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

531–540 of 650 posts

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

#531

Post by Shivetya »

noobaccount wrote: post #356
Wohlf wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Or, from another angle, it means that criminality in US is so much worse than the average EU country that it's ok to kill so many people in the name of safety. Number of homicides in the USA in 2017: 19,510 Deaths per 100,000 population: 6.0 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm Number of homicides in Italy in 2017: 357 Deaths per 100,000 population: 0.6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Italy

Wow, how can we be more like Italy?

We have a culture problem, both in the public and in the police. We also have politicians who show no shame in exploiting class warfare to the point of telling people that the deck is stacked against them, wealthy people stole it, and more. Politicians who in one turn tell people to stay at home, don't go to church, or parties because its dangerous to their health, then turn around and say protesting is more important. Who never fail to exploit societal strife as a means to get their name in the press. Out one side of their mouth they claim that the police are out of control while behind closed doors curry favor of the public employee unions who empower the problem.

We have an inner city culture whose music celebrates violence and does not celebrate women but instead treats them like property or worse. We have an inner city culture where schools teach kids to rely on the government and not their parents and the adults. We have an culture where not getting an education can sometimes be seen as a badge of honor and time in jail as the same. We networks with endless broadcasts of cop shows and other crime and violence shows which normalize the environment

Then on top of this you get the police. A group which has been militarized from day one from boot camp, supposedly part of which is to insure healthy cops but rarely is the physical requirement part of a continued job requirement. Who have ranks like any military organization. Who salute each other like any military organization. Who have uniforms , some for daily use, which makes it near impossible to separate them from military members. Who are issued guns for all routes and allowed to keep them on their person off duty. Who are trained by their organization and union that it is them versus the bad guys.

So there is a lot to fix but it starts at the top. Politicians must be held accountable for the mess they create and division they foster. We have to get to the music industry to police itself and tone down the violence of their lyrics and treatment of women. We need a entertainment industry which does not rely on the crime and shows with excessive violence. We need schools to emphasize the good of society and how to improve each student's outcome regardless of situation.

We did not get here overnight. The riots in Detroit back in the 60s should have been understood better but instead politicians capitalized on the fear, drove further wedges among all races, and empowered the police to be more militant. Remember who has controlled politics in most major cities since then and you may understand the lie sold to everyone. They never intended to fix the problem, they intended to feed on it. The political class used it as a guarantee of power.

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

#532

Post by creato »

fzeroracer wrote: post #504
creato wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is comparing murder to every instance of police killing someone, justified or not. Police murdering someone is much more rare. The ratio you are talking about probably is in fact well over 100:1.

Of course, it's only murder if someone ends up going to jail, no? Consider John Crawford, who was murdered by police, yet charges were not brought against them. Now consider we have multiple data points of police committing murder and getting away with it. How can we argue that it's rare, given that we have several instances of police getting away with it and not being considered part of said recorded statistics?

Exactly how many "multiple", and over how many years? The case you cited is 6 years old. If this is occurring at the rate being suggested by the comment I replied to, we should be able to find dozens of cases from this (partial) year alone. That's a lot of George Floyds to go unnoticed, in a media and cultural environment that is very interested in noticing them.

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

#533

Post by DenisM »

Pfhreak wrote: post #521
DenisM wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any additional information on how Seattle police union is terrible?

They've consistently pushed back on reforms from both the community and the federal consent decree. They insist they are 'tough on crime' and the city is holding them back, going so far as to demand people vote out the city council. They've described the concerns about policing as "the flavor of the week", they fought against body cams, they've defended police in well documented cases of retaliatory and unbecoming be…

It would be nice to have links. "defended police in well documented cases of retaliatory and unbecoming behavior" is bit too vague to follow up upon.

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

#534

Post by michaelmrose »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #526
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…

I'm a BLM supporter. And think the police need massive reform. I'd love to see their unions busted up to boot. But if we're going off statistics... Black people are more likely to die or be injured from other black people more than they are by cops. By, like, a lot. this article showcases how impervious cops are to taking responsibility, especially against the poor and powerless. But your comment of being more afraid…

You can MOSTLY avoid being murdered by your fellow black people by not engaging in any fashion with criminal enterprises and not staying with a domestic partner who beats you.

People who live their lives in a fashion as they are extremely unlikely to be harmed still worry that cops will murder their children for no reason. People also fear uncontrollable danger more so than things that they feel they can control even if they are in fact doing a bad job of it.

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

#535

Post by taurath »

jeffdavis wrote: post #445
Erem wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not compare fear of cops to fear of criminals just based on stats -- there are qualitative differences that matter too. For example, when criminals target you, you have recourse: calling the cops. Having that option can assuage fear. However, when you learn through experience that cops themselves seek to harm you, then what? There is no recourse! Who will try the cops? If you do fight back publicly, who will st…

Maybe you are right, but there is just not any evidence presented for any of that. You are right that aggregated data is not the only thing that matters. It tends to represent only easily-quantifiable concepts. But you do have to do a sanity check with the numbers at some point, and reconcile them with the feelings/beliefs/narratives you get from the media and pop culture.

White blindness to what is not only self-evident but completely proven out by arrest and incarceration numbers to at minimum 70% of black people if you look at polls is what BLM is fighting against.

The next step is that white people just say its all about economics. Its because they're poor. While being poor in america absolutely correlates to both committing and being a victim of crime, even when you take race out of it, there are countless instances of middle and upper class black people being treated like criminals in a way that absolutely NEVER happens to whites. A white person in an oxford shirt and khakis doesn't get arrested outside of their own home in Cambridge - it happened to a black professor.

Article on police harrassment of blacks: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/inside-100-million-poli...

Source: https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/data/

Here's some additional data at least.

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

#536

Post by Taniwha »

khc wrote: post #481
_bxg1 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Zimmerman was not a police officer

George Zimmerman was part of neighborhood watch, what do you think will replace police?

Who would I get to round up trick-or-treaters rather than the cops? no one

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

#537

Post by GhostVII »

dragonwriter wrote: post #302
GhostVII wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black people are certainly killed by police at a disproportionate rate relative to their population, that is an objective fact. This does not necessarily imply that there is racial bias by the police, however. For example if black people encounter the police 2-3x as much, you would expect them to be killed by police more frequently as well even without any bias.

> This does not necessarily imply that there is racial bias by the police, however. A 2010 NY State report on police-on-police shootings, studying them nationally, found clear evidence of racial bias being a factor in suh shootings. But I'm sure that either racial bias has been eliminated in the last decade or it somehow doesn't effect police interactions with people who aren’t unrecognized police officers. https://w…

I think it is very probable that there is some amount of racial bias when it comes to police shootings, but police-on-police shootings is not very good evidence in favor of that. Not enough data (26 cases in 30 years), the data is from 40 years ago up until today, and it is a completely different situation that police on civilian.

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

#538

Post by meragrin_ »

slim wrote: post #463
dragonwriter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 They are both worried about criminals. The fact that some criminals have badges and guns and a conspiracy of accomplices in positions of power shielding them from accountability for their crimes doesn't make them any less criminals. > Just to sp…

I thought BLM started in response to police violence against Trayvon Martin. Did I miss something?

There was no police violence against Trayvon Martin.

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

#539

Post by flarg »

dragonwriter wrote: post #59
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 might worry about criminals before letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good reason) about the police They are both worried about criminals. The fact that some criminals have badges and guns and a conspiracy of accomplices in positions of power shielding them from accountability for their crimes doesn't make them any less criminals. > Just to sp…

I take issue with your framing of the police as criminals because it misses the point; the police are not criminals, the law and the legal establishment fully supports their actions. Those actions are institutionally racist as they are intended to be. There are no bad apples here, it's the barrel that is rotten.

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

#540

Post by colejohnson66 »

blub wrote: post #314
vidarh wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recently had a case in the UK where a prominent (as in winning the British Empire Medal for her services to nursing prominent) nurse was stopped by police, and was too scared to get out of the car. When she told the police this, their response was "I don’t believe you because you’re talking to police officers." She ended up being arrested for obstruction because they kept failing to understand that her reluctance…

Unless one lives in Mexico, where the police assassinate people regularly, being terrified of the police - especially in Europe - doesn't fly as an excuse. This is the fault of the media which is fishing for clicks and demonizing the police to the point that people are becoming paranoid.

This is whataboutism. Just because it’s more common in one area doesn’t mean we can’t worry about this one thing.
Post reply on HN