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

Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 339 posts

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#221

Post by bananabreakfast »

Retric wrote: post #184
tharne wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough people acknowledge this. The U.S. is a heavily armed country. It is very easy to (legally) buy military grade weapons in most states. Knowing that you could potentially get your head blown off anytime you pull someone over is going to lead to a very different psychology than you might see in a country like South Korea or Germany where very few people, if any, are armed. You can't just say, "Oh look how nic…

The number of actual cops shot in the US is extremely low. Logging is five times as dangerous as police work and the most dangerous part of being a cop is the amount of driving they do. Even miscellaneous agricultural work is more dangerous and they make 24k/year.

And yet cops in the bay area always pull over everyone with two to three police cars and don't leave their car until the backup arrives.

This happens every single traffic stop.

Clearly getting their head blown off is on their mind.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#222

Post by chillacy »

ardy42 wrote: post #202
sandworm101 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5) Change the uniforms. Dress for the job you want. If they all dress like storm troopers some of them will act like storm troopers. NY state patrol uniform: Grey with purple ties. https://northcountrynow.com/sites/default/files/images/Zone2... NYPD (new york city ) police: Black on black with black ties. https://media.timeout.com/images/103899055/image.jpg It seems meaningless, but having interacted with a few polic…

> Dress for the job you want. If they all dress like storm troopers some of them will act like storm troopers. Relevent: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-blazer-experiment... > For many years, the Menlo Park police had worn some variation of the traditional, pseudo-military, dark blue uniform. But Cizanckas thought that look was too intimidating and aggressive, so he traded it for slacks, dress shirts with…

That's an interesting article but buried near the end it looks like an actual study found that it wasn't all that effective in the end:

> An early study even suggested that altercations between citizens and police had declined because of the new uniform. The study’s findings were eventually challenged...

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1559-1816....

> Effects of such an alteration were examined in the laboratory and in the field. No positive effects of the uniform change were found.

That said I'm all for police not looking like an occupying military force armed to the teeth.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#223

Post by standardUser »

hysan wrote: post #155
abootstrapper wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The equipment is not the only problem. But it is a very big problem, and it’s the easiest to solve. So let’s solve it.

If it's easy to solve, then it should be a footnote in a much more difficult to tackle solution. Right now, this reads very much like a deflection of the core issues at hand. This will not alleviate the core issue at all in the long term, but gives the appearance that lawmakers are "doing their best" to solve the problem. That they've "taken first steps" and that protests should stop. No. This is an extremely common…

To not have demilitarization of the police as a prominent item on any list of required changes would be insane. But obviously it is only one of many changes needed.

"This is an extremely common tactic... "

So what? Trolls don't get to win just because they are clever. Required changes are required whether or not this or that group wants to use a given change as a talking point or to manipulate the greater goals.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#224

Post by 1123581321 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #213
1123581321 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They generally do have consistent uniforms (dark, gray and tan solids with a badge and utility belt.) The vehicle wraps vary more.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic? If not do a Google image search for 'american police officer' - almost every image has a different uniform colour, cut, insignia in it. Dark blue, light blue, white, brown, black, grey, purple, yellow, green. It's every colour under the sun! Two police officers: https://static.trendscatchers.io/uploads/2019/01/bear34-uk.j... https://writersforensicsblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/…

The question whether I’m being sarcastic is unfortunate. Please assume good faith.

I’ll give you the green. That is unusual. It might be fair to add green to the list for some state trooper uniforms and park police uniforms.

I apologize if you’ve spent significant time in the US. I’m assuming you haven’t if significant variation in police uniform seems like it would commonly come up. The colors I mentioned are typical for city, county and state police. There are some variations, e.g., I said dark which could be black or a dark blue. To most people, the difference does not cause them to read the situation differently. When I review the uniforms of the 40-50 policing bodies with which I’m most familiar, I don’t see much deviation.

Security guards do try to mimic police uniforms as much as they can get away with, and I think that is dangerous. At minimum they should be forbidden from wearing a badge that looks like a police badge, and they should not be allowed to wear a hat that looks like a police hat. A security guard with a baseball hat, no badge, and their firm printed on their uniform is not easily mistaken for police.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#225

Post by bananabreakfast »

tsss wrote: post #125
nds43242 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you engender an idea of a UK/Canada-type cop in a country where there are more guns than people? I assume cops here are trained to see all citizens as armed threats, which systematically produces cops who are always on edge and ready to kill. The whole thing feels like a deeper problem than just training cops to be nicer.

Being a cop is actually a very safe job. I'd bet that your chance of being shot as a cashier at subway is higher than as a cop.

This is super disingenuous and very unfair to cops.

Cashiers do not have to approach dangerous people who do not want to be approached. If they get held up they give the cash and they're good.

In cities cops are often targeted to be killed since it could be the difference between life in jail and going free.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#226

Post by 1123581321 »

jacobush wrote: post #220
1123581321 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israelis excel in the defense industry and their mandatory military service means few people with physical and perceptual aptitude are untrained. I assume you are implying an Israeli cannot be a good police trainer because they occupy Palestine, but I disagree.

No, because they are notoriously violent.

Sorry, you’re saying Israelis are violent as a people? Or the IDF is, or some other organization?

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#227

Post by mstade »

potta_coffee wrote: post #208
mstade wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly you’ve never driven in the US of A. ;o) Facetious commentary aside – and I do apologize for the tongue in cheekness – as a European I’ve always been struck by just how many wrecks and other debris are littered by the side of the roads in the US. Mileage varies I’m sure (no pun intended) but I covered 6660 miles on a road trip through in the US last year and it seemed almost universal to me that you’d see at l…

I don't think many truckers intentionally ignore blown out tires. It's likely they just haven't noticed.

I agree and this is what I meant to write but alas, brain fart. Thanks for the correction!

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#228

Post by bananabreakfast »

jeffbee wrote: post #138
tsss wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a cop is actually a very safe job. I'd bet that your chance of being shot as a cashier at subway is higher than as a cop.

Here's a list of occupations that are more dangerous than police officer. https://cms.qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/the_deadliest_...

This is an excellent example of lying with statistics.

Of course police deaths are low across all police everywhere. The aggregate death statistics are meaningless.

Pull up a stat comparing deaths of cops only in downtown Chicago or Detroit or how about Minneapolis and then it will be more meaningful

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#229

Post by jacobush »

grecy wrote: post #217
habosa wrote: post #212

Today I did some Googling and found this startling comparison: NYPD annual Budget: 6 billion dollars Mexican military budget: 7 billion It's no surprise that the police at these protests look like they're ready to take on a well-armed drug cartel. They are.

In the year 2015, in all of Germany, the Police only fired a total of 46 bullets [1], killing only 7 people in the entire country. At 83 million, Germany's population is 25% that of the USA, so all things being equal the Police in the USA would only use 184 bullets per year, and there would only be 28 deaths as a result of police shootings. In reality, The police in the USA shot shot and killed nearly 1,000 people in…

Great killrate and accuracy, too. Those bullets knew their target, on average.

Re: Lawmakers begin bipartisan push to cut off police access to military-style gear

#230

Post by chipperyman573 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #147
sandworm101 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5) Change the uniforms. Dress for the job you want. If they all dress like storm troopers some of them will act like storm troopers. NY state patrol uniform: Grey with purple ties. https://northcountrynow.com/sites/default/files/images/Zone2... NYPD (new york city ) police: Black on black with black ties. https://media.timeout.com/images/103899055/image.jpg It seems meaningless, but having interacted with a few polic…

It's be great if the police in the US had a more consistent uniform. If I go from one town to another in the US the police could look completely different. How are you supposed to be able to tell a police officer from a private security guard there?

Private security guards can't use the word police on their uniforms. I looked it up a while ago (I asked the exact same question you did) - IIRC the rule is that you are only allowed to use it if you aren't issuing any orders and there isn't an unrelated reason for people to think you are an official officer. If you see the word police they are either someone pretending to be an officer (and must follow the rule I just wrote) or a real police officer.

In many cities (including mine, which has a lot of private security) the word POLICE is written in all caps and large letters on the back and front of their shirts. It's hard to make the distinction until you see them once, then it's pretty clear

Post reply on HN