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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

#171

Post by pjkundert »

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.

Clearly, it is not to protect “private property”, as in citizen taxpayers’ property. They will let that burn, and leave you to die.

Their sole job is to protect the state’s property. And the lives and property of those who control the state.

Proof: every riot thus far in 2020.

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

#172

Post by mistersquid »

number364789 wrote: post #129
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…

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 m…

> 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

The portrayal of black people as prone to violence and incorrigibly dangerous goes beyond fiction and well into the past to the founding of the United States.

For one example, consider the United States' nominal newspaper of record, the New York Times.

Do an internet search using the following terms (no quotes) "NYTimes Giant Negro".

Stereotypes of blacks as intimidating and dangerous go beyond fiction and the end of the Twentieth Century into the domain of "reported facts" and well into the past.

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

#173

Post by mrmonkeyman »

greenhatglack wrote: post #86
fileeditview wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sure worth handing guns to everyone for defense. If everyone is armed that really makes the world a safer place. How else could you e.g shoot somebody to defend your parking spot? /s But seriously.. do you have been to Europe? You need to visit some very extreme areas to be in real danger. What you describe is pure hyperbole.

Most working class in Europe live in "extreme" areas also "not-wanted-to-be-officially-known-as-no-go" zones. Lol, I love how you question if I've live/d there, like the complete inability to take in information that might not be fit to your world view.

Netherlands or Hungary? Europe is enormously diverse.

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

#174

Post by dragonwriter »

number364789 wrote: post #163
dragonwriter wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant stereotypes are older than independence and deeply embedded in American culture, they don't stem from 1990s to early 2000s popular culture.

I agree there are stereotypes much, much older than this, of course - and 90s pop culture does not explain away the longer term discrimination. Still, if the question is about how white Americans perceive black Americans as a group, especially those white Americans who do not know many black Americans personally, I think you have to consider portrayals in pop culture as a factor. At least, that is my perception, as a…

> I think you have to consider portrayals in pop culture as a factor.

Sure, but pop culture in large part expresses and transmits preexisting stereotypes (and even when it doesn’t, it is perceived through the lens of those stereotypes.)

I'm not saying it's not involved, just that it's not the source.

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

#175

Post by zw123456 »

I had an incident happen to me where I was stuck in traffic in the left most lane on the freeway next to the diamond (HOV) lane. So the HOV was on my left and was wide open and all the other lanes were completely stopped, or stop and go. A state police officer had people pulled over just ahead of me for HOV violations. A car that was exactly the same model and color as mine was flying down the HOV and pulled in two cars behind me when he saw the cop. When I got up to where the cop was, he was confused and thought it was me. He was pointing at me and pointing at the side of the road and yelling something. At first I didn't understand what was going on, it was not until later that it all made sense. I didn't know a car similar to mine had pulled in a couple of cars behind me. I could not understand what was going on, if he was pointing at me or what. I rolled down my window and he was screaming at me, I had the radio on and had not noticed any of this until he was hopping mad. Then he put his hand on his gun and I could hear him yelling at me to pull over right there right then. So I did, because I was scared as hell. Of course a car came flying down the open HOV lane right then and T-Boned my car. I blacked out for a bit and came to and the air bags had all gone off saving my life I am sure and I was unharmed but my car was totaled. The two young men who were driving the car that T-Boned me both were rushed to the hospital. The cop gave me ticket for improper lane change and HOV violation. I had the wits to take pictures of license plates of the stopped cars and got witnesses from that. I hired a lawyer and he said it was very unlikely to beat the ticket and there was nothing we could do, could not sue the police, they have immunity.

Funny, I actually beat the HOV violation in court, witnesses all corroborated my story. The whole thing was super scary and frustrating.

I can only imagine how frustrating it is for black people who deal with things 10 times worse than that but it gave me a bit of empathy and understanding how a crazed a-hole cop can wreak havoc and there is nothing you can do about it. I mean all that for a dumb HOV violation for cripes sake.

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

#176

Post by tartoran »

hef19898 wrote: post #143
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…

Usually police in dictatorships, at least the more successful ones, tend to be much more professional, polite and non-brutal. Until they are very professional, very cruel and very brutal. The latter usually against very well defined groups, in very well defined ways. Simple reason being, that random police violence just results, ultimately, in the kind of uproar and civil unrest the US experience now. Basically the l…

Dictatorships also project power through police so imagine high intimidation from “the system” or “the state”. USA uses a similar power projection to keep people afraid and supposedly lawful.

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

#177

Post by bsanr »

Pfhreak wrote: post #109
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.

Historically, this is what police were in the Northeast US. (In the South, police trace their heritage to slave patrols. I'm sure they would argue that these patrols were also just defending property. Gross.) Landowners and merchants hired private police to watch over their holdings. Over time, they convinced locals that it would be in the public good if the guards they hired were paid for by everyone. In the 1850s,…

That history is - surprise, surprise - closely related to the region's race and class relations. Boston has always been the flashpoint for such issues, more so than New York City, in part because of its smaller size and more pointed and concentrated relationship with the slave trade. The two great waves of Irish immigration meant tensions among the working and lower-middle classes, which had previously been largely black - tensions which were gladly encouraged by New England's wealthy. Incorporating Irish into the police force was a direct (and highly successful) attempt to foment interracial clashes; this preempted the forming of interracial bonds within those lower classes, which would have allowed them to demand more rights and a better quality of life from the elites. This is the same thing that happened with labor unions; Irish and black fraternization is bad for business, so court the Irish and foment bigotry against their black neighbors (to the point where they don't even want to be neighbors anymore).

The way that this dynamic extends into the busing crisis and the infamous racism of Boston sports fans should be obvious.

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

#178

Post by tomp »

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's a relevant statistic for this discussion, which is not a discussion about generic police brutality. Retracting from "Black Live Matters" to "we're discussing police brutality here" is a common mote-and-bailey tactic that isn't a valid argument.

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

#179

Post by Aloha »

mistersquid wrote: post #154
austincheney wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Notice that while average white parents Perhaps that distinction is more pronounced in some locations than others. I don’t see this distinction in the big city where I live and each of my neighbors are black. We have regular police patrols where I live and almost no police interventions. We also have several police officers that live in the neighborhood. My city has greater than 900,000 people, is about 60% white,…

> I don’t see this distinction in the big city where I live and each of my neighbors are black. Not to put too fine a point on it and with all due respect, but are you black? Have you asked your black neighbors about it? I am half-black and was raised in California. I have lived in SF for the last 10 years. While I have not directly been troubled by police in SF, I put myself on notice every. Single. Time. I go outsi…

I think it may depend on the socioeconomic class of the neighborhood - I'm a white dude, but I used to drive beater cars, and when I was a field engineer driving my own car, it was amazing, because like clockwork whenever I was in a we'll to do area I'd get pulled over for (what I presume was) looking "out of place".

Similarly I've been pulled out of cell sites at gunpoint and bent over the hood of my car, and patted down several times also for "looking out of place".

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

#180

Post by throwaway_jobs »

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…

> 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

I don’t think that is framed correctly.

Black or white statistically you are far more likely to be killed (or assaulted) by non-police Of the same race as you.

I think everyone knows that, and to say police are the most likely to assault of kill black people takes the wind out of the sails of the legitimate issues. In other words police represent an additional threat to one of the groups and not the other, but in either instance the police are not the most likely perpetrators to either group.

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