91–96 of 96 posts
Cops should be treated like muggers. Move slowly, make your body language indicate that you are not wanting a fight, speak clearly and ask the other person to also speak clearly, and be ready to bolt if the opportunity arises. American cops must be dealt with using de-escalation techniques.
i'm inclined to agree with the first comment on the article. if the author was not a privileged, professional-looking white guy, his outcome could have quite likely been much worse. i disagree with his naive conclusion (based on a sample size of one instance of getting arrested for an extremely minor infraction) that the NYPD are largely "good people charged with bad policing tactics". the treatment of minority group…
I'm actually going to take you to task on this once, precisely because the NYPD is set to become a "minority majority" force if current hiring trends continue. I've had many, many more interactions with the police than these two incidents in a variety of different contexts and I believe they're decent human beings who want to do the right thing. The systematic mistreatment of all underprivileged groups (including poo…
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I didn't put it in the article precisely because I didn't want the shift in focus--but this incident made me think a lot harder about wearing my Google Glass again. That being said, there's absolutely no reason that cops should not have a camera on them at all times. It's more for their benefit than ours. As far as technologies that reliably work, the stop-and-frisk app is actually quite good, but requires practice l…
> That being said, there's absolutely no reason that cops should not have a camera on them at all times. True. This would be a major positive change to our system. > It's more for their benefit than ours. False. Everything is already all the cops' way. They have nowhere to go but down. Their court testimony is legally privileged over yours (this really galls me in the face of the idea that "all are equal before the l…
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> The number 1 rule when interacting with police should be you have no rights. As a former Los Angeles sheriff's deputy who agrees with the majority of sentiments in this thread, I can confidently say that your broad statement is nonsense. Everyone, not just upper middle class whites, should know and assert their rights in police encounters.
You've never actually seen people assert their rights when talking to police, huh? I think the correct phrase for this situation is, "you can beat the charge, but you can't beat the ride." Police get all ornery when there's any kind of perceived challenge to their authority.
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This only works if you assume that every officer is nice, reasonable and believes strongly in upholding their duty to the public. The sad fact of the matter is that a very large number of police officers are simply bullies in uniform. Asserting your rights to them, or acting "uppity," will only get you in trouble.
A sizeable minority of officers are indeed bullies. But while I can't speak for other police agencies, even the bullies are pretty well reined in by the policies in Los Angeles. I can elaborate if you like.
What you won't see (or will see very, very rarely) is a cop losing his job and standing trial for assault if they wrongfully use physical force on a civilian. They can always get away with "well, I thought he was carrying a weapon" or other such flimsy excuses. Combined with the fact that cops always look after their own, it becomes very difficult to successfully and meaningfully persecute a cop for abusing their authority.
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I went to court for eating a sandwich in the street. I'm pretty sure this could have happened. EDIT: here's the full story: http://p1x3l.com/article/121/cowboy-america/
Did you plead guilty? A lot of countries ask if you have ever been convicted of a crime and you'd have to answer yes to that question (no matter how ridiculous the 'crime')
My friend who was drinking went there without paying and they told him he could spend the afternoon in a "session" with other people and not pay the 25. He did it, it was mostly people sharing their experiences about how they got there.
One guy got into an argument with a cop so the cop convoked him for peeing in the street, another one had a restaurant and his table was too far on the sidewalk... stuff like that.