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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

#791

Post by jessaustin »

jessaustin wrote: post #280
pessimizer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a black programmer, I remember the cliche about problems and regular expressions in my head as "regular expressions are like calling the cops." That's unfair to regular expressions, though, because I actually have seen them solve a problem before. Cops improving a situation? Never seen it.

LOL you win the thread. "Unfair to regular expressions", that's comedy gold.

Some citizens, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll call the cops." Now they have many problems.

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

#792

Post by jessaustin »

corin_ wrote: post #744
Anderkent wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but have you been to a dispatch room? I spent a day with in a sherriffs department once and then had went on a ridealong - there's no 'loitering around', arranging a half an hour's break for dinner was difficult.

Both you and the person you are replying to have taken personal anecdotes and expanded them out to decide that America has either too few or too many cops.

Oh, no. Both of us already knew the truth. The anecdotes are just for color.

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

#793

Post by amagumori »

chilldream wrote: post #566
amagumori wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can simultaneously recognize that the system is biased against certain races while also avoiding infighting based upon race. maybe you and i can, but in practice, that doesn't really happen. one of the biggest problems with our social justice movement is the complete lack of unity. many times when i see privilege brought up, it's used to invalidate opinions and justify hate towards those with more privilege ("i…

I don't identify with the "social justice" movement for similar reasons, but that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist, and that certainly doesn't mean it's productive to try to remove discussion about racism from an arena so profoundly racist. Look up "The Southern Strategy" and its relation to drug criminalization. Look up "Stop and Frisk". Look up the reasons behind criminalizing crack at a higher level than cocaine.…

> that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist, and that certainly doesn't mean it's productive to try to remove discussion about racism from an arena so profoundly racist.

wat? i didn't say these things at all. we're on the same page. i agree with you.

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

#794

Post by drpp »

GrinningFool wrote: post #7
drpp wrote: post #2

I was going to post it here. I wrote it. But you beat me!

So can I ask why you chose Medium?

Trying out a new platform. I had some support from the editors. It looks nice. I wanted to get it off my chest and it was a path of least resistance. Some other outlets wanted me to do much more rewriting.

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

#795

Post by drpp »

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.

Coincidentally, I (the author) have had experience bribing police in Kazakhstan: http://www.offsilkroadin.com/2009/11/the-last-hurdle/

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

#796

Post by drpp »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #787
williamcotton wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the drunk, self-entitled assholes like OP.

Drunk? I suppose you refer to the 3 drinks they had in the course of 3 hours. And they probably had eaten not long before. Self-entitled asshole… You mean, working in a startup, and tell the policemen when asked what he does for a living? And even if he was a drunk self-entitled asshole? Was he a hindrance ? Was he dangerous in any way? My probability for both is extremely low. And even if he was a real hindrance or…

I (the author) understand the comments above and the reasonable skepticism about my self interest in portraying only one side of the story. I'm not an angel. This was avoidable. I can even understand the police perspective and sympathize with the difficulty of their job. For full transparency, I'm preparing a followup post with all of the assembled documentation, including the police report. And yet, this still should not have happened.

But at the time, it was all very sudden. I was being yelled at while my friend (and co-founder of a yc company) was being manhandled. The fact that I was "obstructing with the emergency response" didn't enter the realm of possibility, as I was on the periphery of the scene and far away from the medics. The fact that I was at risk of being arrested didn't cross my mind until the moment I was tackled from behind.

I tried to resolve my issue directly with the police. Mediation would have quelled my anger. Only when I felt that I wasn't being heard, I published. I didn't expect 365k views (and counting).

I think that these situations are common, but rarely do the victims take the time to write the story in full detail. I've seen it happen to others, and felt powerless to interject. And now that it happened to me, I felt an obligation to do my best to write it as accurately as possible. In the least, it's an anthropological case study, and I hope you felt it was an informative story that was worth your reading time.

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

#797

Post by drpp »

beat wrote: post #264
mdisraeli wrote: post #182

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.

I changed the photo to prevent this misconception. I fear that I may have received more sympathy and readership because of the false notion that I'm the attractive female in the photo. You can see me in the photo where I'm being loaded into the van. I'm a Soviet born Jew who immigrated to the US in the late 80s. At the time, I also had a beard. Here is a more flattering photo of me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/6128547691/in/photos...

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

#798

Post by madaxe_again »

drpp wrote: post #795
madaxe_again wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Coincidentally, I (the author) have had experience bribing police in Kazakhstan: http://www.offsilkroadin.com/2009/11/the-last-hurdle/

Likewise. Bet you didn't have to bribe the Russian secret police in kaz, though! Much tougher crowd. Surprised you got pulled up over an expired visa - have seen people get in and out with no visa, just a wad of cash.

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

#799

Post by grkvlt »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #304
herbig wrote: 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…

> retina scanned

He was IRIS scanned. I don't know where this idea that retina scanning is a thing comes from, but there are literally no products that do this. All eye-scanning technology for biometrics are iris recognition systems.

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

#800

Post by grkvlt »

herbig wrote: 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 held in solitary confinement for 10 hours.

Is this really a problem? Every time I've been arrested (in the UK) and placed in a holding cell, it's been 'solitary confinement' in the sense that the police cells are single-occupancy rooms. This is the case in every police station in the UK, although my understanding (from film and TV, admittedly) is that in the US shared cells are the norm for post-arrest detention.

Also, 'solitary confinement' for only ten hours is not a huge deal. In general population prisons, the solitary blocks are used to punish people for weeks at a time. Any period less that 24 hours is hardly worth mentioning.

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