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

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

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 650 posts

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

#111

Post by conanbatt »

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…

I do remember the police beating people for having the fake voting in Barcelona a couple of years back. Or the french police clashing with the yellow jackets.

What (some) european countries have is a much lower violent crime rate, which might jade perceptions either way.

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

#112

Post by Jtsummers »

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…

In the town I used to live in in GA (about 125k people) accidents like this (though not that severe) were frequent on a couple of hilly roads. Marked as 35-45mph depending on the section, the police would drive at 80mph or more down the road. Usually they ticketed the person they hit. At least one cop I knew was actually proud of how he was able to stick it to the guy pulling out of a fast food restaurant.

I respect most people by default, but individuals like them make it hard for me to respect police by default. I'll be respectful, but in my head I can't help but think of all the scummy things they or their colleagues do.

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

#113

Post by kens »

danharaj wrote: post #2

The NYPD has a budget for spying on people in other countries. State power is weird.

Another weird thing about the NYPD is that each police officer gets 20 so-called "get out of jail free" cards to give to friends and family. The recipient can show the card to the police if pulled over and use the card to "wiggle out of minor trouble".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42780382

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

#114

Post by ponker »

pjc50 wrote: post #22

> “I blame myself,” she kept saying. “I never let him out on Halloween. A bunch of Black boys together. I shouldn’t have let him out. But he begged me.” Notice that while average white parents might worry about criminals before letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good reason) about the police. (Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable saying "abolish the…

> 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

That point of view is just factually incorrect. It’s like thinking that the way to get rich is to become a movie star. Sure it might happen but that’s not the normal way.

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

#115

Post by greenhatglack »

renewiltord wrote: post #100
greenhatglack wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They also fail to keep people safe, who gives a shit if they're nice to talk to.

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

#116

Post by justforyou »

coldtea wrote: post #9
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.

> Their primary concern is to defend private property, the people themselves come second. And of course the more private property one has, the better the protection...

Civil Forfeiture means private property can be a liability unless one has a lot of extra liquidity to fund a legal defense.

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

#117

Post by Pfhreak »

austincheney wrote: post #99
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?

Even if they were equally corrupt to everyone else, they have much, much more authority to use violence and be shielded from the consequences. We should demand that they are significantly less corrupt than everyone else.

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

#118

Post by macd »

dhosek wrote: post #61
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

[edited to add context] a comprehensive reply to the "what about black on black crime" comment from journalist Michael Harriot. https://twitter.com/michaelharriot/status/126846376828518809...

This is a great rebuttal twitter thread, so thanks for posting it. But you should really add text to give the link some context. People are more likely to click on it if they know what it is first.

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

#119

Post by renewiltord »

fallingfrog wrote: post #12

My wife was in Indianapolis for a couple days and she saw the same thing: a cop crossed over to the wrong side of the road and up onto the sidewalk to strike an unarmed black man on a bicycle head on. They claimed later that the man on the bike had struck the car while it was sitting still (hard enough to put him in the hospital with a fractured skull). No investigation was made. I think they do this because running…

In San Francisco, I've seen so many occasions where police and fire (not the fire truck, the little cars) do the "lights and full speed" for really no reason. Or screaming high speed U turns just for the heck of it.

Honestly, I'm somewhat sure that this is just considered a perk of the job since it lets them ignore road rules.

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

#120

Post by renewiltord »

greenhatglack wrote: post #115
renewiltord wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They also fail to keep people safe, who gives a shit if they're nice to talk to.

They're better at it than American Police are, as evinced by the crime rates.

Certainly not as good as some other countries but it sort of points to the fact that you can be better at stopping crime than American police and nicer at the same time.

Post reply on HN