a hypothetical. Say you are a police officer and one of your coworkers shouts "GUN" and you don't directly see one. You see your coworker freaking out, you see them drawing, and you see the other suspect moving. What do you do? Do you draw your gun/taser? I'd do that just going off of what my coworker has said. It's entirely reasonable to suspect there to be a gun. Now I'd like to run through…

It isn't a problem trusting each other when working together.

But honestly, the bigger issue is the reaction. Is freaking out part of the procedure? Is there nothing folks are trained to do except shoot? I'd much rather a dude get away - and no one getting hurt - than to have a shootout start from either side. I'm gonna guess it is more likely that the person would just run away than start shooting up innocent folks.

I'm also completely comfortable with police not carrying weapons without calling it in, actually, because the result is citizens less afraid of cops and cops that think ahead slightly more - and treat people better.

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

#156

Post by Broken_Hippo »

trungonnews wrote: post #85
trungonnews wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't mean to offend. What word is more appropriate to describe cops who are not white?

I only learned English after 11 year old. What a confusing language... I thought you guys might know some fancy word, but you only switched the words around.

English is really confusing as a second language. To make it even more complicated, words with racial or other 'insults' change from place to place. Not only that, but the English that is standard through Europe (outside of the UK) is slightly different altogether - folks will be able to talk to other Europeans, but yet get lost when going to an English speaking country.

But no worries, honestly, except for this minor slip, you seem to be doing well.

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

#157

Post by Broken_Hippo »

soneil wrote: post #9
dleslie wrote: 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…

I'm American and moved to Norway - and it has taken some time for me to get used to the idea as well.

The oddest experience for me: Border control. I took a trip to Amsterdam, and upon arriving back in town my things (and the person sitting next to me) were searched. I understand.

But... the dude was nice. Polite. Didn't have an angry look on his face. Sure, he asked about drugs more than once (I was in amsterdam, so understandable).

I've not lost my mistrust for police, but it is slowly fading, for sure.

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

#158

Post by sctb »

johnnyn2o wrote: post #128

1) Rolls up, parks car blocking traffic 2) Tells police he's a doctor and makes demands. Police ask for ID, fuck you racist pigs. 3) Goes back to move his car that is blocking traffic 4) Returns to harass the police 5) Goes to jail, lies about being beat up. 6) Liberals applaud him like a hero. Fuck those racist white male cops. No chance this guy got beat up. He wouldn't have gone to jail if he had interacted respec…

We've banned this account which was created to post uncivilly in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#159

Post by dalke »

refurb wrote: post #83
fnbr wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to nit pick here, as my experiences with Edmonton police have been similar, but my fiancee, who's black, has had different experiences with Edmonton police. Nothing as negative as this, but experiences that left her disheartened (police saying: well what should do you expect us to do? when she was jumped by a number of gang members at WEM). I also suspect that if you were to speak to Aboriginal Edmontonian…

I remember a long time ago, I think it was in Saskatchewan, where the RCMP would pick up drunk indians, drive them way out of the city and drop them off. In the middle of winter. Keep in mind this is Saskatchewan where it's typically -30C at night in the winter. Several of them froze to death.

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/background/aboriginals/starlighttour... as well as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlight_tours and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatoon_freezing_deaths .
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