How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#191

Post by BlackDeath3 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:42 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #144

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll respond to this in the same way that I responded to another user posing the same questions. Who says that they don't speak out about this sort of stuff? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?

What happens to cops who condemn other cops? They get their concerns treated seriously by responsible professionals who's work tirelessly to keep everything at the department above board. [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

I'd like to believe you (I really would), but you've made quite the extrapolation here, given one single link to a Wikipedia article about a guy who once succeeded at routing some bad police.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#192

Post by redblacktree » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:42 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #170

josh2600 wrote: post #88

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I und…

Being self-proclamably rational is perhaps the worst attribute to reveal when dealing with this type of situation.

I don't follow. Care to explain?

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#193

Post by baddox » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:42 PM UTC

ryguytilidie wrote: post #123

Gorbzel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of idealistic fantasyland do you live in where litigation is never the answer?

The world where litigation versus police fails 99%+ of the time...?

It's weird that government tends to side with government.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#194

Post by mathattack » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:42 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #46

After reading the first paragraph I already knew where this was headed. White America welcome to black America. You'll be arrested for nothing at all. The first time it happens you'll be really upset and threaten to sue, and file a police report. And when you do there will be some sort of roadblock, they won't have the forms, the officer in question wasn't on shift that night, the detective is quite hostile to you, t…

I was thinking similar. If police will crap on someone like this when they misperceive that they're wealthy and can afford a lawyer (wannabe billionaire) imagine what they do to people who can't defend themselves. It's a very sickening abuse of power. Perhaps the one good piece of the story is that it gets the word out.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#195

Post by doorty » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:43 PM UTC

My girlfriend lives right there. We go to that bar sometimes. She recently broke her elbow on a bike accident. We would of called 911 in the same situation. This could of easily been me and her. Wow. What can I do!?

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#196

Post by im3w1l » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

drcube wrote: post #41

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there are others. There are also many people having pleasant experiences with cops every day - they don't make it to the top of Hacker News.

Really? Who has pleasant experiences with cops besides other cops? Honest question.

Me, I'm European though.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#197

Post by AjithAntony » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

Why is the lead photo of a delicate blonde white woman, when the story is about a grizzled bearded man who could pass for some various ethnicities?

That totally changes that context. The story is much less sensational than if it was the pictured woman.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#198

Post by javajosh » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #88

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I und…

The police cannot be trusted, and that is not childish nonsense. It is a rational response to the fact that the police consistently act like thugs, and the problem is only getting worse. One of the most important problems is that the mechanisms for righting these wrongs are almost wholly ineffective or out-of-reach. Peretz talks a little about that in his piece.

The most practical thing you can take away from this is to not trust the police. Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment - but what specifically can we do? I would say: you can at least think about the nature of the systematic problem that takes away essentially all accountability from city police departments. Why does it seem like the public is no longer outraged when police abuse occurs? Why does it seem like government officials don't admit any wrongdoing or apologize for anything anymore? Why are lawsuits so expensive?

What it seems like to me is that, somehow, the public has been convinced of their ineffectiveness. They have been cowed into submissiveness. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry, and I haven't been abused by the police. It's just not that big of a problem. And the monotonically increasing complexity of government has provided amazing levels of defensive cover for bad actors. It's an almost perfect shield of immunity to prosecution and incredibly expensive litigation barrier-to-entry. "Reform" sounds nice - but what do you think we should do? And in the meantime, are you really advocating that the police should be trusted in the absence of any reform? That's childish nonsense.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#199

Post by BlackDeath3 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #185

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll respond to this in the same way that I responded to another user posing the same questions. Who says that they don't speak out about this sort of stuff? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?

[deleted]

I'm sorry, but the fact that I received the same one link to a single instance from two different people in response to this question doesn't give me a lot of faith about the general response a cop gets when he tries this sort of thing.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#200

Post by josh2600 » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:44 PM UTC

morsch wrote: post #166

josh2600 wrote: post #88

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I und…

"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..." It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave? And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guy…

It's rational for a police officer to respond to civil disobedience in some circumstances with detention. That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger.

My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good.

We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve.

Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster.

To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.