Hacker News Reader

Comment by paws | Hacker News Reader

Slightly OT: I noticed Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, and New York City either ended or limited qualified immunity in recent years. (In other states similar efforts faltered, apparently thanks to police unions and politicians in their pocket [0])

Via the article:

> Fifteen months after the Colorado bill was signed into law, there is so far little evidence to support any widespread negative effects on police retention or recruitment.

Now that it's been more time I've been curious to measure how curtailing QI has affected 1) police misconduct 2) police hiring and 3) insurance rates (e.g. indemnity) municipalities/townships/states pay.

If anyone has insight on ways to measure, places to find data, etc would be appreciated.

Meanwhile for those curious about Chicago police misconduct, TIL about [1]

[0] https://archive.ph/evcEG

[1] https://cpdp.co

View on HN

I’m not at “defund police” levels of dissatisfaction but I do believe they have fundamentally lost the moral authority to self govern. I think internal affairs should be disbanded and we go straight to the FBI without passing IA.

We just need to separate IA from the agency it is investigating.

Up here in BC, Canada, the office of the Police Complaint Commissioner is responsible for investigating policing complaints. They aren't associated with any agency, and have broad investigative authorities.

It isn't a perfect system, but it is far better than police investigating their own agency, or even police investigating other nearby agencies.

I also think that police unions need to go. They should be lumped in with other public employee unions, or just accept that a job that powerful does not need a traditional union.

The FBI groomed a mentally disabled kid into what they define as a terrorist. If you think the FBI isn't filled with bad actors, then you haven't been paying attention.

"and we go straight to the FBI"

Because they are so much better, right?

It's a matter of incentive. Sure, the Alphabet Agencies aren't intrinsically good, but they have little motive to protect the misconduct within local police precincts.

"but they have little motive to protect the misconduct within local police precincts"

Maybe. The way I see it, all of law enforcement has an "US vs Them (criminals, etc)" attitude, and are very hesitant to throw each other under the bus, or even openly criticize eachother unless it is 100% necessary...

I used to be a "back the blue" guy, but that's because I'm a pretty boring person who hasn't needed to deal with confronting the police before. After watching channels like Audit the Audit and LackLuster on YouTube (excellent channels btw), I have a newfound respect for the handful of cops that actually stick within the limits of their authority and remain respectful. I also have a newfound disdain for the other 90% of officers. Of course, since the channels focus mainly on police misconduct, it's easy to get a skewed perspective that almost all police are like that, which may also not be true. The fact that so many video examples of tyranny exist is frightening regardless, however.

One of the new "metas" in policing is getting people to open their front door to talk, and then putting their foot in the doorway to prevent it from being closed without being considered "assault on a peace officer." How that shit isn't struck down immediately by SCOTUS baffles me. It violates the 4th and 5th amendments simultaneously.

And also the incessent use of the "I smell marijuana" excuse to be able to freely search peoples' vehicles and persons. There's just so many shady tactics the police use to intentionally skirt the spirit of the law and our rights, while still passing the letter of the law.

> And also the incessent use of the "I smell marijuana"

I have a family member on parole who had this happen on a traffic stop the other day. Being on parole, there's no right to decline being searched prior to arrest*, so all it takes for a cop to derail your day is for them to say "I smell marijuana" - no additional hoops.

Not only did he not have marijuana, he was pulled over for expired registration, which he was in transit to resolve. They saw an expired registration, and decided to search him, even though he was able to present his completed paperwork that he was en route to drop off. They were very obviously fishing for anything to arrest someone over.

[*] I should add that even when you can decline the search, they search you anyways

I would love to see an equivalent to cpdp.co for every city. The notion of publicly humiliating authoritarian thugs masquerading as civil servants offers a glimmer of hope for the atrocious state of policing in the US.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com