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Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

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Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#71

Post by thaumasiotes »

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

> Why did our society make this error?

> How do we prevent making the same mistake in the future, regarding other issues?

> About what issues are we making the same mistake right now?

- Drugs are a classic victimless crime; prosecutions tend not to be motivated by someone filing a complaint. Rather, it is the responsibility of the police to detect the crime and mete out punishment as they see fit.

- Society has reward processes in place for police who identify and punish drug offenders.

Those two are sufficient for a lot of abuse. There are some aggravating circumstances:

- It's easy for the cops to prey on low social classes, because they don't report to them. The higher social classes aren't really interested in what's going on elsewhere. A doctor's kid is unlikely to be the victim of planted drugs, and so is the doctor. That's not because doctors' kids aren't using so many drugs, it's because the police aren't really supposed to deal with the higher classes at all.

I see some other commenters saying that, e.g., society is always driven (at least in significant part) by racial tensions. While I don't actually disagree, I think this is at root an issue of social class rather than race directly. Police preying on a community of white-collar professionals will be reformed.

Since these communities don't have the political power to get rid of predatory police, the police are acting without supervision. It shouldn't be surprising that they do what they feel like.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#72

Post by cryoshon »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #22
hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

Opinion: 1) Police are corrupt. Maybe not all of them, but enough of them that "police are corrupt" is true. This will always be the case. Police don't fight crime, nor prevent it. They create it. If you think this isn't so you haven't had enough exposure to them. Maybe my opinion is coloured by my experience: illegal search of person, car, and house. They ransacked my house, stole money and property from me. It took…

The police also stole more from people via asset forfeiture than actual burglars did last year. They are criminals.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#73

Post by bpchaps »

datashovel wrote: post #32

Keep the leaks coming world! The joke is that anyone who is truly qualified to run for office doesn't want the job. I hope that the more leaks like this that come out, more qualified people will realize they can't just stand by idly thinking the system will just fix itself. I imagine Snowden leaks alone have gotten far more "qualified" people engaged in civic activities than we'll ever truly comprehend, and have take…

Reminds me of Isaac Asimov's "Franchise", where multivac picks and legally requires a regular family man to run in in an "electronic election" for US president. Highly recommended short story!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchise_(short_story)

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#74

Post by doktrin »

oneJob wrote: post #39
mintplant wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once the examiner has an adequate series of charts to evaluate, he will begin the scoring process. This is done most often using a numerical scoring method which evaluates the subject's physiological responses to the Relevant and Control questions. The computer polygraph may also use an algorithm developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory or other researchers to score the examination. The…

JHU APL does tons, well primarily, highly sensitive defense contracting work. For instance, you can actually head on over right now to Linkedin and apply for their "Combat Systems Kill Chain Engineer" position. [1] Security is thus a big requirement. From Wikipedia: "APL is primarily a defense contractor. It serves as a technical resource for the Department of Defense, NASA, and other government agencies." There is a…

On a somewhat related note, the relationship between CMU's campus and SEI / CERT (another FFRDC) was somewhat strained recently in light of the recent Tor allegations.

Traditional academia and government researchers will always make for strange bedfellows.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#75

Post by ashwinaj »

hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

Well put, but I suspect large swaths of people will still be in denial since any criticism about the police (or military) is off limits. In any case, if this keeps on going the police force would be the first to be "roboticized". I even have a simple algorithm:

1. Investigate reported crime (race/gender/economic parameters are ignored) OR catch criminal red handed.

2. Create a police report and submit evidence.

3. Testify if required, go to step 1.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#76

Post by kps »

jMyles wrote: post #59
rewqfdsa wrote: post #28

> black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved Black Americans commit a wildly disproportionate amount of crime. Black men make up 1 million out of 2.3 million people in prison. 4.7% of all black men* are in prison. A black man has a 70% chance of being in prison at some point in his life. Are you suggesting the police are framing all of these people? While police…

> Downvote me all you want: it won't change the facts. I downvoted you because you are simply incorrect about the facts. Black people make up 12% of the US population, and use illicit drugs at approximately a proportionate rate. Yet, black people make up more than half of the prison population of drug offenders, and nearly two thirds of those under any form of criminal supervision for drug offenses. Why are you sayin…

I upvoted him because it's difficult to read what he wrote (and I routinely upvote grey comments). HN should decide whether a downvote means ‘I disagree’ or ‘this isn't worth reading’ — ‘I disagree therefore this isn't worth reading’ is incompatible with reasoned discussion.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#77

Post by InclinedPlane »

rewqfdsa wrote: post #28

> black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved Black Americans commit a wildly disproportionate amount of crime. Black men make up 1 million out of 2.3 million people in prison. 4.7% of all black men* are in prison. A black man has a 70% chance of being in prison at some point in his life. Are you suggesting the police are framing all of these people? While police…

> Black Americans commit a wildly disproportionate amount of crime. While police conduct exists and is deplorable, my sense as an observer is that the majority of black anti-police activism is about somehow pinning the criminality of the black community on society at large.

> While I of course condemn polite misconduct, I can understand how repeated interaction with a recalcitrant criminal element could harden and corrupt a police officer.

This right here, this is what racism looks like. This is its kernel, its essence.

Racism is fundamentally a double standard between an in group and an out group. The in-group is judged compassionately. Wrong-doing is contextualized and labelled as a mistake, an outlier, the doing of a tiny subset, uncharacteristic. The out-group is judged harshly. Wrong-doing is claimed to be characteristic to the point of being universal, it is never contextualized and there is never an allowance for human imperfection.

Here you have a situation where millions of people (black americans) are being characterized by the actions of a tiny subset (criminals), and condemned for it while on the other hand the crimes and abuses of another group (police officers) are contextualized if not excused.

All racism is based on a seed of truth, but you can no more use the higher crime rate of blacks to condemn an entire race than you can use the higher crime rate of men to condemn an entire gender.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#78

Post by bashinator »

ashwinaj wrote: post #75
hackuser wrote: post #8

It seems like there is a smoking gun in this case (though I didn't review the evidence thoroughly). Widespread availability of video recording and distribution has provided many more smoking guns. Certainly, there are many more incidents where no smoking gun evidence is available. For a long time, black Americans have been claiming that such things happen and were widely ignored or disbelieved. It was and is a grave…

Well put, but I suspect large swaths of people will still be in denial since any criticism about the police (or military) is off limits. In any case, if this keeps on going the police force would be the first to be "roboticized". I even have a simple algorithm: 1. Investigate reported crime (race/gender/economic parameters are ignored) OR catch criminal red handed. 2. Create a police report and submit evidence. 3. Te…

Step 1 there probably breaks down to several billion subtasks.

Re: Leaked Documents Reveal Police Department Planted Drugs for Years, DA Complicit

#79

Post by krapp »

Huh. I see someone posted an article about police corruption to Hacker News...

- declaration that the US is a police state? Check.

- assertion that all police are criminals? Check.

- call for the repeal of all drug laws? Check.

- argument about whether or not black people are genetically predisposed to violence and criminality? check.

Now all this thread needs is a tangential discussion about the Second Amendment and I'll have bingo.

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