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Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

The vast majority of individuals from minority groups will almost never call the police. As evidence has shown from the past week, if you call the police to keep looters from raiding your shop, the police will show up and arrest you.

This is perhaps a fixable problem - there are areas where the police are generally more trusted - but it's a problem nonetheless and you see police departments themselves own up to it when complaining about things that jeopardize their relationship with minority communities (like CBP/ICE pretending to be local PD)

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I think this is becoming less and less true. "Sanctuary cities" are basically just cities that don't ever detain people the additional 24 hours for INS/ICE; so that minorities are more forward with calling and talking with police.

You go to both minority and non-minority neighbourhoods all over Chicago and there are signs say "We call the police." I'm pretty shocked at the anti-police rhetoric here in Chicago personally, considering all the PR efforts they put in and how involved a lot of police are in the community.

If CPD has a lot of positive press out there I've certainly missed it. In the last five years alone:

- Homan Square interrogation facility revealed where CPD detained suspects without access to a phone or lawyer

- Laquan McDonald murder and subsequent charging and conviction of Jason Van Dyke, only after dash cam footage provoked a public outcry

- CPD Superintendent ousted after being found asleep (possibly drunk?) in his running car at a stop sign.

- FOP (CPD Union) elects new president who is on administrative leave(!) and is one of the most frequently disciplined officers in CPD. Also has history of making public comments defamatory towards minorities / low income.

- State's Attorney vacates ~100 drug convictions based on false evidence from disgraced ex-CPD Sergeant Ronald Watts

- Damning DOJ report that lead to a consent decree

These are just things I can recall off the top of my head. They do not have a particularly good reputation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/george-floyd-s-death-pa...

> According to data analyzed by watchdog organization Better Government Association, two-thirds of the 70 people killed by Chicago police from 2010 to 2014 were African American.

> “We’re the epicenter of police crimes and torture,” said Frank Chapman, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and a longtime Chicago activist. “We have one of the largest police forces in the nation and their record in terms of the African American community is despicable.”

> A 2017 Justice Department report investigating the Chicago Police Department found officers used force almost 10 times more often with black suspects than with white suspects.

Some of this is properly shocking.

> The city has paid out over $662 million in settlements for police misconduct cases since 2004, according to The Associated Press. It includes payouts to victims of Jon Burge, a police commander who, along with a group of subordinate detectives, tortured dozens of African American suspects from 1972 to 1991. Many times, the tactics, including near-suffocation by plastic bags, shocks by cattle prods and beatings by flashlights, were used to elicit false confessions.

Yes, as shown from the viral and exceptional video during widespread looting, we can make population level inferences about subjects we otherwise don't personally study or pay attention to.

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