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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

#731

Post by beat »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #317
beat wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>I can't imagine even the most obnoxious cops treating middle-class white women that way. Umm do you remember the OWS protests?

Yeah, and I was on the ground for the 2008 Republican convention, too. I know what tear gas feels like.

But police behavior toward masses of people in crowd-control situations at protests (where everyone in sight is treated as a criminal) is fundamentally different from police behavior toward individual bystanders at a small, nonviolent emergency scene. So I don't think your exception is valid or applicable.

The essence of privilege is the default treatment you typically receive from strangers. Middle class white women are perceived as the least threatening stereotype by police. Men are more likely to be seen as a threat to be subjugated, non-whites more so, the obviously poor more so.

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

#732

Post by GFischer »

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #687
GFischer wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. In my country (Uruguay), you can and should call an ambulance for broken bones :( And ambulance service costs U$ 50/month and is included with 90% of the populations' health services.

You know America is in decline when Uruguay is out classing her!

To be honest, we're blowing everyone out of the water :) :

- Legalized marijuana

- Legal gay marriage and recognition of LGBT rights

- A much better healthcare system than the U.S. (ok that part isn't too hard)

- One laptop per child

- The Economist's country of the year :)

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

#733

Post by shurcooL »

jabr wrote: post #608
shurcooL wrote: post #91

How does this happen? I'd love to know the motivations and perspectives of people involved. Did they make a mistake? Were they confused? If so, what was their line of thought? Did they try to intentionally cause harm to innocent people? If so, what was the reason. Also, is this a rare unusual occurrence, or does this happen 75%+ of the time you call 911? It just seems like a situation that should not have happened th…

The police overreacted. And it sounds like one cop in particular overreacted and then triggered a cascade of nonsense. This kind of thing is not rare, but it's not common, either. It happens nightly, but it's unlikely to happen to you. A good rule of thumb is to not be anywhere near a scene that has an inbound emergency response. There will be police, and if they have nothing else to do, they might harass you for fak…

Thanks, that's helpful.

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

#734

Post by GFischer »

madaxe_again wrote: post #697
qwerta wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nope. In kaz, the police are corrupt, and will shake you down for a bribe, but arresting people is way too much effort. I'm far more scared of US law enforcement than I am Kazakh.

Very likely some sort of bribe could be arranged in most parts of Africa as well.

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

#735

Post by williamcotton »

retrogradeorbit wrote: post #684
williamcotton wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude, this is about someone getting in to a bike accident. Please, for fuck's sake, if you see someone hit by a car or otherwise bleeding on the street, do the sane thing and call 911. I can't believe we're having this conversation...

The social contract is broken.

Your brain is broken. Close the laptop and go outside and walk around San Francisco. It should be pretty obvious that things are pretty free and pretty orderly. If you and the rest of your video game playing hacker buddies can't see that, I dunno what to say. Get some more life experience?

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

#736

Post by Glide »

unethical_ban wrote: post #694
RMacy wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cops are in a weird place. People don't like them until they need them. I work with a lot of cops and most of them are good (and yes they can occasionally get overreaching) but that generalization widens the divide between on-duty police officers and civilians. I would say if we treated them like I get treated being part time Military (hand shaken, dinners, etc) that they will be better people. You'll also see less o…

But I don't think the military should get the worship it does, and cops are supposed to be civilians and neighbors, not soldiers. People don't hate on EMTs and firemen. You know why? Those people don't shoot your dog, beat you and arrest you when you look at them the wrong way. Until there is a STANDARD of good cops throwing out bad cops and NOT facing retribution; Until there is an established, effective and formal…

Are there some countries where the daily interaction between police and citizens is not antagonistic?

In the States most of the interaction with that I witness police is negative: get pulled over for speeding, ticketed, etc. Even when they're doing sobriety checkpoints on St. Patrick's day, they're inconveniencing people who are responsible.

If the daily interactions between citizens and cops are like this it'll be very difficult to get people to change behavior.

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

#737

Post by williamcotton »

GFischer wrote: post #673
scarmig wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...call 911 and be assaulted and thrown in solitary for... well, some doubtlessly minor reason, if any at all? No thanks. If someone's having a serious stroke and immobile, yes, of course call an ambulance. A broken arm or leg? A Lyft is probably your best bet. I'd draw the line at something like "minor heart attack."

Wow. In my country (Uruguay), you can and should call an ambulance for broken bones :( And ambulance service costs U$ 50/month and is included with 90% of the populations' health services.

Hey dude, don't listen to these people.

The vast, VAST majority of people in San Francisco and the rest of the United States deal with emergency responders with no problems whatsoever.

You're just experiencing a bunch of whiny, self-entitled assholes who're making more money than their underdeveloped brains know how to deal with and now think that they literally shit gold bricks.

This is causing WAY more problems in San Francisco than the SFPD.

If there's going to be any sort of protests in SF it is going to be against these asshats, not the SFPD, mark my words.

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

#738

Post by pedrocr »

ordinary wrote: post #613
m_mueller wrote: post #604

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.

These stories, even if they are exceptions tell me:

1) The rate at which these things happen is sufficiently high that I see 20 or 30 of these stories a year without looking for them. My reaction is now "one more of these".

2) The system is very bad at dealing with these things even if they are exceptions. I'm ok with that when the system is "Google's tech support for free products" and not ok when it's civil rights.

3) Even if the arrest itself is an exception the story that comes after (filthy cell full of people, verbal and racial abuse, etc) is incredibly consistent.

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

#739

Post by aestra »

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…

A (black) friend told me this story.

Many many years ago, him and his friends (a bunch of black teenage boys) went to Walmart. Two of his friends stole a couple of packs of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. They got caught, and the police were called and serious criminal charges were brought against them. My friend wasn't charged as he didn't do anything wrong, but signed a paper saying he wouldn't go into Walmart ever again.

They did shoplift and commit a crime, but I can't help but think if it was some middle class white kids taking Yu-Gi-Oh! cards they would have just called their parents to come pick them up.

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