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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

And that’s just the short term. Look at places like Somalia or Afghanistan to see what happens when law and order breaks down in a systematic way.

The issue isn’t even just “crime” in the sense of robbery, etc. When there is no police, organized crime can take over. When we lived in Bangladesh in the 1980s, a minibus full of criminals showed up at the gate of our house. (This being Dhaka in the 1980s, we had a brick wall around the whole house with broken glass on top and a big metal gate, and an armed guard out front.) I don’t know if it was because my dad hadn’t bribed the right people or what, but it took police an hour or more to respond, during which time the criminals tried to drive through our gate.

(I don’t actually disagree with the thrust of the article, which is more that we need to rethink the roles where we have police. I’m just sharing this because I’ve seen a lot of “defund the police” in my Facebook, and I strongly suspect it’s from people who have never lived somewhere without effective policing.)

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The demand in Seattle to defund the police isn't calling to totally remove funding. It's calling for a 50% reduction in the budget.

Just a heads up that "defund the police" isn't actually that different from "we need to rethink the roles where we have police"

If their budget is reduced, the police will choose where to cut services in such a way as to inflict maximum fear in the population, to cause their budget to be restored.

They will, for example, say they cannot investigate the rape of a white woman, supposedly because lack of funds. But they will have plenty of funds to harass poor and non-white people for maybe smoking pot, but mostly for being poor and/or non-white.

We can see it right now, in that they teargas, shoot with rubber bullets, beat and arrest completely peaceful protesters and people just on their own porches but do nothing about looters. It is obvious why: looting makes protestors look bad (especially if news coverage cooperates with the police's narrative), makes people scared and proves that police are necessary.

Of course, the mafia can also provide safety if you obey them and pay them. Might even be a better deal for some populations than the current police.

If you want police that work for the population and are not an occupation force extracting tribute through use of force, you need to do more than reduce their budget. You need to punish the offenders (jail, not layoffs) and replace the people in charge (their union bosses and informal leaders, not just the nominal chief of police who might have little actual power).

Using "completely peaceful" protestors is a disingenuous statement.

Some protestors have been completely peaceful. Some entire protests have been completely peaceful.

And some of those completely peaceful protests have still met tear gas, and/or pepper spray. For example, see the protest in DC that was peaceful and broken up before curfew.

Is your assertion that nationwide, over 9 days, there hasn't been any peaceful protests?

If we’re focused on Seattle still, and basing this off the news from the past few days, it certainly was hard to notice any peaceful protesting occurring. Of course many people were peaceful, but amidst scenes of people busting through every retailer’s window downtown, looting stores until they were bare, while dozens of cars burned in the street...

Almost all of the protests in Seattle have been peaceful, until the cops started spaying made and throwing flash grenades into the crowd. Yes there has been some looting, generally away from the protestors, because the police are busy.

So far, everyone who has said that cops reacted this way for absolutely no reason has been misinformed or lying when I go investigate. It’s actually quite surprising how frequently these blatantly wrong claims keep coming up.

Often there is an assumption that because they didn’t see what started it, it must have been nothing. You might think they didn’t have a good enough reason, but I have yet to see police in any city deploy OC for no reason at all.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/gv0ru3/this_is_the...

I'm sorry, this is like pulling a single line out of a book and using it to bolster a specific argument. In other words, there's loads of context that's missing. Your video has less than 10 seconds of context. What happened just before the video starts? What happened 15 minutes before?

It's just a boring sit-in for hours before the clip starts. There is literally no context. The next night there isn't even an umbrella pretext, they just start spraying around 11:40pm after peaceful sit-in from 5pm.

Here's video of the incident from 13 minutes prior (June 1): https://www.facebook.com/jessica.bundy.79/videos/36571421876...

And earlier recording of the hours beforehand (June 1, earlier): https://www.facebook.com/jessica.bundy.79/videos/36570100309...

You're not missing any violent context; just the bigger picture.

This is a great example of what I said. I’ve seen this video from multiple perspectives. It is absolutely not the case that it started for no reason at all. That’s a total lie.

There are no “pretexts” happening. These conspiracy theories are absurd.

From the ground video of this same incident, it was seen that protestors were pushing on the fence. They then deployed umbrellas, some of which were deployed over the barrier. An officer swats a pink umbrella out of his face and grabs it. The protestor tries to pull it away. A tug-of-war struggle ensues. Another officer notices there is a struggle and rushes in with his pepper spray to get the girl off.

The whole time, the crowd was told they are NOT allowed to cross this street. They can cross any other street. The precinct is this way. They form a plan to “push through” earlier, and they chant to let them through.

on the other side, there are clearly projectiles being thrown, and before the cops deploy flashbangs, you can see some flashing from the crowd side - not sure what that is.

You might think they overreacted. You might think he shouldn’t have started the scuffle with the umbrella. You might think they shouldn’t have raised their spray over a combative protestor pushing the barricade and mouthing off from 12 inches away from a cop’s face. That’s all fine to debate. But there is a clear pattern of escalation, tension, and confusion. The cops did not just say “let’s fuck up some protestors!” out of nowhere and then fire. And they definitely didn’t set up a pretext. You guys sound like Alex Jones with that shit.

You're just spouting falsehoods that are not shown in the video.

The protestors had umbrellas for hours; they were not "deployed" shortly before officers initiated violence. Protesters were up against the fence for hours and did not push it forward substantially. The umbrella the officer grabbed wasn't in anyone's face.

Note that 12,000 complaints were filed about SPD's overuse of force after that night.

> you can see some flashing from the crowd side - not sure what that is

Bud, that's a camera.

> But there is a clear pattern of escalation, tension, and confusion.

I totally agree with that statement. SPD repeatedly escalates peaceful situations into violent ones.

> The cops did not just say “let’s fuck up some protestors!” out of nowhere

Actually, they did, on video: https://twitter.com/Bishop_Krystal/status/126800997417045196...

> did not push it forward substantially

At 7:00 in the video the protesters pushed the fence a couple of meters forward and almost broke the police line, that is not peaceful protesting. Pushing up a blockade against police is very aggressive, and can't be done by a single bad apple either. If protesters had been acting like this for hours then it makes sense that the police sprays them.

https://www.facebook.com/jessica.bundy.79/videos/36571421876...

You’re still doing it man. Come on. Be objective. You can still be accurate and think they were in the wrong. But you’re drawing lines that were not there, mixing up unrelated events, and failing to acknowledge the contributions to the escalation on the protestor side.

You are correct, in that "something" also starts it. It isn't that a cop just decide to start violence. But that "something" usually doesn't warrant the amount of violence. ESPECIALLY given that the protest is about police brutality. In the incident we were both referring to, you claimed "the protestors were pushing the fence" So what? That doesn't necessitate macing the entire crowd. "They deployed umbrellas" (In Seattle!) Again, no response warranted. "They deployed over the barrier" Wow, such violence from the crowd! No, that doesn't warrant a response either. "An officer swats a pink umbrella" And DESTROYS it. This is the incident that sparks a ton of mace and flash grenades... And yet you claim the cops didn't react for no reason? Yes they did. If the cop didn't grab the umbrella, and start whacking it with a weapon, then the violence wouldn't have occured. The girl, on one side of the fence has her umbrella destroyed by the cops, and is started to be beat at with a stick... And a fellow cop sprays her with mace to "get the girl off"? Why not just NOT rip the umbrella from her in the first place?

We’re saying a lot of the same things. I feel like you didn’t read my post carefully, and you’re making some wrong assumptions about my post.

Why do you equate my post with something that resembles saying that anything the police did was justified?

Unlike the parent, everything you said about the incident is accurate. You’ve interjected your opinion on each event of the incident, which is fine. You’re having an honest conversation. We can’t have those when we start out with hyperbole, omissions, and fabrications. Case in point, you’ve suggested alternative actions that could have been taken, which would not have been possible if we went with the original narrative. After all, if they do this for “literally no reason”, there’s no possible fix for that.

Emphasizing de-escalation sounds like a great idea. On a subsequent night, they changed their procedures to put the fence about 100 ft in front of them. That would ensure that they could not feel “threatened” or agitated by protestors partially encroaching the barrier. It also solves the problem of a mouthy kid getting right in your face and cussing you out, which might trigger a negative reaction. It looked like it went a lot better that time.

Have you not seen the pink umbrella video?

You're painting a completely false, disingenuous picture of the protesting that has happened in Seattle over the last week. SPD has repeatedly used aerosolized chemical weapons on completely peaceful protesters.

The media focuses on violence and crime, because that's what media does — "if it bleeds, it ledes" — but that violence/property damage/theft has not been connected to the large Cap Hill/downtown protests for most of the week.

Your claim of "dozens of cars burning in the street" is, as far as I know, completely unfounded. As is "busting through every retailer's window and looting stores until they were bare." There isn't all that much retail downtown — do you mean Westlake?

There was some looting and some police cars burned on the first weekend, but it is important to understand (1) that these actions do not reflect the majority of protesters and (2) the history of violence perpetrated by SPD against citizens and especially citizens of color.

It is also important to understand that the SPD has responded to peaceful protest with violence every evening, through at least June 2. (I have not yet caught up with last night's protests.)

Sure, "defund the police" isn't the only demand. I just wanted to clarify that particular demand.

For example, another demand was to keep SPD in the consent decree under DOJ supervision. The city council was planning on ending it.

They council announced just today that they are retaining to consent decree, so that's a policy win for the protestors.

or they'll spend less of their budget on highly expensive military equipment and more on less expensive deescalation skills and community engagement...HA

Don't they basically get given that stuff second-hand by the military?

This is so obvious. Defund the police, and regulate their roles.

Prioritize rape/violence/home invasion, deprioritize protests/drugs/etc., and as you say punish offenders.

This is obvious.

>This is so obvious. Defund the police, and regulate their roles.

>deprioritize protests/drugs/etc

Yeah, already done that. And it's miserable. My parents came to visit (from the midwest and right before the pandemic) and were absolutely appalled at seeing needles on the street when we went out to dinner. I don't blame them, really. I blame the people who pretend that shrugging at enforcing drug laws is some sort of "justice". It's not, it's political nihilism. And we've run this test 1000 times at this point across the country. Some will say that "it's not that bad", and to them I say "yeah ... I've been in worse places around the world too". Which is a snide way of saying that I'm really annoyed that people are okay with third world standards of living in the USA because they have this inverted sense of "justice".

Drug addiction is best treated as a public health issue, not a criminal one. You're just observing the effects of a lack of rug sweeping.

At what point does "treating it like a public health issue" start to impede on public safety?

It's more that not treating it (drug addiction) as a public health issue impedes on public safety.

Supervised injection sites, housing first integrated support, access to effective medicine (methadone), etc. are all stymied by various flavors of political problems.

What you're seeing is the result of a patchwork approach in disarray.

Stealing bikes and breaking into cars, or worse, to buy drugs, is when it becomes a criminal issue.

Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's not "safe" or harmless.

Still, I never once considered rounding up all the drinkers, sending them to jail, then disallowing them from ever participating in most of society for the rest of their lives. That's without even considering all the collateral damage, and people hassled for no reason. Worst of all IMO, is a classic critique that dates back to prohibition: Prohibition laws breed contempt for law and order. Peaceful citizens become criminals. Cops become fascists, rounding people up for no reason.

So, I'd say it's pretty reasonable to want to try something else. I'm unconvinced that there's no other option, or middle ground to deal with externalities. I also don't think you're being oppressed, or "living like you're in a third world country", because you sometimes see what's really going on in your city. Perhaps your efforts would be better spent on an anti-littering campaign.

>Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs.

As if that's what we're doing. "Yikes bro", maybe stop straw manning everything I said into some kind of crypto fascist fantasy? Maybe consider that not being able to have your elderly parents take the subway when they visit - because of risk of violence, or you just don't want them around open injection drug use - is a sign that what we're doing isn't working? We've been trying the decriminalization route for a decade at least. Do you actually think this is "success"? Or has real decriminalization never been tried?

> because you sometimes see what's really going on in your city.

And this is the nihilism. Thinking this is normal.

Cities like Seattle and San Francisco clearly have a problem with the mentally ill and drug addicted on their streets, I agree that just leaving it "as is" should not be acceptable to anyone. It is scary, leads to more crime being committed and the people using needles in the street clearly need serious help.

Is criminalizing all drug users the answer though? We have 50 years or so of results there that show that has serious issues as well. Why are we willing to spend 30-40 thousand a year on imprisoning folks at a rate that no other country even comes close to, but not try spending similar amounts of money on actual rehabilitation and welfare programs for the addicted and mentally ill?

It seems worth a shot to me...

>Is criminalizing all drug users the answer though?

I am not advocating this though. I don't see anyone else in this thread advocating this either. I'm merely asking that we at least stop doing the insane thing of just ignoring it and letting people shoot up on the sidewalk or at the bus stop. I'm all for some creative solutions to this, fine, but the only thing that seems to gain traction today is "what we're already doing, but louder".

> Yikes, dude. I just don't agree with trying to ruin someones life forever, because they occasionally like to use drugs. That's not political nihilism. I don't really consider seeing a needle in the street a "third world standard of living". I don't enjoy seeing litter, but it's a reality of living in an urban area. There's beer cans, and yes people toss bottles to, so there's shards of glass in the street, and it's not "safe" or harmless.

There's lots of countries where people wouldn't consider needles and feces in the streets to be the "reality of living in an urban area." For example Tokyo or Stockholm (both of which are in strongly anti-drug countries).

Oh yeah, USA will turn into Japan overnight. All we have to do is give the police more resources, power, impunity.

Please be honest. No one is that dumb, especially not you. The reason Japan's streets are clean is that they are used primarily by the Japanese. They have different cultural defaults than we do, and perhaps one might say that in this respect they are just better. Japan's cops are actually drastically less aggressive and abusive than USA cops. Also, numerous Japanese have told me that they wished their drug prohibition could be repealed. If that happened, no one would expect Ginza to turn into the Tenderloin.

I can't speak for Stockholm, but I'm not trying to emulate Japan. I have great respect for the people, but they have their own social problems. I highly regard freedom, and treating social problems. That doesn't mean ignoring the issue, or extreme prison sentences.

If your comment is accurate, then it serves as a strong argument for why the police should be defunded even more than 50%.

> If their budget is reduced, the police will choose where to cut services in such a way as to inflict maximum fear in the population, to cause their budget to be restored.

Sounds like they're a protection racket, no different from the Mafia.

The issue here clearly isn't funding. The issue is control. Police in the U.S. have been allowed to become an autocratic state in their own right, and it is this state which needs to be dismantled.

Honestly defunding the force doesn't solve much if the underlying issues are not dealt with. I saw a Vice Special about police training nowadays. The so-called consultant kept referencing the community as combatants and his approach for most confrontations was overpower the 'opponent' at any cost.

Nothing is going to change if the police training and punishment for violating basic freedoms is not addressed.

> Look at places like Somalia or Afghanistan to see what happens when law and order breaks down in a systematic way.

Also see Brazil with Primeiro Comando da Capital and Comando Vermelho which are violent organizations that have/had lofty goals similar to the growing movement (i.e. anti-police brutality, vengeance)[1]. Those groups now partake in degenerate drug and sex fueled parties and slaughter their enemies using advanced weapons. No need to worry though; their code of conduct proclaims that they fight for liberty, justice and peace and that rape is bad -- they're obviously the good guys.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primeiro_Comando_da_Capital#Hi...

Brazil is actually an interesting example, considering that the police inside thee favelas has been accused of extrajudicial killings and killing with impunity and form militias to extort locals(even their logo looks like a gang insignia) [1,2,3].

This actually highlights the different experiences between middle class white (or Brazilian) and a black person (or someone living in the favelas). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_police_militias [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalh%C3%A3o_de_Opera%C3%A7%C... [3] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xweavd/police-are-killing...

Damn, that's nutty. My parents always warned me that the Bangladesh they grew up in and knew is, in their words "a place where you have to be at least a little crooked" to survive (although they left in the 70s as soon as they could), and I know that the 80s was the era of Ershad's reign which was a particularly rough time. By the right people, does that mean in the government or organized crime or who knows?

I mean the police. My dad hated the bribery system. He tried to get a second phone line installed and gave up because the installer demanded a bribe. We left in 1989. Things are a bit better now. Not normal, exactly, but Sheikh Hasina wants to keep foreign investment flowing and is instilling some normalcy.

In New Orleans we spend 30% of the budget on the police and corrections while the convention and visitors bureau sit on millions and black owned businesses have negligible receipts. Meanwhile, the city is subsiding. You’d be mad too.

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