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Comment by rowanG077 | Hacker News Reader

Right. So doesn't it make sense for someone to move to a different country where you don't have to fear the police?

Police interactions are quite infrequent among non-criminally adjacent people. Keep in mind lots of those policing minorities are minorities themselves. Police kill thousands of white people too. So in a sense your question is why doesn’t everyone leave America because of fear of police?

Everytime I talk with other non-Americans about traveling in the US one of the main fears that comes up all the time is fear of the police. So I can't imagine the Japanese police being nearly as much a cause of concern and or fear.

I think people should have a rational fear of police everywhere, including Japan. Police have a state given power over you, and that can be abused no matter where you are.

Japan isn't perfect here. Your rights when dealing with the police here are different (and not in a better way). You do not have the right to remain silent, and your silence can be used against you. They can keep you in jail for ~30 days without charges. It's an open secret that the police can and do beat prisoners to get confessions out of them.

That said, if I had to chose an interaction between the Japanese police and the US police, I'd take the Japanese police every single time.

Yeah, interesting!

Aren't Japanese police just as likely to target "the foreigner" in the neighborhood anyway? They're not going to shoot on sight the way an American cop would but their ability (and legal leeway) to extract confessions is infamous.

Maybe, but that's an irrelevant metric. I'd still expect the absolute percentage chance of becoming a police victim to be much, much smaller.

Only if you are a criminal. Don't point a gun at a cop and you won't get killed by one. If you don't break laws or speed you will not actually interact with cops in the US. I'm 45 and the only times I have ever interacted with police is when I got pulled over for speeding, or something wrong with my car.

the very first time i am going to bring race in a hn comment.

you are not black or a minority, are you? systemic targeting is a thing. exarcerbated by media portrayal. it is a real mess that affects real people.

If you are trying to argue that a person's behavior has no effect on how likely they are to be killed by a cop then you are just completely wrong.

Without putting words in their mouth, I think they are arguing that in the US, one’s skin color plays a larger role than their behavior, when it comes to whether their interaction with the police results in brutality or not. While they are both factors, one is a stronger predictor than the other.

If I’m pulled over while being white and I cooperate, I’m probably getting the ticket and going on my way. Worst case the cop is having a bad day and wants to escalate, they arrest me for something. If I’m black, worst case I’m going to the morgue. Average case is going to be worse if I’m black, all other things (including my attitude) being equal.

"one’s skin color plays a larger role than their behavior"

When it comes to actually getting killed by cops I don't think this is true. The vast majority of people killed by cops are doing something very foolish like pointing a gun at them or rushing them with a knife.

Please do a few google searches on this topic so that you can change your worldview. I know it's tough to challenge your core beliefs, but part of intellectual curiosity is also personal growth, especially around topics that you have an emotional attachment to.

I actually did, a few months ago. In my state, out of the 10 non gun-carrying people killed by the cops in the past 10 years, 2-3 were Black, 5 were White, the rest Hispanic and 1 Asian (matching the racial makeup of US).

So the statement by the poster above holds - if you don't point a gun at a cop (figuratively), your chance of surviving contact with police if you are Black are no lower than other races.

What exactly are you trying to say, that the majority of US cops are eager to randomly kill black people for no reason?

This is horribly reductive.

Put aside the sample size of one for a moment. The fact you've only dealt with the police when genuinely committing crimes, and their response was proportional to the crime, is most likely down to your skin colour.

> and their response was proportional to the crime, is most likely down to your skin colour.

And also due to the fact I was calm, reasonable, cooperative, and didn't point a gun at them. If you are trying to argue that a person's behavior has no effect on how likely they are to be killed by a cop then you are just completely wrong.

Do you mean like the way Philando Castile was calm, reasonable, and cooperative while being executed after being stopped for a break light issue?

What about Charles Kinsey who was as cool and compliant and non-threatening as possible,

What about Donovan Lewis? Is it reasonable to execute a sleeping man?

What about Erik Cantu? I guess eating a hamburger in a parking lot is a capital offense?

BTW, the number of cases like the few I mentioned are FAR too numerous to even keep track of.

If you think that a persons skin color has no effect on how likely they are to be killed by a cop then you are just completely wrong.

Those are 4 people out of many thousands that have been killed by police in the US, they are hardly representative. A persons actions have hundreds of times more impact on how likely they are to be killed by a cop than his race.

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