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What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

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Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#11

Post by rdl »

chimeracoder wrote: post #7

> “Is that a Muslim or Hipster beard?” by a crew of three NYPD officers in Times Square. I'm very curious to hear the full story behind this one. On a separate note - I used to work in Chelsea[0]. Two or three days of the week, as I was leaving the subway, I would see NYPD questioning and/or frisking a young, black man or women. I saw this happen for months, and never once was the person being questioned/frisked whit…

I believe it was specifically that he responded with "you can't fucking ask me that" which sent things down the bad path. They shouldn't have asked him at all (but were probably bored?), but "you can't X" to a cop is usually going to provoke them.

Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#12

Post by cup »

This has been the third article on HN recently about the police. Historically it has been minority groups that only see this side of police activity. Now that upper middle class white individuals have experienced it though Its interesting to read the comments people are leaving.

For the record: I believe his advice is terrible for any person of lower socio economic background and especially for a person of colour. The number 1 rule when interacting with police should be you have no rights. Only when you're safely away from that policemen are your rights returned. Countless victims of police brutality can attest to that.

Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#13

Post by chimeracoder »

rdl wrote: post #11
chimeracoder wrote: post #7

> “Is that a Muslim or Hipster beard?” by a crew of three NYPD officers in Times Square. I'm very curious to hear the full story behind this one. On a separate note - I used to work in Chelsea[0]. Two or three days of the week, as I was leaving the subway, I would see NYPD questioning and/or frisking a young, black man or women. I saw this happen for months, and never once was the person being questioned/frisked whit…

I believe it was specifically that he responded with "you can't fucking ask me that" which sent things down the bad path. They shouldn't have asked him at all (but were probably bored?), but "you can't X" to a cop is usually going to provoke them.

I was referring more to what led up to that - how they accosted him, etc.

(Also, what was going through their heads when they said this - not that we'll ever know, of course).

Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#15

Post by [deleted] »

chimeracoder wrote: post #7

> “Is that a Muslim or Hipster beard?” by a crew of three NYPD officers in Times Square. I'm very curious to hear the full story behind this one. On a separate note - I used to work in Chelsea[0]. Two or three days of the week, as I was leaving the subway, I would see NYPD questioning and/or frisking a young, black man or women. I saw this happen for months, and never once was the person being questioned/frisked whit…

[deleted]

Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#16

Post by Glyptodon »

harryh wrote: post #9
rdl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NYPD is 10x too big. NYC is really a special case of infinite budget, powerful union, and external events (1970s/1980s crime wave, followed by 9/11) to justify it. Other places have too few (Oakland PD should be at least 2x and really 5x what it has). The fundamental problem is poor places have less budget and also higher need for policing. Various transit agencies, universities, etc. should probably not operate thei…

It looks like NYC has ~40 police officers per 10k people(1). If you cut that by 90% to ~4 per 10k then NYC would have, by far, the smallest per capita police force for any American city. So really you're asserting that police forces are too large almost everywhere in the US? EDIT: ~4 officers per 10k would also be lower than essentially any other country in the world(2). 1. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-ju…

But how many do they have per square mile?

Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#17

Post by harryh »

Glyptodon wrote: post #16
harryh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like NYC has ~40 police officers per 10k people(1). If you cut that by 90% to ~4 per 10k then NYC would have, by far, the smallest per capita police force for any American city. So really you're asserting that police forces are too large almost everywhere in the US? EDIT: ~4 officers per 10k would also be lower than essentially any other country in the world(2). 1. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-ju…

But how many do they have per square mile?

35k officers / 468 square miles ~= 75 officers per square mile.

Re: What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

#18

Post by [deleted] »

rdl wrote: post #11
chimeracoder wrote: post #7

> “Is that a Muslim or Hipster beard?” by a crew of three NYPD officers in Times Square. I'm very curious to hear the full story behind this one. On a separate note - I used to work in Chelsea[0]. Two or three days of the week, as I was leaving the subway, I would see NYPD questioning and/or frisking a young, black man or women. I saw this happen for months, and never once was the person being questioned/frisked whit…

I believe it was specifically that he responded with "you can't fucking ask me that" which sent things down the bad path. They shouldn't have asked him at all (but were probably bored?), but "you can't X" to a cop is usually going to provoke them.

[deleted]
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