Afroman found not liable in defamation case • Hacker News Board

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#751

Post by lux-lux-lux » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

gadders wrote: post #461

garciasn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#1 - He's Black. #2 - That's how the police in America operate now; even for the most common interactions w/the public. I know this may sound like I'm being an asshole, but I'm not.

They did the same when they raided Roger Stone.

Roger Stone had a history of making violent threats and long association with an armed paramilitary group. There was also the tape recording of him appearing to plan violence against two Democratic elected officials.

Afroman, by contrast, smokes a lot of weed.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#752

Post by quantified » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:49 PM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #136

I have a potentially silly question, and obviously naive - but why so many drawn guns? Fun music videos aside, what was the background here? Were they coming in on a Massive gang fortress? Or are all the stereotypes of American police forces true and they just come guns a-blazing all the time? I mean, that wasn't even police officers with hand guns, they have army-like guys with massive automatic rifles, and they see…

Cops are trained as warriors now, and accultures to citizens being the enemy. Simply is now. Plus they statted getting all that cool military gear after the Cold War stockpiles were surplused over to them.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#753

Post by tt24 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #742

tt24 wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither your comment nor the article answers my question. There’s no evidence here that the discrepancy is due to race.

Sure. The cops just mysteriously act differently across tens of thousands of stops across the country when the sun goes down and they can't see the car's occupants, in a way verfiably tied to the sun and not the clock time. I do appreciate the proof you're not discussing in good faith.

Why does it have to be due to the skin color of the car’s occupants? You know that correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation right? Statistics are a tricky thing to get right

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#754

Post by coryrc » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #413

coryrc wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't mean what you think it means.

No? Jessop v. City of Fresno is worth a peek. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/17... > The panel held that at the time of the incident, there was no clearly established law holding that officers violate the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment when they steal property seized pursuant to a warrant. For that reason, the City Officers were entitled to qualified immunity.

The city can still be liable, it's not as if there's no redress.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#755

Post by coryrc » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #450

giantg2 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not exactly consistent with the given scenario. Use of force issues tend to have much better case law at both the federal and state levels than property related issues.

https://www.generalservices.state.nm.us/wp-content/uploads/9... > Corbitt v. Vickers, 929 F.3d 1304 (11th Cir. 2019): Qualified immunity granted for officer who, hunting a fugitive, ended up at the wrong house and forced six children, including two children under the age of three, to lie on the ground at gunpoint. The officer tried to shoot the family dog, but missed and shot a 10-year-old child that was lying face d…

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5d778b8b342cca3e584ef6...

The prior opinion in this case, found at Jessop v. City of Fresno , 918 F.3d 1031 (9th Cir. 2019), is hereby withdrawn. A superseding opinion will be filed concurrently with this order. Plaintiffs-Appellants’ petition for rehearing en banc remains pending.

I picked the second one to start. So I don't think that's a great source.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#756

Post by coryrc » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

themaninthedark wrote: post #432

coryrc wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should stop "raiding" people's homes. They don't raid schools when there's someone actively killing children. They can just hold off a bit and get people when they're on the move.

They are supposed to. That was the lesson learned from Columbine. That is also why the police response in Uvalde is highly criticized.

They should quickly move into schools, yes.

People's homes? No.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#757

Post by TallGuyShort » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 7:11 PM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #553

TallGuyShort wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the police possessed the self-control and critical thinking to not drag this whole thing into a lawsuit, I think the raid would likely have never happened in the first place.

I suspect that either this was some confidential informant who just reported false claims about Afroman and the police used it to get a warrant. Or the whole department is just corrupt and make up stuff to get a warrant in order to raid his house hoping to forfeiture his money.

So yes, there was an informant who was cited as the reason for the warrant, but the credibility is questionable. The informant referenced a basement that county records would show should not have existed - presumably the SWAT-like team doing the raid didn't bother to consult building plans for any planning, because that would have cast all the testimony into doubt.

This part I've heard from social media sources and haven't seen in reputable documents, but some of Afroman's claims about the police officers and their history of sexual abuse is apparently based on claims from the same informant that were never investigated.

The whole thing stinks and I'm glad attention has been thrown on that department.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#758

Post by Manuel_D » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 7:29 PM UTC

roryirvine wrote: post #750

Manuel_D wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it legal to carry firearms concealed in Northern Ireland? It's not the presence of guns in a guns safe that makes policing more dangerous, it's the fact the a sizeable chunk of the American public is actively carrying firearms.

Yes, at least for personal protection weapons. And, obviously, the unlicensed users (ie. members of dissident gangs) won't care whether it's legal or not. PPW holders will be people who have had specific, verifiable threats made against their lives - so will often be people with links to violence, terrorism, or criminality. And, obviously, the unlicensed users are criminals by definition. So, on balance, the average…

Google tells me 2,700 in Northern Ireland have authorization to carry firearms privately.

By comparison in my county in Washington state, there are 114,000 active concealed firearm permit holders out of a population of 2.3 million. And this is a liberal, fairly urbanized region.

We're talking ~50x the rate of people carrying firearms legally. Of course data on criminals carrying weapons is not so transparent, but it's suffice to say that American police are much more regularly encountering people with firearms.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#759

Post by notepad0x90 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 7:47 PM UTC

qup wrote: post #370

john_strinlai wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ice has literally abducted citizens with no criminal record. those people are victims.

[flagged]

they cannot even so much as touch a person without probable cause. With probable cause they can arrest a person, with a freaking arrest warrant, not arbitrarily on their own. And even with a proper arrest warrant, they have to charge you within 48 hours or release you, even if they think you're a danger to the public!! Even in the worst 3rd world countries such norms exist.

Please understand that I'm not just saying this because we're on the internet, I'll say this to your face (as politely as I can): You are a traitor, you have betrayed everything a person could possibly betray about their country by turning your back on not only the most foundational laws (constitution) of your country, but you have also advocated for the arbitrary detention of your people, an act only committed by an enemy after conquest. A spy who betrays his country and sells its secrets to an enemy country has not participated in or advocated for direct-harm against his own people, yet you have. consider where you stand, traitor.

Re: Afroman found not liable in defamation case

#760

Post by solid_fuel » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

therobots927 wrote: post #687

jmyeet wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the Afroman story so much. Everything about it. It does more to expose just how incompetent, entitled and corrupt the average cop really is, something I wish was better known. The cops who brought this suit are basically the biggest crybabies, are too dumb to realize it and too entitled to realize that others wouldn't see it that way. It's fantastic. Compare this to policing in Japan [1]: > Koban cops go to ex…

Uvalde should’ve been the nail in the coffin for the thin blue liners. Turns out, not only do they not have a problem with cops murdering black people, they also have no problem with them standing by while their own kids are shot inside a school. Hell of a death cult this country has turned into.

Uvalde was the moment my hopes for the future of this country died. The parents there voted to reelect the same people who stood around and let a solitary madman murder their children just a little while later.