Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

theundefeated.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 100 posts

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#61

Post by LyndsySimon »

bsder wrote: post #26
dTal wrote: post #13

The most alarming thing about this story, apart from the suspected racism, is the sheer amount of confirmation bias on display from someone who is quite prepared to shoot you. She offered corroborating evidence from the get go, and even the 911 dispatcher confirms her story, yet the officer is too busy waving his piece around to get off his power trip. I'd be mad too. Some element of this volatile combo of deadly wea…

We need to have a set of cops who are clearly marked, wired with a body camera, and who don't carry weaponry . Put them in blaze orange or something so criminals can see them coming and run away. You should have to go through this period for some number of years until you get to carry a gun. Most cops go their whole lives without firing their gun--adding an extra gun rarely makes a situation better. While TV and movi…

I don't think the gun is the issue here - I carry a gun, regularly, and I've never felt the need to draw it and point it at someone who might be stealing something.

Police in the US are generally seen as adversarial, while police in the UK are generally seen as mostly helpful. In my estimation, the problem in the US is one of culture. Police here are looking for a reason to charge you with a crime, not trying to keep you out of trouble. It's "us versus them" on both sides.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#62

Post by thephyber »

tomohawk wrote: post #25
op00to wrote: post #5

How is property worth pointing a gun at someone over? It's a car. Cars can be replaced.

How is stealing property worth being shot with a gun? There's no need to steal.

Seems like a strawman to me.

This article is about a man who misinterprets a car purchase and pulls a gun to "protect" property, which was not his and was not being stolen.

If someone pulls a gun to "defend their property", they better be really damned sure it is their property and the property was being stolen (not a {leinholder, repoman, undercover police officer, deaf person, autistic person, etc}). The risk of making the wrong decision may not be high, but the impact of the wrong decision is.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#63

Post by weberc2 »

zzalpha wrote: post #51
weberc2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Police are necessarily involved in more risky encounters than laypeople. They have manyfold the opportunities to make a mistake than laypeople. Training offsets some of that risk, but not all of it.

No. Police are necessarily involved in more risky encounters than laypeople. They have manyfold the opportunities to make a mistake than laypeople. That's illogical. There are myriad professions where trust is delegated to the person in that profession, and consequences to go with it. A doctor doesn't get a free pass if they kill someone due to incompetence when performing a surgery just because they do it more often…

No, the error is yours, I think. We trust experts like police and surgeons to do certain dangerous tasks because their expertise offsets much of the risk; however, they're still more likely to make a mistake since they have to roll the dice more frequently. If the probability of a layperson wrongly killing someone is 20% per police-like-encounter, and the probability of a trained police officer killing someone is 1%, who has the greater odds of killing someone? The layperson who rolls the dice one time or the police officer who roles the dice a couple times a year (or a couple times a week in some places)?

> A doctor doesn't get a free pass if they kill someone due to incompetence when performing a surgery just because they do it more often.

So you have data that police are being acquitted of shootings (when a jury finds that the shooting occurred due to incompetence) at a higher rate than surgeons? Or are you using different standards for "incompetence" (for surgeons, presumably the result of an investigation, but for police it's the opinion of the first pundit you heard?). Mind you, none of this has any bearing on comparing police shootings with civilian shootings, which was the topic of your original point...

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#64

Post by zzalpha »

weberc2 wrote: post #63
zzalpha wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Police are necessarily involved in more risky encounters than laypeople. They have manyfold the opportunities to make a mistake than laypeople. That's illogical. There are myriad professions where trust is delegated to the person in that profession, and consequences to go with it. A doctor doesn't get a free pass if they kill someone due to incompetence when performing a surgery just because they do it more often…

No, the error is yours, I think. We trust experts like police and surgeons to do certain dangerous tasks because their expertise offsets much of the risk; however, they're still more likely to make a mistake since they have to roll the dice more frequently. If the probability of a layperson wrongly killing someone is 20% per police-like-encounter, and the probability of a trained police officer killing someone is 1%,…

We trust experts like police and surgeons to do certain dangerous tasks because their expertise offsets much of the risk; however, they're still more likely to make a mistake since they have to roll the dice more frequently.

And therefore the consequences should be significantly lessened for them relative to an untrained civilian?

The approach you advocate will result in the perverse incentive that a cop is better off always pulling a gun in any situation, as the lack of consequences means the incentive is to always minimize personal risk in an encounter in the short term, as there's no risk as a result of a mistake in the long term.

It's perverse.

In effect you place the power of life in death in the hands of a trusted individual, and then create a situation where they're incentivized to use it, especially in situations where even a whiff of short-term personal risk is perceived (like, say, in an encounter with a person in a minority where racial biases may come into play).

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#65

Post by zzalpha »

SilasX wrote: post #54
zzalpha wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She wasn't doing anything illegal, sure, but it was a bit reckless Only in a world where random folks from the neighbourhood might come out and point a gun at you instead of simply asking a few logical questions and looking at proffered supporting documentation. But it's a bit much to act outraged that anyone would misinterpret her actions. Who's outraged at her actions being misinterpreted? The outrage is at the fac…

>Who's outraged at her actions being misinterpreted? Anyone characterizing her behavior as doing "absolutely nothing wrong". You can both believe that the son-in-law and officer overreacted without believing the buyer somehow did everything exactly right. It's not either/or. >The outrage is at the fact that a panicky cop saw something they thought was suspicious ... Yes, people are outraged at that too, but they also…

Yes, people are outraged at that too, but they also blur that with the more dubious claim that "she did nothing wrong".

Let's just admit it: if she were white, it wouldn't have turned out this way

She arranged the sale.

She had the seller's info.

She had the keys.

She had the paperwork.

Only problem is, she 1) is black, and 2) looked like a guy.

Could this situation have been handled differently? Sure. But I struggle to lay more than a small piece of the blame on her. I'd just as soon blame the mother-in-law for not telling her cowboy son that she'd sold the car.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#66

Post by weberc2 »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #57
weberc2 wrote: post #4

This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn't find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn't find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between…

I agree that the media coverage on this issue is pretty much garbage. The vast majority of cases, even those where the person killed was not committing the crime of which they were suspected, are much more complicated than "they were black." This belief puts me at odds with many (perhaps all) in the "racial justice" movement. All of that said, there is a core of truth here that I believe should not be overlooked, and…

Maybe, but I'm skeptical. The data often point in both directions, and the literature often fails to look at obvious alternative explanations (prejudice is the null hypothesis). Besides, the field of sociology is politically homogeneous; I don't know how much their political ideologues contribute to confirmation bias, but I suspect the literature would look different if this weren't the case.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#67

Post by weberc2 »

mindslight wrote: post #47
weberc2 wrote: post #4

This article makes a lot of claims about innocent black people being gunned down by police, but is there any actual evidence of this happening disproportionately to white people? Last year I trawled the 2015 Washington Post police shooting dataset and couldn't find any evidence, and a couple months later a black Harvard economist released a paper saying he couldn't find any evidence in the data he looked at. Between…

Does it particularly matter? Even if the majority of the panic is due to the media fanning the flames of racism for profit (and I think it is), it still effects the victim's state of mind. It doesn't matter if the victim's narrative was that she was likely to get shot because she is black, but yet the reality is that cops are equal opportunity murderers. Either way, the victim is ultimately panicked because they're b…

I was very clear that the story doesn't depend on this. Why are you confused?

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#68

Post by weberc2 »

zzalpha wrote: post #64
weberc2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the error is yours, I think. We trust experts like police and surgeons to do certain dangerous tasks because their expertise offsets much of the risk; however, they're still more likely to make a mistake since they have to roll the dice more frequently. If the probability of a layperson wrongly killing someone is 20% per police-like-encounter, and the probability of a trained police officer killing someone is 1%,…

We trust experts like police and surgeons to do certain dangerous tasks because their expertise offsets much of the risk; however, they're still more likely to make a mistake since they have to roll the dice more frequently. And therefore the consequences should be significantly lessened for them relative to an untrained civilian? The approach you advocate will result in the perverse incentive that a cop is better of…

You're confusing a reasonable standard of proof with complete impunity.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#69

Post by zzalpha »

weberc2 wrote: post #68
zzalpha wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We trust experts like police and surgeons to do certain dangerous tasks because their expertise offsets much of the risk; however, they're still more likely to make a mistake since they have to roll the dice more frequently. And therefore the consequences should be significantly lessened for them relative to an untrained civilian? The approach you advocate will result in the perverse incentive that a cop is better of…

You're confusing a reasonable standard of proof with complete impunity.

And you're assuming a reasonable standard of proof is applied. I'm not willing to make that assumption. This case is yet another example of why.

Re: Lifesaving advice from a black woman held at gunpoint by police

#70

Post by weberc2 »

zzalpha wrote: post #69
weberc2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing a reasonable standard of proof with complete impunity.

And you're assuming a reasonable standard of proof is applied. I'm not willing to make that assumption. This case is yet another example of why.

I'm not assuming a reasonable standard of proof is applied, only that the standard for proof in police shootings should account for the fact that they're far more likely than civilians to be involved in escalated situations.
Post reply on HN