In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me • Hacker News Board

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#171

Post by Programmatic » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 1:46 AM UTC

Evolved wrote: post #151

ghufran_syed wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One example where the U.S. seems to be getting it right is high-speed chases" If true, that may be because they are usually video recorded by news channels. If a civilian is injured during the chase, there's lots of dramatic footage for the prosecution lawyer to show the jury, before asking the officers in charge to answer under oath why they made the decisions they made. Sounds like pretty strong evidence in favor…

"One example where the U.S. seems to be getting it right is high-speed chases" If true, that may be because they are usually video recorded by news channels. If a civilian is injured during the chase, there's lots of dramatic footage for the prosecution lawyer to show the jury, before asking the officers in charge to answer under oath why they made the decisions they made. Sounds like pretty strong evidence in favor…

All it takes is a landmark case of cop vs. civilian where the camera legitimately broke but the cop was in the right yet cannot prove it and then their life is ruined if the case is automatically decided in the civilian's favor.

I think there's a middle ground somewhere between "toss the case because the bodycam footage went missing" and "lock up the cop and throw away the key"

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#172

Post by estava » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

javert wrote: post #164

maxxxxx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I did my compulsory military duty in Germany I ended up being military police. We had a lot of interactions with American MPs due to the US military being stationed there. We always joked about how they behaved like movie action heroes, always ready to use force. We were trained to avoid confrontation at almost any price. When in doubt, retreat. I guess it's a different view on law "enforcement".

US is a third world country with a first-world layer on top. A more concrete difference is that there are a lot of people in the US with guns and bad attitudes. (A lot of Americans don't know it because the layers don't mix much.) So, US cops are right to have a different basic stance than German cops. That is not to defend the actions described in the news article. And there certainly is a big problem with militariz…

Exploiting the third world part of America is also good for business.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#173

Post by yesbabyyes » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 1:47 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #95

tajen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean for us Europeans, who still have, for the moment, more lenient police? Should we expect that America uprises against their own police? Draw a Fergusson every 3 months? Becomes either less economically stable or more economically agressive? Should we expect that US' political influence requires us to step up our police, the same way France escalated an NSA-style law six months ago? It worries me that…

> Draw a Fergusson every 3 months? The majority of what you have been told by your media are "narrative" stories that are removed of all actual facts and details (to fit the narrative). Its pure politics. For example, in the Ferguson case, you where told that the police officer (Darren Wilson) saw Michael Brown, and for whatever reason, just murdered him on the spot, by shooting him through the back of his head - all…

The majority of what you have been told by your media are "narrative" stories that are removed of all actual facts and details (to fit the narrative). Its pure politics.

What's the narrative? To what end?

And that's still leaving allot out.

You were there, I presume? I mean, obviously _any_ recollection of a complex course of events will leave out a lot, but the way you phrase it makes it sound like you know more about what happened. Care to shed some light upon this?

And a watermelon soda is an ice tea

Now this is getting interesting. Do you argue that there is a widespread media cover-up to hide the fact that Mr Martin bought a certain kind of soda that might be used with cough medicine? I can't even...

And that's about 5% of the falsehood story. I could go on and on.

Am I correct in my understanding that you claim to have knowledge of lots of errors in the reporting of the killing of Trayvon Martin, but you only tell us about the watermelon vs ice tea... thing? That's weird; why not give us something more substantial, something that's, you know, actually convincing (or at least, something that is... anything)?

Cops kill a reported 500 or so people every year. Maybe twice that much in real numbers.

Yeah, no. It's 500 reported killings during the first 6 months of 2015 already. Killings by police in the US are way up during the 2000s.

You're not convincing. If anything, it sounds like you are stuck in a narrative. Please provide something more substantial from your other 95% of truth.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#174

Post by evan_ » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 1:50 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #169

evan_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with the specific product pictured, so maybe it is a soda, but if you show a can with the Arizona Ice Tea trade dress to 100 people, 99 of them will describe it as "ice tea". There's no grand conspiracy to make the world believe that it was ice tea and not soda, you have invented this. (I assume you really are passionately concerned with the difference between soda and tea and not just trying to talk…

edit: you are right, it is coming off looney. Ice tea, soda, watermelon flavored fruit punch or juice, ... the point has been made - a stereotypical-flavor juice drink is converted unanimously to "ice tea" by the media (by 10 out of 10 outlets) for the narrative's sake. For the other 95% of the story, start with the 2nd link above, to see just how ridiculous Zimmerman's character was built-up. Then check Trayvon's tw…

It isn't carbonated.

Do you see how easy it is to get trivial details wrong? Now imagine if you were actually upset about the death of a human being; it would almost seem insignificant that it was juice instead of ice tea.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#175

Post by yesbabyyes » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 1:53 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #169

evan_ wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with the specific product pictured, so maybe it is a soda, but if you show a can with the Arizona Ice Tea trade dress to 100 people, 99 of them will describe it as "ice tea". There's no grand conspiracy to make the world believe that it was ice tea and not soda, you have invented this. (I assume you really are passionately concerned with the difference between soda and tea and not just trying to talk…

edit: you are right, it is coming off looney. Ice tea, soda, watermelon flavored fruit punch or juice, ... the point has been made - a stereotypical-flavor juice drink is converted unanimously to "ice tea" by the media (by 10 out of 10 outlets) for the narrative's sake. For the other 95% of the story, start with the 2nd link above, to see just how ridiculous Zimmerman's character was built-up. Then check Trayvon's tw…

And again, as I said, that was 5% of the facts, I could go on and on.

Please do. Because right now with this soda business, with due respect, you're coming through as a little bit looney.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#176

Post by vaadu » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 1:54 AM UTC

I live in Fairfax county. It has some excellent officers but the dept is atrocious when it comes to transparency and honesty with the citizenry.

The officer involved shootings of unarmed people are consistently swept under the rug.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#177

Post by fian » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 2:07 AM UTC

rory096 wrote: post #113

Elrac wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grant part of that. But now _you_ have to tell me: How do you claim to know that no one was arrested and suffered life imprisonment? The point you seem to be missing is that you have no way of knowing! This is the "wonderful" thing about the Patriot Act: Even as an American citizen, you could be disappeared and shipped to a foreign country for torturing... and there's a good chance no one would find out, for years,…

>The border guard then escorted him to his car and made sure he did a U-turn and went back to Canada. >To their surprise, however, when they arrived at L.A. International, they were not only detained and questioned at length by U.S. authorities, but were swiftly -- after a night in the cells, naturally -- plonked back on a plane back to England, and barred from entering the United States again. I'm not sure what you…

The fact that these people were returned to their respective countries allows for them to speak of their experiences.

People who were not returned (ie disappeared) are not able to speak of their experiences, so you would never know it happened.

Note that both Canada and England are allies of the USA. What happens to questionable people who are not from allied nations?

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#178

Post by antod » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #100

ghufran_syed wrote: post #9

I sometimes find ex-military folks analogies between their wartime service and situations in civilian life rather forced, but this analysis is exactly right. I used to ask myself why the Israeli Defence Forces would risk innocent palestinian civilian lives to kill the terrorists who hide among them by using drones or airstrikes instead of the kind of techniques they would no doubt use if the terrorists were surrounde…

I .. disagree. Disclaimer: Not my native language, I might miss nuances and misinterpret things - and I certainly come from a different belief system, a different culture. For me though, this article raised important questions - but those were nearly impossibly hard to read due to the constant 'I served in Iraq' analogies. I flagged the submission for that. I don't believe that Iraq was a 'Good Idea™' and I have zero…

It seems like you did miss the main point of the Iraq angle.

The author was drawing an explicit parallel with the failed tactics and attitudes used early on in Iraq with the same tactics and attitudes now being copied by police in the US. The US military learnt it's lesson and changed its approach - he's wanting police to learn the same lesson.

He thought it worth mentioning not for bragging rights but because he'd personally experienced being both sides of a raid, as well as experiencing the relevant long term effectiveness of both sets of tactics.

I felt it was a useful insightful contrast for someone like me who lives somewhere far removed from the US, Iraq, armed police, veteran worship culture, or anything military at all.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#179

Post by cjslep » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 2:19 AM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #100

ghufran_syed wrote: post #9

I sometimes find ex-military folks analogies between their wartime service and situations in civilian life rather forced, but this analysis is exactly right. I used to ask myself why the Israeli Defence Forces would risk innocent palestinian civilian lives to kill the terrorists who hide among them by using drones or airstrikes instead of the kind of techniques they would no doubt use if the terrorists were surrounde…

I .. disagree. Disclaimer: Not my native language, I might miss nuances and misinterpret things - and I certainly come from a different belief system, a different culture. For me though, this article raised important questions - but those were nearly impossibly hard to read due to the constant 'I served in Iraq' analogies. I flagged the submission for that. I don't believe that Iraq was a 'Good Idea™' and I have zero…

> I don't believe that Iraq was a 'Good Idea™' and I have zero respect for someone that was there.

It isn't like members of the armed forces get a vote or a choice on the matter of whether they got to go to Iraq. I have coworkers that went into the National Guard to help out their home state in cases of natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, etc), but unwillingly wound up in Iraq. Blindly holding such a large group of people with zero respect because of a reason out of their control seems to toe a moral line that would make even racism seem reasonable (hence why you may draw extremely negative responses for saying this).

> For me, these analogies were, while probably important for the author, utterly distracting, annoying and disgusting. If you want to talk about the police in the USA, do that. The time served in Iraq is not relevant [...]

Then you are honestly missing the entire point of the article:

1) That the domestic police force's mode of operation is just as bad as the military force's mode of operation at its worst, and

2) The military force wizened up and changed tactics to better succeed in its larger strategy; so while the domestic police force is not currently changing, it should not be impossible for the police force to follow suit.

It seems entirely reasonable that a group of people allowed to use force on their own community would do so with more caution than a group of people using force on other/external communities. I would argue that drawing comparisons between the two is relevant and not distracting. Having someone like Alex Horton do so is insightful even if not a statistically representative sample size.

Re: In Iraq, I raided insurgents. In Virginia, the police raided me

#180

Post by koenigdavidmj » Sun, Jul 26, 2015, 2:22 AM UTC

c5karl wrote: post #130

The chief of police has posted a response: https://fcpdnews.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/a-message-from-the...

Very carefully worded. The original article never said anything about Special Weapons and Tactics, which is what the chief denied using. In fact, the whole point is that this procedure is decidedly normal.