Deaf Man Who Couldn't Hear Police Commands Was Tased and Spent 4 Months in Jail | Hacker News Reader

Deaf Man Who Couldn't Hear Police Commands Was Tased and Spent 4 Months in Jail

npr.org

259 pointsamin197 comments

> In a statement, the Idaho Springs Police Department said the two officers didn't know Mistic was deaf during the initial encounter and maintained that Mistic resisted arrest, causing one of the officers to break his leg.

Weird the article mentions this once and doesn't elaborate. I mean, how exactly did the officer break his leg?

> Mistic then spent more than four months in jail and says he was repeatedly denied an interpreter.

That's horrifying.

> Hanning was later charged with third-degree assault and fired from the police force in a separate case in which he allegedly used his Taser on a 75-year-old man, according to The Associated Press. Summers, who used a Taser on Mistic, according to the lawsuit, is still an officer with the Idaho Springs police.

Sounds like this sort of thing is a recurring problem.

> Summers, who was in training at the time,

> Summers told emergency medical staff called to the scene that Mistic was deaf, but neither officer

I can see why some leniency is shown towards the junior one.

When you say some leniency is shown, did anything happen to either one as a consequence of this? From my reading of the article, it doesn’t seem like it.

> Hanning was later charged with third-degree assault and fired from the police force in a separate case in which he allegedly used his Taser on a 75-year-old man

So not directly, but reading between the lines there is probably something to do with straws and camels going on.

...on the other hand, Summers was also the one who tasered Mistic, according to the article.

Denial of an interpreter is a denial of civil rights.

The only crime is that the taxpayers will pay the settlement not the police force.

We should take all settlements out of the local police Union so that all cops suffer.

> We should take all settlements out of the local police Union

as much as I have disdain for the actions of some police unions, I'd rather legislate bad behavior directly than set precedent for charging unions for members crimes.

> We should take all settlements out of the local police Union so that all cops suffer.

No, we should abolish public-sector unions, which protect bad cops and bad teachers alike.

What we should have is a total rework of Federal labor laws, and impose tariffs against any country that doesn't provide equal or better to its workers.

Workers should enjoy some level of protection against summary dismissal. This needs to run on a sliding schedule. You should be able to fire new people that can't cut the proverbial, but if somebody's been with you for a year, they are clearly contributing value. Tenured folks can get the axe, of course, but it should be harder. Maybe require a full year to retrain/recover, and failing that, a year of severance.

All of this should scale to the size of the company. Starbucks can afford this. Bob's Bait Shack And Discount Virology Research can't.

Flatten out personal income tax. You pay 5%, period. Automatic deduction not required, although for practical reasons, it'd need to be the default to start. That gets you however much government it does. "The Rich" don't pay income taxes, so I'm not interested in hearing how this isn't fair. It's way easier to enforce.

There's a big trade-off baked in: no more minimum wage. You get paid according to your value. If you're working, the Fed can make up the difference for you, and will levy additional taxes against your employer should they be just trying to milk the public teat.

Health insurance should work like it does here in Japan. Regulated market, fallback on the State as an insurer of last resort.

No requirement to buy insurance if you don't want to, but if you don't and you get sick, you either pay cash, or you can opt back into the insurance system with full back-payment.

This wouldn't be easy. Devil always lies in the details, and it'll take real work to avoid focal points -- e.g., encouraging firing-and-rehiring at 364 days because of 365 day benefits cliff, for example -- but every worker deserves the same level of protection.

Of course, this is all sensible shit that tries to solve real problems. So it'll never happen.

> no more minimum wage. You get paid according to your value.

You had me until this.

Without a minimum wage, you create a race to the bottom on wages as you find people who are more and more desperate. Meanwhile, you'll create a huge homeless problem as people who are willing to get paid 50 cents an hour won't be able to afford rent anywhere.

Also, define "your value". It doesn't take a graduate Economy class to know that nearly all jobs that aren't commission are not paid based on the profit they create, but by how easy they are to replace.

Maybe, maybe not. It's interesting to consider, because they wouldn't need an interpreter if everything was done through writing, which maybe they or others wouldn't want to do either.

This may be a little off topic, but, like, instead of just being able to film your encounter with police, you're able to just take pictures of the notes they hand you as a way of documenting your encounter. Not to say that's sufficient, but it's interesting to think about.

Often times, written form of communication are denied to arrested folks as the narrow, generally cylindrical implement for writing, drawing, or marking, consisting of a thin rod of graphite, colored wax, or similar substance encased in wood or held in a mechanical holder, can be used as a weapon.

Crayons? Those bendy pencils? A very thick and blunt pencil?? Finger paint??? Hell, give them a typewriter! How is this even remotely an excuse?

Seen a typewriter as of late?

Yes! Our municipality building has a dusty basement room full of them and there are a handful of companies still producing new ones (although expensive).

But even better, just get those <100$ ARM/baytrail laptops and have them boot straight into a kernel with no network stack and launch only Xorg and AbiWord.

> Mistic resisted arrest, causing one of the officers to break his leg. Weird the article mentions this once and doesn't elaborate. I mean, how exactly did the officer break his leg?

I agree. This is a crucial part of the story which should be discussed…

Mr. Mistic’s complaint doesn’t shed much light:

> At some time in the process of rushing up to Mr. Mistic, grabbing him, and throwing him to the ground, Defendant Hanning realized that he had caused himself to break his own leg/ankle.

> 51. At no time did Mr. Mistic threaten, physically harm, or fight with the officers.

There are plenty of ways to break a leg! And police officers aren't a particularly healthy group, tending to be overweight and out of shape. Combine that with a job that involves infrequent but strenuous exertion and you get lots of injuries.

I'm certain the broken leg will be discussed but it is likely that the break has nothing to do with any particular action by the deaf person.

e.g., my neighbor "broke his leg" a few months ago in the first few minutes of playing soccer with his grandchildren. No contact was required: he slipped while setting up for a kick and broke his fibula.

Doesn't the sentence say that the victims leg was broken? And their excuse for doing that was "he was resisting arrest"

I didn't realize it, but you're right that "causing an office to break his leg" could be referring to Mistic's leg. The wording is ambiguous, since we don't know if "his" refers to the officer or Mistic.

Other articles on this story are saying it's the officer who broke his leg.

Police using violence against someone who is not violent is insane. Anyone doing so should be disqualified from ever being a cop.

That's like most of what cops do in the US

Do you mean "like what most cops do" rather that "most of what cops do"? Because weighting by time, the latter seems implausible to me.

Do you think most cases of violence by cops are against violent people?

Remembering that when they're called to a violent crime, usually it's already over, but when they're called for a non-violent offense the perpetrator is more likely to be there?

I mean this completely unironically: cops are mostly armed bureaucrats. The vast majority of their function is to basically hand out tickets, police reports for insurance reasons, and to a lesser degree arrest people for whom there is an arrest warrant. Actually stopping crime in progress is more a factor of luck than an intended role, and not one they have any legal obligation to do.

The fact that we tolerate this level from people who probably don’t even need to be armed is insane.

Hell, red light cameras and speed cameras could probably save a lot of lives purely by eliminating unnecessary police/civilian interactions, let alone whatever road safety function they’d perform.

I guess it depends on what police behavior counts as 'violence'.

So the first part of the question is, are most policing hours spent "using violence" or not? I'm not sure.

Then the next part of the question might be, of the hours of policing spent "using violence", is the violence being used against someone who is not being violent most of the time? This one I feel pretty safe saying a big yes to. And I think is mainly what the original comment was getting at.

I assume that by "violence" we mean, like, physical violence, things like beating, choking, tazing, tear gas, shooting, etc., things by which one is exerting power over another through physical exertion, in a way that can directly cause injury or pain.

"using violence against someone" doesn't refer to "taking advantage of an implicit threat of violence", it means actively doing violence (or actively directing others to do so).

What about an explicit threat of violence?

If someone who is not the police does that, we generally consider them "violent" and (ironically?) support police violence against them. Like if someone points a gun at someone (an explicit(?) threat of violence, but not yet violence itself?), if the police shoot them, people consider that a justified violent response to violence.

Then we can ask if, say, imprisoning someone is "violence" on it's own -- again, if someone that wasn't the police kidnapped you and locked you in the basement, we'd probably consider it a violent act, even if they didn't have to punch you to get you into the basement?

I think it's interesting to talk about because I think what's violent and not is not as clearcut as we sometimes assume, and is worth interrogating. (I don't mean to suggest that anything anyone finds emotionally uncomfortable is "violence" either... there is lots going on culturally around "violence" these days...)

Still, regardless, I think it's probably true that the majority of policing hours are not spent in the active use of violence (although some are spent preparing for use of violence, or looking for opportunity to use violence), and also, that the majority of times that are use of violence are against people who were not being violent.

I think I would consider whatever process they used to get hypothetical-me into their basement to be violence, but not their keeping the basement door locked or whatever is used to keep hypothetical-me in. (Possibly if I was actually in this situation my opinions would change, and I would conclude that what I’m saying now was mistaken. I don’t know.)

The point about a clear/explicit threat of imminent violence is a good one. Yes, we typically would call such a person violent, and want someone to deal with the situation.

Do we consider the person to be violent because we regard them as doing/engaging-in violence / “being- violent as-an-action”, or because their threats lead us to conclude that they are the type of person who would be likely to do violence, and therefore a violent person?

And many (most?) people do support direct violence used in response to an explicit threat of imminent violence. If they also believe that violence should not be done to people who aren’t doing violence, then that would seem to indicate that they consider an explicit threat of imminent violence to be doing violence.

So, it seems there are good arguments that suggest that “violence” is perhaps generally used in a way that includes imminent threats of violence.

Overall, my feeling is that it is probably kind of a borderline case.

Edit: also, yeah, my claim wasn’t on the basis of “because they aren’t so bad as to spend a majority of their working time doing it” so much as on “spending the majority of one’s working time doing that would be exhausting, and I’m not sure anyone is even physically capable of it”. (Well, someone standing in one place and repeatedly pulling a trigger on a gun for a total of 4.5 hours of each day is probably not exceeding a person’s physical limits, but that’s not the relevant situation)

And I guess that's exactly the challenge. Who "we" think are "the type of person who would be likely to do violence" or even posing "an explicit threat of imminent violence" is not only subjective, but in our society very based on the social positions of the judgers and the doers.

No doubt the police in the OP will swear that they had good reason to think that deaf guy was "the type of person who would be likely to do violence" and posed "an explicit threat of imminent violence"; if you take them at their word, then the police 100% of the time only use violence against such people because that's always what they'll swear they were doing.

I don't take them at their word. Or even if they honestly believed that, they've trained themselves to see that in people who are not that, and they are terribly terribly wrong, And are in the majority of times they are using violence against people in the USA.

nitpick : posing a threat and making a threat are different things, and I meant to be talking about making a threat, as the thing that seemed borderline as to whether it is considered "violence". I don't think whether someone is making a threat is subjective.

Cops have a bad reputation in most places, but this might be media bias or media coverage. I can't say in the countries I've lived in (most countries in the UK, France, Germany and now Australia) are anything like what you see covered in the US.

It depends on what kind of law enforcement you are dealing with. City police have a poor reputation but county sheriffs often have a more positive reputation in many areas. Federal law enforcement is a whole different can of worms. The incentive structures and relationships to the population are different, and that leads to different behaviors.

My experience in several jurisdictions matches the heuristic. Encounters with city police were always default adversarial, even when I had done nothing wrong; interactions with sheriffs were uniformly pleasant and reasonable, not adversarial, even in a couple cases where I was inadvertently breaking the law.

"are anything like what you see covered in the US."

Judging US police from media coverage is really not useful.

Having lived experience of living in the US I think does illustrate some things, and then, more importantly, having access to 'good data' (which is hard, but nevertheless possible) is even better.

I believe the police in the US overall take a more aggressive tone and posture. I also believe US citizens are far more likely to act in defiance. The things I've seen American individuals do ... I have never in my life seen in Canada, UK, France, Germany and couldn't even imagine it happening.

The scenes of a man, with two police officers arresting him - four hands on him, putting cuffs on him - and he goes for his gun (!!). Or the number of times people race away from police after being pulled over and resulting high-speed chase. It's absurd.

It's an issue I think people often don't tend to want to think about, but if we use car chases as an example - I think this is worthy because these are generally not situations in which arbitrary police aggression is going to be a 'root cause'.

You can see total deaths in the US from car chases is ballpark 2/million/year, where as in he UK it's about 0.2/million/year. [1][2]

High speed chases are a cultural phenom [3]

(FYI about 1/2 of the people who die in high speed pursuits are innocent bystanders.)

Obviously, this will be affected by police police in terms of pursuit policy (i.e. in many forces they won't pursue if it's too dangerous) - but there's no doubt that Americans have a much greater propensity to run from police, in cars, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do for those involved, but also for everyone else. It's nary impossible to get the data, but I believe that this applies to all other forms of confrontation as well. I think that they are related, i.e. civilians more aggressive posture - combined with the fact so many people have weapons - makes the police more 'on edge' and combined with their more systematically aggressive posture, you have considerably greater chances of 'small things' escalating into 'big things' - as we have in this article.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/319294/deaths-during-or-...

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/727008/vehicle-pursuit-r...

[3] https://www.lamag.com/longform/how-high-speed-car-chases-bec...

Or, maybe cops behave differently in the US other than those countries. Even just comparing the UK and America provides an illustrative example; wouldn’t you expect differences in policing between a country where every cop is armed, and one where very few are?

I can say as an American there is a very, very strong pro-cop bias in American media. This is slowly changing, but it’s not a completed process yet. Take a look at what tortuous lengths most newspapers will go to to avoid describing officer misconduct in the active voice; “officer involved shooting” has become a dark joke in this country for a reason.

All or most cops have guns in Australia for what it's worth. That they're not used as often is likely due to training and the likelihood that the person you're arresting won't have one though.

Yes, it’s more subtle and multi-faceted than the example I picked. I just figured that was an easy one to point at as a difference.

I personally think that police mentality matters a lot more than anything else. German police departments for example still have a lot of shame over their extensive involvement in the Holocaust, which affects how they see themselves and how they behave today. Doesn’t mean they’re perfect, but it’s a huge factor that changes police behavior from one country to the next.

In the US you have the constant threat of gun-violence, which basically processes all police into a army-band-of-brothers troop in what feels to some of them like a low level civil war.

You can not remain good police in such a environment and stay alive till retirement unless you are outside of the urban areas.

This is what cops want you to believe, yes. The statistics do not back this up. Roughly as many cops are dying per year from 9/11 related illnesses as gunfire. In 2020 5x as many cops died from Covid than died from gunfire the year before.

The fact that cops demand the right to use lethal force without consequence and the ability to not get vaccinated from something that’s killed 5x as many cops as guns have kind of gives the whole game away. It’s not about public safety or the cops safety; it’s just about power.

In reality the group that should be really terrified of everyone is pregnant women, who are much more likely to be shot to death than a cop is. Given the prevalence of domestic violence among cops (estimated as high as 40%), being a pregnant woman married to a cop is probably more dangerous than being a cop.

That seems unlikely given there were an estimated 61.5 million encounters between police and the public in 2018.

https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf

My nephew just started as a police officer in a small town recently. He hasn't cracked a skull or kneed a chest in an entire year of service. Most of his time is spent as a medic, social worker or civil servant but also has to be ready in case shit hits the fan. The scope of work is too much for a single person and we get what we get as a result.

> He hasn't cracked a skull or kneed a chest in an entire year of service.

What a powerful sentence.

Does that mean I don’t need to pay taxes and they should never use violence to coerce me?

Does that mean I don’t need to pay rent, because so long as I’m not violent they can’t remove me?

Edit: Y’all are evidently missing the point that passive resistance can require violent force to overcome. Ultimately the difference between a law and a polite suggestion is that the former is backed by the threat of whatever force is necessary to enforce it. Suppose I prefer not to be arrested and I don’t attack the police, I just don’t let them cuff me and take me away. Are they justified to overpower me, regardless how much force it takes to overcome my noncompliance?

First of all, your first question is a strawman because local police, as being discussed here, are not the ones performing arrests in cases of tax evasion. Rather, federal authorities would be the ones handling tax evasion.

As soon as a warrant goes out from any source, local police are potentially conducting arrests.

You're conflating the academic definition of "violence" (e.g. "Nationstate monopoly on violence") with the colloquial and context-sensitive word "violence" ("That violent cop tased me for no reason.").

Yes, and yes.

There is a difference between the use of force and the use of excessive force. When people talk about violence, they are usually referring to the latter.

Then there is the question of when is the use of force appropriate. Failure to pay taxes or rent rarely involves the use of physical force. It would be used as a last resort, after other methods have failed. Likewise, the alleged failing to stop for a stop sign should not have led to a physical confrontation unless it was initiated by the person being ticketed. Even the refusal to comply with a police officer should not result in the immediate use of force. There are other ways to handle it.

>Does that mean I don’t need to pay taxes and they should never use violence to coerce me?

If you're not violent during the arrest and don't resist, they shouldn't(and usually don't) use violence to arrest you and transport you to prison. There is no coercion to pay taxes by beating you up like the mafia.

>Does that mean I don’t need to pay rent, because so long as I’m not violent they can’t remove me?

Again, you're conflating leading or carrying you out as violence.

If the police use the bare minimum necessary physical force to carry out their duty, I don't think that qualifies as violence.

> If you're not violent during the arrest and don't resist, they shouldn't(and usually don't) use violence to arrest you and transport you to prison. There is no coercion to pay taxes by beating you up like the mafia.

The key part here is "not resisting". The fact that it needs to be specified is in it self saying that there is a threat of violence. "You don't pay taxes, we will attempt to arrest you. If you don't comply we will, beat you up." All laws are eventually backed up with the threat of violence. If they weren't, you could literally just ignore them without recourse.

No, because beating you up isn't a goal in itself to punish you for your crime. "Resisting arrest" or 'don't comply' are weasel terms. They can range from just refusing to walk or wear handcuffs, to running away to threatening to injure or kill the police or actually doing so. The beating up part normally happens only with trying to escape or threaten the police. And even in those cases, if they only use the minimum physical force necessary to take someone into custody, would you call that violence?

If they don't know that, what's the incentive for anyone not to rob, not repay debts, murder and rape as they wish, and then just refuse arrest for the rest of their lives? What do you think the law and police should do in those cases?

> Anyone doing so should be disqualified from ever being a cop.

Preferably by ending up in prison, among the general population.

Great idea! Let's punish extra-judicial punishment with... extra-judicial punishment

Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard? I feel like the only way that it makes sense to have some sort of Leviathan-esque system is if we have assurances that the enforcers can be trusted.

>Should we not hold the people who are given a higher amount of power to a higher standard?

You don't need extra-judicial and/or cruel and unusual punishment to do that.

How is putting cops in prison extra-judicial or cruel and unusual? I do think cops should get harsher sentences for abusing their power because, again, they're given extra power. If we cannot trust the enforcers of the law, then I am skeptical of the concept of enforcers. But of course I think there should be a standard trial and whatnot, I'm not suggesting we go to Mad Max or anything like that.

I'm not saying we summarily execute every cop who has run a red light, but I'm saying that if a cop does a bad thing, then it shouldn't be an outlier case for them to go to prison for it.

>How is putting cops in prison extra-judicial or cruel and unusual?

It's not, but GP's exact words were (emphasis mine):

>Preferably by ending up in prison, among the general population.

Which I've taken to imply "...so they'd get beaten up by fellow inmates". I'm not sure why he'd bring up that detail other than to imply that.

As for the rest of the comment, I'm not disagreeing with you on those points.

Fair enough! I misread your intent. I would be against cops being abused by the inmates (just as I would any other prisoner), though I would be in favor of cops getting increased sentences for equivalent crimes.

> Which I've taken to imply

Unless you consider the interpretation "since they are part of the general population, they are picked from it, they are not outside the set of the "little people", they have a provisional mandate given under conditions, "equality" in modern societal systems means "all are the same in front of the law" and practical exceptions do not constitute substantial exceptions".

So, you're saying that putting cops in jail is cruel and unusual punishment... Probably means we shouldn't do that to anyone.

Or, perhaps, judicial punishment. The official carve-outs for police misbehavior are unacceptable. And, unofficially, prosecutors are strongly disincentivized to prosecute cops: they're the DAs primary witnesses in many cases.

>Or, perhaps, judicial punishment

I don't think that's what the parent poster was advocating. see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28713675

>The official carve-outs for police misbehavior are unacceptable. And, unofficially, prosecutors are strongly disincentivized to prosecute cops: they're the DAs primary witnesses in many cases.

Don't disagree with you on any of those.

The carve outs make sense on paper and maybe more so at the time they were written. But now the mountain of evidence displaying how humans can not be trusted with that type of power/responsibility is overwhelming.

Let’s do prison reform too then.

Great, now you made the reform 2x harder to pass because now you'd need to get voters on board with prison reform. I'm not sure what the point of "let's give corrupt cops extra-judicial punishment by putting them in dangerous situations, but that's fine because we'll also simultaneously fix the dangerous situation!"

1. Doesn’t have to be the same legislation or regulation effort. It’s okay to say “crime penalties shouldn’t be dangerous” as a response to “people who impose penalties on others should be subject to their own penalties” -> “those penalties are dangerous”.

2. Why should I care more about the extrajudicial punishment of cops more than the extrajudicial punishment of the people they abuse?

3. One of the best pieces of political advice I ever got was “demand the impossible”. Anything less is selling short whatever compromise you can achieve and reframing your next attempt. It doesn’t mean you stick to your demand, it just means you start from your principles and adjust from there.

>1. Doesn’t have to be the same legislation or regulation effort. It’s okay to say “crime penalties shouldn’t be dangerous” as a response to “people who impose penalties on others should be subject to their own penalties” -> “those penalties are dangerous”.

In other words, you're for extra-judicial punishment?

>2. Why should I care more about the extrajudicial punishment of cops more than the extrajudicial punishment of the people they abuse?

Because we as a society don't believe in "eye for an eye".

>3. One of the best pieces of political advice I ever got was “demand the impossible”. Anything less is selling short whatever compromise you can achieve and reframing your next attempt. It doesn’t mean you stick to your demand, it just means you start from your principles and adjust from there.

There's a limit to this, right? If you believe in a full communist revolution, "start from your principles" will get you absolutely nowhere, whereas advocating for some pro-social policies might actually do (eg. medicare expansion, free daycare).

> In other words, you're for extra-judicial punishment?

You’re being a jerk and there’s no reason for me to pretend otherwise for discussion. There’s no reasonable way you could conclude that from the quote you responded to.

If general population is good enough for normal people illegally committing violence, it should be good enough for the police illegally committing violence.

Yeah this video still haunts me(1). The cop was acquitted by jury, saying the victim, committed a misdemeanour by leaving the house without identification(2).

They did win $1.75m in the end though so at least there is that.

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_SSGa7-6BQ

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sureshbhai_Patel

That Wikipedia article is almost certainly inaccurate. I would need much stronger evidence than a link to photographyisnotacrime to be convinced that not having id when walking around is even a citation, much less a misdemeanor anywhere in the US.

Much more likely someone got their wires crossed in hearing the detail of the story.

It's accurate, it's misdemeanor for a permanent resident to not carry ID in public.

https://www.al.com/news/2016/01/judge_throws_out_case_agains...

> I would need much stronger evidence than a link to photographyisnotacrime to be convinced that not having id when walking around is even a citation, much less a misdemeanor anywhere in the US.

Or just do a basic search. If you're a green card holder it's a misdemeanor to be without your id.

As an LPR myself, this is true. I keep mine in my wallet. It is handy as a secondary backup identity card when (for whatever reason) I don't have my drivers license on me.

(PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong!) I understand there are some weird situations you can be in though (caused by poorly written legislation), for example, not having your LPR Green Card is a *strict liability* federal misdemeanor, without any exceptions or legislated consideration if someone stole your card off you, or even if the card was confiscated by a federal or state/local official. So you could be stopped by a cop, who asks for your Id and confiscates your GC, and then immediately charges you for not being in possession of your GC. However I gather that this has never been tested in court, but it's still an unpleasant possibility.

...and if you lose it, that's $600 (!!!!) to renew it, which means having to go to your nearest USCIS building in-person (which can be hundreds of miles away) to have your fingerprints and other biometrics re-taken - I don't know why but USCIS simply won't re-print an existing GC unlike how WA's DoL has been re-issuing my drivers' license using the exact same biometrics and other info unchanged from almost a decade ago... it still says I weight 140lbs (lol... I'm 90kg now, ugh).

And you're on-the-hook for that $600 regardless of the reason for reissuing it: whether it was your fault or not (though if it was someone else's fault I guess you could file a civil claim for damages at least)

LPR rights are not exactly high on the priority list - but the law should be changed to not require us to carry the GC; and misplacing a GC (or being the victim of a crime of GC theft) should certainly not cost $600 and a half-day spent at a (depressing) USCIS building every time.

It's super-absurd: I understand the "must carry" rule also applies to children: so rambunctious kindergarten kids too young to even tie their own shoelaces need to carry a $600 hologram of past presidents' heads. Surely there must be some way this is an unreasonable burden or maybe even unconstitutional because of the power-imbalance it introduces?

------

...also I could be horribly misinformed about all of the above.

"If you're a green card holder" is a pretty big caveat to be leaving out! Suddenly the framing of the crime is less "walking around without ID" and more "being a foreigner who can't produce documentation of legal presence".

Both are shitty situations, but do you see how much more surprising it is to hear that a court will uphold the criminality of something that everyone seems to do all the time with no consquences, than that there's apparently no political will to fix what amounts to, on the happy path, a trivial inconvenience for a small class of politically unpopular noncitizens?

> Both are shitty situations, but do you see how much more surprising it is to hear that a court will uphold the criminality of something that everyone seems to do all the time with no consquences

The court didn't "uphold the criminality" of anything because Patel was never charged with anything, and the cop had no idea he was a foreigner when he partially paralyzed the man by throwing him into the ground.

And the court definitely didn't uphold the criminality of the police officer's behavior, where apparently "strong though disputed evidence that he jerked his arm" is sufficient license for the cop to then do whatever he wants.

> there's apparently no political will to fix what amounts to, on the happy path, a trivial inconvenience for a small class of politically unpopular noncitizens?

I'm assuming the assault by a police officer and the complete lack of recourse aren't the trivial inconveniences you're referring to?

Monopoly on legal violence is the job description.

Don't want things smashed, don't use a hammer. Don't want violence, don't send a cop.

Such grasp of the point - monopoly of legal violence - completely perverts it. Who is given powers to perform a function, plainly must not abuse them.

The police is entrusted with a power to use violence, which means it is given a special responsibility associated with the special power: to abuse it is corruption, which is treason against the mandate, against the role and against the Entity empowering and entrusting.

One is given a hammer, one is entrusted not to smash things. Don't want thing smashed, hire reliable personnel. If a cop is sent and you get gratuitous violence, that individual is unfit for its job, its behaviour is corrupt and it is treason.

You're speaking from the position of how it should be, while everyone else is talking about how it is.

It's not hard to find plenty of instances of police abusing their power and getting away with it. In many departments, "Internal Affairs" works FOR the police, rather than as a neutral 3rd party. The "We investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing" is a common meme because it's often true.

Where that is tolerated (including accepted as a fact, or put aside as a background fact), the involved societies have a much bigger problem to deal with first.

And if that fact is forced to fit into someone's mind through monstrous excuses for thought (with reference to that involving undefined association with violence), to problem (1) - the corruption in the state -, and problem (0) just above - the corruption of the members of society -, you get an even bigger damage (-1) - thought pollution, the corruption of clear cognitive function.

Weirdly enough in Europe I would be not even remotely afraid when a cop stops me. The likelyhood they would do something weird or violent is pretty slim and most traffic police is quite friendly.

Then again police school is harder to get into, takes much, much longer than in the US etc.

From what I understand weapons is the main cause. I literally know 0 people of my friends who own a gun in Europe.

How many cops are getting killed in US vs Europe? They kind of have the right to be super cautious.

I grew up in a city with a major Glock factory and a thriving gunsmith industry, with every other person being a hunter. My father showed me how to shoot when I was 10.

The idea that the unique problems the US has in with guns are a simple result of the numbers of gun owners is wrong. There are tons of gun owners in the Alps and in Scandinavia, and not a single region has comparable problems. Over here if at all guns are usually used in suicides and domestic murders, someone robbing you at gunpoint is so rare that it is newsworthy.

I'd say this has more to do with how we deal with poor, sick and/or criminal people than with the existence of guns.

120 years ago my grandmother's deaf uncle was shot dead by New York police. He was running for a train.

Now it's tase and jail. I guess that's progress. I'm just glad I don't live in America.

There is usually at least 1000 people shot by police each year (edit: in the US)... and that don't include chockings and other murder methods: https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings

There is usually at least 1000 people shot by police each year in the US.

All other developed nations have significantly lower rates and incidences of police killings: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/.

There are ~50 officers 'feloniously killed' in the US every year.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2018/topic-pages/officers-feloniou...

If you dig around most other nations have substantially lower rates of LEO homicides.

Bunch of older stats here https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ph98.pdf

I think one begets the other in a positive feedback loop that is difficult to break.

many pet dogs get needlessly shot too

true, but dogs need to be leeched

Out of which 60-70 are unarmed.

I think there are way too many police killings, but we should get the context right

It’s legal to be armed in most jurisdictions. We should be specific about that part too and what does and does not pose a threat.

True, but also most major crime cities have gun control laws. I have a feeling most are legit situations, though, not sure if there's a way to find out. Giving probable cause, police will usually interact with you if you're already doing something bad. Now, we need to make the distinction between "didn't stop at the stop sign" and "just robbed a bank with a gun" bad.

Robbing a bank should not be a reason to be killed either...unless people lives were at risk.

I want to reduce police killings, but not neuter them.

If you do, then you end up with powerless police, which will make matters worse for everyone. E.g. murders in Baltimore https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2014

Look at total for 2014, 2015 and 2020. Up until 2014 you had less and less, with just 211 in 2014. In 2015 you had 342 and later years about the same.

What happened in 2015? Police killed a suspect in custody and protests ensued. Was it right for police to murder a suspect? Surely not...but now you have 100 more people killed each year in the city...600 extra people died in Baltime since those protests.

Those policemen got away with no convictions. The police from 2020 are not walking away from cases like that, so my bet is that we will see a worse wave of murders, this time across America.

Maybe lack of trust in police is a fundamental issue that makes it harder for community policing and violence prevention to work?

And those numbers might be a significant undercount https://gizmodo.com/most-police-killings-in-the-u-s-arent-of...

I don't want the following to come off as judgemental or to imply that I have anything but the utmost empathy for everyone involved in this case.

I think it's interesting to consider these types of articles that get popular online. It seems perfect for creating outrage, but for what? If the purpose of the news is to inform, what does this news inform me of? What am I to do except get angry and ruminate and forget and repeat for the next story? I don't want to seem like the archetypal angry cynic that so often appears in these comment sections, but this is genuinely the reason I stopped paying attention to most of the news. I'm not sure what else to add here. I just think about this a lot.

This is a weird fatalism about being unable to ever effectuate change that is really annoying in US politics. Without information about what's happening we'll never have a chance to change things, the whole culture of police violence loves hiding in the dark which is why news articles, body cams, and public videoing officers are met with such push back from police and their protectors.

It's the eternal "who watches the watchers" problem.

Some people propose having a very local, municipal for small towns, or even smaller for large towns, mercenary force with license to use lethal force that answers to direct democracy of the area they are assigned to and nobody else.

Just like police, only their contract is reviewed every year, for everyone in the force.

>It's the eternal "who watches the watchers" problem.

Odd. Plenty of other countries manage watching their watchers just fine...

>Some people propose having a very local, municipal for small towns, or even smaller for large towns, mercenary force with license to use lethal force that answers to direct democracy of the area they are assigned to and nobody else.

... and they don't even need local murder squads answering only to populist rage to do it.

I described elected sheriffs, but, if you feel that police "local murder squads", I don't know what to tell you.

The core issue is they are paid your tax dollars, but you have very little input or control on what and how they do, and municipalities in general rely on the fact that moving away is high friction to retain citizens.

Unfortunately you cannot easily fire them, if they underperform.

I don't know where you live but "mercenary force with license to use lethal force that answers to direct democracy of the area" doesn't reasonably describe the role of sheriff anywhere I've been.

Cameras. The police were wearing cameras.

https://www.clearcreekcourant.com/stories/body-cam-footage-s...?

Cameras are at best a corrective measure, but not preventative.

I'm hopeful better policing can be designed.

You shouldn't be downvoted. There is so much apathy with regards to "bad news" like this. So many people feel this way: "if I can't meaningfully participate in improving this societal ill, I would prefer to ignore it."

It is totally legit to ask how you can help beyond just feeling outraged. Answers to that question should exist and get talked about more.

IMO that is an entirely healthy and reasonable view to have. The word can't there is pretty important in making this distinction, but otherwise, everyone has 24 hours in the day just like everyone else, and filling that time with worry about things that are out of one's sphere of influence is harmful to mental health.

For my case, I already vote and contribute in a way consistent with values that are anti-police-abuse. I otherwise do not live in this city or this state, and am not running for any higher political office, so for me personally the story amounts to outrage-bait noise.

> What am I to do except get angry and ruminate and forget and repeat for the next story?

You're absolutely supposed to get angry– these cops attacked an innocent man, tased him, and stole 4 months of his life. I'm not sure why you'd think you're supposed to forget, though.

we shall definitely be angry with this policeman involved in this case, and the particular process/law to let this happen.

However, here is the question to everyone reading this article. How many of you are projecting this angry to the all policemen, the whole police system, institution and law enforcement? How much of you say " what we could do to make police better?" how much of you say "police is evil and we will defund police" maybe think about why?

How many articles about police brutality with no punishment by their superiors do you need to start questioning that there might be systemic abuse?

The reason why people say defund the police is because "we'll make it better!" is the same repeated statements that have gone literally nowhere, police abuse continues unchecked to the point where we have to write and publicly humiliate public officials to do their damn jobs.

The only result of “defund the police” movement so far has been an explosion in violent crime. The murder rates skyrocketed in 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/upshot/murder-rise-2020.h...

Literally no police departments have been "defunded" yet - even in places where they have been trying, the cuts have not taken effect.

Any stats about a rise in crime is very misleading. The cause of the rise in crime is in no way related to systematic policy changes in funding because there have been no changes made.

My understanding is that "defund the police" is to advocate that police is no longer the default caller and the default receiver of money when it comes to broad social issues like, say, a mentally ill person acting erratically, or a homeless person is behaving in crisis, or a similar nonviolent occurrence. The money should instead bolster our public health, public education, and social security and child care services. This is in response to the fact that the police broadly get an obscene amount of money and apparently have very little social good to show for it with no accountability.

> My understanding is that "defund the police" is to…

It means different things to different people. Some want to literally abolish police, some want to reduce funding.

> how much of you say "police is evil and we will defund police" maybe think about why?

No. They say "this current implementation of our police force are constantly committing evil acts and we should decide as a society whether that is acceptable".

Maybe you should think about why you think your opinion is superior to theirs. I imagine you're not on the receiving end of said evil acts. Dismissing the pain of members of the same society as you seems a bit rough, in my opinion.

The proposed solution is transparency and accountability, but this seems to be a non starter with entrenched interests. We want body camera evidence, well body cameras are always conveniently off or the recording is missing. We want consequences for cops who abuse their authority, well they get fired and picked up in an adjacent county. It’s maddening.

That’s why “defund the police” got started: just build a new system that actually works to “protect and serve” where old entrenched interests have no power to block progress. The police can still have some role, but it will be diminished and vestigial.

To fix policing we need real transparency, and real accountability. I don’t think we want an opaque, unaccountable organization with a legal monopoly on violence roaming our streets, do you? So why are police so resistant to being held accountable, the way we all are in our roles in society? If any other organization were throwing grenades into cribs and tasering innocent people, there would be immediate and fundamental changes to bring that behavior to a grinding halt. But because it’s “the police” we tolerate this. Why?

Why not a parallel police force whose job is to help people rather than hurt them? Model it after the Fire Department--they're here to just help and not harm. This unarmed "Helper Force" would be responsible for aiding citizens in trouble, advocating for victims, helping solve property crimes and other societal ills that typically go unenforced these days. You know, actually protecting and serving. After this "Helper Force" has been around for a while, ask the citizens to decide funding between them and the Original Force who spend their time on the violent side of policing: tazing deaf people, beating up minorities, and shooting everything that moves.

This is something that would be a great idea. For instance, my wife was in the middle of a mental health crisis so I called 911. That's what you do in this scenario. What she needed at the time was a trained psychiatric professional, not armed police officers that arrived at the door, clueless as to how to deal with her condition. Maybe armed officers are necessary in some of these scenarios, I can agree with that, but they shouldn't be the only ones at the door.

The problem is: how do you get this off the ground? Well the obvious way would be to take the money that the police spend on mental health calls and use some of that to fund the helper force. The problem is when you take money away from one group to give to another, there's always going to be objections, and that's what I think happens a lot of the time. I think the police like their role in society, and don't want to give it up quietly.

The sooner you realize that news are a form of entertainment rather than information, the quicker you can reprioritize your attention towards actually informational resources.

The Socrates three sieves test is a good tool to evaluate whether a source is actually informational or merely entertainment trying to pass off as informational.

How is informing people of crimes committed by agents of the state against innocent civilians "entertainment?"

You're clearly getting swayed by the emotive nature of this specific episode.

Are you saying you were not aware of police brutality before? Can you say that knowing about this specific episode is as useful to you as reading documentation or learning how to garden?

You'll have to forgive me if this sounds too utilitarian, but unless you're directly involved in this incident or policy making that affects future instances, then for all intents and purposes, there's no informational value in transmitting this story to you since you're not going to do anything about it anyways. In that sense, it is just vapid consumption, hence entertainment.

To be clear, I'm not criticizing the news reporter. They're doing what they believe is a service to others, and I respect that. What I'm talking about is how you as an entity with limited attention span could alternatively think about news.

> unless you're directly involved in this incident or policy making that affects future instances, then for all intents and purposes, there's no informational value in transmitting this story to you since you're not going to do anything about it anyways.

Frankly, that's nonsensical. There is a national conversation happening in the United States about policing, police brutality, and the lack of consequences when police abuse their authority. Engaged citizens should be informed enough to participate in that conversation.

I've always known there was police brutality, but seeing and reading as much about police as I have over the last several years has certainly changed my views, which impacts which candidates I would support in an election, for example.

I admit my view is somewhat cynical, but I feel compelled to ask: what has this "national conversation" achieved? Can you draw direct relationships between a choice between two actual candidates and how your change of vote affected anything related to police training? I ask this not to hear about hypotheticals or idealisms, but because the one instance of actual widespread law enforcement brutality that I have familiarity with (Brazil's military dictatorship years) only came to an end because of special circumstances surrounding specific political connections at the time, not because of any direct participation of the populace (in fact as part of the transition back to democracy, there was even a "compromise" amnesty law that shielded perpetrators of torture from charges).

I've read on numerous occasions how the US flavor of democracy is similarly not actually all that representative of the opinion of the masses (honestly, I have a hard time believing in any claim that the same political environment that passed Texas' recent abortion laws is a high functioning democracy).

I maintain my utilitarian position that reading about something in the news and talking about hypothetical candidates on some tech forum is nowhere near the same level of civic engagement as actually getting involved directly.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with reading news and not engaging in civics as a reaction, but the comment that prompted this discussion was about the relationship between reacting to news and the bigger picture for each person individually, and I think that identifying when time is being wasted is a pretty good start towards redirecting energy to activities that one considers important. </two-cents>

The United States is a democracy. Laypeople are expressly given the direct power to influence policy changes through voting, organizing, and protest. News like this is absolutely essential to informing the populace about what is happening where they live and what values and systems they want to support or oppose.

As I mentioned, I'm not criticizing the news reporters, I do respect what they do. This thread originated to talk about individual reactions to news. If you read aboud injustices and go out on the streets and protest and that actually makes a difference, more power to you. Though realistically speaking, I'm not sure movements like BLM are making much of a difference, unfortunately (I would love to be proven wrong here though!)

For anyone else who was confused like me, the "three sieves test" is "before you tell a story or pass on a rumour, ask yourself whether it is true, kind or necessary".

I'd heard this before, but never called that.

Yes. The one nuance in this case is to evaluate these factors as the receiving party, to determine how relevant the content is to you personally. E.g. for the police chief of that department, knowledge of this incident is very much necessary. For the random internet perso who's going to forget about it tomorrow, perhaps not so much.

With the best possible motives, the goal of a story like this is to apply pressure on the police department to discipline officers who fail to exercise due care when dealing with the public.

Here two officers tazed someone who couldn't hear them and held them in jail for 4 months because one of them fell and broke their leg while trying to jump the poor kid who, again, couldn't hear them.

One of the officers was later fired for excessive force. Maybe if they'd handled this situation better that second incident wouldn't have happened and some 75 year old man wouldn't have have been unnecessarily assaulted by government forces.

Maybe with enough public pressure, we create a climate where officers are less likely to assault some guy with his hands up yelling "no ears" instead of throwing him in jail for 4 months for maybe rolling a stop sign.

Agreed. Until people understand how much power US police forces have and how poorly they regulate it, we need to keep seeing these articles. I hope, at some point, there will be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back and broad sweeping changes will occur.

We do not need to get rid of policing, but we definitely need to change the way they treat the people they serve.

>He was also charged with possession of forged currency, the suit says, because police found movie-prop money in his wallet.

Maybe rolling a stop sign and having counterfeit money. They buried that part pretty far into the article.

They discovered the counterfeit money after having assaulted the suspect. It has no bearing on the lawsuit.

Anyone handling a decent amount of cash might be carrying counterfeit money. Everyone rolls through stop signs. You could arrest 5% of America on those two things any given day.

Well the charges were dropped so evidently not a big enough deal to actually prosecute him.

Regardless are either of those offenses reason to tazer and tackle the perpetrator who isn't actively resisting?

That bit of spin makes me question the rest of the story frankly. I'd like to see how this case shakes out, I feel like I'm missing something.

" to tazer and tackle the perpetrator who isn't actively resisting? "

He admitted to resisting in the article.

You can see how changing one small fact completely changes the nature of the article.

If police are trying to arrest you, and you fight back, that's a major escalation it almost puts 'the thing in question' they were pulled over for as a side show.

And - he's deaf, he's not blind.

The notion that 2 Police officers in uniform are upon you, and you can't tell they are police is a bit rich, it sounds like something made up by an attorney.

'Blinded by the light' would make sense when they were in their car or behind the lights. And certainly maybe he didn't recognize them or hear them at that time.

But by the time the police are upon him, it would seem very well within reason that he knew they were police.

That said, we don't quite know the details: maybe they came up on him from behind. Maybe they walked straight up to him and it was perfectly evident that they were cops.

That nuance is really important, because 'resisting arrest' is a serious thing, and if he did in fact know they were police, and he fought them, well then he's not going to have much of a defence in getting tased. If he was legitimately surprised then obviously some kind of reaction like that is warranted.

All of that said, why was he in prison for 4 months, that seems very bad.

Counterfeit money? It’s movie prop cash. That shit is obvious. I have some from a long forgotten marketing joke.

“Counterfeit money” lmao what a joke. Online commenters are so big on this legalese upgrade business. This guy had some joke currency on him and it’s now “counterfeit money”. Next thing you know you’re going to be calling kids using twigs to play cops and robbers “brandishing replica firearms”.

Oh oh, I know, we could call water balloons “simulated improvised explosive devices”. Coffee pods? “Psychoactive drugs”.

“Counterfeit money” hahahaha. I declare your comment “domestically sourced misinformation”.

AFAIK a kid can get in trouble at school for using a twig as a pretend gun.

https://www.newsweek.com/boy-13-who-drew-stickman-holding-gu...

Also, coffee really is a powerful drug, just that it's not regulated.

Interesting that you are “spreading knowledge about unregulated use of psychoactive drugs and assault weapons”. Clearly something to be ashamed of.

"movie-prop money"

You do realize that movie-prop money is clearly identifiable, and only meant to "look" like real money from a distance, and this is completely legal to possess until it is attempted to be passed as tender. If they have no evidence he was doing so, then this is just "hmm what charges can we throw at him" bullshit that is regularly employed in the US to trump up one incident to a whole list of charges.

Understand that this story is entirely one sided. That's what his lawyer framed this as, movie prop money, who knows what it actually was. The article has a ton of spin, did you get the part where they mentioned off have that he may of broken one of the police officers legs? They glossed over that fairly quickly, maybe interview the cop who had his leg broken as well?

I just don't understand the motivations of the police officers in this case, they just wanted to beat this guy up because they are big meanies? Just picked his car out and said "I want to use the taser on this random guy"? It couldn't have been due to his disability as it isn't visible to someone in another car. I feel like a lot of detail is missing from this account.

The takeaway is that the deaf man could be you. Cops and judges are flawed, and you should be wary of them. Also, you aren't being forced to read the news, if you don't find the information valuable then don't click on it.

there is no call to action in this story, so maybe that is why you are at a loss "for what"

if you feel troubled by the information presented here, i'm sure there are activists in your area that are seeking support and participation, or providing education and other resources, that could perhaps alleviate your feelings of disorientation and helplessness.

i presume the article doesn't include any reference to any course of possible action because, for better or worse, they are making an effort to maintain journalistic impartiality.

I don’t understand your confusion. Police are constantly abusing innocent people. The purpose of telling stories about police abuse is to educate the public about the reality of the situation.

Many of us were raised to believe the police are the good protectors of all, but as we learn about these stories we see that the police are not protecting everyone. Even when their intent is pure their methods are often unhinged and sloppy in a way that leads to senseless loss of life.

And so, faced with this reality, many see that the system of policing in the USA must be changed. And those with the will take that action with the support of others who know these stories.

Tho many people forget, and so many tabloids do exist to stir up outrage, I think the point of this NPR story is to educate as I have described.

It's an easy to understand question if you have some distance from the subject and are not triggered by it.

If you're a cop, and you ask someone to stop because something is up, and they just don't - if they react in any suspicious way it may cause you to want to stop them.

It's going to be extremely rare to the point of 'never happening' that you come upon someone who is both 'deaf' and temporarily 'can't see due to light' so it's not going to cross your mind.

The person admitted resisting arrest - he's deaf, not blind. When officers are physically upon you, how on earth do you not know it's them?

His lawyer said he was 'blinded by the car lights' which is understandable when the cops are behind the lights, but clearly not otherwise.

So there's a lot of room for the truth here, both parties could be innocent, both parties could be guilty.

Even more nuanced: both parties could be just slightly guilty, i.e. the cops were taking a subtly more aggressive posture than they needed to, and the civilian did something he knew he shouldn't do, which was actively resisted arrest when he for sure knew they were cops.

So cops needlessly put hands on him but still without intention to do anything, he resists which results in escalation, they fall to the ground, he breaks his legs and then you have a headline.

The story feeds into the preconceived notions that people have, people are overwhelmingly more likely to fill in the blanks with their narrow views than they would be to consider the multitudes of nuances that lead to a situation. It's a rorschach test.

That said: I would say the '4 month' bit is outrageous, we don't quite know what happened, maybe the toss-up between the police and civilian got quite serious but I can't fathom why he was not out on bail.

Edit: I will also add, that the 'firing' of the cop is also meaningless in terms of determining culpability. The cops firing will be as ultra-political as when they close ranks and defend themselves, and is further away from actual justice than anything in a court of law. If the cop brought in a bad headline for the police force, he becomes a really easy target for the leadership as a potential scapegoat and political cover. "Oh look, we've reformed!". The details of the situation may be more complicated.

It's really odd how these institutions work, they are so deeply politically entrenched and work on the basis of power, it's almost as if they are incapable of acting with thoughtful nuance. Advancement in these systems comes entirely from 'playing the game' and having a stellar record on paper and that's that.

I can see some truth to what you're saying, but one thing about this story really sticks out to me: the charge of counterfeit currency for movie prop currency. This makes it seem like they were charging him with whatever they could to make his life miserable.

If "possession of forged currency" is really just "found movie-prop money in his wallet", then is "resisting arrest" really just "he dragged his feet a little"?

I think that's an important point, kind of secondary but related to this.

But police don't lay charges, prosecutors do.

Once law enforcement is involved, and you're the 'bad guy' in their purview, then the prosecutors will stack charges. Like a negotiation "Oh, and you have this other thing, the fake money - we'll drop that if you admit to resisting arrest" etc.. It's more of a tactical ploy that I think police officers use everywhere, more aggressively in the USA.

I think that's an artifact of prosecutor's mentality, than policing.

That's another big opportunity for reform.

“What am I to do” ?

- Be considerate that people around you may have different abilities

- Support movements that aim to make society less violent and police less aggressive

I don’t see any mystery here.

It seems like it does inform. That's not necessarily the same as it being actionable information, but I do think background information is useful.

But I think there's another way to think about this story: consider the opposite of this article. Maybe "WATCH: Police officer saves deaf man seconds before train hits his car," or more abstractly "Fire department saves six kittens from blaze," or whatever other good news. What's the purpose of that news? I think most of us are happier to read it, but it is no more actionable - it is the same sort of background information. (Or, perhaps, it is in the same category as "entertainment" - things you consume for the sake of enjoying the consumption - but that seems like a poor place for the news to be, so let's hope that isn't it.)

The purpose of informing you that the police is made of brave selfless officers and the fire department is made of brave kitten-rescuers is to influence you when you decide whether your city should increase sales taxes to pay its officers well and get the fire department longer ladders. To be abundantly clear, I'm not alleging a conspiracy here - I'm claiming this is a legitimate thing for them to do, and the thing society wants the press doing. In a well-functioning democratic society, the press reports on what's going on so that we can make informed votes. The information is actionable, though not immediately.

So, conversely, the purpose of informing you that the police is made of trigger-happy dunces who get mad when a deaf person can't hear them, or that the fire department is being courted by some startup that tied fire extinguishers to drones and wants to charge them millions of dollars, or whatever, is also to inform you when your city wants to increase sales taxes for them.

There are many other things you can do, besides voting, if you're asking "What am I to do." You can write to your elected officials. You can show up at local government meetings. You can campaign for or give money to political candidates that seem likely to be effective. You can volunteer with or give money to community organizations tackling specific problems (e.g., if you see a lot of stories about how the government is failing to provide social service X because of bureaucracy, I'm sure there's a local volunteer organization that would love your time or money).

What happened when, for example, word got out that America was wasting its time in Vietnam? What was the purpose of them media showing Americans at home what was going on? The people who had been opposing the war as immoral or doomed were, of course, angry and cynical; the people who changed their mind couldn't individually do anything about either a war half the world away or the orders of the US military. But once enough people changed their minds, expressed in part (but by no means entirely) by who they voted for, the US started to withdraw.

In the United States, if you've been victimized, you basically have two paths of recourse:

1) Have enough money, time, and connections to take legal action and hope that maybe you come to parity someday.

2) Draw enough publicity that the money, time, and connections come to you, in hopes that you can bring social change to prevent someone else from being victimized.

When you turn away from stories like this, you are complicit in why these are the only two options we have in our system.

More Outrage == More Virality == More Impressions == More Money From Ads

I think you raise an interesting point about the outrage machine the internet has turned into: it numbs us to the things that are outrageous. Like the way this person was treated by police.

When we’re bombarded with hundreds of “outrageous” things every time we get online (Kanye said X! This new book says Y!) it all just becomes background noise.

This is a super confusing take.

> I think it's interesting to consider these types of articles that get popular online.

These types of articles were popular way before the internet

> It seems perfect for creating outrage, but for what?

Reporting on issues of injustice and inequality tends to elicit that reaction. But to imply that outrage is the end goal isn't entirely accurate. It's a fairly unbiased piece that's just reporting what happened, for the most part.

> If the purpose of the news is to inform, what does this news inform me of?

Informing you of abuse of power in local police departments. Information is power. Did you really read that article and get literally nothing useful out of it?

> What am I to do except get angry and ruminate and forget and repeat for the next story?

Next time you vote for your local sheriff or engage in the civic process, you should be more aware of these problems. The article has, in theory, informed you about something you may have not been aware of.

My sense is that the spirit of your question is lost on 90% of those replying. I think you’re asking a smart question. I don’t have any answers, but I wanted to push back on the answers that insist on outrage.

The main problem is that cops that act recklessly usually have no consequences except in some rare cases when the story becomes viral...

Researching elastic structures led me to the energy industry which led me to government role in the history of energy, which led me to government propaganda research documents; it was all gifted to advertising and marketing programs in university after WW2.

The goal is to instigate an emotional mood in the limbic system, and insert a semantic construct to associate with that mood. The science has been abstracted into career jargon and lost all connection to its roots.

It’s not about factual communication of current events, but emotional information transmission. It’s to titillate the emotional system and inject banality. To keep people thinking about the angry shit.

We’re doing what religion does; instigate anxiety with unverifiable “truth” as our culture is based upon that empty truth.

The point is to raise awareness so citizens can pressure governments to do better. You’re lucky you get to read these things in the news. I lived through all sorts of harassment from police.

Well, first off, when the courts are able to hold people individually accountable for their actions, they behave better. One of the reasons that police officers can't be held accountable is qualified immunity. If you don't know why it's problematic, basically it prevents people from being held accountable for their actions by dismissing cases unless they are identical to past cases... and since cases are dismissed before trial, there is regularly no case law to compare cases too.

You can write your elected representatives at the federal level and encourage them to end qualified immunity, thus allowing people to sue individuals when their rights are violated.

You can write your state level elected representatives and encourage them to provide a right of action under state law against law enforcement to end qualified immunity.

You can contact your local (city, county) representatives and encourage them to rewrite contracts with law enforcement such that law enforcement members who are found to have acted innappropriately face financial penalties, can be fired, etc, and those who have done so in other jurisdictions are not eligible for hiring locally.

You can, if you favor more bold choices, also explore ideas around which government programs are priorities, and giving more money to social support programs, homelessness prevention etc, so that people don't need to interact with law enforcement, and less to law enforcement.

Social change takes a lot of time and a lot of funerals.

By continuing to make people aware of abuses these stories provide a critical function to inform people about the problem.

Given in this thread we have the usual sneering about movements seeking to "defund the police" and 'crazy dangerous BLM Marxist anarchists' it's clear there's a lot of people who are either acting in bad faith or will never change their views.

But by continuing to highlight the terrible abuses by people the state grants a monopoly on violence to (just check the headline news in England) the media can build a new consensus and change minds and build a critical mass to support progressive improvements to the nature of policing.

For someone who already supports reasonable and proportionate reforms to policing such news is often more infuriating and disempowering but essential to cut through to the rest.

Taking the example of the torture and murder of a random woman by a serving police officer in England, plus the court judgement on the rapist Spycops scandal plus the rate of domestic abuse by serving English officers we will have a lot fewer people claiming the police in England is fine and doesn't have issues after this week. Perhaps then we can improve oversight of policing with broad political support and avoid any more victims.

read the article -- nothing happened to either of these officers as a result of this attack. the police in the US are insulated from consequence, largely due to political influence. shaping popular narratives leads to popular support for political change. this is the fundamental power of media.

> What am I to do except

You are not to «[feel] and forget». First, you are to be aware that there are systemic failures (which could even save your life, same as a dispatch "rabid ferals invaded area"). Then, you are to demand that the systemic failures are fixed. Republic does not just mean "there are no kings above the rest", it means matters are everybody's business.

I'm blind (not fully, but definitely well past the legal definition.) Obviously not the same as deaf, but it's a broken input nonetheless.

One guy on here went with,"Why did cripple guy not understand the world as I would, I pretended I was him and it's not a problem." There is a lot missing without one of the inputs. Humans communicate on a spectrum of bands. Missing one causes confusion and miscommunication.

I've had a handful of encounters with police. I've been stopped for being drunk (I wasn't, just blind and hadn't been willing to use the stick yet.) I could tell he, the cop, was uncomfortable with me. I dropped my ID, told him I couldn't see and asked for help. No idea his response, but he was silent as I crawled around on my hands and knees looking for my ID he was demanding.

I don't know how far this was, or the other cops were, from violence when they stopped and interacted with me. But I could feel the mistrust. I'm confident they were thinking about it. Because I don't behave like everyone else.

This is entirely predictable, and I imagine, common. It's also a thing I fear whenever I'm aware I'm near a cop.

To the people who just just know history/world politics things reading: are there any examples of a nation successfully transitioning themselves away from police brutality against minorities/"undesirables"/those-lacking-general-privilege? What did that transition look like?

Places with racial/economic diversity generally similar to the US's are preferred.

I think the US's progress from "the cops set you on fire and smirk about to the press" to "the cops shoot you and pretend they thought your phone was a gun" is significant and informative for what we should do next. You might also be interested in the UK and Germany.

World War II?

I'm originally from the UK, and now live in a post-Soviet country and I'd say people here are much more accepting of people who are "different". I guess this is partly due to the history of Russia and the USSR, as there was a lot of migration between countries in the past hundred years or so. A lot of my friends who are "native" have grandparents or such from another country.

The only case where being "different" may have issues is if you are not straight... but in larger cities now it is usually accepted as long as you don't flaunt it. Two men sharing a hotel room would not raise eyebrows on its own, as people like to travel with friends and like to spend as little money as possible, but if you are affectionate in a bar it's a different story.

This is anecdotal at best, so take it for what you will, but where I lived the cops used to be much much more violent. Beating up hippies with sticks for shits and giggles and the like. While far from perfect we've managed to get to a state where unprompted beatings like that basically don't happen. And if something like that does happen, it also tends to lead to police officers getting fired. For reference: it's a fireable offence for a police officer to gesture to their gun without cause.

The way we got here was by, essentially, an uproar from the public. Action groups would go out and intentionally irritate cops, leading to large scale beatdowns. The public took notice and swayed opinion towards "wtf are these cops doing beating up innocent kids".

Now like I said it's far from perfect, there's still a racism problem in our police force, but at least there aren't frequent shootings or beatings of unarmed civilians.

Of course direct comparisons make very little sense here, but at least it's one case showing that a reversal of the trend with respect to police violence is a possibility.

For more (quite amusing) reading, I can heartily recommend the wikipedia article on the Provo movement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provo_(movement)

Not all, but some police officers I've met have severe psychological issues concerning power and seem to lose control too easily ... especially when they are dealing with people that they feel they should have power over: e.g. juveniles, homeless people, etc.

I have observed some very peculiar and aggressive behavior from police when they feel their authority is being challenged or they are being disrespected.

I feel we should only give guns and badges to people that are extremely resistant to bruised egos and who do not snap when their authority is challenged.

To be clear, I myself am not suitable to be a police officer. I have a violent streak which I cannot control when I feel threatened. At one time I applied to be an FBI agent ... but when a friend pointed out I have this violent tendency, I decided it would not be a good career for me. Getting into fist fights over ego is not good even for civilians, but for police officers it can result in fatalities.

Regrettably one of the most popular police trainers in the country advocates for police violence as part of the training.

The problem is systemic. And endemic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/...

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21071962-mistic-v-ha... says he didn't have an interpreter to communicate with his attorney while he was in jail

Is it that we dont have resources for this or is it because nobody cares?

both

Interpreters cost next to nothing.

I thought it was interesting because for 4 months the deaf man was probably completely unable to communicate with his jailers, attorney, or family.

I mean at some point a pencil and paper, right? Tear your toilet paper into strips to spell for the guards to read your message? something other than just sitting in jail for 4 months

It's because the people in power care... about controlling and dehumanizing those they have power over.

In the world's largest* economy, is there a difference? Resource allocation is a reflection of values.

*Or one of the largest, depending on which measure you choose.

I have always wondered about the approach in the US of locally managed law enforcement departments. It's almost a given that such local oversight of a group with a societally granted monopoly on violence will breed corruption, nepotism and abuse as people with power collude locally. No other major country I know of has this system. Law enforcement oversight is almost always at a provincial or national level.

I understand the historical perspective of how this originated as the country was settled but why does it persist?

Could anyone knowledgeable share perspectives?

Additional historical perspective: it was designed this way specifically for power, abuse, corruption. The entire jurisdictional system was designed to empower the worst while letting the “best” wash their hands of it. That there’s a through line from slavery to Jim Crow to rampant abuse of power in law enforcement shouldn’t be a surprise.

People don’t have much control over their local police force but I don’t understand how making a national police force which citizens have even less control over helps. It’s also not clear to me that instances of corruption and nepotism don’t exist at a national level.

i don't know why you think federal law enforcement is any better

that's not entirely accurate. The PD in Oakland, CA has been under federal oversight for 15 or 20 years now. Due various abuses.

I doubt this exact circumstance and set of details of a deaf man having his leg broken by cops has ever been adjudicated. Qualified Immunity. Next.

> [police claimed] that Mistic resisted arrest, causing one of the officers to break his leg.

It's unfortuante that the wording is ambigous. My interpretation was the opposite, that the deaf man broke the leg of the police officer.

Checking with other sources, it seems that what happened was that a police officer accidentally broke his own leg.

I'm not used to seeing this sort of news on HN (I'm not saying that's good or bad).

As a parent of a special needs child, our policing situation is terrifying.

I think non-black folk are now starting to see the horrors of our unaccountable law enforcement agencies that black folk have experienced for centuries.

From the Hacker News guidelines, this appears Off-Topic.

It fits general "progressive" agenda, so exception applies.

Feels like it's not the whole story, with important details omitted to push specific narrative.

Things doesn't adds up.

Pray tell, what do you think is missing? You can say "we don't know the whole story" for almost any news article and be likely correct and yet detract from the discussion.

The guy was 4 months in jail and no lawyer and no one to raise alarm that he’s deaf.

What he was stopped for?

What were charges?

How did he behave exactly before jail?

4 months in detention without access to a lawyer and no translator sounds like something you'd see in a 3rd world country. It's up to the police to tell us why those conditions existed and who should be held accountable.

So, uh, why would you yell "no ears" instead of "I'm deaf"?

It possibly comes from the signs for deaf. One is a motion from ear to mouth. An older one is ear and closed.

If you watch the video of him at the hospital, he is almost entirely nonverbal. So it is not surprising that his word choice was a bit odd.

Why would you insert “,uh,” into your comment? What does that intend to convey?

Fair, I hadn't watched the video so didn't realize he was almost entirely non-verbal.

Uh is intended to convey confusion. It's a fairly common way of speaking.

It comes off as very condescending, even if that is not the intent.

It really doesn't.

It really does, whether you realize it or not. Maybe not in person, where the other social cues are available, but in text it absolutely does.

Yet another case when counterfeit currency brings one in trouble...

This makes me think about those individuals who can't get vaccinated for medical reasons. Are the people who get angry from this story, the same people who are favorable to mandates and passports?

The front line nurses who were heroes a year ago, are now hated... until they become homeless, and we'll feel sorry for them again.

Straw man argument.

Effectively zero people are angry with those who cannot get vaccinated for valid medical reasons.

People are angry with those who claim "medical reasons" as to why they cannot be vaccinated, when they are lying.

I cannot receive certain vaccines due to legitimate medical reasons: however I can and did receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Those who cannot be vaccinated need herd immunity to be protected. People who lie and claim to be a member of that small community of vulnerable people put those same people at massive risk by making herd immunity impossible to achieve.

But you know all this already, none of this will convince you.

Looks like I either failed to get my point across, or hit too close to home. Many who get angry at this story also enjoy seeing penalties (such as mandates and passports) for the unvaccinated. These penalties will create more pathos, whether you empathize or not.

Maybe people think talking about unvaccinated people here is irrelevant or inflammatory or something like that; I don't know what exactly ties these stories together in my mind, but I suggest that maybe it's technophilia, that there are people who love to throw technology at every problem. Or, perhaps the hate comes from the sense of certainty some people have in their information sources, and they can't empathize with anyone who may be suffering from false or ideological info sources. Instead such people must be stupid and trolls.

If it is a lack of empathy -- I think it's more likely a lack of sophistication -- I can see this same mode of hatred and blame we are seeing now, being directed at criminals back when those draconian laws were being drafted that put the deaf man in jail.

I'll take being deaf and in jail over being autistic and being shot at for playing with a toy truck.

Note: the cop had bad aim and hit the person next to, and trying to assist, the person playing with a toy truck.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article90905442...

IIRC, the man asked "why did you shoot me" (as he's on the ground, bleeding) and the cop replied with "I don't know"

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