My white neighbor thought I was breaking into my own apartment | Hacker News Reader

My white neighbor thought I was breaking into my own apartment

washingtonpost.com

28 pointssubdane26 comments

I quote the author: Not long ago, I was walking with a friend to a crowded restaurant when I spotted two cops in line and froze. I tried to figure out how to get around them without having to walk past them. I no longer wanted to eat there, but I didn’t want to ruin my friend’s evening. As we stood in line, 10 or so people back, my eyes stayed on them. I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid generalizations. I imagined that perhaps these two cops were good people, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what the Santa Monica police had done to me. I found a lump in my throat as I tried to separate them from the system that had terrified me. I realized that if I needed help, I didn’t think I could ask them for it.

I'm not sure what she intended to say with this closing paragraph but it seems like she has come to realize why some people get uneasy around certain other people. If you have had bad experiences with some members of a particular group (cops, PoC, lawyers, etc) you might have reservations about future interactions with other members of that group. Even if she doesn't like that she has those thoughts, she is admitting to trying to avoid some people just based on her past experience. This is exactly what other people get called racist for feeling. Something to think about.

When I was in HS I forgot my keys, I tried climbing in thru the second floor, neighbors called the cops, cops showed up and asked for ID, showed it to them and incident over.

I didn't get mad at my neighbors. I'm rather grateful they were looking out for neighbors' property, even if they didn't take the time out to determine if it was me or a burglar. I don't expect them to call out to me to confirm I was the person who lived there. Another occasion, my friend lost keys to a chained up scooter. So we took a cutter, it was not easy to break the lock, neighbors seeing us also called the cops. We looked suspicious. Breaking into my house looked suspicious and I'm glad the cops came to investigate. They're supposed to.

Now, it's true, they didn't point guns at me/us in either occasion, but my friends who had similar incidents did have five cops with guns show up in a different instance, maybe because it was night.

I should also point out, I do believe the police have overmilitarized over the last decade(s) and overly aggro, but that does not mean I want them to stop from doing good policing (investigating suspicious activity)

I once accidentally mistook my white neighbor as a burglar, as he tried to break into his front door with a plastic snow shovel at 3 in the morning. At least a dozen cops showed up - six police cars, including a K-9 unit. Needless to say I was embarrassed and felt bad, but my neighbor was too drunk to remember. This is in Michigan, so it really does seem to be common practice to send half the force to a burglary in progress. The cops handled it well.

On the flip side of that, cops in Ohio illegally entered my brothers apartment with guns drawn while he was at work, terrifying his wife who called him saying people were breaking in, causing him to race home at very unsafe speeds while trying to contact the local police. When entering they didn't identify themselves, laughed at my sister-in-law, and didn't apologize for having the wrong address. Despite checking with a few lawyers, they were told there's nothing to be done other than file a complaint with the police.

As a European, this just reinforces my belief that South Park is a documentary, not a comic extrapolation of reality... :/

I mean.. to begin with, what can they accomplish with 6 cars with 2 cops each that they can't with a third of that force?

Not to start with how much more complicated it must be to coordinate 12 cops compared to 4.

From a foreign perspective: Americans always seem to try brute force, as opposed to something balanced.

My theory: We get better police officers in Scandinavia since it's not a low-paid job here, relatively speaking. It's not a way of the local power-hungry losers to get the positions of power they crave. I know few local and young police officers here; it's my honest assessment that none of them went into this line of work because they craved power.

I don't think it's so much try brute force as it is "use it or lose it".

This thinking is pervasive throughout all levels of government in the US. Let's say the police do decide to send three cop cars instead of six, and do so consistently. When it comes time to request budget money, the people in charge of handing out that money can say, "well you don't really need as much funding since so many of your cops are sitting idle at a given time."

So people are dying (because of overblown, badly coordinated) police efforts and the reason is the way funds are allocated in the US?

That makes me even sadder. Sounds plausible though.

>> I demanded all of their names and was given few. Some officers simply ignored me when I asked, boldly turning and walking away. Afterward, I saw them talking to neighbors, but they ignored me when I approached them again.

Protect and serve...

Happened to my one of my half-black friends when we were growing up. In Cupertino of all places.

Bear in mind that the police presence, and number of officers responding, had nothing to do with her being black, given that it was wholly in response to the report about a Hispanic "suspect".

Santa Monica police chief's perspective:

http://santamonicapd.org/Content.aspx?id=54286

Wow... she was really rude on that audio clip. I understand she was a bit freaked out but she was rude while the cops were being very calm with her. She just keeps talking in circles, interrupting them, asking the same questions over again but ignoring the responses. Oh and the clapping. I can totally picture this scene.

Why the guns.

It's standard to have guns drawn when doing a sweep in response to any report of an unauthorized presence in one's home, even without a claimed eyewitness to a break-in, as in this case.

Years ago, after I bought a new house but had not yet moved in (I was moving individual loads as I had time), I came to the new place to find an upstairs light on. Now, I was fairly sure I would not have done that without noticing as I left, but I saw no sign of forced entry or active presence. So, I called the police, explained that this was probably just my screwup, but if you have an idle unit, could they stop by when they have a chance?

Two officers responded, did a sweep of the house, guns drawn, finding nothing, and were very nice about it all. <facepalm>

Absolute trash article.

"I would be dead in the stairwell outside my apartment, because something about me — a 5-foot-7, 125-pound black woman — frightened this man with a gun."

Nice narrative there. Edit: Pigs will be pigs by the way, so I'm not surprised at some of them walking away without giving their names and badge numbers.

Another way of looking at it: Someone's visual attributes combined with their behavior caused a concerned neighbor to call the police.

Yes, profiling does work, statistically speaking. Yes, it sucks to be profiled, but yes, (potential) victims are also very thankful when profiling does stop a crime.

My advice: if she is really concerned about this, she should work on reducing crime perp stats for black people.

That's some very serious victim blaming you have going on here. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I agree that his comment shows a rather callous disregard for the victim's feelings, but it doesn't really blame her for anything.

I refuse to be ashamed of thinking that profiling based on visual appearance works, since it obviously does.

What can be called into question though is the mentality of US police: "Shoot first, ask questions later." They should learn from European police in this regard.

I'd like to question your assertion that such profiling obviously does work. A quick google search finds plenty of material claiming the opposite, but since you said it I was wondering if you could back this up at all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/what-israeli-air...

If I'm reading this correctly, the security methodology is to screen all people who arrive at the airport with trained agents using "age, race, religion and destination" to determine how the interview should go. This is somewhat different from the kind of profiling we are talking about because a) they screen everyone who passes through and b) their assumption has to be that nearly 100% of people passing through the airport are innocent vs this kind of "that guy looks guilty" profiling.

I have some links: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/07/profiling.htm... - a blog post by someone respected by many here on when profiling can be effective vs the risks

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/racial-profiling-t... - discussion of when it might be appropriate statistically based on a study

I haven't found anything that implies that it would be effective in this sort of case.

'...the mentality of US police: "Shoot first, ask questions later."'

That's a ridiculous and unfair generalization, especially for the present day. Police collectively have hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of encounters with civilians every day, in contrast with how many unjustified officer-involved shootings there are.

This isn't the Jim Crow era South... or Hollywood.

I agree, they don't tend to bother with the questions anymore.

I'm shocked by how little empathy people have.

Your answer to her numerous, valid complaints about the police's lack of transparency and show of force is for her to decrease the percentage of crime committed by people that look like her?

That is, you believe a more effective article would have read, "Fellow minority women: please stop committing a disproportionate amount of crime. In light of your changes, my neighbor will not call the police the next time he sees me outside my apartment with a locksmith. Even if he does, at least the police the will respond more moderately and transparently."

I'm not trying to be inflammatory. I'm trying to illustrate that your suggestion does not address her concerns about police transparency and overreaction. Try not to dig your heels in. Consider that in this case you may have focused on the wrong thing.

> she should work on reducing crime perp stats for black people.

You're suggesting that a vice president of strategy at a multinational corporation should take on the responsibility of reducing crimes committed by people of her own race? This makes about as much sense as suggesting a Java programmer should do something about reducing the number of methamphetamine users.

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