Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

Most insane part of this article was the below quote from the bill sponsor:

"Kavanagh said it is important to leave this buffer for police to protect law enforcement from being assaulted by unruly bystanders. He said “there’s no reason” to come closer and predicted tragic outcomes for those who do, saying, “Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary, and unsafe, and should be made illegal."

He is just happily excusing cops visiting "tragic outcomes" on people who get closer than 8 feet to cops. The lengths that people will go to too justify police just killing people is insane. How about we don't allow police to just wantonly murder or beat whoever they want?

This same guy is an ex cop and "sponsored legislation that would prohibit oversight boards of police departments unless those boards were two-thirds sworn police officers" After the 2020 election he also said: ""Everybody shouldn’t be voting...Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well."

Seems like a really great guy that very much deserves to be in power /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kavanagh_(Arizona_politic...

If there's anything that would build public trust back in police institutions, it would be politically-empowered independent citizen's oversight boards. It is such a shame that most cities in the US don't have these.

I'd like the police to be a (mostly) transparent organization that is concerned with the health of our society and key partners to all upstanding citizens. Citizen oversight boards is one path to making that happen.

Unfortunately so many police departments are just gangs now with political backing. Just this 4th of July the NYPD decided it was their right to commandeer viewing areas for their families and prevent the public from using them. No repercussions, no politicians demanding an investigation, just armed people in uniform daring you to say something. This is a massive open abuse of power and its just shrugged off.

In the specific case of the NYPD the qualifier "now" is not necessary. They have a centuries-long history of acting above and outside the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_P...

Highlights include:

* Early in it's formation, the historical precursor to the NYPD was two separate police forces; one run by the city and one run by the state. At one point the city police (Municipals) was literally protecting the mayor from arrest by the state police (Metropolitans).

* Having to be rescued by actual nativist[0] gangs after riots broke out after the Metropolitans won out over the Municipals

* Repeated bi-decennial corruption investigations that lead to reforms which just push the corruption somewhere else and make it worse

Fun fact: the NYPD even operates in other countries. There's a weird post-9/11 program called the International Liaison Program[1] in which other countries pay the NYPD to station NYC cops in their country. It's absolutely insane that this somehow doesn't violate some kind of Geneva convention[2].

[0] People who wanted to build a wall and make the Irish pay for it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVJMtXvjn0A

[2] Look. I'll settle for the "driving on the wrong side of the road" Geneva convention, just give me something

On the face of it, the last one does not sound so bad, as long as the NYPD is operating with permission from the jurisdictions where they are operating.

Just like how a company wholly owned by New York City could have contracts with New York City, London and Paris at the same time.

Except cops aren't your Average Joe, they need to obey the local laws regarding a police force operations and without a lot of laws (or a suitable hand-waving) can't do anything more than an American tourist in the destination country.

Can't?

Or should not, by law?

There's a difference.

They should formalize this. They have to work on the 4th of July, I don't actually see a problem with making it easier for them to be closer to the kids/spouse that day.

Lots of other people have to work on the 4th of July, they don't get to cordon of areas for their family.

It's OK for jobs to have perks.

Flights hard to find? It's often easier if a family member works as crew for the airline, etc.

Why should they get more rights than the populace they enforce the laws over? More importantly this is not a formal policy they simply commandeered the space and forced the plebians out. If you don't think people should lose their jobs and be prosecuted for abuse of power over this I don't know what to say.

The #1 thing that would reform the US police institutions is this:

- All damages would be paid from their pension fund.

That's it. If the bill goes to the city/county, nobody cares. If $cop1 fucking up messes up $cop[1..n]'s future pension plans? They'll start to self-police real fast.

The point is that self-policing never works. It's not (only) a matter of motivation.

Where I am outside of the US, the anti police-corruption police are hated by the normal police, which I think is a pretty good indication of how many police don't like being held accountable. A lot of police misconduct really relates to a culture of closing ranks so it's seen as a betrayal to investigate that properly. It doesn't need to be said that police should be held to a higher standard than anyone else since they gain pretty major privileges and powers, obviously including the legal ability to use deadly force.

Pensions funds are already underfunded and subject to corruption such as understatement of liabilities and investments in politically connected ventures.

The only result is future taxpayers get to pay higher taxes.

My gut reaction:

- states and local governments may not hire any police officers unless they fully fund the pension obligations ahead of time.

If we can force the USPS to do this, I'd say we can force state and local governments to do this as well. Problem is, I think this will lead to local governments privatizing the police force, getting rid of pension obligations completely, which will be an even worse outcome. Private, for profit companies with qualified immunity...

…or do the extremely easy thing and scrap all compensation that extends further than the end of employment, just like any other non taxpayer funded employer operates in the US.

Should we scrap social security too?

A government with the ability to issue new money is not comparable.

Social security can exist or not exist, the relevant question will be what kind of purchasing power will the social security benefit have at some point in the future, and that is completely dependent upon politics.

I’m not sure I agree with that. I don’t think a good cop should have his pension harmed because a different cop in some other precinct did wrong.

What I do think is that bad cops should be fired and when they make egregious errors. An when they commit crimes (which they seem to do often and while on the job) they should go to jail. End qualified immunity.

>I don’t think a good cop should have his pension harmed because a different cop in some other precinct did wrong.

I disagree. The silence of the so called good cops is acceptance of the bad behavior. If they don't report and if nothing is done then yes, take it from all of them. They're all part of the same system

Someone posted something I disagree with, but you're operating in the "same system" as them and didn't stop them, so we'll just downvote you instead, cool?

Pretty sure I speak up, check my comment history. Not to mention, police actively killing innocent people is way different than disagreeing on the internet. Are you seriously conflating those?

Your example falls flat here

https://knock-la.com/lasd-gangs-little-devils-wayside-whitie...

We need those good cops to be actually saying something though. It's not like bad police operate in a vacuum, they go on patrols with the good cops. The good cops know all of the bad cops.

If a good cop watches a bad cop breaking the law or brutalizing someone and does not stop him then that is not a good cop. Using that standard you will quickly start running out of good cops. Search the internet there are hundreds of videos of cops just standing there watching another cop beat people. Even in the rare occasion where video forces the precinct to charge or suspended the violent cop the bystanders are unpunished. The George Floyd case is the only one I can think of where they were.

If a cop stood idly by and watched another cop brutalize someone, I would not call that person a good cop. Fire them. I'd fire a doctor who sat by and did nothing while a patient go into cardiac arrest. I'd fire a fireman who sat by and watched a house burn down without attempting to put it out.

I'm fine with firing the lot of them. I'd honestly rather see mass firing than pension raids because when it comes down to it, we need those people to stop being cops.

Hopefully that would increase recruiting and give people with better values into the system. Right now it feels like policing is family generational business.

In the US, being a "good cop" in this context is a career-ending move. People in power don't really like it when abuses of their power are exposed. The "thin blue line" and all.

ACAB

> I’m not sure I agree with that. I don’t think a good cop should have his pension harmed because a different cop in some other precinct did wrong.

Quite the opposite. Police are paid tax money to enforce the law and prevent crime, regardless of perpetrator. If they can't do this, they don't deserve the money.

They should be scrutinizing their own ranks first and foremost, as they are granted special privileges (i.e. weapons) that make breaking the law easier and more convenient.

I'd rather just see the bad cop be fired. I feel that if we were to penalize their pension fund, their union and local government would just find some back door to refund the money. Better to just terminate the bad cops and be done with them.

Uhh no, the penalty for breaking the law in our society is not "you lose your job".

Please stop treating police as exempt from the law.

If you look at the top of the thread, you'll see I said "when they commit crimes (which they seem to do often and while on the job) they should go to jail".

But the debate is should there be collective punishment for bad cops or should they be terminated. I favor termination.

One main reason I prefer terminating bad cops vs hitting their pensions is that bad behavior is less of a cost impact to the bad cop than losing their job. A cop does something wrong, maybe it will impact their retirement pension by a small percentage. That's not a big disincentive. Loosing their job, that's a big disincentive.

Another way to go about this is to have cops purchase mandatory insurance. Any bad behavior would be paid by their insurance and if they make too big an error, they become un-insurable and thus can no longer be law enforcement.

Or they will just make sure $cop1 is not caught using whatever they need including witness intimidation. NYPD cops raped a handcuffed girl in a van and 9 other cops turned up at her hospital room and tried to intimidate her into changing her story.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2017/11/23/cops-trie...

Cops that raped her ended up getting probation.

Or case of another cop that recorded fellow officers admitting to crimes and corruption. He turned in evidence and was abducted by other cops and committed to a mental institution.

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

This is exactly the solution. I've long proposed civilian review boards assembled like juries - random citizens called in to judge specific cases of police actions. Theses juries would have the ability to rule on the culpability of the officers, select penalties and their deliberations would be secret and final.

Police that know their actions would be reviewed and their chiefs and administrators would have no ability to save them would certainly reduce the amount of police illegality.

We obviously don't let police "just do" that, and I don't see how this law increases risk here. The other side that people seem to be missing here is that it explicitly establishes a boundary past which it's perfectly fine to film the police.

In many other jurisdictions this would be at the discretion of the officer, if they felt you were merely interfering with their investigation they could arrest you. A law like this clarifies exactly where that line is expected to be. And it's reasonably short enough and with appropriate exceptions that on it's own, I don't see a problem with the law.

Regardless of how one may feel about the sponsor of the bill, it was still voted on and passed by a majority of the legislative body.

The law does not seem to stop an officer from walking close to someone to demand they stop filming.

It seems that if you are filming "safely from a distance" they just need to send one officer over to wherever you are and demand you stop filming.

This is exactly what will happen.

Then you are no longer a bystander and may continue to film. The irony with this bill is that it would be illegal to closely film the police as a bystander, but if you are arrested/detained for doing so you may film the police detaining you.

Only if you stop and then re-start the video clip. Otherwise, it's the same clip that started while illegal rendering the entire clip illegal. Or some such lawyerly BS to get the cops to be the victim.

It's not 8 feet from the nearest cop. It's 8 feet from where the arrest is happening. So unless both the arresting officer and the arrestee come toward you, you can stay where you are and film.

Which cops will absolutely be doing. After all, if the arrestee refuses, the cops can just beat them up a little more and claim they were also resisting arrest.

If the cop drags the arrestee toward you, you can walk backward keeping the 8 foot distance.

If they keep following you around, this will make for a pretty interesting video that's almost certain to get some wide sharing if you post it online.

Oh my sweet summer child. That just gives them an even better excuse to detain you. Now you're acting suspiciously and running away from the police.

Either you're being detained, in which case the law says you're allowed to record your own detainment, or you're not being detained, in which case you're allowed to walk away. In no case does this law give the police an extra reason to detain you if you walk away while they walk toward you.

If police are going to make up something bogus like arresting you because you're giving them space, they can do that regardless of this new law. This new law doesn't make it worse.

"E. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SECTION, "LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY" MEANS ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: 1. QUESTIONING A SUSPICIOUS PERSON. 2. CONDUCTING AN ARREST, ISSUING A SUMMONS OR ENFORCING THE LAW. 3. HANDLING AN EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED OR DISORDERLY PERSON WHO IS EXHIBITING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR."

And if they approach you to conduct "law enforcement activity" on you, you're effectively exempted and allowed to film. https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/bills/HB2319S.pdf

Given worldwide 'shot by cop' statistics, i would put '..AN EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED OR DISORDERLY PERSON WHO IS EXHIBITING ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR." as a valid label for US cops.

Telephoto lens and a cherry picker that goes up higher than eight feet.

Ah, yes. I never leave home without them.

> Regardless of how one may feel about the sponsor of the bill, it was still voted on and passed by a majority of the legislative body.

A legislative body that subjectively follows the law.

IANAL, is that actually the case? Just because you set the minimum doesn't mean if you're on the other side that you're legal. It's not binary. There is the legal grey zone.

> A law like this clarifies exactly where that line is expected to be.

It sets a specific measurement, but it would be extremely difficult to prove someone was or wasn't within the set distance.

The court will always defer to police over other witnesses.

The law is completely unnecessary for the stated purpose. Every state already has plenty of "interfering with a police officer" type laws...and there's no epidemic of people filming stuff, getting in the way of police.

This law is a softball for the supreme court to use to revoke their prior ruling that filming police is constitutional.

I suspect it's also designed to stop passengers in a stopped motor vehicle from filming - a few police shooting cases involved footage taken by a front seat passenger, showing the driver never made any threatening moves.

> The court will always defer to police over other witnesses.

That’s exactly what this case will do. Cops will just walk over to you and insist you were interfering and arrest you.

> This law is a softball

They’ve been lining these cases up for a year plus in preparation for this exact moment.

Edited to remove incorrect take.

Why would you imagine rather than spend a few minutes to read the article? It explicitly exempts passengers in a car from the 8 foot rule.

> I suspect it's also designed to stop passengers in a stopped motor vehicle from filming

No - "The same exception extends to anyone recording while in a vehicle involved in a police stop."

> a boundary past which it's perfectly fine to film the police.

A boundary relative to what? An immovable object or a cop who can walk? I mean walk towards someone who's at 8 feet and tell them to stop filming?

> The other side that people seem to be missing here is that it explicitly establishes a boundary past which it's perfectly fine to film the police.

vs.

" C. THIS SECTION DOES NOT ESTABLISH A RIGHT OR AUTHORIZE ANY PERSON TO MAKE A VIDEO RECORDING OF LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTIVITY. "

https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/55leg/2R/bills/HB2319S.pdf

The law explicitly makes it closer than 8 feet, after a warning, illegal (with some exceptions). It does not supersede other laws about interfering with an investigation.

It prevents victims of police brutality to film the scene. In most cases you don't have bystander read to film abuse. So filming your own interactions with the police should be a must.

The 8ft restriction only applies to bystanders.

> The other side that people seem to be missing here is that it explicitly establishes a boundary past which it's perfectly fine to film the police.

> I don't see a problem with the law.

How can you possibly say this? It means the police can completely stop you from filming, simply by having cop walk up to you.

Heck, a cop can walk up behind you filming, when you can't see him, and simply arrest you. "You were ten feet away from them, but here I am behind you, off to jail for a year!"

> it was still voted on and passed by a majority of the legislative body.

So were plenty of evil, immoral things. This statement is a signpost - when people say that, it means, "Morality is not an issue that concerns me."

> The other side that people seem to be missing here is that it explicitly establishes a boundary past which it's perfectly fine to film the police.

That boundary is likely to be chipped into further and then upheld by the current SCOTUS.

The repeal of Roe v. Wade shows that we can't really trust the the slippery slope is a fallacy these days.

(For anyone that didnt read the article, this is a local Kavanaugh, not the supreme court justice)

> The lengths that people will go to too justify police just killing people is insane.

Please avoid hyperbole on HN.

Honest question, based on the bill sponsors background, his own words and the current policing situation in the US; what part of this is hyperbole? People actively defended the police officers that killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Not trying to start an argument, just interested in your view.

The OP is comparing concern for people getting too close while filming to murder. I believe you’re intelligent enough to already know this and you’re also intelligent enough to know there is a reasonable argument for the use of force in both cases you mentioned.

A "reasonable argument" for the George Floyd case? Seriously?

No, the bills author specifically referrered to people suffering understandable "tragic" consequences if they got too close to police, justifying police killing them. If you think there was a reasonable argument for the violence perpetrated in either of my 2 examples then I very much don't think we are on the same page.

> justifying police killing them

You made that part up.

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