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Comment by ajay-b | Hacker News Reader

The entire police force can do nothing for you on the phone. I think it is the reductions in police that are convincing more women to purchase.

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It's not just that police forces have been reduced. In some major cities police abandoned certain areas to anarchy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53218448

I believe also the police have no duty to respond based on a court ruling. Basically the entity we are supposed to rely on in the worst situations has no SLA and we have no recourse if they don't come and help.

Multiple court rulings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia is the first major one.

I live in the PNW, I've been to the area. If spray paint on a police building is lawless anarchy, alright, I guess, but my best friends girlfriend works literally across the street from the police station depicted, and you know what? It's fine. These stories are bullshit meant to rile you up because fear gets clicks.

Some folks have a different opinion, but these folks seem to be afraid anytime they see a houseless person, or a needle in an alley way, and neither of those problems have been solved with the ever increasing police budgets, just pushed it to a slightly different area, where the outrage starts all over again. There's a problem, sure, but the police ain't the tool to solve them, no matter how much we would like for complex problems to be solved with simple solutions.

Do you consider this fine? I don't think anyone benefits from a breakdown in civil order and the rule of law.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/2/21310109/ch...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53491223

CHOP was fine. Walked through there multiple times when it was happening because I was curious, it really does appear to me like media blowing things out of proportion for clicks/views.

Aside from the half dozen people they shot, I guess.

What's the excuse for the shootings that happened in other areas that the police didn't abandon? Perhaps it's because shootings happen regardless?

But you know, you're right, I'll take the news medias version of events, my eyes were lying to me, since what I witnessed doesn't jive with sensationalist news coverage.

I’m glad you weren’t there while any of the shootings were happening, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.

I was, a man drove his car in to the crowd, when people tried to stop him he fired once out of his car. He ran past me on the way to the police line (the police hadn't abandoned the precinct yet).

So, ironically enough, I was there for a shooting that happened while the police were still holding the area.

Christiania has been operating in Copenhagen for generations and that's one of the wealthiest and healthiest cities on the planet.

Christiana is very different from the areas the person you replied to described.

What reductions in police? Basically no location has actually defunded their police depts, despite all the talk.

True, but lots of police have moved departments to safer places, e.g. suburbs.

I live in Seattle, and I can assure you that the SPD is basically useless now. Whether or not it was "defunded", there were budget cuts and enough restrictions added that the PD essentially doesn't respond to calls unless someone is being actively and indisputably murdered.

Department policies have caused a surge in resignations and early retirements, with no supply of new recruits eager to step up.

In sense, the movement was successful because it reduced the number of police on the street. OTOH, those places are having to increase their police budgets and raise salaries to replace officers who have left.

Seattle cut police funding by 17%: https://mynorthwest.com/2339588/seattle-final-2021-budget-su...

180 police officers quit in 2020, 66 officers as of April 28th: https://apnews.com/article/seattle-police-government-and-pol...

Or increasing tales of police being less than useless in investigating or arresting sexual assailants.

Have you ever tried to call the police for an emergency? In my experience they've never been very responsive, no reductions needed.

A friend of mine had literally held someone down who assaulted a woman on a train and the police took 20 minutes to arrive.

I was in a hit and run that rendered my car unusable and the police told me to walk to the station and file a report.

I've got a lifetime of stories like this. I don't even bother calling anymore. This is a major city with a police force that has enough funding to have multiple helicopters.

Eight years ago I was mugged on the street, phone and laptop stolen after getting slammed into a concrete wall for not forking my stuff over as quickly as they would have liked. I walked a few blocks to the closest police station, and the cop at the desk exuded a complete lack of interest. I asked if I could have help getting home, and he said "we don't do that". I ended up walking six blocks to a bus stop (right back through where I was mugged) and took the bus home.

Actually, my memory is fuzzy, but I think I didn't walk initially; a friendly bystander drove me to the police station. Surprise, random stranger took better care of me than the police.

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