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Comment by easterncalculus | Hacker News Reader

This is not Yelp for Cops, or RateMyProfessors, that is just a false comparison to justify what is almost definitely going to turn into a harassment and doxxing platform.

Yelp and online business review sites provide value on the basis that you can make educated choices, but there is no choice involved with police. You don't get to pick and choose which officers or departments are coming, and if someone calls the police on you you're not not going to be have the time or knowledge of who's being sent to search on RateOurCops before they get there. It's a fallacy.

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> Yelp and online business review sites provide value on the basis that you can make educated choices, but there is no choice involved with police. You don't get to pick and choose which officers or departments are coming, and if someone calls the police on you you're not not going to be have the time or knowledge of who's being sent to search on RateOurCops before they get there. It's a fallacy.

You don't get to pick and choose your kid's public school teachers, either. You can extend this to public schools, as well. You don't choose public schools your kid goes to in the same way you don't get to choose what department in your city responds to your call. And yet Rate My Teachers exists for public school teachers[1] all the same.

You can choose where you live and decide what schools or teachers you don't want your kid being around, in the same way you can choose where you live or travel to in order to avoid certain cops or police departments entirely.

[1] https://ratemyteachers.com/

Your argument is essentially that two wrongs make a right, since this other site exists then this one is fine.

RatemyTeachers has a privacy policy and at least attempts to verify people, telling viewers that despite their efforts they should take reviews with a grain of salt[1].

Also, you still have more options for schools due to private and charter schools. It's still not an equal comparison.

[1] https://ratemyteachers.com/faq

My argument is that 1) you can, actually, make a choice using this information 2) that the OP isn't unique or different from other review sites, that in fact the OP is along the same lines of Rate My Professors, Rate My Teachers or other review sites. I also don't believe it's wrong, but I didn't argue that.

> You don't get to pick and choose your kid's public school teachers, either

Where I live you do. You can put in a request to have your child go to another school, either in your district or even out of your district. Or enroll them in private school, or charter school, or, heck, home school them.

The difference is, doing this means you as a parent are on the hook for getting your child to these schools (and in the case of home school, teaching as well).

But just because something is inconvenient doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And these options mean you can put your child where they will excel.

> But just because something is inconvenient doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And these options mean you can put your child where they will excel.

Exactly. If I don't want to live or visit somewhere where I might encounter certain police officers or departments, I have the option of making that happen. And that option means my kid won't be on the wrong side of those particular people or departments abusing their power.

Sites like the OP give people that option.

> almost definitely going to turn into a harassment and doxxing platform.

This site only uses publicly available information. How would it enable more harassment if someone can goto www.agency.com/officers and get the same info?

People can post whatever they want in the reviews. There's no verification process, or privacy policy. At best, this is "just trust us".

OK, I see how that could be a issue.

You can certainly choose where to live and travel though based on these reviews.

You can certainly also make that choice based on information from legitimate channels. People in LA don't need to have input on police departments that they'll never run into.

You do realize that cops -- especially bad cops -- change departments all the time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/16/what-happ...

I'm very aware of this practice, but once again it doesn't justify this website. It needs to be handled by the city in question. They can write their own policies and have autonomy, instead of everything coming down to online hearsay.

Except cities and agencies are choosing not to implement things like this. And they even go as far as keeping this information secret from the public.

The government not taking the 'right' option is not an argument for the creation of this website. Having the authorities run it instead of some random people (trolls, extremists, foreign intelligence, who knows) is not the same.

You're clutching a lot pearls here, but has there been any evidence for any of this every happening? There's mountains of evidence of how bad cops are protected by the union, the government policy, and even legally (hello qualified immunity, and repeated court deference).

Given the official reticence to hold officers to even the lowest standards of professionalism, what is your alternative? Throw up our collective hands?

> You're clutching a lot pearls here, but has there been any evidence for any of this every happening?

That idiom doesn't make sense to me in this context, there's no cultural issue or whatnot. It's about seeing how unverified claims can hurt people, which you don't need a crystal ball or peer reviewed study to tell you. It's also about the burden of proof - why do I need to point to tons of instances of these kinds of sites ruining innocent people's lives, but we should all expect what's posted here to be true without 'evidence'?

> There's mountains of evidence of how bad cops are protected by the union, the government policy, and even legally (hello qualified immunity, and repeated court deference).

"The police" are not some monolithic entity, with one single union or one single government, at least in the United States which this site is obviously directed at. Different unions and departments conduct themselves differently, and a lot of them don't have these problems.

> Given the official reticence to hold officers to even the lowest standards of professionalism, what is your alternative? Throw up our collective hands?

This is another fallacy - people that see the obvious problems with unverified claims on the internet are not required to give you solutions to whatever problem the latest example website is claiming to help solve.

That being said, I can choose to answer that question as the separate topic it is. My answer is stronger hiring practices and when the rubber hits the road, federal enforcement. There are police departments that don't have these problems. Americans have civil rights and federal law enforcement is supposed to protect them, even and especially from state governments when those are violated. More money needs to be spent, and for a lot of departments they just need to wipe the force.

You say that different agencies have different policies, but do they really? I would say this is a distinction without a difference. The problems seen are endemic across police forces nationwide. If there truly was a difference and a will to reform from the agencies themselves, wouldn’t the best practices be spread and the problems eradicated? Obviously this hasn’t happened.

As for more money for police, isn’t that just rewarding bad behavior? Police are already some the largest expenditures for cities, and that’s even before you factor in all the payments for lawsuits for police misconduct. Police departments are unique in that you will find people arguing that more money needs to be spent on failing departments, whereas other government agencies, for instance schools, have their budgets cut for poor performance.

It is pearl clutching because you’re arguing that potential harm is somehow greater than the actual harm that is occurring every day. Not just occurring, but documented, publicized, and then pointed unpunished.

Just earlier this year, the 5th Circuit Court said it was reasonable for a police officer to recklessly immolate a man. You might say, it was unexpected that a cop would know that tasing a man that has doused himself in gasoline, would ignite it. But that doesn’t hold, because not only are the cops trained not use tasers around flammable liquids, BUT ANOTHER OFFICER ON SCENE said, “If we tase him, he’s going to light on fire.”

But, oh won’t someone think of the police?! Seriously. Think about the real harm, because the cops protect themselves. They act with complete impunity. And as for worrying of a cop gets dozed, let me tell you a secret. That information is already public records. There’s nothing special here than anyone else, except that you and I can’t kill someone and then say the magic words “I thought he had a gun”, and then get applauded as a hero.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2021/02/19/court-gr...

The chance of these reviews turning out to be unbiased is quite literally 0%, and the chance of them being useful when determining where to live is maybe 0.1%.

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