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

#691

Post by jjoonathan » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:39 PM UTC

gcv wrote: post #570

jjoonathan wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many ways talking can help. It can help you avoid the police officer's discretionary punishments. It can help you avoid increased scrutiny that turns up something incriminating. It's less probable that it will help you avoid being punished due to a baldfaced lie on the part of the officer, since presumably the courts are good at filtering those out, but it's not impossible. Once you require the services of…

> try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes It worked quite well, thank you. I did not say a word, gave the cop my license and registration as required by law, signed my ticket, and hired a lawyer to get it thrown out later.

I'm glad it worked, but that isn't proof of much. We already know most cops aren't out to get you, the question is what to do when you face one of the stinkers.

I wish you the best of luck in the future, specifically with regard to the moods of the police officers who will try to speak with you.

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

#692

Post by loup-vaillant » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:39 PM UTC

Crake wrote: post #553

mdisraeli wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad it wasn't just me who felt like that. I'm white, middle class, and grew up in Britain as a native. But as a member of multiple minority groups, I've seen hints of this world, and it is not pretty :( The worst part of all this? First thing I did was check the author's gender and skin colour. And then I read the article. I normally work hard to be free of the prejudice of this society we are forced to live in,…

Just because you are prejudiced in favor of white people doesn't mean every other white person alive is also a racist.

There are shades of racism. At the extreme racist end, there are those who genuinely and explicitly believe that dark skin makes you a worthless scum. At the other end, there are people who feel, at a gut level, that skin colour is irrelevant. Between the two, there are people who will infer various things from skin colour, such as the propensity to crime, IQ, or whatever.

The sad fact is, a correct assessment of reality is racist to some extent. Not because of skin colour, mind you, but because of confounding factors such as income, or self-fulfilling prophecies such as racism itself. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is still there, and we can still draw inferences from them.

As for my personal assessment of the credibility of this story, I assumed the guy was white to begin with. If I believed he was black, I would have been like "of course", and marked off the story as even more credible. Because I have this stereotype in my head about police being racist. I'm now wondering to what extent this is actually true…

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

#693

Post by jjoonathan » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:45 PM UTC

antr wrote: post #661

apayan wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't recommend enough watching this video. The law professor explains why you should never speak to the police. It's 46 minutes long, but every minute is pure gold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

I find it ironic that when the cop starts talking he mentions that in the US people should be thankful because they are given a Miranda warning, because, according to him, in other parts of the world like in "Spain and Italy" cops beat up citizens. Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe. More cop BS.

> Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe.

That sounds like wishful thinking. Where exactly did you check?

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

#694

Post by unethical_ban » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:46 PM UTC

RMacy wrote: post #498

pessimizer wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a black programmer, I remember the cliche about problems and regular expressions in my head as "regular expressions are like calling the cops." That's unfair to regular expressions, though, because I actually have seen them solve a problem before. Cops improving a situation? Never seen it.

Cops are in a weird place. People don't like them until they need them. I work with a lot of cops and most of them are good (and yes they can occasionally get overreaching) but that generalization widens the divide between on-duty police officers and civilians. I would say if we treated them like I get treated being part time Military (hand shaken, dinners, etc) that they will be better people. You'll also see less o…

But I don't think the military should get the worship it does, and cops are supposed to be civilians and neighbors, not soldiers.

People don't hate on EMTs and firemen. You know why? Those people don't shoot your dog, beat you and arrest you when you look at them the wrong way.

Until there is a STANDARD of good cops throwing out bad cops and NOT facing retribution;

Until there is an established, effective and formal method of oversight and accountability for verifiable acts of police brutality and false arrest,

I will not invite any police officer to my home until I've known them for quite some time.

---

Final remark, To your comment directly: Officers need to change their behavior first. This isn't going to be resolved by people loving cops in the hopes they'll get in a better mood. 'They' need to remember they are 'us'.

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

#695

Post by einhverfr » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:48 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #505

pessimizer wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can always lie about you. Control what you have control over. If you force them to lie, maybe you can force them to lie stupidly, and that may save you some point down the line. The point is that there is no way that talking will help you. They are trying to make a case against you.

There are many ways talking can help. It can help you avoid the police officer's discretionary punishments. It can help you avoid increased scrutiny that turns up something incriminating. It's less probable that it will help you avoid being punished due to a baldfaced lie on the part of the officer, since presumably the courts are good at filtering those out, but it's not impossible. Once you require the services of…

I disagree and here is why. Even in a perfect world with perfect integrity of the police, volunteering informtion when you are the subject of an investigation is generally a bad idea.

The problem is this: "investigation" in any discipline means "finding a story that matches what I can show." This means whatever you say that matches the story will be held on to and whatever you say that doesn't match it will be easily forgotten. This is the root of confirmation bias. It's a very dangerous thing in this context.

Yes there are times to talk to the police. Give an alibi along with sources who can confirm it if that is relevant. But say as little as possible. Stick to the minimal details. The less you say, the less they are likely to grab a hold of something you said and hang you with it.

But remember: The job of the police is to arrest someone and tell a good plausible story as to why they are guilty. They are there to gather evidence. The DA is there to convince a jury. Nobody can know what really happened who wasn't there. So don't give them ideas.

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

#696

Post by esw » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:53 PM UTC

judk wrote: post #486

Lagged2Death wrote: post #51

It's high time to just make the cops wear video cameras. A whole lot of this sort of crap could just vanish.

Obama passed this law in Illinois, it launched his career to the Presidency. In jurisdictions that have this law, the cameras are amazingly unreliable. The failure rate is just huge..

Yeah, it's crazy - the battery keeps getting disconnected right before an arrest.

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

#697

Post by madaxe_again » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 1:55 PM UTC

qwerta wrote: post #605

downandout wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience there aren't many cases against government entities that attorneys will take on contingency. A friend of mine was held for nearly 2 years without bail because he was deemed a flight risk (the white collar charges he faced were eventually dropped). He spent most of that time experiencing violent and painful vomiting attacks. He was told he had an ulcer and was given ulcer medication that had no effect…

That is horrible! It sounds like story from Kazachstan or Africa. I hope your friend is better now.

Nope. In kaz, the police are corrupt, and will shake you down for a bribe, but arresting people is way too much effort. I'm far more scared of US law enforcement than I am Kazakh.

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

#698

Post by antr » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:01 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #670

antr wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that when the cop starts talking he mentions that in the US people should be thankful because they are given a Miranda warning, because, according to him, in other parts of the world like in "Spain and Italy" cops beat up citizens. Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe. More cop BS.

To be fair, as an Italian living in Spain, there have been cases in recent years where "cops beat up citizens" in both countries, mostly occurring during large rallies. Still, these occurrences are isolated cases, receive large media attention and are definitely not considered "the norm".

Don't take my comment out of context: the video refers to the context of an interrogation, questioning, stop by the police. Not a riot. The policeman follows the presentation by the lawyer regarding the 5th amendment, where it applies, and how it used, where do Miranda warning apply, etc., in line with HN link conversation. This is not a topic of riots - which is quite a different story to the OP.

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

#699

Post by madaxe_again » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:03 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #339

FD3SA wrote: post #309

This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers" and the real world. I consider myself part of the HN community because I hope for a society shaped by its ideals, but the real world is so far removed that time spent here becomes more of a therapeutic escape than anything else. I strongly recommend people study history, and understand human nature at both scientific and societal levels. There is too much…

This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers" and the real world. I consider myself part of the HN community because I hope for a society shaped by its ideals, but the real world is so far removed that time spent here becomes more of a therapeutic escape than anything else. You say that, but this ideal world is the world I live in, and have lived in all my life. You should consider moving to Europe (U…

I too live in airstrip one, the most heavily surveilled non-constitutional democracy on the planet! Great, innit?! Remember to hate the bulgmanians. We have always hated the bulgmanians.

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

#700

Post by antr » Fri, Feb 14, 2014, 2:10 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #693

antr wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that when the cop starts talking he mentions that in the US people should be thankful because they are given a Miranda warning, because, according to him, in other parts of the world like in "Spain and Italy" cops beat up citizens. Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe. More cop BS.

> Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe. That sounds like wishful thinking. Where exactly did you check?

The video refers to the context of an interrogation, questioning, stop by the police. There seems to be a constant theme in the US regarding police abuse (and I'm not talking about a scenario of a riot, etc.) during these moments – that is what I refer to when I say "Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe." Are there going to be cases of such police brutality? Sure. Is it as frequent as the cases in the US, absolutely not. Do take a look at the NPMSRP reports and compare that to any EU country.