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CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

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Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#201

Post by maxerickson »

EGreg wrote: post #197
maxerickson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, really. The presence of vast numbers of firearms in the country isn't the relevant statistic, it's the frequency with which police face situations requiring the use of their firearm. The latter barely happens. Are US police at a relatively much higher risk of encountering an armed suspect than police in countries with less firearms? Hell yes! Is that rate of encounters "high". Nope.

It's not about whether it is "high". When you multiply the probability of the suspect shooting you by the cost of getting shot, the cost of acting nice all the time is high. Therefore, according to the statement you yourself agreed with, that cost is "relatively much higher" in the USA.

Perhaps we disagree about what "good statistical basis" is, especially the "good" part.

I don't think minuscule incremental improvements to officer safety justify assuming every encounter will escalate.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#202

Post by throwaway76543 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #178
throwaway76543 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a public space, no. You have no right to restrict others from observing or recording. It is not "your" business, according to the law. It's an event occurring in public and is everybody's business.

I guess it begs the question, is this a decent thing to do to someone? I don't think so. Let people sort their business out themselves.

Whether or not it's decent isn't at issue. The issue is the arrest.

There's quite a bit of indecent, perfectly legal activity which will often result in illegal abuse of authority. For example: Standing on a street corner yelling "cops are pigs, fuck the police" is both somewhat indecent and entirely legal and well protected by the first amendment.

Engage in such behavior and there are good odds you will become the subject of an illegal abuse of power.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#203

Post by ascendantlogic »

IslaDeEncanta wrote: post #134
stinkytaco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely think you should be able to record the police. But following them around is potentially unsafe for everyone involved. It's also a good way to harass good people out of the profession (the worse a job is, the more you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill it). In addition, it absolutely can be a misdemeanor to harass people, government employee or not. No one deserves to be insulted. The problem…

How is following police unsafe for everyone involved?

I feel like in this case, if this person is in fact a "cop chaser", the issue is that they follow the police around and essentially harass them. It's one thing to be off minding your own business, it's another to make a hobby or career out of going out of your way to swear at cops and try to record them responding in a negative manner. YMMV.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#204

Post by s73ver »

simonh wrote: post #139
ithought wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why shouldn't they? Police departments and city officials across the US routinely lie, obsfucate and remove any sense of accountability for police officers who commit crimes or make mistakes. Look at the case of the murder of Laquan McDonald in Chicago. The lying and stonewalling is a common occurrence. It's not just a few bad apples, it's a bad system that promotes escalation and grants power without accountabil…

>And why shouldn't they? Because one person (cop or not, doesn't matter) breaking the law over here doesn't in any way justify unreasonable harassment of another person (cop or not) over there? Let me put it another way, how is this behavior intended to improve policing in America, and do you think it has a chance of doing so?

Given the complacency cops have toward the indiscretions of other cops, I can't agree with that. Perhaps if the good cops worked harder to root out the bad cops, instead of hiding behind the thin blue line, I'd agree.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#205

Post by JshWright »

codezero wrote: post #150
pnathan wrote: post #132

Interesting how the prevailing mood on HN is very much pro-cop. Kind of surprising for a hacker forum. You don't really see what a system is made of until you stress it: filming police is one way to stress the LEO system. It's an unfortunate reality that it often does not produce good results.

I think this is generally because of the audience here – I know there's a solid international contingency, but the US one is likely biased by privilege and hasn't experienced police corruption/harassment first hand like lots of less privileged people have, so they assume bad cops are an outlier and not part of an institution which props them up. I was definitely one of those people until recently, and it unfortunatel…

Have you watched the linked videos?

I have gone on at length about the issues with our militarized police agencies in other threads. We have turned cops into soldiers, and soldiers need an enemy, which fosters an 'us vs them' attitude. It is a major issue (one of several) that certainly needs to be addressed.

These 'CopChaser' folks are only looking to antagonize. Rather than improving the situation, they are feeding in to the "us vs them" mindset (despite that, in most of their interactions, they are the ones who come away looking like jerks (while patting themselves on the back the whole time)).

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#206

Post by s73ver »

ithought wrote: post #118
sandworm101 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a mindset amongst many that police should never stop, question or even talk to people without some level of suspecion of wrongdoing. They see most any checkpoint as a threat to basic libery. Such "chasers", rather than the silent watchers who dont scream at officers, are extreemists who take laws and constitutional constructions far to literally.

It's called probable cause and it's recognized by the courts in any other police interaction except for checkpoints. And it's backed by the 4th Amendment, which is neither a law nor a rule. It's an acknowledgment of an innate natural right that all human beings have which includes the right to be left alone except when there's reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

Except there are limits to what constitutes Probable Cause. A cop still needs to demonstrate that there was reason to believe they had Probable Cause, and things like a person's skin color don't factor into it.

I threw the thing in about skin color not because I have any reason to believe you are racist, but because we are talking about cops, who in many areas have been shown to be quite racist, and have been shown to pull persons of color over far more than white people.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#207

Post by NotSammyHagar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #108
lohengramm wrote: post #81

Seems like the guy calls himself a "copchaser" and is used to actuallly chase police officers, annoyingly record their action and make sure to insult them while teaching them a lesson about how to do their job. And he calls all that "standing his ground". I am sure police officers can be jerks or even completely criminals, but this guy really seems to be crossing the line of common sense. Source: the YT channel himse…

There is a mindset amongst many that police should never stop, question or even talk to people without some level of suspecion of wrongdoing. They see most any checkpoint as a threat to basic libery. Such "chasers", rather than the silent watchers who dont scream at officers, are extreemists who take laws and constitutional constructions far to literally.

I don't think we should have checkpoints, ever, unless perhaps there is an imminent thread you are trying to stop, like a felon racing away in the car and you know she's there. In my state, Washington, I have never seen a police checkpoint. Somehow we have managed to survive up to this point

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#208

Post by JshWright »

scott_karana wrote: post #177
crispyambulance wrote: post #167

I've seen this stuff before. Police doing their job on the street trying to keep order in potentially volatile situations and some fool with a camera insinuating himself into the mess who wants to start an ad-hoc high-school forensics debate about police power. Bad idea.

If the "fool" is obviously in the wrong, it's in the officers' best interests not to escalate the situation, or let their egos get involved, and subsequently shoot themselves in the foot. Much better to deal with it as calmly and professionally as possible. The worst thing you can do around a heckler is react. ;)

Go watch the first couple videos in the YouTube playlist in this blog post.

The cop is calm and professional, despite the antagonizing behavior of the "CopChasers".

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#209

Post by s73ver »

swsieber wrote: post #44
sambull wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guy videotaping from his garage. [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/dad-im-shot-man-...

To be fair, it probably looked like a gun from a distance. The police were in the neighborhood confronting somebody with a machine gun - not smart to take an action that looks like pointing a gun in a type of situation where one side has decided they need machine guns . It's not to excuse the behavior of the police..., but if you're pointing something at the police from across the street, it's hard to see the profile…

No. That is not fair at all.

Re: CEO of ThinkPenguin, Inc arrested for filming police

#210

Post by s73ver »

praneshp wrote: post #58
ItendToDisagree wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shoot first! Ask questions later! mirite?!

Absolutely yes, in this case. I'd prefer the officers went home to their families. If you want to go around pointing your phone at everything, you need to stop and think about the consequences.

Absolutely not. We hold cops to a higher standard. And I would have liked this guy to have gone home to his family.
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