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

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

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 428 posts

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

#351

Post by lizzard »

eranation wrote: post #334
Nrsolis wrote: post #184

I knew Sal Culosi. He was a nice enough guy that used to hang out at Fast Eddies Sports Bar in Fairfax, VA. I saw him there often just tending a beer and minding his own business. If you can believe it, he was an optometrist at a Wal-Mart that just measured eyeballs and wrote prescriptions. If he was a bookie (as alleged) then I never saw anything that gave him away. I followed his story in the paper and was surprise…

I was trying to find out more about this case and was surprised not to find any direct Wikipedia mention for it, after digging a little bit, I found out that this case was removed from Wikipedia entry 'List of cases of police brutality' about 3 weeks ago, under the comment "no evidence that this belongs as a brutality case" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_cases_of_p... Although I don't know anything…

If there is a list of cases of police shootings, add it to that!

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

#352

Post by wdewind »

programmarchy wrote: post #332
wdewind wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound much worse than it actually is. The court ruled "a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." If the opposite were held true any person who was ever the victim of a crime could sue the government agency with jurisdiction for damages. Warren does not hold that the police have no duty to protect yo…

I disagree. This ruling, and others like it hint at a fundamental flaw in constitutional law and how most people perceive their relationship with the state, particularly in regard to social contract theory. These rulings call into question the very legitimacy of state authority. Let's assume for a moment there is a social contract with the state. Then, as in all contracts, there is a reciprocal obligation. Specifical…

I disagree.

I think you are assuming Warren has a broader impact than it does. The state does have an obligation to protect the public at large, and to do so uniformly (unless a special relationship is created). The state has not ruled it has no constitutional duty to protect you, it has ruled it has no constitutional duty to prevent every crime that occurs. Again, if the opposite were held true the state could be sued out of existence in its own court. There was no other way for this case to be decided.

Essentially the state has ruled it cannot be perfect in terms of crime prevention, and considering the backlash against the NSA wiretapping that much of HN has been extremely concerned about, it seems that the state is not frequently rewarded for attempts to get closer to proactively preventing crime. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I don't disagree with you about police corruption, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Warren.

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

#353

Post by rehack »

speeder wrote: post #186
kevinmchugh wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a somewhat ugly and self-aggrandizing view. It's easy to let people you don't know and will never meet become sub-human, but it's dangerous and harmful. The relevant xkcd is of course, http://xkcd.com/610/ . I don't presume to know why most people are not particularly vocal on these matters, but it's certainly not because they lack critical thought.

Here in Brazil not only people are usually like that (the "shocking" protests here, were still a minority... 1 million people in total, spread over the entire country, when the country has 200 million people... Compare that with european countries with a history of population fueled government changes, that regularly do protests with more than 1 million people and have less population), but people in Brazil are PROUD…

>In fact, here vote is mandatory, because when it wasn't, less than 5% voted at all

But voting being mandatory, is a very alarming thing. Does not sound like democracy at all. What happens, when one does not vote?

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

#354

Post by speeder »

rehack wrote: post #353
speeder wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Brazil not only people are usually like that (the "shocking" protests here, were still a minority... 1 million people in total, spread over the entire country, when the country has 200 million people... Compare that with european countries with a history of population fueled government changes, that regularly do protests with more than 1 million people and have less population), but people in Brazil are PROUD…

>In fact, here vote is mandatory, because when it wasn't, less than 5% voted at all But voting being mandatory, is a very alarming thing. Does not sound like democracy at all. What happens, when one does not vote?

When you are a non-voter you can fix your situation by paying a fine.

If you stay non-voter, you cannot get hired by government, cannot ask loans from government owned banks (or from the government itself), cannot get issued a new passport, cannot get issued a new id, cannot vote, cannot study in government schools and universities, your companies cannot provide services to the government, and you are considered a draft dodger (ie: for example if you want to join a private school that requires you to have completed military service, the school would be breaking its own rules if it allow you to study there)

If you do that in three elections in a row (here we have elections every two years, thus this is 6 years) your document related to voting is revoked. (meaning that you become de facto stateless, although de jure you are still brazillian).

"government" here apply to all levels (example: the part where you cannot join government schools, apply to federal, state and city schools)

Also this applies to overseas citizens (you must to the embassy and vote there).

You can "justify" your vote, this is showing up into any random voting zone (not necessarily the one where you are registered) and explaining why you won't vote, but usually the only explanation accepted is that you are away from your zone (ie: if you are into a city where you are not registered as resident).

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

#355

Post by jeltz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #71
PavlovsCat wrote: post #39

"Botched Paramilitary Police Raids": http://www.cato.org/raidmap

From the description of one of such "botched raids": "With an accidental weapon discharge, police fatally shot the 68-year-old retiree, who was not the target of the warrant. Police instructed Mr. Stamps to lie on the floor, and Mr. Stamps complied. One officer moved towards Mr. Stamps to check for weapons. The officer's tactical equipment made his movement awkward, and he lost his balance and fell. As he did so, his…

The "I tripped" explanation is used in many of the stories. Including when multiple bullets were fired. Either it is a lie or they are very careless.

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

#357

Post by vehementi »

sneak wrote: post #221
Nrsolis wrote: post #184

I knew Sal Culosi. He was a nice enough guy that used to hang out at Fast Eddies Sports Bar in Fairfax, VA. I saw him there often just tending a beer and minding his own business. If you can believe it, he was an optometrist at a Wal-Mart that just measured eyeballs and wrote prescriptions. If he was a bookie (as alleged) then I never saw anything that gave him away. I followed his story in the paper and was surprise…

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…

Hear hear. If you are a good cop in a precinct and you do not arrest the bad cops in that precinct, your precinct contains no good cops.

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

#358

Post by [deleted] »

wdewind wrote: post #257
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

You make it sound much worse than it actually is. The court ruled "a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." If the opposite were held true any person who was ever the victim of a crime could sue the government agency with jurisdiction for damages. Warren does not hold that the police have no duty to protect yo…

[deleted]

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

#359

Post by etherael »

wdewind wrote: post #350
etherael wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean say a cop is hiding behind a steel door while you go toe to toe with a knife wielding crazy? http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/to_serve_but_not... Nah, never happens.

My point is that Warren does not address that situation, you'd need other case law to discuss it.

So your point is not that police actually do have a duty to protect you, but the legal precedent cited to show this did not do so? I have to wonder why even bother to argue that point? It strikes me as debating whether the link currently hitting you with a 10gbps DDOS uses optic or electric signal transfer, it doesn't change the facts of the issue at all.

Politics and law are sideshows to the material facts of physical reality, watching people constantly debate the edicts of hopelessly out of touch political figureheads and their bureaucratic lackeys as if it had an effect on fixing the problems they cause constantly mystifies me.

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

#360

Post by Tomis02 »

> Llovera’s suspected crime? Cockfighting.

Well, he had it coming. Excessive use of police force for sure but I can't feel sorry for the guy, only for the animals harmed before and during the police raid.

Edit for the downvoters: the fact that you're not affected by the suffering of animals, even for the ones that you barbarically eat, says a lot about your degree of civilization.

Post reply on HN