Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

reason.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 393 posts

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#261

Post by throwaway040922 »

Clubber wrote: post #244
throwaway040922 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You said "This kind of violence affects everyone" and this is disingenuous when we look at the ratio of black vs white being murdered by police. If you want to argue that this kind of violence affects certain races more, that's fine. But why downplay the fact that it affects all races? The percentages are higher for Black Americans, but White Americans still make up the majority of people shot by police[1]. If peop…

>The percentages are higher for Black Americans, but White Americans still make up the majority of people shot by police[1]. Yes I never understood this tactic. If you really want citizen support (which is required), you need to show that all citizens are subject to this type of injustice. If leaders just say one group is affected and don't show that all citizens are affected, you won't get change as fast, if at all.…

Indeed. If I'm advocating for a project that will bring $10 million in to Town A that has a population of 5,000, and $50 million in to Town B with a population of 50,000, I'm going to be telling both Town A and Town B how the project will benefit them. I'm not going to be telling Town B that this project is only for Town A, and it's not an issue that affects Town B. If someone was saying that, you would expect that they'd be advocating against the project.

It's hard to believe that anyone who's actively downplaying the way an issue affects the majority of the population is actually interested in solving the issue.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#262

Post by projektfu »

boredumb wrote: post #240

People screaming systemic racism in this thread because the FBI didn't knock down "Tarek Abou-Khatwa's" door, doubtfully read the article. If the system is racist than I can either guess they didn't read this or I imagine that they are implying the system is racist by protecting Arabic men. Also this man committed insurance fraud, a non-violent crime with no history of violence so the need to catch them off guard bef…

The article says the person raising the issue didn't think they were doing Abou-Khatwa a favor per se, but rather protecting the aesthetics of a tawny, mostly white neighborhood.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#263

Post by after_care »

1123581321 wrote: post #259

Struggling to find something worth discussing in this article: my takeaway is that we can preserve the life and property of our neighbor by making our homes look nicer. :) This principle plays out in small ways, too. Be diligent about picking up trash in your neighborhood and over time, the rate of littering will decrease. Park carefully on your curb and fewer will park haphazardly or on the wrong side. And so on.

Nah. No one gives a shit about a nice suburb in Dallas. I’ve seen feds execute warrants in very nice neighborhoods. The FBI canceled because the neighborhood was a nice one in DC, where people with external influence live.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#264

Post by chitowneats »

hikingsimulator wrote: post #231
ght wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we are going to bring into account how many African-Americans are being killed by police we need to also bring into account the FBI's violent crime statistics. Blacks made up 56% of known murder offenders. While European Whites were 28% of known murder offenders while making up 60-65% of the population. Remember, African-Americans are only 11% of the population. That is a huge discrepancy that needs to be brought…

https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/1352-1... Numbers are cool and all, but they can't be divorced from context: intergenerational poverty, police brutality and surveillance, the prison industrial complex. And so on.

Correct. And yet, the original comment is strongly implying that the discrepancy is due to contemporary white racism, and not these structural issues you've helpfully pointed out. Issues that certain "white" populations, such as rural Appalachians, also struggle with to similar effect.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#265

Post by after_care »

Miner49er wrote: post #182
bell-cot wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse - imagine you're an FBI field agent, and your "kick in the front door" operation turned into a "SS agents and FBI agents shooting each other" train wreck - because there was a Secret Service protection detail on the other side of that door, and an agent or few got a very fast judgement call wrong , in the heat of the moment. Or similar, with some VIP who's got trigger-happy private security - because he knows t…

This is a risk that is taken in every "kick in the front door" operation. The people inside generally have right to self-defense and may start shooting. So it's not an excuse to not do it in a certain neighborhood.

It’s moot in practice. The people inside the house are caught off guard while the people kicking down the door are well trained, staffed, and practiced. Their zero injury success rate is impressive.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#266

Post by pessimizer »

throwaway040922 wrote: post #221
Bilal_io wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Duncan Lemp should have received the media attention he deserves. That being said: 1- You said "This kind of violence affects everyone" and this is disingenuous when we look at the ratio of black vs white being murdered by police. [1] 2- The media attention Breonna et al. received was not about the individuals but for the community in general due to my previous point. [1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

> You said "This kind of violence affects everyone" and this is disingenuous when we look at the ratio of black vs white being murdered by police. If you want to argue that this kind of violence affects certain races more, that's fine. But why downplay the fact that it affects all races? The percentages are higher for Black Americans, but White Americans still make up the majority of people shot by police[1]. If peop…

> If people actually cared about creating a broad coalition to address this, they would want to highlight both facts, not hide the latter fact.

People fighting for black lives aren't hiding bad things that happen to white people. The reason Duncan Lemp doesn't have posters up about him isn't because black activists against police violence haven't fought for him, it's because both black and white activists against police violence haven't fought for him. And as white people still make up the majority of people shot by police[1], far more white people than black failed Duncan Lemp.

I find it to be a fantasy that somehow, if people fighting for black lives would emphasize the suffering of white people, it would suddenly turn the white people who are hostile or ambivalent about this stuff into supporters. Again: you can't get white activist gun owners to defend a licensed gun owner who was surprised and shot in his own home by police executing a no-knock warrant that wasn't for him. The NRA supported gun control to criminalize the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers were an absolutely straightforward open carry movement, with one important difference.

edit: I meant to exclude Reason-style libertarians from this. They're scrupulously consistent.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#267

Post by Gollapalli »

woodruffw wrote: post #188
solarhoma wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The defense brought up one of the rittenhouse attackers was a sex offender to show they are an individual with less than good morals. Someone who would be willing to attack someone with the crowd. So, no, this piece of evidence is not immaterial. Everything in this world is not race based. There are other nuances to the world that the MSM is hiding to push their race based fear mongering.

You’re missing the point. We place people on trial for committing crimes, not for having “less than good morals.” Criminal courts typically exclude references to a victim’s character for precisely this reason: the goal is to determine whether a crime was committed, not whether the jurors would have personally liked the victim.

The point was "this person was attacking Rittenhouse, and is the kind of person who would attack someone". Rittenhouse was a clear cut, video-verified, and court-confirmed case of self-defense.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#268

Post by foldr »

imgabe wrote: post #220
jmyeet wrote: post #178

Let's compare this experience to that of Amir Locke [1]. To summarize: the Minneapolis PD was executing a no-knock warrant in a homicide investigation. Locke was not the target of the warrant but was sleeping on the couch. He was licensed for the firearm and it was completely legal. When startled awake, he reached for his gun (natural reaction) and the police shot and killed him. You'd think the NRA would be all over…

The suspect in this case was Tarek Abou-Khatwa , who, maybe I’m making assumptions here, doesn’t sound like he’s white. Are you saying that the super-racist FBI agents decided to cut Mr. Abou-Khatwa a break because he’s a member of the good ol’ boys club?

As the article explains, the FBI agents were doing this more for a the benefit of his neighbors.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#269

Post by rsynnott »

ncmncm wrote: post #9

Maybe we should be asking why they are so eager to break down other people's doors, instead of harassing them for not breaking down just this one.

Well, I mean, I think that _is_ kind of the point. Clearly breaking down doors willy-nilly is undesirable, and potentially dangerous, so they'd really want to be making the case that it is _necessary_. The claim by the police here that the overriding concern was the affluentness of the area would tend to undermine that.

Re: FBI Didn't Knock Down a Suspect's Door Because 'It Was an Affluent Neighborhood'

#270

Post by nootropicat »

Clubber wrote: post #244
throwaway040922 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You said "This kind of violence affects everyone" and this is disingenuous when we look at the ratio of black vs white being murdered by police. If you want to argue that this kind of violence affects certain races more, that's fine. But why downplay the fact that it affects all races? The percentages are higher for Black Americans, but White Americans still make up the majority of people shot by police[1]. If peop…

>The percentages are higher for Black Americans, but White Americans still make up the majority of people shot by police[1]. Yes I never understood this tactic. If you really want citizen support (which is required), you need to show that all citizens are subject to this type of injustice. If leaders just say one group is affected and don't show that all citizens are affected, you won't get change as fast, if at all.…

>Yes I never understood this tactic. If you really want citizen support (which is required), you need to show that all citizens are subject to this type of injustice. If leaders just say one group is affected and don't show that all citizens are affected, you won't get change as fast, if at all.

It all makes sense if you start from a cynical assumption that the real point of most political activism is exclusively to acquire political capital, then spend it on acquiring power, rather than fixing the issue. In fact fixing the issue would be counterproductive, as that stops power accumulation and requires finding some new issue.

Of course, you have to plausibly pretend to actually care about fixing the issue. What's the solution? Demand unworkable and absurd fixes, like 'defund the police'. The social engineering in it was remarkable - its planned ineffectiveness relied on extremist demanding complete abolition of the police to make it unworkable and scare people away, while at the same gaslighting opponents of the absurd extreme it's _really_ only about small redirection of funds to health services and similar.

What would a real solution look like? It would try to solve the root of the issue rather than symptoms. One major current cause is that new meth is significantly neurotoxic due to unknown impurities from currently dominating synthesis methods. Good article about the issue:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...

The most effective solution would be to legalize meth and ensure only pure, pharmaceutical grade is being sold. Pure meth isn't especially neurotoxic - and in small doses it's actually neuroprotective due to hormesis. Amount of people with damaged brains would plummet, fewer people would be homeless, fewer people would be violent. Which is exactly the reason it's never going to happen - nobody would gain politically.

Same logic for fentanyl and heroin deaths - cheap, pure (consistent purity = much lower risk of accidental overdoses) heroin would reduce fentanyl deaths to near zero, virtually eliminate health damage (pure heroin is relatively safe and can be used for decades) and reduce crimes committed by addicts to near zero (by virtue of being cheap).

Post reply on HN