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Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

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Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#31

Post by king_jester »

kevincennis wrote: post #10

"But whether it's with the ubiquity of these SWAT raids, stop-and-frisk, or the default geared-up, Robocop response to political protest, the relationship between police and the public on the whole is growing increasingly antagonistic -- and oddly, this comes during a period when both crime and on-duty police deaths are at historic lows." Author seems to completely miss the possibility that this is causal. Edit: Just…

If you want to say its causal, you are going to have to show some kind of evidence that it is. The author is correct not to make that leap since they don't have any such evidence or info to provide on that point.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#32

Post by ianstallings »

Shivetya wrote: post #9

Simple, do you see the limits to preventive actions they can take in most cities? Have you read how "rights" activist are going to strip NYC cops from doing just that which has resulted in an incredible drop in murders and similar crimes? We got there because we stopped police from policing and instead forced them to respond to situations left to build until they explode. We got there by telling them, no you can't lo…

"Rights" in quotes like it's a questionable idea, having rights. 'Nuff said.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#33

Post by run4yourlives »

diydsp wrote: post #30
run4yourlives wrote: post #25

Since I can't flag the story, I'd like someone to explain to me how in the hell they consider this "Hacker News". Seriously, this article, and all 22 comments of this discussion belong on reddit.

From [1], "McKenzie Wark talks about the new class of hackers, a direct social manifestation of the intellectual property laws. According to Wark hackers are the people capable of forcing the sign/information system to creatively transform." Since hackers transform the sign/information system, they inherently infringe upon AND establish authority. This puts us incidentally in the same position as other authority, suc…

What in god's name does that have to do with the article that was posted?

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#34

Post by mindstab »

run4yourlives wrote: post #25

Since I can't flag the story, I'd like someone to explain to me how in the hell they consider this "Hacker News". Seriously, this article, and all 22 comments of this discussion belong on reddit.

If you think limited freedom cultures are good for our work go on ahead ignoring this stuff. Or realize that we generally need a good free society to work in and flourish in and these are all precursor warnings to more political crack downs that could drastically curb the hacker scene in the US. There are already increased cases of security researchers getting the SWAT treatment followed by jail. Who thinks thats good. These articles are digging deeper into the why this is happening trying to look for ways to prevent it before it tanks the US tech scene.

I'd say that's relevant but if you disagree put your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and wait another decade and we'll see

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#35

Post by king_jester »

Shivetya wrote: post #9

Simple, do you see the limits to preventive actions they can take in most cities? Have you read how "rights" activist are going to strip NYC cops from doing just that which has resulted in an incredible drop in murders and similar crimes? We got there because we stopped police from policing and instead forced them to respond to situations left to build until they explode. We got there by telling them, no you can't lo…

> Have you read how "rights" activist are going to strip NYC cops from doing just that which has resulted in an incredible drop in murders and similar crimes?

You are no doubt referring to stop and frisk. I'm so tired of having to say this to folks, but the violent crime rate in NYC has been dropping since before stop and frisk was a policy. In fact, there is no conclusive evidence or study that gives a direct causation for the fall in violent crime rates in NYC, even though Bloomberg and Ray Kelly will continue to claim otherwise.

> We got there by telling them, no you can't look at that guy because of where he lives, where he doesn't live, his skin color, the type of clothing he wears, or such.

If you think the race and poverty oriented profiling that the police employ make you safer, you are totally mistaken. They encourage harm to communities of predominantly black and hispanic people, they encourage imprisonment of those people, they encourage the destruction of those communities, and they encourage the increased power of the police force over all aspects of a city.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#36

Post by jimzvz »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27

The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…

If a policeman has access to body armor and machine guns to serve a warrant on some guy in a house, he will take them along. The cop has no idea who may be behind a door when they knock -- they may be intoxicated/high, have a vicious pit bull, or just be a scared kid with a gun and nothing to lose. The policeman wants to go home to see his kids at the end of his shift.

Uh, shouldn't this information be available based on some kind of investigation that the warrant is based on? This argument leads to the "shoot first, ask questions later" ethos. It is exactly what leads to innocent people and animals being murdered by police. The police should not shift the risks of their job on to the public.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#37

Post by takluyver »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27

The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…

> If a policeman has access to body armor and machine guns to serve a warrant on some guy in a house, he will take them along.

Interestingly, in the UK, where regular policemen don't carry guns, most policemen apparently don't want to have firearms.

Obviously this is a rather different culture, and there's a difference between a collective matter (should we all be armed?) and an individual matter (should I be armed today for this particular call?). But I mention this to point out that human nature isn't as simple as everyone wielding the biggest stick available to them.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#38

Post by run4yourlives »

mindstab wrote: post #34
run4yourlives wrote: post #25

Since I can't flag the story, I'd like someone to explain to me how in the hell they consider this "Hacker News". Seriously, this article, and all 22 comments of this discussion belong on reddit.

If you think limited freedom cultures are good for our work go on ahead ignoring this stuff. Or realize that we generally need a good free society to work in and flourish in and these are all precursor warnings to more political crack downs that could drastically curb the hacker scene in the US. There are already increased cases of security researchers getting the SWAT treatment followed by jail. Who thinks thats goo…

If you think limited freedom cultures are good for our work go on ahead ignoring this stuff.

I exist outside of HN.

HN though is where I want to see technology articles and discussion, not politics.

From the guidelines:

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#39

Post by eloisius »

Spooky23 wrote: post #27

The SWAT issue is a different issue IMO, more related to politicians wanting to "do something" at the Federal and State levels. "Doing something" translates to "allocate funding". That money can pay for more cops/overtime, or stuff. Or it may be earmarked by a congressman whose donor makes light tanks to only buy tanks. The us vs. them stuff is related to the state of affairs in high-crime communities. Cops can't rel…

> The cop has no idea who may be behind a door when they knock -- they may be intoxicated/high, have a vicious pit bull, or just be a scared kid with a gun and nothing to lose. The policeman wants to go home to see his kids at the end of his shift.

One way to reduce the risk of encountering these dangers is to not be serving warrants on non-violent drug offenders in the first place. Not that this a police decision, but it should be obvious to policy makers.

The more drug dealers they stamp out, the more rewarding an endeavor selling drugs becomes. Increasingly aggressive police tactics will be met with increasingly drastic measure to secure drug operations, until you've literally got cartels riding around in military hardware.

I wish that was a hypothetical doomsday scenario, but just look to the south of the border.

Re: Too Many Cops Are Told They’re Soldiers Fighting a War. How Did We Get Here?

#40

Post by gizmo686 »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #19
kevincennis wrote: post #10

"But whether it's with the ubiquity of these SWAT raids, stop-and-frisk, or the default geared-up, Robocop response to political protest, the relationship between police and the public on the whole is growing increasingly antagonistic -- and oddly, this comes during a period when both crime and on-duty police deaths are at historic lows." Author seems to completely miss the possibility that this is causal. Edit: Just…

Or maybe the author doesn't want to pull something completely out his ass? Isn't this what we criticize journalists for? Especially in social sciences reporting? There has been a lot of spilled ink regarding why big city crime has been going down with lots of decent theories (abortion access, gentrification, easier access to higher education, smarter policing, larger prison population, etc) and I've never really hear…

But the author is making a claim that this is a contradiction. There is an obvious explanation that disagrees with the author that was ommited. That is exactly what we complain about in journalism.
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