George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#701

Post by maxist » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #546

qwertman wrote: post #529

[flagged]

It helps a lot if you show through your words that you're aware of all the existing informed discourse on these things. Poverty is the cause at one level of abstraction. It's well-known among people who think hard about racism. The best summary I've found is The Case for Reparations: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-cas... He doesn't actually call for reparations, but a lot of people dismissed…

Just curious - which part of the OP's comment do you find uninformed?

Forgive me but to me your reply sounds condescending. "Poverty is well-known among people who think hard about racism" - seems to translate to "yeah, considered poverty - but no - still racism"?

The OP is saying that "you can't even critique looting/fires/violence any more without being labeled privileged/uninformed" - and then as a reply you're reiterating exactly the same thing with "much better understanding of where people are coming". As if understanding it makes it ok.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#702

Post by kthejoker2 » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #528

kthejoker2 wrote: post #412

If there ever was a case of "don't comment unless you've RTFA" this it: people extrapolating their viewpoint on a list of 700 things from watching 1, 2, 3 ... At a minimum, watch 100 videos. I did last night, only took about an hour, it's easy to find some to nitpick, some which are ambiguous ... and plenty that are totally horrifying. If you can watch 100 videos in a row from Greg Doucette's list and say, "the milit…

As a non American I am not getting this at all. In many US cities/towns sheriff is elected. In all other cases city mayor is elected. How it happens that all those mayors and sheriffs are still in the office if police brutality is such a big issue? Does this mean that people just do not care, or there is only some minority who thinks that the police is too violent and the rest is ok with that?

One answer is law enforcement is largely a bureaucracy of career civil servants, so they're not as subject to the whims of a mayor or elected officials.

On top of that they're a fairly politically active group, so they have an outsized influence on policies, including those that affect them.

But the biggest issue, as you note, is the sheer disparity in who interacts with the police at all.

From a 2015 Bureau of Justic Statistics report

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpp15.pdf

Only about 10% of Americans had police-initiated, non-traffic stop contacts.

So 9 out of 10 Americans never see the police, much less have insight as to whether they're too violent.

Blacks 50% more likely than Whites to be subjected to a street stop by police.

Blacks 120% (!) more likely than Whites to be subjected to police force.

And, every single respondent who indicated they were Tasered by police felt it was "excessive" force.

So, yes, fundamentally this is a "rights of the minority" problem - and the minority in this case are younger, poorer, less politically connected, and therefore are underrepresented in discussions about police brutality, effective law enforcement, police training, and other policies which impact them.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#703

Post by wl » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

bakuninsbart wrote: post #580

hajile wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obvious that you've never even shot a gun before. Pistols aren't particularly accurate in a shooting range even if you take lots of time to aim. With a moving target, adrenaline, and all the other factors in an actual situation, you're going to be lucky if all your shots even make contact with the target. Where do you aim if you want to "shoot to incapacitate"? No such place exists on the body. Even using small,…

Americans certainly know more than western/northern Europe about shooting people, but police here is trained to shoot to incapacitate, and it generally seems to work, as the fatality rate of police shootings is only about half as high as in the US.

You really need a citation for the notion that police in any part of the world are trained to shoot to incapacitate rather than kill. Firearms are deadly weapons. Shots aimed at any part of the body can easily be fatal because there are arteries everywhere.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#704

Post by CathedralBorrow » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

alexpetralia wrote: post #604

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it not legitimate to want accurate sources of data? Of course. I don't believe you honestly think that I am advocating for inaccurate sources of data. However, finding and discussing sources of different quality among hundreds is one thing. Saying that you only looked at two of them, expressing skepticism towards those two, and then stating that the whole thing is "filled" with "random junk to inflate the number…

I didn't downvote you and I agree with many of your points. However personally speaking I would (and do) in fact discount a reading where even two sentences are highly suspect; it makes it not worth spending the time to read the rest of it. As another example, I work primarily in data analytics. If I produce a report where even a single number is wrong, it almost immediately calls into question all of the other repor…

Appreciate it, and I agree with many of your points.

I guess my main point -- phrased a bit more aggressively than needed -- was that if you have a huge community-sourced pile of data from multiple people in multiple parts of the country, relating to complex and chaotic situations that are unfolding as we speak, and all you need to dismiss it out of hand is finding a couple of things that you find suspect... well then you're always going to dismiss it.

Identifying, discussing and removing data points that don't belong is absolutely useful and fair. Taking a glance at a mountain of data, pointing out a couple pieces that you don't like and implying that the entire pile is rubbish is neither useful nor fair to me.

And I'm sorry for calling you dishonest, or at least heavily implying it. That was stupid and rash of me.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#705

Post by nan0 » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

tartoran wrote: post #619

socraticmethod wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Second, why shoot to kill and not to incapacitate? Shoot to kill is a policy. Why is that a policy?" Most armed folks are taught that when you draw a gun it's to neutralize a threat. To neutralize is to completely eliminate the threat. Has anyone here heard similar sentiments while getting a concealed carry license? Something like 'Don't pull your gun out and point it at someone unless you intend to shoot and kill t…

Are we talking war combat here? Because in a civilian case shooting legs and taking cover might just as well do it. The real reason they shoot to kill is because they don’t want the victim to sue. A dead man never sued, their families have a lower chance of getting anything though that has started to change with so much footage.

"shooting legs"

No, you can't just shoot someone in the leg to disable them. You have very high chances of hitting main arteries anywhere (arms and legs).

Shooting a human being is not like it is in Hollywood movies. Once an officer pulls out his/her firearm and use it they know it means killing the person. That's why they go through other means of less lethal force before drawing.

Edit: Spelling

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#706

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #696

dragonwriter wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police generally have contracts where they have weaseled out of criminal, civil, and even administrative sanctions No, they don't. You can't contract out of criminal sanction, for one thing. You could be indemnified from civil sanction, but QI makes that mostly moot anyway. And, to the extent they do, those contracts are negotiated with and approved by local elected officials. Work—and, yes, this takes convincing o…

> You can't contract out of criminal sanction You're just nitpicking the word "contract". The arrangement with the cities generally result in public prosecutors do not bring charges against the police. That's part of the de-facto contract, even if it is not written down. > The idea that citizens don't have control of local police through local government is wrong. Normally, local citizens are between actively approvi…

> You're just nitpicking the word "contract". The arrangement with the cities generally result in public prosecutors do not bring charges against the police. That's part of the de-facto contract, even if it is not written down.

It's not part of a contract, which is binding and enforceable, and which once and while in place, citizens have very restricted ability to change via the political process. It's part of the policy of the existing elected officials, which is very much amenable to public pressure and elections. Given the context of the discussion is whether or not citizens have the power to effect these things through the political process, pointing out this difference is not “nitpicking”, as the difference is on the exact question being discussed.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#707

Post by vlads_ » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #693

vlads_ wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've watched 30 clips. ALL of them were 30 second clips with no context. All of them from one Twitter thread as well, so not sure why that was not linked instead. On the other hand, all of the instances of so-called police brutality with context which I've seen elsewhere occur after the police calmly order the protestors to leave a particular area, or to go home because of a curphew order or something else and the pr…

There is a very American viewpoint that the rest of the world is somehow different. There are police in Taiwan, Australia, Canada and most of Europe. They are friendly and don’t over exert their force in a frequent manner like the US. In US the police just take out their gun for absolutely petty reasons. It’s like they just want to escalate the situation rather than calm it down. So yes, the problem is American polic…

> The crowd has been otherwise quite peaceful exercising their first amendment right.

Not going to lie, this actually made me laugh[1].

Other than that, you missed my point entirely. When a policeman calmly explains to you that you are not allowed to be in a particular area for 10 mintues and the whole crowd screams in disapproval and refuses to leave, so the police use force to remove the crowd, and someone tapes a 30 second clip of this, you can see how you can get the wrong impression.

Maybe the portestors are in the right and their presence is protected by the first amendment, but that's a whole different story. It'd also be a different story if they weren't allowed to protest at all, but they are. Just not absolutely whenever and wherever they want.

Is that the story behind every single one of these instances? Of course not. But I'd wager it's the story behind a vast majority of them. Unfortunately, there is no way to know if I'm right or not, as these clips do not provide any insight into that. Just senzationalism.

[1]: https://youtu.be/QjnMuujUGq8

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#708

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

piokoch wrote: post #528

kthejoker2 wrote: post #412

If there ever was a case of "don't comment unless you've RTFA" this it: people extrapolating their viewpoint on a list of 700 things from watching 1, 2, 3 ... At a minimum, watch 100 videos. I did last night, only took about an hour, it's easy to find some to nitpick, some which are ambiguous ... and plenty that are totally horrifying. If you can watch 100 videos in a row from Greg Doucette's list and say, "the milit…

As a non American I am not getting this at all. In many US cities/towns sheriff is elected. In all other cases city mayor is elected. How it happens that all those mayors and sheriffs are still in the office if police brutality is such a big issue? Does this mean that people just do not care, or there is only some minority who thinks that the police is too violent and the rest is ok with that?

[deleted]

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#709

Post by jairofloress » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

supportlocal4h wrote: post #522

When one 737 Max crashed, some pointed the finger at the pilots. When a second one crashed, the focus quickly shifted. It is a common attitude in aviation that even pilot error is really a systems fault. Perhaps opposing buttons are too close together, or some control requires attention to be diverted at the wrong time, or pilots are allowed to fly too many hours without adequate rest, or plenty of other things that…

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” Its a cycle we already saw so many times, I believe with so many movements asking for rights, that this is "weak men" part creating hard times.

Mexico did a while ago what so many people is asking for, disband a security corp, result? The Zetas.

Why people is ignoring statistics? People kill people of the same race.

Many of that videos is just a bunch of violent people being put as victims by others people agenda. Is like your big brother hits you, then you hit back and just you are punished.

Be careful and thoughtful in your judgments. If possible try to look back in history and search an alike situation outcome.

Re: George Floyd Protest – police brutality videos on Twitter

#710

Post by baddox » Mon, Jun 15, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #320

baddox wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we actually have data on this. Traffic stops are not particularly dangerous for police in the United States. There are laws in place about how legal gun owners must notify law enforcement during traffic stops. In fact, there is no shortage of video of law-abiding citizens in the US notifying law enforcement that they have a legal firearm in the vehicle and receiving a disproportionate response. But you don’t even…

> There are laws in place about how legal gun owners must notify law enforcement during traffic stops. Isn't the issue with laws that those breaking them don't usually care about laws? I'm sure you have laws in place against murder, and murder still happens. "But there's a law against burglary, why would you want additional protection and have a strong door" isn't a good argument. There are good arguments (and the wh…

The comment before mine mentions that people being stopped by police are permitted to have guns. That’s what I was addressing.

Sure, there are also some people who violate gun laws. But those people could be a threat to everyone, not just cops, yet surely we wouldn’t justify everyone to preemptively have their guns drawn in all human interactions.