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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

#631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"White America welcome to black America." Pretty much. I was honestly dumbstruck by the naiveté expressed as soon as the action starts. "She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply c…

Basic rules like "have no compassion" and "respect people with guns?"

Basic rules like "don't argue with cops".

They tell you to leave, you can either comply without saying a word, or start an argument knowing where it will take you. Both attitudes are fine.

But starting an argument and then be shocked, shocked! that it lands you in trouble? That's just stupid.

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

#632
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…

> I was retina scanned and placed in a holding cell with around 10 other criminals. Charges ranged from domestic abuse to armed robbery. One man was on the floor going through drug withdrawals. Everyone scoffed at the idea that I was there because of a traffic violation, and likely assumed I was making that up "...Running a red light.... and creating a disturbance" is what you should have said. herbig's situation sou…

..After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put Us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your Wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting myWallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you Want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I Said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"

Obie said he was making sure, and Obie was, cause he took out the Toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took Out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the Toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie Was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few Nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back To the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, And didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court."

It's a long song, there's a lot before and after this bit.

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

#633
post #444
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've spent an entire weekend in holding for resisting arrest. There is no food and nowhere to sleep in holding. On Monday, when I finally met the magistrate, all charges were dropped because nothing happened. When I tell my white friends this story they logically conclude I must have done something, police don't simply "detain" you without cause. Yes, they do. My other friends are much more understanding. Either it h…

Uhh... dude that was your fault for getting arrested on a weekend. Duh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand_(detention) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment are really important subjects for people who want to understand their freedoms. If you are a danger to yourself, others or gravely disabled you may be taken into a hospital and honestly you should be. If you are arrested, you might be held fo…

Well, goddamn me for being "a black male, between 5 and 6 feet."

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

#634
post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is horrible! It sounds like story from Kazachstan or Africa. I hope your friend is better now.

Or something that would happen in the Czech Republic or Greece

I am not saying it could not happen in EU or post-soviet country, but I find it unlikely. Neglect is criminal offense here, he was diagnosed by doctor so there was paper trail. Also approach to medical care is totally different.

And maximal imprisonment without conviction here is 1 year. Not so popular ex-politician was held for 18 months on corruption charges and it was national scandal.

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

#636
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…

> If they want to make your life hell, they can and will.

Not only that, but a great portion of the so-called good cops will look the other way and do nothing about it.

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

#637
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glossing over some of your assumptions, I find I agree whole-heartedly with your conclusion.

SFPD seems to have gotten a lot worse between 1999 and today. All the good officers I knew back in 1998-2000 were in their late 40s, so probably retired. I don't know what has happened to the department otherwise.

As the article's dialog mentioned, I suspect that they have been priced out of the area by real-estate value increase - the good ones may have found postings in locations more favourable to people employed in the salary range of a police officer.

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

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your law enforcement stories, combined with mostly broken checks and balances due to an arcane election system, judging it from the outside and comparing it with what we have in my home country, I'd say you're not close but you're about half way there. If there was a more sane way to introduce new law into your system, I'd suggest something like 'make it illegal to make their performance reviews depend on the…

Reading your law enforcement stories This is exactly the problem. You read the stories , that is, the exceptional cases. Don't extrapolate from exceptions.

I expected this comment and I phrased it specifically to get this reaction. Let me ask you this: Are you sure these cases are exceptional, not systemic? Naming something exceptional usually means that the system can be left alone. This might be the case, but I'm worried that you people are in a frog-in-boiling-pot situation.

So, let me rephrase: do you have trustable statistics showing that police brutality is not systemic? How about all those 'exceptional' cases where the system very much seems to work against correcting itself by protecting the offending police officers?

See, I'm not surprised that in a ~300M nation there are lots of cases of authority acting violently and that we only hear about those cases where people are treated badly - but what's worrying to me is how bad the 'exception handling' usually appears to work. If your program throws an exception every 10'000 users, but the exception leads to the user being electro-shocked, jailed and possibly loosing his job, wouldn't you throw in some additional exception handling?

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

#639
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad it wasn't just me who felt like that. I'm white, middle class, and grew up in Britain as a native. But as a member of multiple minority groups, I've seen hints of this world, and it is not pretty :( The worst part of all this? First thing I did was check the author's gender and skin colour. And then I read the article. I normally work hard to be free of the prejudice of this society we are forced to live in,…

Interestingly, I assumed the author was female until well into the story. But speaking of privilege, I can't imagine even the most obnoxious cops treating middle-class white women that way.

like this woman who's face was shattered by the cops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMWDxwL1Zog

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

#640

And this is why I fucking HATE COPS. I don't care if it's the few, this god damn country-wide gang is a piece of shit and I will do everything I can to avoid them and teach my two children about staying away as well. Fuck these pigs.

This kind of crap is why I left law enforcement after 14 years in it. I was a jailer for a while, and ended up hating myself for witnessing but not being able to stop things like the article author went through. I went from jailer to dispatcher, then terminal operator. Even there, detached as I was from the violence and corruption, I still knew I was supporting it as well. I'm finally out of that career, working as t…

> but they are trained (...) to never, ever trust the citizen

Same for me: I never, ever trust the cops. I teach my kids the same (as I was taught by my lawyer mother).

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