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Comment by colpabar | Hacker News Reader

I know saying "fuck the police" is an overused cliche at this point but how the fuck can anyone have any respect for the police as a whole when this is the shit they do? In canada they arrest you for a hand gesture and in america they arrest you for letting your children walk outside. How could any sane member of society go to a person's house and arrest them for these things? And they still have the nerve to complain that people don't respect them! Do cops in canada have discretion like american cops do?

I am not completely anti-police and I do think that it's a tough job and is ultimately necessary for a society. But I really think we need to completely start over because our current implementation of policing is completely fucked.

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TBH, I think the conduct of the cops is fine here. If someone alleges that the other party is making death threats, I want them to investigate. It's not alleged that the cops mistreated Mr. Epstein. Obviously being arrested is traumatic, but the fault here lies with the unhinged neighbour, who will hopefully be prosecuted.

What's beyond the pale for me is that the Crown prosecutor brought the lawsuit at all. She's even a 16-year veteran. I'd be interested in reporting about how this case made it to trial once they had collected all the evidence.

If all the police did was investigate, then their conduct would have been fine. But they arrested him, and that is not adequate conduct.

On the one hand, knowing what we know now, I certainly agree it would be preferable if he wasn't arrested.

On the other hand, the neighbour had made at least 4 reports to the police about harassment and death threats. I believe the neighbour's brother and parents had also spoken to the police in support of these claims. On the day of the arrest, the neighbour had _just_ made the most serious claim yet--about death threats.

Given that context, I can understand why the police legally have the right to arrest, and would be willing to arrest.

Hum... No, it's not ok for the police to arrest somebody only due to claims. It doesn't matter how often the claims are repeated.

Maybe the police should have investigated it earlier, but lack of that earlier investigation is not cause for arresting him.

I assumed that they were shown the video of 'the finger' and arm waving and thought the accusation had enough meat on it.

"I certainly agree it would be preferable if he wasn't arrested."

We should actually be completely fucking outraged that any citizen can be forcibly detained on the whim of the police for non-violent behavior. Yet you seem to think it's just fine to deny a person every basic human right on the whim of some cop?

The kind of person it takes to make 4(!) official complaints and have the local police office in their contact list is exactly the same person to exaggerate dramatically, play the victim, and ultimately be the true source of anti-social behavior. I don’t believe there’s any veracity behind their claims, and the police department should have forwarded their calls to a therapist instead.

A friend[1] of mine (and his neighbours) have made a lot more than 4 official complaints about an absolutely deranged lunatic[2] on his street.

It took years of complaints and police calls, for the guy to get a court date (For harassing the neighbors and vandalizing their cars.)

Unless you actually go through many of the steps of investigating, you have no idea if the person making the complaints is the anti-social shithead, or if the person being complained about is. '4 official calls = complainer is full of shit' is a terrible heuristic.

[1] Who I trust and respect very much. I doubt that he's full of crap.

[2] Who, from all accounts, wouldn't benefit from a fine or prison sentence - he needs therapy.

Sometimes they're ordered to and it's not their call.

I'm not saying this is the case here, but here's a hilariously well documented instance: https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/sorry-for-arresting-you

Yes, yes I know "just following orders" shouldn't be an excuse.

That's actually addressed in the article if you read deep enough. The judge praises the prosecutor for cutting the case off halfway and asking it thrown out after they heard from the defendant.

They did have a video of a guy giving both middle fingers and making a motion that could ambiguously look like throat slashing. Now it wasn't that and the guy had a credible explanation of why and his neighbor is both a bad driver and a paranoid nutjob, most of which was proven by the paranoid guy's own videos wherein he (but not his innocent neighbor) can be seen doing all manner of things that might credibly be offenses like driving over the limit, driving dangerously and not slowing around kids, etc.

So it's not too clear to me what the prosecutor knew and when, beyond that video, but at least when the evidence did come out, they folded immediately, which makes me believe they must not have known that earlier.

> which makes me believe they must not have known that earlier.

But why not? The evidence that was presented to the court was the complainant's evidence. The case failed on the prosecution evidence. The prosecutor should have known it wouldn't stand up.

I mean, you're right that there's a good case that they should have known if they'd done things more thoroughly, but the fact that they simply did fold tells me they probably didn't actually know (even if they really should have!) because otherwise, why embarrass yourself in court like that?

The prosecutor eventually asked the judge to acquit. For which the judge gave her credit. But I don't understand why she prerssed charges in the first place; was she so unfamiliar with the evidence that she was going to have to present, that she didn't realize it was full of holes until it came to court?

There's a missing backstory here. I wonder whether the case was prepared by a junior, and this prosecutor barged in and decided to take over at the last minute, for the sake of personal glory. I can't see why she deserves the judge's approval.

Looks like the cops did the right thing there :

>In his testimony, Naccache simply says that the police treated it like a neighbourly dispute and accordingly declined to press the matter further. They were “not keen of processing a harassment complaint”.[11] However, he conveniently omits mentioning what he noted in his written log.

>The log reveals that, to his dismay, the police officer informed him that his brother Ari could have been charged with assault and his father Frank could have been ticketed for driving dangerously. In his notes, Naccache took the officer’s warning as a “threat”. He also complained that the officers did nothing about Mr. Epstein not wearing a COVID mask… outdoors.

Hard to imagine "the right thing" ever involves using force to detain a citizen who poses no urgent threat and has not engaged in violent behavior. That detainment may be temporary, but it is a complete and utter denial of all basic human rights to the person being detained.

The police didn't use force; it says in the court documents that, when arrested, the accused complied completely with the police.

If you resist arrest, police will use force to detain you. That's how that works. Did you think arrest was voluntary? I'll pretend you're not trolling and actually needed this explained to you.

The cops weren’t involved simply because of someone giving someone the finger.

The person was accused for making death threats and that’s what the arrest was about.

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