Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#51

Post by ukd1 » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #41

jjulius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They maintained control with minimal personal risk to themselves. From a "policing realism" perspective that's exactly what police do. Preventing or ending any sort of crime or violence is optional at that point, and they opted not to. Absolutely untrue, and has been for decades. Their hesitation to react and go in is the complete opposite of what they were trained to do, which is go in and eliminate the threat imme…

For a fair assessment, also read the interview with the police chief: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/09/uvalde-chief-pete-ar... In particular he did bring a radio but decided to remove it. Read the article for why.

"To Arredondo, the choice was logical. An armed killer was loose on the campus of the elementary school. Every second mattered. He wanted both hands free to hold his gun, ready to aim and fire quickly and accurately if he encountered the gunman."

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#52

Post by hibern8 » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

kingcharles wrote: post #16

I'm a serial litigator of Freedom of Information requests. The reason I have to even litigate is because the public bodies believe every tiny thing they do is not disclosable. I'm about 6 years into one lawsuit to disclose the contents of a jail Policy and Procedures manual. The AG ruled that it was all subject to disclosure except the bits about locks and keys and where the weapons are stored. The jail is free to ig…

Thank you for your work. How is the jail able to ignore the AG ruling?

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#53

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

markovbot wrote: post #15

EricE wrote: post #10

It sort of blows up the whole pro gun control argument that citizens shouldn't be expected to have to protect themselves but instead rely on law enforcement :p

parents tried to go in UNARMED and the cops arrested them. Bringing a gun wouldn't have helped them, unless they had mowed down every cop first. Do you think they should have done that?

I don't know enough about this situation to make a call, but you can imagine hypothetical trolley problems where that is the moral requirement.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#54

Post by jmpman » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #31

jmpman wrote: post #13

I’ve wondered if someone could run for mayor of Uvalde on the simple platform of firing everyone in their police force, and eliminating pensions for any police officers deployed to the school.

You might win the election, but you won't manage to deliver on pulling the portion of their pension already credited.

I would run on bankrupting the entire city before paying one dime on the police officer’s pensions

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#55

Post by jmyeet » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:52 PM UTC

Are we afraid won't actually do their job when it actually involves putting themselves in danger? I think the cat is out of the bag on that one.

Quite famously, the police are much better at shooting children [1] than they are at shooting to protect children.

The Uvalde PD consumes 40% of the town budget ($4m of $10m exclusive of a $500k grant they got from the state of Texas months earlier). 19 police officers were on scene and sat twiddling their thumbs for an hour despite repeated 911 calls from students inside. Oh actually not quite nothing: they threatened to violate the probation of a mother on scene [2].

There's an obvious upside to this particular shooter dying but it has one unfortunate side effect: Texas allows information to be suppressed when the suspect is deceased [3]. Had he lived it would've been inevitable this bodycam footage and other evidence would've come out. Now? We'll see.

I've now lost count of the number of times to story has changed from the Uvalde PD. But nothing here will change.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tamir_Rice

[2]: https://sports.yahoo.com/uvalde-mom-ran-school-save-02574885...

[3]: https://www.texastribune.org/2018/04/22/texas-law-allows-pol...

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#56

Post by threatofrain » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

drugstorecowboy wrote: post #37

woodruffw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not, to my knowledge, an argument that anybody who is serious about gun control uses.

Isn't it implied? If you remove my ability to protect myself am I not forced to rely on the police to protect me? Unless they are arguing that gun control will solve all future violent crime I don't see how you could say this with a straight face. If they are "serious" about gun control or not would certainly be up for debate, but I have heard this argument many many times.

In this case you would've needed enough guns to subdue the police, as the police were threatening to taser and arrest parents who wanted to save their kids.

There's sufficient consensus on both the stronger/weaker gun control sides to agree that police are the most tactically equipped to deal with an ongoing crime, and that you should not interfere with professionals who are already at the scene.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#57

Post by panarky » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #5

Arrath wrote: post #2

I think the 'weakness' of their response is plainly obvious. If criminals can find advantages in this footage, its an opportunity to overhaul training programs and response plans. The training and response was woefully inadequate for this crisis, after all. There should be no reasonable reality in which the release of this footage is suppressed. This is an undeniable tragedy, battening down the hatches and obstinatel…

That leads to the most obvious question: "Are your training manuals and materials as closely guarded of a secret?" If not, then your implementation of them, however compromised, is not a secret either.

Eventually they will be ordered to release the video, at which point we will learn that much of it is missing, from multiple officers and from the school's cameras simultaneously. We will be expected to believe that officers weren't wearing cameras, or cameras were turned off, or a computer error lost the footage.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#58

Post by anm89 » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #11

Did people expect them to incriminate themselves?

Fair point but no, I expect the legal system to incriminate them. My issue isn't that the cops are acting in self interest, it's that they are systematically enabled to get away with it.

Or more like just create transparency in this case, I don't know if they did anything criminal or not.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#59

Post by BaseballPhysics » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #48

Arrath wrote: post #2

I think the 'weakness' of their response is plainly obvious. If criminals can find advantages in this footage, its an opportunity to overhaul training programs and response plans. The training and response was woefully inadequate for this crisis, after all. There should be no reasonable reality in which the release of this footage is suppressed. This is an undeniable tragedy, battening down the hatches and obstinatel…

I think the problem is that no one wants to take the blame for being wrong or unprepared and the media won't pass up an opportunity to sensationalize mistakes as incompetency, maliciousness, etc.. I wish more of the world could function like the culture adopted by the western airline industry where every incident and investigation is treated as an opportunity to learn and improve the system rather than an opportunity…

> I wish more of the world could function like the culture adopted by the western airline industry where every incident and investigation is treated as an opportunity to learn and improve the system rather than an opportunity to lay blame.

Unfortunately, the nature of US politics is such that it's impossible to have reasoned conversations about how to alter these extremely complex and dynamic systems. Entire areas of the solution space are rejected because of ideology, and those rejections, themselves, are highly politically charged.

In what should be no great surprise, later, when the problem isn't resolved, fingers get pointed at those who rejected those alternative solutions or pushed for solutions that did not work, while those who previously got in the way of a more fulsome discussion continue to do so because the foundation of their ideology cannot be shaken by real world data.

So, yes, it would be nice if the world could function as a reasonable and rational place, but when it comes to wedge issues like this, that simply will not happen without fundamental structural changes to the nature of US politics.

All that being said, given Boeing's recent performance, I'd be a little careful to hold up the airline industry as a paragon of rationality and preparedness...

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#60

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 13, 2022, 6:55 PM UTC

nathantotten wrote: post #38

akira2501 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That leads to the most obvious question: "Are your training manuals and materials as closely guarded of a secret?" If not, then your implementation of them, however compromised, is not a secret either.

> Are your training manuals and materials as closely guarded of a secret? It seems not: https://www.tcole.texas.gov/sites/default/files/CourseCMU/Ac...

[deleted]