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Good Samaritan Backfire

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Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#11
post #6

Does anyone have a summary?

TLDR: Guy calls 911 to report someone else's bicycle accident. When the cops turned up they decide to rough him up and stick him in solitary confinement over night. He reports doing nothing that could reasonably justify this.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#12
post #7

How does "Hello Sir," imply that "Oh yeah, he’s going to be a problem."?

From the perspective of the officer that had put him in that situation, ignoring the question she just asked and instead addressing the other officer made that implication.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#13

Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it. We should continued to do what we can to minimize it and should pay attention to stories like this one. This story invokes emotion but even after he released all the documents it still doesn't ring true. Part of it is the language used and the overly cautious…

Police brutality will never go away unless the the police themselves hold officers accountable for such actions. Sadly, they just don't, or give them a slap on the wrist when they cross the line.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#14
post #8

The HN lens has certainly been showing the US police force in a bad light over the last year or so. What are the origins of this strange behaviour? Why is force regularly used against people that verbally query the police? Even the army is trained to use dialogue where possible. It does sound like cameras will help but surely good and regular training programs should encourage good engagement with citizens.

Possibly something to do with arrest quotas?

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#15
post #7

How does "Hello Sir," imply that "Oh yeah, he’s going to be a problem."?

When cop 1 says to cop 2 "I think he's going to be a problem" cop 2 probably says "oh yeah, he's going to be a problem" regardless of what the suspect says.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#16

Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it. We should continued to do what we can to minimize it and should pay attention to stories like this one. This story invokes emotion but even after he released all the documents it still doesn't ring true. Part of it is the language used and the overly cautious…

Yeah, this guy comes off as really smug and obnoxious in his own words . I have no doubt the police overreacted and acted unjustly, but I also think there's more to this story than we're getting. Is there a lawsuit pending? What's the cops' account of these events?

The police report is now posted in the story (it wasn't there when this was posted a few weeks ago after the incident).

It sounds like the cops told him to leave (aka cross the street) and he didn't, so they pushed him down and cuffed him for refusing to leave. Sounds like excessive force to me, and wtf @ arresting him and putting him in jail for that.

But really, it sounds like the whole thing could have been avoided if he just walked a ways away from the scene and let everyone do their job. Why make a big deal out of being told to cross the street? That's the part that smells funny to me.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#17

Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it. We should continued to do what we can to minimize it and should pay attention to stories like this one. This story invokes emotion but even after he released all the documents it still doesn't ring true. Part of it is the language used and the overly cautious…

Yeah, this guy comes off as really smug and obnoxious in his own words . I have no doubt the police overreacted and acted unjustly, but I also think there's more to this story than we're getting. Is there a lawsuit pending? What's the cops' account of these events?

The cops' account is in the police report: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779439/police_report_ann...

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#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 attracted to this line of work, and things start getting a bit more clear.

I am not trying to justify or even imply that it is correct behavior from the police or that "all police officers are [x] or [y]", but from direct and indirect experience this story doesn't fully surprise me ( I don't think it is right though).

I don't think the conclusions at the end of the blog post are correct though. Not calling 911 or even using lyft to go to the hospital seems like bad rules that are imposed to avoid interacting with the police. A better rule of thumb is to just minimize your dialogue with the police to the bare minimum and keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. All my friends that have experienced something like this is because they made a smart ass comment in an situation prior to them knowing how fast these things can go downhill.

Re: Good Samaritan Backfire

#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 biased account, he mentions being told to back away by the officers. What are they supposed to do when you ignore them?

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