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My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

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Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#91

Post by eyerony »

bane wrote: post #71

When I was younger I lived in a fairly rural area. I was driving home late from work one day on a remote highway and came across one of the most horrific accidents I've ever seen. A driver was pulling onto the highway and was hit by a police cruiser at an almost impossibly high speed. The highway was marked at 55mph, and under normal conditions, the driver of the other car would have had plenty of time to pull out, s…

Once saw a police car in a smallish town whip a u-turn for no clear reason, no lights, nothing, nearly hit a car that was pulling out of a bank parking lot and the driver of which had clearly already looked that way and seen no-one coming, then the cop freaked out, u-turned again (lights this time) and pulled over the car they nearly hit. Guess whatever they were breaking traffic laws and driving very dangerously to get to wasn't so important after all. What a shitty day for that person. At least it was probably just a totally unjustified ticket and an unpleasant lies-filled conversation with an upset and fragile-ego'd cop, and not death or injury, I suppose.

[EDIT] this and other dangerous-driving observations lead me to treat cop cars on the road like someone I've seen through the window drinking a 40 while talking on the phone. They're far and away the most likely category of vehicle to do something batshit crazy with no warning.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#92

Post by danso »

fallingfrog wrote: post #31

The protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder are currently tapering off, but I don’t see any evidence at all that substantive changes have been made, which means that this is all going to happen again, and soon, and the protests will be bigger, the police response more violent. The black lives matter organization in my city presented a list of demands to the city council and every one of them was ignored, instea…

In terms of sweeping reforms, no – especially re: qualified immunity with SCOTUS recently declining to reexamine it [0]. But I would venture to claim that the Overton window on what police can be held accountable has certainly changed. That all 4 police in the George Floyd case were arrested and charged was unexpected, given the lack of consequences in the Eric Garner case. The arrests and assault charges for officers who attacked protesters in Atlanta [1] and Buffalo [2] is the kind of thing I never thought we'd see, and signals an opportunity (albeit unguaranteed) for the balance to change. The change in public perception is quite striking – including a doubling of white Americans since 2015 who think police brutality is a "very serious problem [3]. And this shift is happening under a presidential administration that is one of the least likely to take federal action against or even just criticize law enforcement.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-qualified-immunity-p...

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/atlanta-police-booked-felo...

[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/buffalo-police-officers-arrested-s...

[3] https://apnews.com/728b414b8742129329081f7092179d1f

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#93

Post by dvtrn »

mythrowaway59 wrote: post #89
dvtrn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we can acknowledge that discussions oriented around in-group violence perpetuated by members of said group (which isn't novel nor unique to the black community) do not obviate discussions of police misconduct and issues apparent in the criminal justice system perpetrated by a powerful and state-operated out-group, Mr. Davis.

"because from their point of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street, more so than random criminals" Are we not allowed to fact check false claims?

Are we not allowed to fact check false claims?

For my part, I have not made such a claim nor do I hold such a position that fact-checking is not allowed-I'd encourage asking someone who actually said this.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#94

Post by vangelis »

jf22 wrote: post #80
treis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bringing up "black-on-black crime" is a common disingenuous tactic to distract from conversations about police brutality. It's part of the story, though. The incident in the linked article started because a group of teens jumped another and stole his phone. If that's happening 10x as often then innocent kids in that neighborhood are going to be 10x as likely to be swept up in police action.

The problem is people don't deny black-on-black crime is a problem. Society is in agreement that we don't want that. Bring up racism and police brutality though and people strongly deny it's a problem.

Weirdly, it only seems to come up when you mention police brutality!

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#95

Post by ATsch »

kleiba wrote: post #37

It's crazy but from a European perspective, stories like this sound more like what I imagine police forces to behave like in dictatorships, not in a democracy. After living in Europe for six years now, my wife is still puzzled sometimes by the differences between Europe and North-America when it comes to the police: how they are experienced by the population and how they see and present themselves and which role they…

European police forces are not very different in practice. They are significantly less blatant about it though. But we see the same general behaviors and narratives. The average person is a lot less likely to encounter these abuses though.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#96

Post by Balgair »

trowawee wrote: post #52
jeffdavis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at the numbers in another comment[1], and it seems that for every one black person killed by police (justifiably or not), over 20 black people are murdered by other blacks. So either there's something wrong with my analysis, or the fear of police is somewhat misplaced. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23579467

Bringing up "black-on-black crime" is a common disingenuous tactic to distract from conversations about police brutality. Most violence is committed by people you're around, and in an intensely segregated country, that will usually be people that are the same race as you. It's a complete digression from the actual conversation here, which is about agents of the state, entrusted to act as enforcers of the state's mono…

The commentor's name is literally 'jeffdavis'. I'm not sure what else one could suspect about their motivations.

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#97

Post by mijoharas »

dhosek wrote: post #70
jeffbee wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it also seem weird to you that small countries have intelligence bureaus? Denmark and Finland are both less populous than New York City.

So then Walmart should have a spy agency because they're bigger than some countries?

Interestingly, wallmart has their own forensics lab[0]

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/csi-w...

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#98

Post by [deleted] »

eloff wrote: post #77
trowawee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up "black-on-black crime" is a common disingenuous tactic to distract from conversations about police brutality. Most violence is committed by people you're around, and in an intensely segregated country, that will usually be people that are the same race as you. It's a complete digression from the actual conversation here, which is about agents of the state, entrusted to act as enforcers of the state's mono…

It is a tactic commonly used as you say. It's also a relevant statistic here, although all race on black violence would have been even better. It still serves to support the point quite clearly that police are not to be feared as much as criminals, even if you're black. Having said that, a lot of criminal violence happens if you're mixed up in that world or frequenting a bad area as opposed to just random violence. T…

[deleted]

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#99

Post by austincheney »

psychometry wrote: post #7

This is why we need civilian oversight of every police department. Cops are generally too corrupt and/or too incompetent to investigate their own. They've proven their inability to hold themselves accountable for their actions, so it's up to the rest of us to do it.

Is there evidence that indicates police are more corrupt than anybody else?

Re: My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works

#100

Post by renewiltord »

greenhatglack wrote: post #18
ixtli wrote: post #4

I've lived here a long time and come to the realization through observation that the NYPD operates like a private security force for capital. Their primary concern is to defend private property, the people themselves come second. The "community outreach" they do is just enough to keep us from getting accusatory.

Most police in the world works like this. The only exception to this rule is countries like Japan, Switzerland and Singapore. In those countries, as a working class citizen you can rely on the police to make sure to keep monopoly on violence and keep you safe, when they fail to do so, they will at least bring some level of justice to whoever did you wrong - though less in Switzerland than I'd like. At least the US of…

Interesting. I would say that, in general, British police are way more approachable than American Police. American police see themselves as some sort of bouncer while British police are way less intimidating and nicer to talk to.
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