Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#221

Post by theossuary » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 12:21 AM UTC

ncmncm wrote: post #176

maybelsyrup wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But nothing here will change. It's hard but it's important to keep faith, and to keep working to change people's minds about police. Even your comment can make a difference: a place like HN is full of intelligent people who generally come here fairly open minded. Maybe your comment - the top one right now - can open someone's eyes to what cops really are. Stay in the fight!

What would be a reasonable outcome? Firing all of the current PD staff seems like a great first step. Trick is, do you hire more in their place, and how do you pick them?

The current argument is to slowly defund them and move that money to alternative services and police with a new culture not beholden to the current one. Many officers can move over, but slowly so the new culture doesn't get lost to the old one. Same way you modernize a company.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#222

Post by kube-system » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 12:25 AM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #210

kube-system wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even for negligent manslaughter, that would require a "specific duty" to act, which police officers do not have towards individuals unless there is a special prior arrangement in place.

Not if they prevented parents or someone else from entering who could have saved lives. It would be hard for them to argue they don't have a specific duty but can prevent other people from fulfilling that duty.

There isn’t much of an argument to be made about that at all.

“Specific duty” has an established legal meaning here. It means that the police have already established some agreement to protect an individual beyond what they normally do for the general public. That’s clearly not applicable to this situation.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#223

Post by kube-system » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #129

kube-system wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just unreasonable. Humans have a natural desire to preserve their own lives. First responders aren't any different. The idea that first responders are superheros is a fallacious trope. The vast majority of police never use their gun over their entire career.

There are many, many stories of individuals putting themselves in danger and in cases dying to protect others. Just the one that came to mind while reading about this sad story, done by a bunch of teens saving their fellow school members. https://westdene1985.co.za/reports/the-survivors/ " >>Koen, Petrus Lucas received the Wolraad Woltemade award posthumously. The 17-year-old drowned after rescuing his cousin and fiv…

I'm sure there's a constant stream of similar stories every day.

Out of the 700,000 police officers in the US, there are undoubtably hundreds, maybe thousands, of them that would voluntarily sacrifice their life to save others. The other 99.9+% of them do as much as they can and but still want to go home to their own children.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#224

Post by susiecambria » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 2:10 AM UTC

Knowing a lot of police officers and having worked with them for years to address gangs/gang violence among other things, I have to say that painting all law enforcement with one brush is not helpful or useful.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#225

Post by monocasa » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 2:48 AM UTC

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #199

ncmncm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be a reasonable outcome? Firing all of the current PD staff seems like a great first step. Trick is, do you hire more in their place, and how do you pick them?

No one seems willing to say it out loud, but the reason we can't fire all the police at once is that they will retaliate by looting and killing civilians. This was one of the mistakes the US made after invading iraq, and also a problem the roman empire kept running into in its later years.

You can see for another example, San Fran's 1975 police riots, where the police went on strike, started assaulting both random members of the public as well as anyone from the courts trying to inform them of the court order that they needed to return to work, then left a bomb on the mayor's lawn that had a sign saying "don't threaten us" before it was detonated. All because of a push for integration that meant that a white cop's partner had a chance of being black.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#226

Post by everforward » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 3:07 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #118

daenz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why aren't [non-lethal weapons] ever suggested They are suggested. Many people carry mace/pepper spray. Tasers are finicky and require a fortunate prong placement in the attacker, and the attacker to not be wearing thick clothing, or it just doesn't work. Stun guns require you to be upclose and personal with the attacker. If you're a smaller/weaker person, this is extremely risky. Most non-lethal weapons are for you…

Makes me wonder why we haven't seen more advancements in this space in the last few decades, especially with the U.S. military overseeing multiple occupations where sublethal weaponry would've been helpful. No startups trying to invent sci-fi stun guns at all? Years ago I once made a joke that Tesla could pivot into that by inventing a "lightning gun." Given Musk's descent into attention-grabbing memelordom, I'm surp…

It's very hard to create a force that will incapacitate someone without a substantial risk of killing them.

Sufficient blunt force to some area to stun someone will kill them if it hits elsewhere.

Tolerances for electricity are different between people (Tasers do kill people).

Mace and pepperballs don't fully incapacitate someone.

Lightning guns (or really any directed energy weapon) have problems with exponential decay.

Tranquilizer guns might work, although I don't know how wide the dosing range is.

It's a hard problem. People still die from anesthesia, which is basically trying to keep someone incapacitated in a very controlled setting.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#227

Post by jmpman » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

threatofrain wrote: post #139

jmpman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would run on bankrupting the entire city before paying one dime on the police officer’s pensions

Will the bankruptcy court then seize the city's assets and prioritize creditors?

A city sponsored whole hog BBQ in the town center until the town burns through all assets.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#228

Post by jmpman » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

manquer wrote: post #201

Apocryphon wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were talking about taking the police to task for cowardice or incompetence, not running for gun control.

I misread that, the point is still the same though, Police reformation[1] is even more murky in terms of support than gun control, proposals for changing qualified immunity, national background check for officers, privatization, use of force , no knock warrants have gone nowhere for the most part. [1] What defund the police really is or should be about

A police force of cowards? Texans will vote to get rid of them.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#229

Post by ncmncm » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 3:28 AM UTC

theossuary wrote: post #221

ncmncm wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be a reasonable outcome? Firing all of the current PD staff seems like a great first step. Trick is, do you hire more in their place, and how do you pick them?

The current argument is to slowly defund them and move that money to alternative services and police with a new culture not beholden to the current one. Many officers can move over, but slowly so the new culture doesn't get lost to the old one. Same way you modernize a company.

Why slowly? Firing everybody in any sort of leadership position would reduce their funding load by a substantial amount.

Re: Texas police want uvalde bodycam footage suppressed

#230

Post by throwaway193948 » Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 5:17 AM UTC

jjav wrote: post #140

Animats wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging in against someone with an AR-15 and some cover is suicide. It's hard to fault the cops on this one. The 2012 Florida nightclub shooting was a roughly comparable situation - barricaded shooter, substantial firepower, hostage situation.[1] It took three hours to stop that guy, and the cops had to punch a hole in a wall with explosives and an armored vehicle. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_nightclub…

> Charging in against someone with an AR-15 and some cover is suicide. If so, that is a clear cut case for banning it completely.

only the police are competent and trustworthy enough for these weapons?