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Comment by rlkf | Hacker News Reader

In my twice-the-size European city, kids walk twice that distance to school and back home again, alone. Every. Single. Day. If this place isn't safe enough for kids to walk by themselves, maybe the question should be raised whether the police and municipal government really is doing their job the way they're supposed to.

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The irony is one of the officers claimed the boy could have been kidnapped or taken into a sex trafficking ring. And their solution is to arrest the mom, not to take care of the kidnapping or sex trafficking.

See, with rugged individualism the consumer needs to be on the watch for the brands that might kill them and just vote with their wallet. Why would we regulate something when the free market will do the regulating?

This parent was not exercising their responsibility as an individual to watch out for anything and everything that might hurt their child, in the US that is illegal because the free market ideology rules all.

What on earth are you going on about?

Please elaborate.

It's commentary about attacking symptoms rather than the root cause of the problem based around the flawed "choice of the individual" and "rugged American individualism" ideologies present in the US.

Cops think the neighborhood is dangerous for kids because of sex trafficking? Arrest parents for allowing kids outside instead of stopping the sex trafficking.

Consumers get harmed and workers get taken advantage of by corporations? Vote with your wallet instead of actually regulating companies.

This is kind of funny. At what age does that stop being a possibility? At least in my country kids are kids until 18... so it would just as illegal let a 17-year old walk alone? He _could_ be kidnapped. Nobody can say it's impossible, however improbable!

You can also be kidnapped as an adult.

As the mother of this child found out.

I think the correct word for adults would be abducted.

https://blog.ipleaders.in/difference-between-abduction-and-k...

Huh TIL.

The same concern can be voiced for 16 or 20 year old women and men. All of them can be abducted with ease by 2+ trained people. Should they also be accompanied by their moms at all times?

The cop just demosntrated himself that he isnt doing his job and that there is something deeply wrong with society if a child cant even walk half a mile at 8 years old.

Recursive problem if that parents are young: a 2 year old in public with its 20 year old father could be required to have a 50 year old present at all times.

50 year olds are getting on the old side. Could easily be taken down by an in-shape mid-20s person. Best solution is for everyone to just travel with their own pack of trained wolves.

An unsupervised pack of wolves could always be attacked by a bear or hunted down by mistake, a clear case of animal negligence. Wolves should be accompanied at all times by armed midgets.

One is easier than the other and counts toward arrest / enforcement quotas.

See also the cases where children are arrested and jailed for 'child pornography' for sending nude photos of themselves to others.

With a permanent record, can't apply for many jobs, can never live near a school or daycare center, etc etc. Maybe can't even vote.

> not to take care of the kidnapping or sex trafficking

Because there was no kidnapping or sex trafficking going on, they were just making shit up.

The thing is that the US has much greater freedoms than Europe, after all, we did fight for them. It's every US citizens understanding that with greater freedoms come greater responsibilities to raise children to be future leaders. This can't happen if a child is mowed down in a driveby or if they accidentally trip over while walking.

So you have much greater freedom than we in Europe, but you do not have the freedom to have you 8 year olds walk outside?

edit: yeah, it was sarcarsm.

> ... or if they accidentally trip over while walking.

It's (probably) sarcasm.

Hopefully.

On an unrelated note, I'm now going to watch Castle in the Sky tonight, thanks!

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or an actual opinion. Well done.

Its sarcasm

> the US has much greater freedoms than Europe

Does it? I can't see this happening in Europe. What freedoms stand out?

Freedom to flood the streets with guns, hooah!

  Merica: *more* freedoms
  Europa: *better* freedoms

Like drinking in public with an open container of alcohol.

I feel compelled to comment on this because it comes up occasionally.

We normally describe America as being prude and cite anti-nudity policies of broadcast TV. However, America pioneered modern video pornography, going far beyond any country for decades.

Similarly, while in some places you need to put your beer in a paper bag but we also have open-air drug markets and streets filled with people openly taking hardcore drugs.

I'm not sure which way you intended that. Rest assured, there's a lot of open air boozing in Northern Europe in the summertime.

You almost got me there.

Lol nice one. I had to read the whole thing to figure out you were being sarcastic.

Every police interaction in the US bears the risk of death. Police will stop kids on the street with or without being called. Ergo, it is unsafe for children to walk to school in the US.

Sure, that's all a bit circular, but good luck breaking the spiral with a "law and order" mentality.

That is everywhere. For that matter every interaction with someone with a little martial arts training (even what you can find on the internet, though you will also find bad training) can be potential deadly. Most people have the ability to kill another human, few attempt it.

Risk of death during interaction with the police is practically zero where I live. Whenever that happens, it’s on the media for months or years.

It is practically zero almost everywhere. Iran is the only exception I can think of, and even then it is only protesters. (I'm sure there are other corrupt countries that I'm not aware of)

Likewise, the probability of dying from smoking a cigarette is effectively zero. This is a poor measure for evaluating harm and risk.

This strikes me as crazy. Every interaction with any human or inanimate object bears the risk of death, it's just so low it's not worth thinking about it.

U.S. police kill about ~1000 people per year, and the vast majority of those aren't at all questionable. If there are 330,000,000 people in the U.S., that's 0.000303% of the population per year. Each person has, on average, maybe 10 contentious police interactions in a lifetime of 75 years? That's 0.134 interactions per year.

So, given on this Fermi estimate, you have about a 0.00226% chance of being killed per contentious police interaction if we spread it completely evenly, or 2.26 in 100,000. And spreading it evenly doesn't make any sense at all.

So, if you're young, black, male, and running around Chicago dealing drugs carrying an illegal gun--yeah, maybe worry about it. For everyone here on HN, it's a stupid thing to worry about. Worry about your sedentary lifestyle. Worry about driving safely if you drive a lot. Worry about diabetes. Worry about whether your relationships with friends and family are good. Worry about your diet. Worry about exercise. Worry about falling down the stairs. The cops aren't going to kill you.

Okay, sure. What are the statistics behind TFA; how many moms are getting jailed for their kids walking to school? Should anybody care?

I think it makes sense for third parties (us) to "care" when something like the headline happens. We should make it clear to those involved that it's not acceptable (we should try to punish them), and we should try to help aggrieved parties.

But no, you should not "care" in the sense of worrying about it happening to yourself. The probability is so small it's not worth it, along with an infinity of other freak occurrences.

I don't know what TFA is.

The [Fine] Article

> We should make it clear to those involved that it's not acceptable (we should try to punish them), and we should try to help aggrieved parties.

Here, we agree. But when you cite statistics in the manner you did, you're arguing against cloistering myself and my child in our home, quaking in fear of the improbable: beating on a straw-man.

If you re-read the last line of my first comment, you may notice that the "law and order" mentality that I'm railing against is fear-based governance. We have equipped and trained our police to be paramilitary forces that are nearly unaccountable for their misbehavior: a resounding success of fear-based governance. De-escalating the cycle of violence requires vacating fear-based governance -- convincing the police to over-react less, convincing citizens to call the authorities less; convincing voters to react to broken windows with investment in fixing windows rather than jail time and extrajudicial killings. And in the meantime, we need to hold people accountable for perpetrating administrative violence against innocent people like in TFA.

Yep, we need to make the police more public servants and less a paramilitary force. I think it's probably going to mean we build a society that shares more values in order for that to happen. That's going to be hard. In my mind, a lot of the problem is that the U.S. is a very large country with very different sub-populations with very different values. It's a challenge. Running New Zealand or Norway is way easier.

> the vast majority of those aren't at all questionable

Citation needed

Sorry, I don't have one to hand. It's a reasonable request, though. I've gone through the data carefully in the past, and I can say the vast majority are variations on, "Knife-wielding man shot down by police after stabbing two". They don't make national news because they make perfect sense. It's just cops doing what they're supposed to be doing. The ones that do make the news are killings where there are indications of impropriety, and those make up the set of examples you carry around in your head, which is why you're suspicious.

> This strikes me as crazy.

Yes, it's basically bullshit in most of the US. Even knowing that the media feeds on clickbait and routinely hypes up everything that even smells like it could be controversial, people just lap it up. Even people here on HN.

The worry about police violence is really misplaced worry about the effects of a broken justice system. It's not just that police kill unarmed, non-violent black teens. It's that "they" (the justice system as a whole) also lock people up for non-violent drug offenses, put a felony on their record, condemning them to a life without job opportunities. Then "they" kick them out of their homes when they're late on their rent. Then they forcibly break up homeless encampments so people without homes can never feel safe or settled or have somewhere to sleep.

Police shootings are just a potent symbol for a much larger issue with the Justice System. The problem is that conversations about complex systemic issues become circular and conversations about symbols often don't.

I think we agree. The justice system could be a lot better. We should incarcerate many fewer people. The War on Drugs should end. We need to figure out a way to reduce crime in black communities that doesn't involve intense policing and locking so many people up.

As for police shootings being a symbol, I see your point. I would make the alteration that it's unjust police shootings that are the symbols. Most are some variation on, "Crazed knife-wielding man shot down by police after stabbing two".

> So, if you're young, black, male, and running around Chicago

I did this without the drugs and guns part, and had guns drawn on me three times growing up in Chicago for the crime of walking. If I had been killed, I'm sure it would have been coded in a way for you not to see it as a problem.

My point is exactly that your experience is very unusual

It’s unusual for white people. Every black and Hispanic person I know has stories about how they had to worry about violence while living their lives normally.

For example, a friend’s partner shared a story about the time he went to a big conference (maybe the VMware one?) in Atlanta. He was fairly senior at HP and no more threatening looking than any other middle-aged IT guy … and was the only pulled over on the way back to his hotel by a cop who was suspicious about a black man driving a nice rental car. His evening involved a very tense hour sitting on the side of the road while a southern cop straight out of a stereotype asked a ton of questions and “asked” to inspect the car while patting his gun.

Here's actual data: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cbpp18st.pdf

Table 3, "Residents who experienced nonfatal threats or use of force during contacts with police, by demographic characteristics, 2015 and 2018"

Of people who report having police contact within the last year (~18% of people), 2.0% report "Experienced threats or force at any time during the year". 1.5% for white people, 3.8% for black. This is 2018.

Any way you slice it, having a gun drawn on you by a cop is exceedingly rare--even for black Americans. And, of course, "gun drawn" is going to be a small subset of that 3.8%.

No, his experience isn't necessarily very unusual. You are comparing apples (deaths) and oranges (guns drawn) here. I'm willing to bet an order of magnitude of people more have had the police draw on them vs. shoot them. No one in my family has been killed by the police, but I, my mother, and my uncle have all certainly been drawn on.

I think you're making the argument that GP's experience isn't necessarily unusual conditional on being black, male, etc.. It's not the point that I was making. I was making the point that GP's experience is unusual for people in general, or for HNers in general.

Right in the middle of a similar sized European city, very built up, loads of traffic - the children have to walk to school, from aged 6. Parents are actually not allowed to take them in.

I walked 2km every to and from school, albeit in a small rural european town. Sometimes when the weather was bad parents would come to pick me up.

This article is complete nonsense and I’m glad I don’t live in Waco, Texas. Your experience was similar to mine I used to walk a mile to school or ride my bike to a friends and then walk. I pick my daughter up near a private school everyday and there are 100 or so kids walking under 13.

There are 8 year olds walking around my neighborhood every weekend and nobody bats an eye.

I took the bus to school in London from age 8 onwards, i.e. not a school bus a normal red double decker bus. It was only two stops, but mum thought it was safer than crossing the busy road.

In most areas it is probably safe enough... but they like to keep the population scared as they are easier to control that way... and the police budgets keep increasing.

On average, the cops are nuts in the US... It just take one hot head in a group to make them all act badly...

To be fair, here in Menlo Park, CA, children of this age bike or walk half a mile to school all the time as well. It's not very different from when I lived in the London suburbs and walked myself 30 years ago. This isn't really a US/Europe split.

Seconded, I'm also in MP and kids 6 years old and up play out in the street to their heart's content.

I just did a google maps search. In kindergarten at 5 years old I walked approximately 1/3 mile each way. I live in an urban environment now and outside of legal ramifications still would not think twice about allowing my child to do the same.

I live in Seattle. 8 year olds walk past my house to-and-from school every day without parents. I can't say I've seen this in any other major US city though.

Definitely true in Portland as well.

I used to walk around 1 mile to school every day along a very busy road when I was 8 years old and nobody batted an eye. I lived in Texas at the time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think the point is that the place is plenty safe for the kid to walk by himself, it's just a perfect storm of officious cops and bureaucrats and a nosy neighbor.

In my experience it is fairly normal in the US, too, which is why stories like this are newsworthy. Also, Reason is a libertarian political rag and they have ideological motivations for sharing this particular story.

Not disagreeing, but I want to point out that every news source is typically biased and has ideological reasons for every story that they push.

True, which is why you should always consider the source along with their probable motivations. When a publication that is openly promoting libertarian philosophy writes a story about abuses by government, it's worth considering that this is probably the most egregious abuse they could find. It's in their best interest to focus our attention on the most convincing evidence.

Most mainstream media isn't overtly political, so their motivations are usually more monetary than ideological. Following the money is always a good idea.

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