Hacker News Reader

Comment by lvturner | Hacker News Reader

I'm just amazed at how the theft of two belts and a shirt from Walmart escalated to the point where a house blew up. It's like something out of a comedy calamity movie.

How common is escalation like this during the course of law enforcement? (I'm hoping this is an extreme case?)

View on HN

There more extreme cases:

>Who Pays When The DEA Destroys Your Vehicle And Kills Your Employee During A Botched Sting? Hint: Not The DEA

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150428/16401530826/who-p...

> The judge points out that Villasana also testified that he was "not aware" of any policy instructing him to notify the vehicle's owner of its potential use in a drug sting operation

Ah, ignorance of the law. Fine for them, not for you.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Reading through the article's comments there's one from "LegalBeagle" that criticizes the man's lawyer for using the wrong argument in the lawsuit, and instead should've filed the lawsuit as a violation of the 5th Amendment.

Luckily he must've gotten a better lawyer, because an appeal was allowed to continue under grounds the DEA violated the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment:

> Because plaintiffs have stated facts sufficient to demonstrate that the government physically deprived them of property for the duration of the controlled drug delivery operation, we hold that plaintiffs have stated a claim for a taking compensable under the Fifth Amendment. We therefore deny defendant’s motion to dismiss pursuant to Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).

https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4467728/patty-v-united...

This may be an extreme outcome but excessive escalation by the police in America is also the norm. Look at recent encounters with NYPD in the subway over a man not paying the fare (value less than 5$).

Have a link?

I'm on my phone so it is a bit hard to collect the links as much of what I've seen has been from Twitter but if you go on there and search "NYPD subway" you'll find numerous videos and recent accounts.

I think this is the video they're referring to: https://twitter.com/PopChassid/status/1187838293104304130

wat, is that for not paying the fair? that's utterly insane.

No, they were responding to reports of a man with a gun, the man fled the cops into the subway, they followed him there when he managed to jump on a train and evade the cops.

This video was them picking him up at the next station. They just stated the charge for arresting him was not paying the fare.

You have a man that officers tried to question who fled into a subway train and who is reportedly armed. You’re picking him up at the next station from a loaded train on a crowded platform.

Please with 20-20 hindsight spitball how you think this should have gone down?

https://twitter.com/DMoritzRabson/status/1188216667127476224...

https://twitter.com/DMoritzRabson/status/1188553063738548227...

no, you're right. I was a bit too fast on judging. If they had reason to think he was armed, then I'm less uncomfortable. Thanks.

That account (in the linked tweets) makes absolutely no sense. It actually brings up more questions than it answers. Since it's very vague we will just have to assume never once was the alleged gun found on the person they finally arrested or anyone else. It's of course unclear if he was actually the person "described" (as male, no further details given) in the report. And of course you'll also have to take the NYPD at their word in a prepared statement to the press as to the veracity of this report they allegedly received about "man with a gun." I wonder how'd they find this unrelated man without gun they ultimately arrested based on such a thorough description ... ?

If you want to make a summary judgement based on incomplete evidence, the only reasonable course of action is to assume the best of the person you are ruling against.

That’s how it works in a court of law, but I find it’s a good way to catch yourself when drawing conclusions based on speculation.

The video clearly shows a train with closed doors and large contingent of police corralling a specific train car and cornering a specific suspect. That seems to correlate well with an identified person who fled and got away at the prior station; they knew who they were going after, and had time to assemble a force to confront the person. Obviously the size of the force and the rapidity of response supports the notion that they thought the person was a danger and wanted to very quickly subdue them in a crowded area.

All in all it seems like a professional operation designed to be prepared for a worst case scenario and to try to control a situation with potentially deadly consequences if it got out of hand.

When someone is fleeing from the police and was reported to be armed, I would absolutely expect that they are going to take extreme precautions especially in a crowded space.

Yeah, though no matter what his supposed crime, the situation is still absurd. It's clear from the video that he wasn't a danger to anyone nor resisting arrest in any way.

>but excessive escalation by the police

No one can challenge the authority of the state and all its tentacles like a Giant Squid. Take common law (case law) which partly governs the 5eyes countrys, its a legal framework which are moving goal posts based on future events and decisions made by a judge or judges (ala UK Supreme Court for Brexit) which no one can predict except Dr Who travelling in his Tardis! Common Law sets everyone up to fail, so why doesn't the state recognise its own weaknesses and failings by insisting on tarring everyone with the same brush? I'm sure that person would have bought a ticket if their circumstances were different ala Eddie Murphy's Trading Places. We don't know the full in's and out, but only now with the help of technology can we start to learn what someone has been taught and understood learnt from various sources (parents, schools, peers, religions etc.) and then work out better if the act was intended or not. This relies heavily on medicine stepping up to the plate in order to quantify better our exposure to chemicals and environmental stimuli which control our decision making processes. Understand this and you have built a general AI.

It's more fair to say it rarely happens and when it does it makes the news.

>Look at recent encounters with NYPD in the subway over a man not paying the fare (value less than 5$).

For anyone interested in the truth: they were responding to calls of a man with a gun in the train car. This wasn't simply a fare evasion.

It makes me think of Brazil(1985). Cops searching for a minor criminal blow up someone's home, ruin their life, and then disappear into a maze of bureaucracy and paperwork.

So your rules would allow people to steal as long as they use a gun and then shoot at the police? “Okay Fred, he’s got a gun and oh yep, he just fired at us, time to let him go. He really earned those belts this time.”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com