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Comment by lawlessone | Hacker News Reader

>Police revealed that finding the 26-year-old was a complete surprise, and that they did not have his name on a list of suspects prior to today

So when they said they knew who he was yesterday it was a lie.

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It was specifically Eric Adams who sort of implied that - but it was a bit of a cagey response, and NYPD later stated that day they had no ID:

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5028239-mayor-adams-sa...

Given Adam’s past year, there was never a reason to take what he says at face value.

I don't think that's a fair characterization.

> When asked by a reporter if police had the suspect’s name, Adams said, “We don’t want to release that now. If you do, you’re basically giving a tip to the person we are fine with seeking, and we do not want to give him an upper hand at all. Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask.”

Grammatical flub aside ("the person we are fine with seeking"), he is just saying that he doesn't want to say anything about the info being requested. The police release information that they have decided is in their interest to release. Everything else is classified confidential by default.

"Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask" implies that he can't hide and they know his name. A lie in other words.

> implies that he can't hide

I agree with this.

> and they know his name.

That is not implied anywhere at all.

It hinges on what the word “that” in “release that” is referring to. If it’s referring to releasing his name, then he’s implying not releasing his name is a choice which implies they have the option to release it, so they must know it. If it’s referring to releasing whether or not they know his name, then it’s not implying anything. If this was said by someone with a history of well-spoken and thoughtful public statements, then it’d most likely be the latter interpretation. Given it’s Eric Adams, either is plausible. In fact, the bullshit-ness of the former may make it even more probable here.

Police lie all the time, but this is police _implying_ a lie. To me it (clearly?) read as if they were keeping their cards close to their chest, not saying either way.

>"Let him continue to believe he can hide behind a mask"

To me that implies that they don't know who he is, because he is hiding.

Eric Adams doesn't have a strong reality filter, and it's usually good to cross-check things he says, especially if he's the only person saying them. I don't think he consciously makes things up, he just tends to gravitate towards saying things that sound good in the moment.

Or, if we're being really charitable, they were chasing the wrong guy.

All you did was make the phrase "makes things up" more palatable. It still means the same thing. He lies.

I like understanding why people are making things up.

Edit: sorry, I was a bit snarky there and I shouldn't have been. I was in fact splitting a hair there; it's a useful one for me but it's far from obligatory.

What lies has Eric Adams said?

He's currently indicted for criminal fraud. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/25/nyregion/eric-adams-...

He lies constantly. Like, he lives in New Jersey and pretends to live in NYC. He pretends to be a vegan.

Also continually uses strange phrases in speeches that he made up, like "all your haters will be waiters when you sit down at the table of success", or saying "New York City is the Dublin/Istanbul/Port au Prince of America" whenever he's talking to an a cultural group.

He’s a former cop and a current politician, I’d be surprised if anything he says publicly is true.

Not sure why you got downvoted, no one familiar with either profession can argue that it’s not a part of being a cop or a politician

If Books Could Kill podcast got you covered

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/unlocked-eric-adams/id...

He's a compulsive liar.

To give you one specific - he lied about accidentally firing a gun at school and then he claimed that a book that is available for purchase "never got to print."

https://apnews.com/article/eric-adams-book-gun-e2179cd82fc41...

Let me remind you here that it is the job of the government and specifically the police to lie to you. So if he was lying, he was doing his job.

I don't know why you are being downvoted. My father was a cop, went through the academy when I was 15. I distinctly remember him explaining to me about how they are taught to lie to get people to cross their stories up.

Eric Adams, the brilliant detective.

I think the objection was to the centrality of lying and intent.

My home contractors might lie to me, but that certainly is not what I hired them to do

I'm assuming your father did more than just tell tall tales.

The job is not lying. If anything, lying is a situational means to an end.

We can argue against that fact without resorting to hyperbole and twisting reality ourselves

> He lies.

He's a cop turned politician.. cows moo, crocodiles chomp, and these critters lie. It's their nature.

Cops protect and serve. I'm not sure who you're thinking of.

some don’t

Lolol. Were thinking of the ones who break into your house and kill you thinking it was their’s, the ones that killed Breonna Taylor, chased a black man running etc.

Oh I know, I meant this to be sarcastic and didn't quite land that plane.

They protect their own and serve themselves. But they have the state backing them up and we don't.

Whoosh

Too late to edit, but it seems the implied /s here should have been explicit.

Jesus Christ thank you. I understand the political climate means the word "lie" is somehow a bad word but thank you for saying it. It's still a fucking lie. It might even be worse, because the bullshitters like that are often so oblivious that it makes it harder to tell they're lying. And yet, it has the same damn effects in every measurable way.

It's a lie. Call it a non malicious lie, sure, whatever. But it's still a lie. I swear. The bar is buried under the fucking ground. In the US, anyway.

That's a common tactic to try and get a suspect to turn themselves in.

Sometimes it works. (Most suspects turn themselves in for crimes they've committed. It's actually the exception when police need to go out to arrest a criminal suspect.)

That's when the suspect's identity is known, and the suspect would rather face a bail hearing then try to keep hiding.

Sure, for nonviolent criminal offenses. It helps that accepting responsibility for one's actions (as demonstrated by turning oneself in) generally results in significantly reduced sentencing.

For violent offenses, and especially for high-profile murder cases, they don't give the suspect the option of turning themselves in.

> they don't give the suspect the option of turning themselves in

That seems a lot like the responsibility of the suspect? Like, if you're planning on shooting a high profile target in midtown Manhattan isn't the exit something to think about? Based on what information we might actually have, the shooter had plenty of carelessly missed opportunities to not be caught. Poor planning, in retrospect, is a choice.

RE "....when they said they knew who he was yesterday it was a lie....."

Was an obvious lie ...was my first reaction.

If they did know the name - it could have been used to retrieve numerous photos - and other evidence. That said the accused person left several of their online profiles online . even a facebook profile !!!

It's hard to believe that this is true. There seems to be enough people who knew him, from friends and family who were worried about him, to people who went to school or worked with him. Do you want to tell me that not even a single person identified him in the pictures and notified the police? Not to mention that his friends and family didn't know where he is, so it fit the narrative perfectly.

Yes, they do that. Lying is how they operate, especially when questioning or trying to mess with suspects. You can never trust anything a cop says.

They weren't lying, but it was the wrong thing to say. They had a list of suspects and they may have had high confidence that one of them was their guy. But they couldn't know that at least until they took someone into custody.

...and? Do you think police should be bound to be truthful at all times, even if hinders their investigation?

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