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How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

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

#391
post #56

OP definitely needs to sue the city, as well as the aggressors personally. Every cop involved in this situation should be spending years in prison for battery, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and torture. Until justice for victims of the police becomes routine, they're nothing but another gang and the only good cop is a dead cop.

This is a harrowing tale, but remember this is just one side of the story. And you don't know how inebriated this guy really was. But always best to follow instructions from the police, especially when you are not involved in the situation.

If I see the police unfairly brutalizing you someday, you won't mind if I just cower and slink away, then just forget about it? Maybe you were drunk and therefore deserved it?

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that the police deserve somewhere in the neighborhood of one million times more blame for false imprisonment and beating than a civilian deserves for, gasp, talking when they people they pay to protect them didnt want them to talk.

No problem, thanks for providing an example of the naiveté that underscores way too many HN comments. First off, I never said that there isn't a problem with the way the police treated OP. In fact, I'm encouraging him to sue both the police department and the officers personally for the way they treated him, which was clearly unacceptable behavior. Translation: I want to see him get justice. But I also am able to see…

Fuck off, is it not 'unacceptable' to decide not to use your right to be silent.

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

#393
post #240

Back in November, I was arrested in Brooklyn for running a red light on my bike while on my way to work in Manhattan. Normally you're given a ticket and let go, but in this instance, the officers took issue with the fact that I was not carrying ID. Both officers told me that I "could be arrested for not having ID." For clarification, I asked if it was a city, state, or national law, and the officers adamantly maintai…

The whole idea that bicyclists somehow are above the law in terms of traffic signals needs to end. We need to start stopping at red lights and stop signs if we're ever to be taken seriously. Time and again I've had conversations with bicyclists friends of mine who are adamant about how helmets are as optional as obeying traffic signals; it's totally hypocritical and asinine. They knowingly break the laws then bitch about the police. These are, by the way, people who are very adamantly against "1 percenters" which, I don't know if you've heard, also knowingly break the law on a federal level all the time and expect to get away with it. The hypocrisy runs deep.

Anytime I get pulled by a cop I just assume they're already pissed off so I act accordingly. I'm not going to obviously break the law and then have the balls to give them a hard time about what they are and aren't allowed to do. I just broke the law by blowing a stop sign. It's just such a mind-numbingly privileged viewpoint to think I can break the law and expect to just get away with it. I'd expect that out of some white collar criminal or something, but not Joe the cyclist.

All because you blew a red light, which by the way is basically instantly a ticket if you're in a car, and couldn't immediately admit wrongdoing and move on. Sorry, if you were a buddy of mine telling me that story, I'd tell you you were a moron for deciding to "educate" the police officer. Smart move bro.

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

#394
post #81
post #38

The narrative is totally not credible. There are gaps where its obvious that the author did something to elicit a reaction, but what that was is omitted from the story. My guess would be that the author was being a smart ass, and given the drinking more belligerent than he recalls in retrospect. No, the cops shouldn't have roughed him up just for being a pompous asshole,[1] but the author should tell the whole story.…

Just to provide a data point: I know the OP personally. I can't be sure that there are no omissions, but him saying things like that is not surprising and it doesn't feel like there are holes. His particular demeanor and pattern of speech would likely make it seem not so much pompous as just eccentric. He's very obviously earnest, and not in the naive way often encountered in the Bay Area these days. Trying to show y…

> Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty.

That doesn't exist any longer. Our elites are corrupt.

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

#395
post #161

When a cop gives you instructions to leave, you leave. Not because the cop is right, but because this shit happens. And if you're naive enough to think that this shit won't happen to you, try not complying with a cop's instructions. Doesn't matter where in the US you happen to be. It's that simple. Look, here's a simple rule. In every interaction with the police, ask if you can leave. If you can, count your lucky sta…

"In every interaction with the police, ask if you can leave. If you can, count your lucky stars and leave. " "count your lucky stars" is not what I'm paying my taxes for.

You think paying taxes makes you the government's customer? That's pretty funny.

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is denying that good cops do exist. The problem is that (especially for minorities in large cities) calling for the police is a gamble. That many white, suburban kids are taught from a young age that "all police are your friends, you can always go to them if you need help" and that many minorities in cities are taught from a young age "cops are people near complete immunity, great authority and guns; they are…

>No one is denying that good cops do exist. If you'll look closely through this comment section, several people have suggested that good cops don't exist. I'm speaking to them. I do not deny that calling police can be a big gamble.

They're being hyperbolic, there's no point arguing when someone says there are 'no' good cops.

It just sidetracks the conversation.

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

#398

It's high time to just make the cops wear video cameras. A whole lot of this sort of crap could just vanish.

All of the police I know are in favor of this. They want cameras on at all times that they ideally couldn't interfere with. Not only will those cameras protect the public from police misbehavior, it will protect officers from frivolous lawsuits and an alarming amount of people calm down when they're informed their actions are being recorded.

Other than the logistics of making it happen and ensuring the entirety of the video from an encounter is available, I can't see a problem with the whole idea. The only people that lose out are crooked cops and members of the public wanting to file unwarranted abuse claims.

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

#399
post #156

I feel very sorry for the OP. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you're not a customer of the organization that protects you. Police officers will not be paid less if they mistreat the people they're supposed to protect. To get them to justice, as was mentioned in another comment, would cost tons of money and time and there's no guarantee of any kind of result. They know it. The only places where police is actu…

> My opinion is that where there is no market mechanism to effectively communicate customer satisfaction, you will see abuse.

That's a great criticism of government in general.

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

#400
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…

> White America welcome to black America.

Try living in a minority majority area.

Most of your cops are non-white too.

If you get your fingers broken, it's likely an Indian or Hispanic cop with a grudge.

The media hasn't caught up to that yet, but when do they ever?

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