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Comment by prirun | Hacker News Reader

> My girlfriend was led out into the street barefoot and only in her underwear in full view of our neighbors; I was led outside, handcuffed and only in t-shirt and sweats in sub-freezing temperatures.

> Each home was searched by 15-20 agents in full riot gear, causing further damage in both homes besides the broken front doors

> I was very surprised how forceful the search warrant was executed and how rough we, both unarmed senior citizens, were treated.

> Even my phone was taken, leaving me in Rachel with two broken doors and no way to communicate or call for help.

I don't care what the hell he did, this kind of abuse is not acceptable. It's no wonder Americans have lost respect for law enforcement: the people enforcing the law are often committing worse crimes than the supposed criminals.

Taking his electronic shit I get. But not letting the poor woman get dressed? That's just a bunch of thugs having a playday with their toys.

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My house has been raided multiple times by local police (Victim of a senseless drug war). They have never let me get dressed. I have always assumed it was a safety issue. How do they know, I'm going to actually get dressed and not pull out a firearm or push a hidden button to blow us all up. Not excusing their actions, but this seems to be the norm.

Maybe they can grab your clothes for you from your closet? Surely there's got to be some creative way to allow a human to get dressed

And if said human is like the Riddler and has rigged the place to blow should the wrong t-shirt be picked up, well then that's called the risk of being a law enforcement field agent... it's in the job description

At marathons they have those solar blankets. Law enforcement could easily provide clothing or blankets for those being raided. Everyone deserves dignity imo, even potentially guilty people. No risk involved.

That would solve the problem of feeling cold but not the human dignity issue in someone being arrested (and possibly being brought in for questioning) in their underwear

The very simple and common sense approach is that they provide you with a bath robe, medical gown, etc, all without even uncuffing you.

Then they should guard you while you get dressed. The risk of getting shot is rather low for most cases and people deserve dignity. They are only accused of a crime not guilty.

No.

As a citizen, I don't want some cop jumpy on fear and adrenaline holding me at gun point waiting to see if I'm going to pull a snub nose out of my jeans pocket.

As a cop, I don't want to find out if someone putting on their pants is going to shot me or my partner in that split second when they appear to lose balance and fall into the night stand that has a gun under the pile of clothes.

As a citizen, I recognize cops are already twitchy and jumpy anyway, and they kill more people in the US than there are murders. Maybe your boundless excuse for ever-increasing excessive behavior is really no excuse. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a basis we simply cannot lose. It means something. Once it stops meaning treatment of citizens with dignity, I don't know how you can expect that citizens won't retaliate and escalate the situation. Most now fear cops unjustly invading their home more than criminals. They, though innocent, will defend tgeirself against assault. Do the math.

>and they kill more people in the US than there are murders

Do you have any source for this absurd claim? The data show otherwise:

>In 2019, the estimated number of murders in the nation was 16,425.[0]

and police was about 1,000 for the same year.[1]

[0]https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

Aka a drug dealer?

> I don't care what the hell he did, this kind of abuse is not acceptable. It's no wonder Americans have lost respect for law enforcement: the people enforcing the law are often committing worse crimes than the supposed criminals.

You are going to be very upset when you find out what police have done to citizens while they were sleeping in their homes. [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html

Sadly for Breonna, her boyfriend opened fire on the police and she was killed in a crossfire... tragic outcome but not the height of police brutality - there ought to be better examples?

If one wanted to stick with a police-on-minority action, the Fred Hampton case is a real helluva situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton

No, the boyfriend was defending his home by exercising his second amendment rights against unannounced intruders

Yep. Those intruders happened to be criminals, incidentally.

They falsified the warrant, then tried to cover that up. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/former-louisville-detect...

Most officers involved were NOT criminals, have not been charged, have not been prosecuted.

Please avoid extremist talking points that avoid and obscure the truth, this is a site for discussion.

The police were approved for, but did not use, a no-knock warrant. Their presence was entirely legal.

Breonna Taylor was listed on the warrant, not only her boyfriend.

Of the agents involved, the majority were innocent of any wrong-doing. The agent that plead guilty did so for a clerical error.

Criminals used yo go ppeacefully a lot more often. Seems the more they expect police to remove tgeir dignity, destroy their property, commit assault, and use deadly force, it's obvious those criminals will choose to play the same game.

I think one way to start addressing this would be to increase the payouts people receive for abusive police behavior and have those payouts taken directly out of the police pension fund instead of normal taxpayer money.

Increase the payout? You'd have to start the payout.

There's virtually zero chance of them paying for those doors. They can burn your house down with tear gas, and not pay for shit, even if you're innocent.

Are you sure US police services don't payout for property damage at all?

Not even when they made a mistake?

If they made a mistake like hitting the wrong address, they sometimes will. Even then, it generally requires getting a lawyer as they typically won't offer to pay up. If it was the right address but you were innocent, they generally don't.

That sounds like low hanging fruit. Fixing that would increase mutual trust.

Take it from the guilty cop's retirement fund and give them desk duty while their non-abusive colleagues are not punished. Never assume a problem is solved when you treat individuals the same based on statistics.

That's true, and collective punishment tends to not be good long term. But you'd also want some kind of incentive system to encourage the department heads to actively discourage the behavior internally as well.

I suppose, thinking about how the world has changed in the last couple of decades, we have to reconsider your rights to have access to your electronic data. I cannot make any payments, read any emails, access any data, etc, without my phone or tablet that has a 2FA app.

Yes, I do have offline backups. I _should_ be able to recover my data, but should it be so hard? Millions of people don't think about this, and are at risk.

This is unfortunately pretty standard police practice.

... in the USA.

There are many countries in the world where police wouldn't treat you this way.

US police are basically an extremist group.

Its in no way unique to the US. I know folks round here who have been treated exactly the same.

In the US, maybe. Not so much in Europe.

People I know in Western European countries have suffered the exact same indignities at the hands of the police.

That's not how it works sadly, you can't just commit crimes and then just expect some sort of room service from law enforcement:

"Just let me get dressed"

pulls gun from the dresser

Police shouldn't have to risk their life for this kind of thing

>the people enforcing the law are often committing worse crimes than the supposed criminals.

Source?

>In 2019, the estimated number of murders in the nation was 16,425.[0]

How many tens of thousands of innocent people did police kill that year?

[0]https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

> you can't just commit crimes

Are people whose houses are raided typically convicted ahead of time?

No, but they are typically armed. SWAT teams have strict protocols to avoid death on both sides. These "what if" questions posed by armchair SWAT commanders don't translate into the real world. Things like "just try to shoot him in the leg" and "what if she's naked" just increase bloodshed. In a life and death situation, the only consideration that's actually important is if the suspect is armed. The more conditional protocols you add, the more times something will go wrong. We don't trade lives for clothing: that isn't and can't be how it works. A simplified version of the protocol is: is he armed? If not don't shoot. If yes is his back facing you? If yes don't shoot. It get's more complicated when you consider hostages, the suspects mental health, bystanders ect. "Is he naked" has no room in the protocol. Focus is extreamly important and something tangetial to life and death can't be part of the consideration.

At least look up the stats if you are going to perpetuate the evil police narrative.

There were 1020 fatal police shootings in 2020.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

>At least look up the stats if you are going to perpetuate the evil police narrative.

What did you mean by this? It isn't clear if you mean what you said or "the evil police's narrative."

> How many tens of thousands of innocent people did police kill that year?

You implied tens of thousands of innocent people are killed by police each year. The actual statistics say that police kill around 1000 people a year with no mention of guilt or innocence. Your implication is flat out wrong.

The media perpetuates an idea that police are evil, murderous bastards and everybody should hate them. It is false and dangerous rhetoric. Spreading it in ignorance makes you a "useful idiot". Arm yourself with knowledge. In many cases the media is flat out lying to your face.

It was rhetorical. Try reading my original post again.

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