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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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

ponker wrote: post #114
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.

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by mindslight »

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…

A dictatorship is effectively what the police have become - a top down command structure that has escaped democratic oversight and the rule of law.

Continuing the theme, many police actually take indirect bribes. Look up Patrolmen's Benevolent Association cards and the like. There are different levels of tokens depending on connectedness and donation level, and you can find them openly discussed on police forums. I would guess the only reason we haven't developed a culture of on the spot cash bribes is that police would take the money and write you a ticket anyway for having insulted them. They have a psychological need to pretend they are on the right side of the law.

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

#124

Post by Pfhreak »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #46

Unions protect bad apples, that shouldn’t be the purpose of unions. It should be illegal.

Police unions are almost all terrible. Seattle kicked their police union out of the local labor council, and it would be great to see more cities do the same.

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

#125

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

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…

It is indeed disingenuous, but that's exactly how "black lives matter" sounds to many.

Lack of police accountability and oversight is the problem - regardless of color combinations of the murder and the victim.

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

#126

Post by wetmore »

eplanit wrote: post #45
jibcage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“For many people, Black reflects a shared sense of identity and community. White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacists.” https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php

So much new perspective and so many new rules to absorb. We need some kind of efficient way to learn these things. Maybe some kind of (re-)education center, maybe. Hey, it's summertime -- how about a camp? /s We're in very bizarre times, for sure. Is all this even meant to be constructive (because it's not), or just provocative and divisive (which it demonstrably is)? I can't help but think that the outcome we're see…

Funny how you ask if it's meant to be constructive in a totally unconstructive comment!

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

#127

Post by uoaei »

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?

This is a nonsensical question. How does one measure "corruption" and how do you quantify it?

IMO these sorts of questions are kneejerk reactions without any significant fore- or after-thought. They only serve to disrupt the conversation.

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

#128

Post by marcinzm »

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…

>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.

As you point out yourself, it doesn't necessarily if you consider the average black person. The average black person is not a gang member, not a criminal and doesn't hang out with those groups. It may very well be that for such a person the police are a bigger risk than criminals. It's simply that the massively higher violence amongst criminals shifts the overall numbers.

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

#129

Post by number364789 »

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…

I don't know if this is valid or true, but I sometimes think that the 1990s through early 2000s pop culture depiction of black culture embedded itself strongly in the psyche of many white Americans. It sounds silly to say that gangster rap, and The Wire, and such things are responsible for racial stereotypes, but for many of my white friends, I think this is absolutely true. One sad part of this is that some of the most well-known, financially successful black Americans came out of this environment, either real, or pretended in order to sell entertainment (and make a lot of money).

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

#130

Post by greenhatglack »

renewiltord wrote: post #120
greenhatglack wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure that helpful for the person getting stabbed, that the people who failed them had some marginally better numbers than their American counter-part.

It's pretty binary, either you do a good job of keeping people safe, or you give them the option of doing it themselves at an affordable price.

The US offers the latter, the British fails at both.

Compare violent assaults with serious medical injuries in the UK with say Japan or Singapore. Those are the numbers you need to acquire before removing peoples options of self-defense.

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