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Comment by sedachv | Hacker News Reader

A friend of mine works as a public defender in Los Angeles (and prior to that, worked as a public defender in San Francisco). His advice is to never call the cops in all but the most extreme situations. The risk of them maiming or killing someone, performing unwanted illegal entries and searches, making an arrest based on unrelated things they see (suspected drug paraphernalia, etc), spurious complaints to child protective services, baseless detention and arrest, or just plain mistreatment and harassment is too great. In addition, if there is any person on parole or probation present when the cops show up, that person's chances of going to prison are very high, because a cop can say almost anything and have that be taken as a parole violation.

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I have a friend who works in the cardiothoracic step down unit at a hospital. She constantly thinks she has developed some sort of heart condition to the point where she is for all intents and purposes is paranoid of this. It's a bias because she's around people with heart conditions day in day out, so it seems more common than reality.

Your friend has developed a bias because they're constantly around people who have been (or at least claim to be) wronged by the police. They see these people at a significantly higher rate than the people who have been saved by the police, or have otherwise been on the other side of the crime. There simply isn't a need to defend the other side of the fence.

> Your friend has developed a bias because they're constantly around people who have been (or at least claim to be) wronged by the police.

Absolutely. Which is why I am glad he pointed these risks out to me - no one else who is unbiased does or is even aware of the worst-case outcomes. If there is a way to resolve a situation without calling the police, why would you take the risk?

Another thing my friend likes to do is post news reports of police abuse to social media. One of these is very relevant to the original post. In 2013 a father called the police on his son, after the latter drove off in the father's automobile without permission, to "teach him a lesson." The police response was to murder his son: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tyler-comstock-killing-iowa-poli...

Threatening your kids, family, neighbors etc with the police is not only distasteful but can end up in tragedy.

Vehicles are considered "deadly weapons" as far as application of force goes.

As soon as he backed into the cruiser on dashcam, I really don't see any way that ending well.

I saw at least two moving violations in the span of 15 seconds. Backing that trailer into the cruiser would generally be counted as assault with a deadly weapon, so application of force is "end the situation" at that point.

That sounds utterly ridiculous, and adds to the list of reasons not to call the police except in dire situations.

"That guy's getting shot."

"Yeah, he's getting shot."

Scots Police Teach US Cops How to Avoid Gun Use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8qa5Wk_f7U

Police shouldn't be able to shoot someone merely because they "felt threatened" (as shooting someone in the back who wasn't armed who was running away), or if someone backs their car into a police car.

The problem with these cases is the police have attempted to carve out large categories where they can do anything ("they feel threatened") and that's unacceptable. They are licensed to carry guns, they need to use discretion.

Driving your car at high speed into a police car in an attempt to hit them is different than a fender bender at 5 miles an hour in the real world. When I have a fender bender and the car in front of me stops too suddenly and I hit them (happens 1000s of times per day), you don't get to shoot the person who hit you because it was "textbook vehicular assault". And it shouldn't be different if the other car was driven by a policeman.

I mean, there's always a cost/benefit to calling the police. Wouldn't personally waste a call on many things. If I feel threatened, the benefit usually far outweighs the cost (personally, but I understand that this isn't the case for everyone). Closer to the original point though, if my kids felt threatened, I'd absolutely want them to call the police.

Having called the cops in a Domestic Violence incident in CA, I will say that none of these horror stories happened to me. In fact, the Police handled the situation well, it was the District Attorney's office that failed to follow through with the case on a number of things.

I have a number of friends who ended up becoming officers and I sympathize with a lot of their struggles.

There are problems with our Law Enforcement system. There are bad officers. But let's try to not over-generalize, stereotype, and point fingers at a single point of failure. It's a complex issue with many parts.

As far as LA police go, I am motorcyclist which randomly lead me to find out about "OfficerRob" who motovlogs some of his on duty experiences as a motorcycle cop in LA:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DeutGisK66k4JdomiiUyw

I personally like his motovlog...

> I have a number of friends who ended up becoming officers and I sympathize with a lot of their struggles.

Oh yeah, I am not saying that all cops are bad or that you will get killed if you call them. Just that there are risks to doing so. I should also mention that my father worked as a cop and has given me similar advice in regards to interaction with police (don't), based presumably on his personal observations of the job and his colleagues, and it did not even occur to me to mention that in the post above. I certainly don't mean to demonize cops.

So what advice you will give to your kids? "Don't call a police at all" or "call police when dad is already dead only".

Mistrust of the police in minority communities is over 60%. It didn't get that way from a few grainy YouTube videos. Abuse and corruption is endemic in the US justice system. The police are part of that system so, yes, they share the blame.

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