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“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

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Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#241

Post by sneak »

ryanSrich wrote: post #233
sneak wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

Cops have no legal obligation to protect you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

No, but they do have a legal obligation to not shoot me for no reason, or to not lie on the stand under oath, et c.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#242

Post by llamataboot »

yogo wrote: post #225
sneak wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

These things are still pretty rare. Unfortunately, once you start raiding barber shops and pool halls with so much heat something like this is bound to happen. I still find it to be an honorable job with honest guys that put their lives on the line; however, statistically there's always going to be some hot-headed trigger-happy guy involved. Plus even if they're not on the force they're in some neighborhood as the un…

Give someone assault weapons, train them to believe that they are fighting for good, and remove all legal and moral contraints and watch how quick they turn into a "bad apple". It's not a personnel problem, it's a structural problem. See Stanford Prison Experiment, etc.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#243

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

kdeberk wrote: post #216
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it appears necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for protection. No. The guy was an optometrist with a local business, your suggestion that he was some undercover cop-murderer waiting for the slightest provocation is absurd and insulting. He had every incentive to maintain civility in his neighborhood/town. Ther…

> No. The guy was an optometrist with a local business, your suggestion that he was some undercover cop-murderer waiting for the slightest provocation is absurd and insulting. He had every incentive to maintain civility in his neighborhood/town. There is very little reason to believe that he would have reacted violently to any of the following alternative tactics: Hindsight is 20/20. I will probably agree with you th…

>Hindsight is 20/20. I will probably agree with you that if the police force did proper research on the suspect, then they would have chosen a different approach.

This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment action. The investigators planned this operation, one of them had befriended Culosi. They don't get to use the "hindsight" defense here. I would argue that the investigator entrapped the Culosi by upping the ante to the point that made it a felony charge.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#244

Post by akiselev »

Kylekramer wrote: post #62
akiselev wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah it's all much worse in other places. We're still "better" than all the dictatorships and authoritarian governments in the world, and that makes it all just fine and dandy. The only people losing sight of reality are the ones deluded into thinking that America/ns is/are immune to what appears to be a fundamental feature of power: corruption. By point 3 he meant actions by USG whistle blowers with access to cla…

There is a problem with broad statements like the grandparent comment. College students buy water everyday without trouble, people own guns without being harassed daily, people makes bets daily without any trouble, people make joking threats daily without incident. There is plenty bad going on without the need for exaggerations and outright lies. If you want reality to change, you have to accept reality. Skewing it t…

If you're going to talk economics, politics, sociology, or just about any massive and complex systems, you cannot avoid broad statements. I dislike them, but that's just the way it is. I notice a lot on HN that broad statements generally are called out and (usually without being defensive) clarified in the discussion.

However, in this case, there is no clarification needed. Compare the United States across whatever subjective experience and online indices you can find (economic freedom, press freedom, happiness, quality of life, etc but take them with a grain of salt) and make up your own mind.

After having traveled a little bit and lived in circumstances very different from my current life in SF, I have become less concerned with the water, guns, bets, and bad jokes and more concerned about the creeping changes in massive institutions like the US government. After all, one of the hallmarks of a democracy is how it protects the minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#245

Post by ihsw »

sneak wrote: post #241
ryanSrich wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops have no legal obligation to protect you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

No, but they do have a legal obligation to not shoot me for no reason, or to not lie on the stand under oath, et c.

When not enforced, such obligations are meaningless.

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#246

Post by lifeisstillgood »

vacri wrote: post #226
tsotha wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with war.

lifeisstillgood is talking about the cultural expectation that problems are solved by throwing overwhelming force at them.

True. Fallujah, being an example of SWAT team over-reaction On a nationstate level.

the more direct problem that there is no a preponderance of ex-soldiers, weapons, and an entire industrial base massively expanded and looking for civilian roles now everyone can see wars winding down and this kind of thing will be more prevalent.

All the forces mentioned in the article (including "militarisation" are conspiring in a self-reinforcing system)

It's hard to see how to move away ("what you think our boys in blue should not have body armour? APCs?")

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#247

Post by dllthomas »

skore wrote: post #47
dllthomas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be reason to never speak to anyone, ever? It doesn't sound like Baucum identified himself as a police officer.

No, I think the logic is straightforward: If talking to "anyone, ever" can become a fatal problem involving the police, that makes talking to the police directly an even worse option. "You shouldn't talk to anybody, especially not the police."

While I don't think the conclusion ("don't talk to the police") is necessarily wrong, I don't think the logic is valid at all, much less "straightforward".

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#248

Post by [deleted] »

skore wrote: post #47
dllthomas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this be reason to never speak to anyone, ever? It doesn't sound like Baucum identified himself as a police officer.

No, I think the logic is straightforward: If talking to "anyone, ever" can become a fatal problem involving the police, that makes talking to the police directly an even worse option. "You shouldn't talk to anybody, especially not the police."

[deleted]

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#249

Post by rcavezza »

ryanSrich wrote: post #233
sneak wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not bad guys" arguments. If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a position of trust, at that! It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops. Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and responsib…

Cops have no legal obligation to protect you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

I just read this article and it blew my mind. What type of "special relationship" are they referring to in the decision?

Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”

#250

Post by drone »

hammerzeit wrote: post #205
drone wrote: post #117

It seems like every day, more and more political posts about the US are made here. It's getting to the point that it seems that 35% of the point of HN is about getting opportunities to make political statements about the US. There are so many, so so many, places to have on-going political arguments. I'm of the mind that any place that allows free commentary ultimately becomes a political discussion board, and HN is p…

It's hard to comment on this post considering how many times we've seen the "HN-is-dying" meme, but for me this time it really resonates. What has made HN interesting is the fact that it was boring to the vast majority of people on this planet. The topics were generally speaking on a very specific set of subjects that you largely had to be in the technology world (and of a certain technical disposition) to relate to.…

Definitely not intimating that "HN is dying," more pointing out that pure community-based "karma" systems will veer towards popular politics in the given community. Considering the concept that such a transition is universal for any site that doesn't heavily moderate - as politics seem to the #1 sport in the world.
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