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

541–550 of 650 posts

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

#541

Post by rbecker »

air7 wrote: post #475
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 just don't get it. The number of unarmed black men shot by police across the entire US in 2019 was 14. [0] How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest? Also, do people actually think the police generally and on average does more harm than good as to request abolishing it? [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...

> How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest?

Because it's on the news, while the 51 unarmed whites killed by police in 2019 [1] aren't.

[1] https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/nationaltrends

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

#542

Post by centimeter »

JamisonM wrote: post #220
centimeter wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because from their point of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their children on the street This is a delusion - they are at least 2 orders of magnitude more likely to be assaulted or killed by another (non-police) black person. This is yet another scenario where a relatively minor source of risk gets vastly disproportionate coverage and almost everyone falls for it. ETA: it’s fun…

Actually it is only one order of magnitude. But the more important factor is that in most homicides the victim and the perpetrator know one another. On that basis minorities, and particularly middle-class and up members of minority groups, have good reason to be more concerned about abuse and/or murder at the hands of authorities as a more important consideration than truly random violence.

> Actually it is only one order of magnitude.

My mistake - this does not change the nature of my argument at all. That's still a massive difference in risk.

Why do you think it makes sense to ignore the majority of homicides (which don't fit a popular political narrative)? That's like saying "Most car crashes happen near home, so on that basis people have good reason to be more concerned about plane crashes."

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

#543

Post by michaelmrose »

randompwd wrote: post #350
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bear in mind she was stopped because the car she was in had (illegally) tinted front windows. From the article linked in the parent's post: "Court documents later established they were within the legal limit." There was no need for the police to use violent force against this terrified woman, but they did it anyway.

Yes well done. How do you think police determine if they're in limit or not. They test them. She could have been on her way in 5 minutes but chose to act like an idiot.

If they are close enough to legal that he needs a test to establish that they might be over the line maybe his enforcement action is without merit in the first place.

What is the point?

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

#544

Post by Pfhreak »

DenisM wrote: post #533
Pfhreak wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, here's a handful:

https://komonews.com/news/local/police-union-president-defen...

https://mynorthwest.com/70234/police-union-head-vehemently-d...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/07/13/se...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/memo-seattle...

http://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2015%20...

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article64596437.ht...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seattle-cop-punches-teen-in-fac...

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

#545

Post by tartoran »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #375
tartoran wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people only knew how many cases are closed with incarcerating innocent people who were at the wrong time in the wrong place ... And being black qualifies them to be guilty. It’s so sad, it’s not only police but a whole system form police to prosecutors to judges... We need reform!!

Definitely, it's also why seeing "data-driven policing" makes my spider sense go off, since the "data" in this case has been tainted by decades of racist policing and policy.

Just listened to Gary Numan’s you posted on your profile and that sent me on a streak of Gary Numan on youtube, it’s so good..

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

#546

Post by klyrs »

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…

I spent a lot of time in what's currently CHAZ/CHOP as a teen. The police in that precinct have/had a particularly visible habit of blowing red lights. When there are other cars nearby, they flick their lights on momentarily, as if ticking off a minor technicality (though still violating the letter of the law). I've seen cops do that pretty much anywhere I've lived, US or Canada, but it was especially prevalent on the stretch of road a few blocks from the precinct. I saw quite a few near-misses caused by this.

An "honest" cop would see this behavior and report the crime appropriately. But they simply don't hold eachother accountable.

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

#547

Post by waffle_ss »

espadagroup wrote: post #75
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

The narrative you are suggesting is unequivocally false and has been for a while. While the black on black crime rate is at 89% the white on white crime rate is at 83%, not far off and receives very little relative attention. In addition, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics, while blacks in the absolute cause 50% of the violent crime, when you control for income (white people have 10x the wealth) and locati…

Where is this Bureau of Justice statistics analysis that you're talking about in the second paragraph?

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

#548

Post by gremlinsinc »

anoonmoose wrote: post #318
asjw wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to disagree with the post in general, but at a thousand/year shot and killed by the police in US, they probably are one of the most dangerous threat For comparison in Italy in 2019 there have been 3 people killed by the police, and people have - rightfully IMO - complained every single time. In US more than 1k (1040 to be precise) died shot by cops If we compare the population, there should have been at least 180…

Many, many, many more people in the US are shooting themselves or others than getting shot by police. We're talking like, 1K per year shot by cops versus 100 PER DAY of overall gun murder/suicide. Yes, police violence is a problem, but the 1K shot by cops is mostly an artifact of our crazy high overall gun violence problem. Edit: so, to summarize, yes, I do think that our crazy high number of people shot by police pe…

all the european countries have strong medical systems that don't let anyone through the cracks. Many also don't have prison systems like we have but are more focused on rehabilitation, and the 'why' people commit crimes. Sure murderers/rapists lock up, but non-violent people reward them for NOT using violence to commit a crime w/ house arrest, community service, and fines.

If we had guaranteed medical, we'd have a check on mental health. Probably the #1 cause of crimes in America is poor mental health and the stress of living in America.

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

#549

Post by klyrs »

dghughes wrote: post #84

In the article white is written with a lowercase w but black is written with a capital B. Seems odd.

Similar to how deaf and Deaf have different meanings, and you don't read stories about Hearing people. If you're intellectually curious, read up on that.

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

#550

Post by sudosysgen »

corebit wrote: post #451
sudosysgen wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police did not exist in England in the 1600s. The first professional police in England dates to the 1800s. Even in the 1700s, up until the American revolution, there were only patrols of citizens organized as the night watch, and only in big English cities.

Police in england are an evolution of how the King's peace has been enforced, starting, very simplified, from when the King himself enforced it in very early days to delegating it to members of his court and his sheriffs, and ultimately to localities and special departments of the modern day. Cities did not generally have a "police department" but they had the sheriff and whoever the sheriff commanded into service to…

Sure. And the King's peace itself was only really the Crown's personal police force until around the late 1600s, but this was not the case in America. Even well into the 1600s your only shot at justice in the majority of cases was revenge.
Post reply on HN