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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

#181

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

jorblumesea wrote: post #107
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…

Europe has a huge leg up on this problem due a variety of factors. One of which is relatively homogeneous population, which has historically made it easier to make decisions, approve/fund social programs and also not treat fellow citizens as "the others". Ethnicity and citizenship are closely linked. The US has always had this exclusionary divided culture due to its diversity and racism. It makes it hard to fix some…

And the Roma have never had a problem with systemic racism?

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

#182

Post by tartoran »

pjkundert wrote: post #171
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.

You’re confusing police with firefighters. NYPD don’t handle fires at all

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

#183

Post by TuringNYC »

austincheney wrote: post #135
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…

> 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 sure if anyone can feel anyone else's pain. If millions of people are complaining about a problem, why try to say the problem does not exist?

My experiences are nothing compared to the terrible stories I've heard from PoC, but I'll give you an example. I'm Muslim. In 2004, I ended up on the restricted fly list, effectively ending my Management Consulting career. My co-workers kept telling me, "just take your shoes off, get thru security, and stop complaining". None bothered to hear my real issue -- i could not fly. Forget security, I could not get a boarding pass issued. It would happen randomly, about 50% of the time. Once, I was stuck in Europe, unable to get back home (FYI: as a US born Citizen.) Many times, i'd get half a boarding pass and be stuck at some random airport (ATL, ORD, etc.) Once I had to take a train back from Washington DC because I couldnt get on a flight.

Co-worker opinion mattered, because it affected my ability to get on local projects (where I could avoid flights.) Eventually, I had to leave the consulting firm despite an imminent promotion.

It is so easy to dismiss people, but seriously -- if millions are complaining -- just accept there is probably something there.

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

#184

Post by hundchenkatze »

Jtsummers wrote: post #112
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…

Several years ago I was test driving a car owned by a cop in rural Tennessee. He was riding with me and I turned onto a smaller road with a 45mph speed limit. I was taking it slow and easy when he said "ah don't worry about the speed limit, I've got an E-Tag, let's go" I didn't know what an E-Tag was at the time but apparently it's an "Emergency Vehicle" tag given to officers to put on their unmarked, personal vehicles (in Tennessee at least). I guess it lets other cops know not to bother with stopping someone with an e-tag since they're just going to let them go anyway. I was pretty young at the time, and it was my first time seeing that the police are above the law.

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

#185

Post by austincheney »

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…

My wife has asked them about it. I have not myself as I have been away on military service since the beginning of May. I think the reasoning for most people in the area is that police interventions motivated by systemic racism are not a visible concern in my area of the city but that they could be a concern, which is fairly distant. Perhaps if this were any other year such concerns could really stand on their own, but this year they are pretty minor with concern for the changes imposed from Covid.

Part of it is also social effect. When multiple people encounter a similar problem they have a shared experience they can talk about and that social experience can seem to magnify the importance of the problem. When nobody is having the problem and almost nobody is talking about it the concern is much lower.

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

#186

Post by jeffdavis »

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 relevent because you need to compare the costs of police (e.g. police violence) to the scale of problem that is supposedly being solved (e.g. murders).

You can choose to fear who you want to fear, I guess. But the numbers seem to suggest pretty much everyone should be more concerned about being murdered than being killed by police.

Being killed by police is more of a betrayal, for sure. For that reason it might be worse in some sense. But I'm not sure why that should result in disproportionate fear on the order of 20X.

Also, I should say that it's much harder to pin down how many murders police prevent.

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

#188

Post by throwaway_jobs »

lukewrites wrote: post #162
ponker wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do you have data points to disprove it? I'm not aware of any data on how often police engage in physical altercations with civilians. One of the points the article makes is that the NYPD actively misrepresents such altercations that could cast the department in a bad light. Stop and frisk policies amount to codifying assault, in my opinion.

As to murder:

White Murder victims: 3,499 (2,854 of the victims were killed by other whites)

Black murder victims: 2,870 (2,570 of the victims were killed by other blacks)

2019 police killings by race:

White deceased: 370

Black deceased: 235

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

#189

Post by bradly »

throwaway_jobs wrote: post #180
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 t…

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

That really doesn't matter that much. If a stranger assaults someone and a police office assaults someone, those are not equal. The stranger can be tried and convicted, but the police officer not as easily if at all. Also the stranger is a stranger, while the police officer I pay for and exists to serve and protect me.

An example of this is a police office in San Diego sexually assaulted (forced oral sex) 16 women after going to their house after they called the police to report a crime. That is so much worse than a stranger doing those things. And by the way... the police officer was convicted and served six months.

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

#190

Post by aspaceman »

antishatter wrote: post #34
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

Kafkaesque

Not really. You wouldn’t be criticized if you got it wrong, but it’s the kinda thing that would make an English style guide.

You do it the other way and watch absolutely no one care.

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