Good Samaritan Backfire • Hacker News Board

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#71

Post by revelation » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:40 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #60

Namrog84 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does hacker news not flag/block duplicate posts urls. Especially when first one was clearly recognized?

The URLs are different: 7233730 : https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ [0] 7496137 : https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 [1] HN's dup detector is crude and simplistic. Suggestions over the years to help fix it have been ignored, and efforts to help cross-link items have been lauded by some, and vilified by others who somehow seem to see the repetition as a feature. I guess that since it's documented (many times…

I think the duplicate detector was recently tweaked, at least the query string trick no longer worked for me.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#72

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:43 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #19

> She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. "I then walked home." should have been the next line, and I'm fairly sure the author knows it. That doesn't excuse what the officers did, but it's not "being a good Samaritan" that backfired. Being nosy is the part that didn't end well. I'm not even sure the use of force wasn't justified - even in this immensely bias…

[deleted]

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#73

Post by norswap » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:44 PM UTC

Interestingly, the same kind of stuff lead to a few scandals in China, where injured people where ignored by a host of bystander, apparently by fear of legal pursuits (which is something that had happened earlier to some people helping traffic victims).

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#74

Post by jjoonathan » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

nemo wrote: post #58

jellicle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet your reply condones the violence and abuse of authority. Why is that? Here's the basic rule: as a police officer, you must be polite, fair, kind, and law-abiding, even if the public you deal with is rude, nasty, entitled, somewhat drunk, and otherwise unpleasant. Period. If you can't do that, you're in the wrong profession. And if the profession permits people who can't do that, the profession has systemic is…

If you walk in the street you might get hit by a car. I don't condone a driver hitting you, but reality is what it is. Cops have to constantly deal with the worst elements of society doing the worst things imaginable. It'd be great if they didn't get hardened, but the reality is they often do. Expecting cops to be polite and kind to the drug addicted guy beating his wife because she isn't turning enough tricks to sup…

> It'd be great if they didn't get hardened

"Hardened" suggests the officers are immune to bullshit. The officers' behavior suggests the exact opposite.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#75

Post by foobarian » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:46 PM UTC

danielweber wrote: post #46

rburhum wrote: post #18

Sadly, I have many friends with similar stories from police departments in different places. I attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment. Add to this the types of personalities that are attrac…

> attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment As I get older I wonder if there are certain jobs that everyone in society should cycle though, because they can be soul-crushing to do them long te…

This is exactly why we have a release engineering rotation at our company.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#76

Post by rayiner » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:54 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #65

rayiner wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American cities are the most dangerous in the developed world, by a large margin.

Only certain parts of certain cities[0]. It's almost entirely a result of the War On Drugs. In areas where drugs and gangs are a problem, the homicide rate is very high. In wealthy/safe parts of town, violent crime is not dramatically higher than the rest of the developed world. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chicago_violent_crime_map_...

Does San Francisco have a particularly large amount of "war on drugs" related gang violence? It's still 8x the homicide rate of London. And whether it's caused by the war on drugs or not, the fact remains police still have to deal with it.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#77

Post by foobarian » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:55 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #53

PeterisP wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the guy definitely doesn't deserve all the followup treatment that he's rightly complaining about, but about that particular single episode it is quite clear - if you're given a lawful order to not hang around i.e., cross the street; for whatever technically valid reason (and not disturbing 911 ops == not hanging around == not only a technicaly valid, but a very very valid reason) - then there are two options:…

Except when the order is not lawful because the person is not "interfering" in any meaningful way, that is. Police absolutely do not have carte blanche to dictate what someone must or must not do outside of specific, limited circumstances. Not that it matters, because the behavior demonstrated here and the current climate of the justice system (i.e. he-said-she-said vs a cop, you always lose) means that those limitat…

They probably take things safe as a matter of policy. Imagine that the bystander was actually a murderer who got interrupted. If they let him hang around and he managed to finish the job there would be lawsuits to kingdom come and the cops would be vilified. There is just no way to tell in a situation under pressure, so the prudent thing is to do the safe thing and remove the unknowns.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#78

Post by thefreeman » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:56 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #19

> She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. "I then walked home." should have been the next line, and I'm fairly sure the author knows it. That doesn't excuse what the officers did, but it's not "being a good Samaritan" that backfired. Being nosy is the part that didn't end well. I'm not even sure the use of force wasn't justified - even in this immensely bias…

Thank you for saying this. I don't think the author necessarily meant harm, but by constantly questioning and trying to take control of the situation ("Is that protocol", rolling over after being placed on his stomache, etc.) he was digging himself deeper and deeper in a hole.

It is also hard to take the article at face value. Literally every other sentence screams of hyperbole. Basically, he got arrested and had to spend the night in jail. He makes it sounds like he was locked in Guantanamo Bay. He didn't get sent to a "safety cell" (what he refers to as isolation) until he (by his own account) threw a temper tantrum demanding to see a doctor.

When Deputy Terry walked away muttering, “I have had enough of you,” I banged on the door repeatedly and screamed, “I want to see a doctor. I WANT TO SEE A DOCTOR.”

I don't even understand what the original accident really was. It looks like the girl fell off her bike and hit her foot on the ground. Was it really necessary to call 911 for this? I apologize if it was more serious then it appeared, but from the photo it does not look that bad.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#79

Post by pdonis » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:56 PM UTC

There is some bad advice at the end of this: recommending Lyft as an alternative to calling 911.

First of all, Lyft doesn't exist in most places; not everybody lives in San Francisco.

Second, moving people who have had an accident without proper medical knowledge and procedures and equipment can often make their condition worse. The author does say there are exceptions to his "don't call 911" rule, but he says "they are fewer than you think". Is he claiming that this particular situation was, or wasn't, one of the exceptions? If it was, then how does this situation support the rule? If it wasn't, he's taking on a lot more responsibility; sure, maybe calling Lyft "worked fine" for him when he broke his elbow, but was that because he showed good judgment or because he got lucky? Would it have "worked fine" for the people who got hurt in this scenario?

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#80

Post by dylandrop » Sun, Mar 30, 2014, 5:57 PM UTC

rburhum wrote: post #18

Sadly, I have many friends with similar stories from police departments in different places. I attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment. Add to this the types of personalities that are attrac…

Also the OP mentioned something about not being told his Miranda rights -- keep in mind the police only have to tell you your rights if you're being interrogated.

If they're trying to haul your friend off for something, the best thing you can do is say nothing about it, sadly. Otherwise you'll be brought in for obstruction of justice which will likely be deemed a misdemeanor (as opposed to an infraction, which is sorta bad news for you).