Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams • Hacker News Board

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#161

Post by hvdfhbj » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #157

hvdfhbj wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the "sanewashed" version of the slogan, yes. Ultimately it's classic motte-and-bailey, a slogan that means entirely different things depending on whether you're playing attack or defence at any given time.

If you're aware there are multiple interpretations of the slogan, why not assume good faith, and debate the "sane" meaning of the phrase? Most people are centrists, so the "insane" interpretations are never going to get any sort of audience any way. Debating the "insane" interpretation is easy - a cheap win.

While in general I agree with the idea of debating the strongest version of your opponent's ideas, I think it's okay to call out a clear motte-and-bailey when you see one, and require the other team to come back with a sensibly-phrased proposition to debate.

If you tell me "We should kill all the Jews, and by 'Kill all the Jews' obviously I mean that we should increase capital gains tax by two percent" then I'm not going to debate capital gains tax with you, I'm going to tell you to go away and come back when you stop using words in such a deliberately ridiculous way.

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#162

Post by drdeca » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 5:41 AM UTC

syshum wrote: post #64

seibelj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of insurance is they have to pay for it personally. If the government pays for insurance and also pays for penalties, we are in the same situation we are today.

Unions would never allow that, and I highly doubt people on HN will be in support for weakening Public employee unions which I think should be completely abolished //side note, FDR agreed.... which is ironic given that most people that support Public Employee unions think we need a new new deal FDR style

why [strikethrough]would[/strikethrough] [edit:do] you think people here would oppose weakening (or abolishing) police unions?

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#163

Post by zingplex » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

cumwolf wrote: post #158

zingplex wrote: post #71

I'm stunned that people are having a hard time getting accountability from a police department known for having a “black site” where they routinely tortured suspects. If only there was some sort of sign that these people can't be trusted.

I think there's so many signs they can't be trusted but I personally often find people don't believe it to be systemic or institutional and therefore it doesn't impact their overall opinion. Homan Square is a well known police black site but it still exists today despite so many protests

I've long been advocating prison abolition, a component of which is police abolition. When discussing such matters I often will ask people what measurable line in the sand must be crossed for them to believe sweeping systemic change is necessary. My anecdotal findings are that either people will set the bar absurdly high, meaning that they believe the only circumstance that requires system change is an active mass extermination program targeting a majority of the population or they will place the bar far below where we currently are now but then refuse to listen to any evidence that we have actually far surpassed that threshold, usually presenting an endless stream of weak, easily refuted arguments.

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#164

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #118

ridaj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving it up to local voters makes it sound like it's ok for a police dept to misbehave, eg harass minorities or evade accountability, as long as the majority voters in that city/county are ok with it. I think that's a problem and that going to a couple levels in governance (state or federal) makes total sense given the systematic nature of some of the problems.

> Leaving it up to local voters makes it sound like it's ok for a police dept to misbehave, eg harass minorities or evade accountability, as long as the majority voters in that city/county are ok with it. In the extremely unlikely event that a majority are ok with it, yes, that would be correct as far as local laws are concerned. That's what "freedom" means: it means people are free to make mistakes. Note, however, t…

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Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#165

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #41

pydry wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America desperately needs a national internal affairs department with an entirely separate reporting line whose boss answers directly to the president (or at least state governors). They could purchase, maintain the body cameras, collect and handle the footage and be trusted. If Biden is looking to score some points this would be a good way.

No. This is not a national government problem. This is a local government problem. The solution is for citizens of those cities and counties to hold their local governments accountable and vote them out of office if they don't fix the problem. The last thing we need is more big government, one-size-fits-none policies dictated from above. We need more local people solving their own local problems. It would also help i…

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Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#166

Post by kjeetgill » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 7:16 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #112

backtoyoujim wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we need is for them to have to carry personally paid malpractice insurance that is tied to their access to qualified immunity. And if their camera is off they lose their insurance policy. Then no more access to qualified immunity. Being police is a luxury not a right.

> personally paid malpractice insurance Money is fungible. Even if the union doesn’t negotiate this insurance on a group level, passing along the premium could be quite easily baked into contract negotiations.

The difference is that insurance companies can choose not to insure someone. Reputation/history isn't fungible. Presumably they have skin in the game to have actuaries figure out who doesn't get to be an officer.

Not saying it's a good scheme just that there's more at play than just money.

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#167

Post by amf12 » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 8:45 AM UTC

davidf560 wrote: post #30

wombatmobile wrote: post #9

> The cameras are relatively simple to operate. They constantly record everything in front of them, but only save 30 seconds of video at a time. To record an entire incident, the officer must double press the “event” button in the center of the camera. So non-compliance is the default. And compliance failure is as easy as an incorrect double-press that fails to start recording. Is there even any feedback that the dou…

> Why not buffer 5 hours by default? Because then you end up with recordings of things that you shouldn't have, like the officer using the restroom or a victim who has asked not to be recorded. Also, several minutes of buffer fits nicely in RAM. 5 hours would require a lot more RAM (making devices more expensive and thus harder to get deployed) or would require it to be written to flash disk which introduces new tech…

> Because then you end up with recordings of things that you shouldn't have, like the officer using the restroom or a victim who has asked not to be recorded

Easily solvable. At a single press of a button they can temporarily turn off the camera for 15 minutes at a time. At a double press it is turned off for 30 minutes.

Now if a cop says the camera was turned off while doing official business, it was turned off on purpose and they no longer have an "excuse" that they forgot to turn it on.

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#168

Post by f-securus » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #149

GavinMcG wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not killing people who aren't a threat is about the best one-size-fits-all policy I can imagine.

Sure, if you handwave away the real problem, which is how cops make the "aren't a threat" judgment in the heat of a situation, knowing that if they judge wrong they could end up dead. Making that judgment is highly situational, and how cops should judge individual situations is highly dependent on the locality; there simply is no one-size-fits-all set of rules you can give cops that will work.

Police officer isn’t even top 10 dangerous job in this country. I hate when people use that excuse for them flagrantly shooting somebody or their pet. Police training is the first place we can improve. Changing their mentality from a warrior to a guardian also does wonders in lowering use of force. There are real world solutions to this problem but almost half the country think those who got shot by police probably deserved it. Almost the same crowd protests wearing masks as stepping on their liberties. Absolutely illogical.

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#169

Post by jjk166 » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

bigbubba wrote: post #66

yongjik wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying instruments for public high school bands is a local problem. Cops killing citizens in broad daylight and not facing consequences is not a local problem, not any more than 9/11 was a local terrorism problem for residents of New York and Washington DC. "Let local residents handle it" was how America went through Jim Crow laws.

When a locally elected prosecutor refuses to prosecute local cops, that seems at least somewhat like a local problem. Also, it seems strange to me that there is so little mention of the role prosecutors play in police misconduct. Mayors and city councils too, who are generally responsible for nominating police chiefs (opposed to sheriffs, who are elected.) Cynically, I think a lot of prosecutors and local politicians…

Bad cops are a symptom

Bad officials unwilling to prosecute bad cops is a second symptom

Apathetic electorates electing bad officials unwilling to prosecute bad cops is a third symptom

Municipalities spread all around the country are suffering from the same combination of symptoms. Whether that suggests one national problem or the same local problem in replicate is a question of semantics.

Re: Lax oversight allows Chicago police to avoid turning on their body cams

#170

Post by pydry » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #119

pydry wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely a national problem. Moreover corrupt cops thrive because of close knit relationships between local DAs, local law enforcement, local judges and local politicians. A national wrecking ball is needed to break these toxic corrupt relationships and a strong, national institution is needed to create the institutional inertia against systemic police corruption from arising again. You can't vote corruptio…

> You can't vote corruption out of office. It has to be rooted out from outside In other words, if the corruption is not just particular localities, but infects the national government as well, then we're all screwed?

There is at least more visibility at the higher levels but in general, yeah. Most 3rd world countries with serious endemic corruption get stuck with it.