How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#161

Post by maratd » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

When a cop gives you instructions to leave, you leave. Not because the cop is right, but because this shit happens. And if you're naive enough to think that this shit won't happen to you, try not complying with a cop's instructions. Doesn't matter where in the US you happen to be. It's that simple.

Look, here's a simple rule. In every interaction with the police, ask if you can leave. If you can, count your lucky stars and leave. If you can't leave, determine if you can get out of the interaction with a ticket or a summons. If you can, work toward that outcome. Regardless, don't tell them your life story. Keep it brief and if they start asking about things that relate to you, exercise your constitutional right to shut up.

Cops are not your friends. Their job is to enforce order. Not to be your best bud.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#162

Post by vacri » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

frandroid wrote: post #45

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really easy to focus on the bad ones, but good cops exist whether you know it or not.

Would you eat apples from a bag if there was a chance that 50% of them were poisonous? 25%? 10%? 1%?

There are other bags of food. There aren't other police forces. If the only food you had for the next, say, term of office was that bag of apples, you'd be tucking into it in short order rather than starve.

And to be a pedant, green/unripe apples are poisonous. They make you feel unwell; they just don't maim or kill you. Plenty of people would tuck into a bag of apples where some of them were still not yet ripe.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#163

Post by pjg » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

Gorbzel wrote: post #75

> At this point, I’m left no choice but to present this case to the investigative court of public opinion, be it brave or foolish. Um, no, you can leave it to an actual court of law by finding a good attorney and filing a civil complaint. But until you find competent representation, here's a piece of advice: for the love of god and your own well-being, learn to STFU. The story makes it clear OP has no idea when to st…

Did you even pause to ponder that OP could've been you ? What if everything he says is indeed true. And he has presented a bunch of facts that point in his favor. If you would've been arrested to simply calling 911 and trying to help - at 1am - how would you feel ? Oh and about suing the Police - you ever tried it ? I'm assuming you have a $50K minimum retainer and a good lawyer ready ?

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#164

Post by vanattab » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:34 PM UTC

>"I painstakingly retrieved all possible documentation, including: the police report, transcript of radio chatter, audio of my 911 call, security footage from Radius restaurant"

So post it! The only thing he linked to is the audio of the 911 call. Why not post the other evidence. I have a feeling there is more to the story. While I am sure there are many cops on "power trips" most cops I have meet (including the ones that arrested me) have been pretty decent people.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#165

Post by pbreit » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:34 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #78

This happened to me last January in Seal Beach, CA. Only I was not courageous enough to step forward and be heard - there is a certain shame in being put in jail, even if you didn't do anything wrong. The shame is really on the officers, and the system the enables them to abuse the citizens who might even be operating under the delusion that the police are there to protect and serve, rather than bully, escalate, and…

Interesting that even after reading all or most of the account you still refer to the victim as "she". For awhile, I also thought the victim as a "she" and I'm wondering if that clouded the account at all or there was any purpose to including the top picture.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#166

Post by morsch » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:34 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #88

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I und…

"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..."

It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave?

And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you?

I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me.

The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything.

Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#167

Post by angersock » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #38

The narrative is totally not credible. There are gaps where its obvious that the author did something to elicit a reaction, but what that was is omitted from the story. My guess would be that the author was being a smart ass, and given the drinking more belligerent than he recalls in retrospect. No, the cops shouldn't have roughed him up just for being a pompous asshole,[1] but the author should tell the whole story.…

Because drunks don't deserve equal protection under (and from) the law, especially when phoning in an accident, amirite?

C'mon, dude.

Note to self: don't pitch to cops at scene of accident.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#168

Post by baddox » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

gamache wrote: post #9

carbocation wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP definitely needs to sue the city, as well as the aggressors personally. I upvoted this comment for that; it seems like a prudent step to take. > the only good cop is a dead cop And then I got here and wish I could undo. I don't understand why you would say such a thing. That's just not right.

That's the attitude police departments prop up and justify every time they close ranks around officers who commit this kind of misconduct, instead of feeding the bad cops to the dogs and maintaining high standards of public service. Is the attitude morally right? Immaterial.

Of course police departments do this. Oppressive groups use public disdain of the oppressive groups to justify intensifying their oppression. That doesn't mean the disdain isn't justified.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#169

Post by lostcolony » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #80

forrestthewoods wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If good cops don't publicly condemn this type of behavior then they are by definition not a good cop.

Who says that they don't? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops? As typical of somebody posting a throwaway comment to an online forum, I'm not sure that you've taken everything into account when you make such a broad statement.

Every good cop who is managing to effectively stop a bad cop, means yet another bad cop.

That is, we're hearing about bad cops who aren't being stopped by good ones. A lot. "Well, the good ones are out there!"; they're either ineffective, or effective, in which case the number of bad cops is even higher than we hear about. Neither of those is particularly placating.

Re: How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

#170

Post by pbreit » Thu, Feb 13, 2014, 10:35 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #88

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I und…

Being self-proclamably rational is perhaps the worst attribute to reveal when dealing with this type of situation.