Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality | Hacker News Reader

Texas woman arrested for Facebook post about town water quality

reclaimthenet.org

803 pointsabawany325 comments

> The statute requires that a person knowingly circulate a false report. Combs says she was repeating what people told her. Gregory says she should have verified it with the hospitals first

It would be a violation of HIPAA for a medical system to disclose that to a private individual. The State Health Services or TCEQ would need to conduct that investigation and ask those questions. Both of those are state level agencies and would require significant momentum for a small town like Trinidad to trigger their attention. Ironically, it sounds like her social media post and the Streisand effect around it have triggered a TCEQ boil water notice and (likely) an investigation.

It is absolutely bizarre for a municipal or county law enforcement agency to take interest in this kind of thing. Texas Rangers and federal authorities should be looking at what triggered her arrest and whatever investigation came before it. That's assuming Greg Abbot, Dan Patrick, or Ken Paxton haven't totally compromised them at this point.

> It would be a violation of HIPAA for a medical system to disclose that to a private individual.

If multiple people told her they were hospitalized then you could ask and answer about that in a general way without violating HIPPA. "Were the multiple cases of hospitalization due to water quality issues in the recent month?" As long as individual data isn't revealed then there is no violation. Which is obvious when you think about any generalized health statistics.

Which isn't to defend the Trinidad Police department, but to point out, if their concern was community awareness, then they could have asked any news outlet to do this same reporting as a matter of public interest.

Instead the police decide that it's better to use their limited resources to take a citizen into custody over factually ambiguous statements. We live in disappointing times so it's not hard to imagine a friend or colleague pressured the police into violating this woman's civil rights in an effort to shut everyone up about the sorry state of their infrastructure.

I was almost arrested a couple days ago because i walked to the nearest grocery store with my backpack on. I needed to visit a specialty shop nearby and put the goods in my backpack. I travel with a backpack. It holds my money, identification, nicotine, other odds and ends, some aleve, and also a foldable cane, an assistive device that I need when my bad knee goes out (tibial plateau). The store was willing to confiscate my bag for me, but are naturally not responsible if it all goes missing, or if the cash goes missing, or if my cards get skimmed, or if someone social engineers another employee into handing the bag to them. So in order to protect the stores green beans, I am ordered to forfeit all my personal property and identity information as well as my assistive device. When i refuse, they called the cops and attempted to insinuate over the phone to the cops that I "may have weapons" and "may be dangerous" even though I am just literally an austistic disabled person walking a mile to the store because it was too rainy to ride my motorcycle. In either case, I would be wearing a backpack. This is essentially the same as a woman carrying a purse. I am at a point I no longer want to participate in this society or even live amongst anyone here. I can no longer function except in full isolation apparently because everything I am, and everything I've done for four decades on this planet, is being attacked and criminalized with prejudice. I am constantly kicked out of stores for existing, i cannot go anywhere without people yelling at me or threatening violence against me. I despise existence and everyone that has enabled this society to become this way. There is nothing good here anymore.

Texas is a quasi fascist state at this point. I wouldn’t hold your breath about Greg Abbott coming to the rescue. This type of interaction with their constituents is common now.

hippa is not that. well, it more than one person was involved.

it only prevents personably identifiable information to be shared with institutions that are not hippa compliant. nothing else.

HIPAA or not, I assume the hospital wouldn’t tell a private citizen anything concerning anyone else, just on general principles. There’s no FOIA or something like that to force them to.

But they don't have to disclose identifying information to say, "yeah, we've had more XYZ cases," or some other statistic. I'm not saying she should have to contact the hospital to exercise her right to free speech. I'm just saying that HIPAA doesn't mean healthcare institutions are a black box. I find that idea strange because I can immediately see how to ask questions to work around it while still protecting individuals.

> “…HIPAA doesn’t mean healthcare institutions are a black box.”

Ok, but it’s a sure-fire way to not answer any question you don’t like or if you are unsure of the person making the request—from the receptionist to the hospital administrator. A convenient “fig leaf” if you will.

In a more charitable view—if a hospital admin did disclose something they shouldn’t the consequences are legal. E.G. the context for answering has to be legal, or someone trained to answer your specific questions. Now, try to find that person and get an answer—crickets.

I assume she will get a settlement, the city (the taxpayer) will pay for it and nothing else changes. There will be even less money for infrastructure repair and people will keep voting for the same people.

I think everything is consistent with the perspective Texas represents toward the united states. It's fine if Texas doesn't implement reforms and fails. (There are 49 other states and may the ones that invent or adopt the best practices survive.)

What do you think “fails” means exactly? How does Texas fail in a way that doesn’t harm innocent people in both Texas and the rest of the country/world?

Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.

The Federal government enforces a few rules and then leaves things to the state and people. Obviously that means the state and people have no nanny to protect them from consequences of their decisions. If they drain their budgets fighting the civil rights of their population instead of fixing a problem then they might look like a lot of bankrupt municipalities. The US is obligated to let that happen.

Not really. The federal government bails Texas out of the messes they get themselves into all the time (like their shitty power grid). Historically, Texas has often received more in federal funding than it contributes in federal taxes.

Sure, most of the South is in a hypocritical position of claiming to want the federal system I described, I want them to get it..

People are arguing with you as if you’re not making the same point they are, amusing

Is the Texas power grid shitty? Say, compare to California’s?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis was pretty notable.

it's that texas has it's own power grid. Other states tend to share grids.

Yes. Both are shitty, but CA is at least shared with the national grid.

> The federal government bails Texas out of the messes they get themselves into all the time (like their shitty power grid)

What (federal) bailout did Texas receive for the power grid? Unless something changed, Texas refuses fed help for the power grid because it wants to stay independent. Texas bailed itself out of the 2021 power grid failure with a couple/few billion dollars that Texas pays for. And while not great, Texas refused hundreds of millions in federal money to shore up flood protections, which came to light last year. Texas is not your typical southern state that takes and does nothing for itself.

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/texas-gets-60-million-in-f...

https://casar.house.gov/media/press-releases/news-federal-go...

Did you read those sources? The $60 million is not bail out type money specifically designed for getting Texas out of its "own messes", it's a grant from the Infrastructure bill [0].

Those links are a country wide program that benefits the whole of the US, which Texas is sill a part of. Even with a very generous acceptance of your proof, 60 million is nothing compared to the 2.5 billion Texas funded themselves to shore up their independent grid. They won't take bail out type money because they refuse to accept federal oversight that comes with it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_...

> If they drain their budgets

If Texas seceded from the US (which there is an actual movement here that gets loud with Democrat presidents) it would be the 8th or 9th largest economy in the world. The oil propping up the US while the US admin is/was grifting large paychecks for friends and family with the Iran thing -- comes from Texas. No one posting words online then getting payouts is going to bankrupt them.

This kind of private income is not necessarily going to result in much improvement in municipality income, it can be used to reduce municipality income i.e. by political contributions to bills like California Prop 13.

I would be a bit skeptical that civil rights violations over the web would be enough to bankrupt many municipalities but I think it is the larger point of no State laws or system of accountability for any of the things an official may do.. Some officials choose liquid investments or select large civil projects, etc.

I'm very happy with the possibility of Texas leaving the union. Anyone who isn't Texan should focus on leaving Texas to its rights with acceptance of as little liability for Texas as possible. Texas can fix itself or not, not my problem.

This is true, but Texans as a whole keep enabling these outcomes by both voting and supporting politicians that create it, as well as the state as a whole generally refusing aid.

It's one of the (many) reasons why I immediately moved out of the state when I had a chance. There's only so much that can be done when a lot of the states politics and environment is wholly self-destructive.

> Texas is larger (in both population and economy) than most countries in the world.

Californian here, we're bigger than Texas, laughed at the plight of ordinary people who voted for the terrible outcome they got when there was a massive winter storm and no electricity in 2021. Of course, I want good things for all people and I don't want anyone to suffer (this extends to my political enemies unless you're at the top making decisions that cause harm and then I'm flexible).

I honestly could see the hilarity of that disaster while still having compassion for the people on the ground. They voted based on social disagreements rather than competency and reaped the rewards. That said, there are very few actual competent leaders in USA government regardless of professed party. It's just that Texas keeps re-electing grifters who are nakedly corrupt (Ken Paxton and Ted Abbot come to mind). The citizens of the state are so blind as to punch themselves in the face when they vote.

"Ted Cruz says leaving Texas during winter disaster was 'obviously a mistake' as he returns from Cancún"[0]

0. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/02/18/ted-cruz-cancun-powe...

> Californian here, we're bigger than Texas, laughed at the plight of ordinary people who voted for the terrible outcome they got when there was a massive winter storm and no electricity in 2021. [...] I honestly could see the hilarity of that disaster ...

The wiki has the official death toll at 246[0]. It's estimated to actually be over 700. I don't see the humor at all. But then again, I also don't find humor in the death and destruction of all the wildfires out your way either, do you? or do you only conflate devastating natural disaster outcomes to voting outcomes in states with results you don't like?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis#Impact

fine for who? Texans? this is a silly mentality, no need to compare any other location, Texas as a standalone entity and the many stakeholders wouldn’t reasonably think it’s fine

I'm supposed to force social darwinists to do what's best for them and make sure all policies prevent them from failing even if their goal is to invalidate those policies. Texas can make laws in its state legislature to prevent municipalities from creating liabilities. If they are good other states can adopt them. If they don't they can get bent which is also good for other states that make better choices to see benefit in making better choices. As the old curse goes, may they get everything they want.

welcome to Earth where the law of the jungle never needed any endorsement or approval

That's not a fair assumption in the current political environment.

Those who have lots of money will get fair hearings under the court, but those with less power might not. There's a reason people like Elon Musk write into agreements that they must be settled in particular Texas courts.

I don't think that's the full picture. Activist judges have been a problem for awhile now, and it seems to be mostly influenced by ideology rather than purely money.

You can't really venue shop for an "activist" judge but you can for one who will side with the powerful over the weak. Your comparison is itself not a full picture.

That's quite a claim. You need to cite your sources for this one, if you want to be taken seriously.

I'm not sitting on a precompiled list I can just drop into a comment. But I do have a pretty hard rule about investing more effort than someone else already has. So this would be an unequal trade for me to go spend the rest of my Saturday building a list for someone who wrote two sentences on the internet.

To add slightly more flavoring, I think its a pretty reasonable view to assume that the massive fracturing happening in the American political scene is most likely affecting the judicial branch. Perhaps you disagree. Take it as an opinion. Don't take it seriously. Whatever floats your boat.

I read somewhere that aliasxneo eats turds with a fork and knife. I'm not sitting on a precompiled list of sources, and it would be unfair to ask me to spend my Saturday building a list for someone whom I read eats turds with a fork and knife.

I won't say what aliasxneo does to add slightly more flavoring, but I think it's a pretty reasonable to assume it's gross and lazy.

Kudos for taking the time to type all of that out lol. I clearly hit a nerve.

Take it as an opinion. Don't take it seriously. Whatever floats your boat.

How about this: what's an example of an activist judge, according to you?

Bonus question: do you enjoy watching Fox?

I'm not OP, but Matthew Kacsmaryk is definitely an activist judge, no matter what the fuck Fox news thinks of him.

Anybody paying attention would know that there are several activist judges in Texas, feeding into the activist 5th circuit -- the only appeals court that has been very often overturned by the current supreme court for being too conservative.

Just in case you're being honest about your own ignorance on this matter, you can start here:

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

OP said (in a sibling comment) that they aren't out to educate you by doing work for you. I'll give you quick examples: the judge in Texas who made the morning-after pill illegal. The supreme court (not worthy of proper noun anymore) overturning Roe vs Wade. Those two should be enough to detect a pattern and then easily verify whether that's a trend or not.

Actually, just checking out newsworthy rulings in Texas might take care of everything. The corruption there is astounding.

It's certainly obviously true that one political party used "we will find judges who will overturn one particular court case" as a fundamental part of their campaigning for decades...

What’s an activist judge? Do you believe a judge can just rule whatever they want outside the framework of law?

So many do, starting with the supreme court lately.

People are disagreeing, but I think they're seeing the word "activist" and assuming a different meaning than what I think OP meant. I suggest reframing as "politically motivated" judges. I don't think it's difficult to deny OP's comment using those terms.

The point of the arrest was not to win. The point was to inconvenience the whistleblower, cause her grief, and maybe as a bonus make her spend a night or two in jail. Nobody doing this remotely believed that they wouldn't have to settle. They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother.

Same for the guy in TN who got arrested for posting that anti-conservative meme. Nobody thought they would win, but they want to make everyone else think twice about criticizing a particular political side.

>They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother.

some of my students have expressed that they wish they could get arrested for a meme and walk away with a couple hundred grand.

i, of course, have told them that they would be playing with fire. but they are still viewing it as a potentially life-changing payday. so, for some subset of people, they might be having to opposite of the desired chilling effect.

Yea, an arrest on your record, even if you're acquitted and/or get a settlement for police wrongdoing, can still mess you up. There are employers and landlords who will ask you / check whether you were ever arrested, regardless of the outcome of the arrest. Mere involvement with Law Enforcement puts a permanent black mark on your record and can interfere with basic things for the rest of your life.

As someone who lives this reality (arrest but no conviction), it's in practice not really so bad. It's never come up with a landlord. The last time it came up was after being accepted to grad school and I had to fill out a form about it. You do just carry with you the knowledge that if you ever get pulled over the cop can pull it up about you and have reason to hassle you more.

"I'm going to hassle you because my brethren have hassled you before."

Yup, sounds about right.

They don't call it a brotherhood for nothing.

My choice of wording was not an accident.

Not sure, would you (as a cop) help them with content creation?

Given that you’re posting on HN and went to grad school, I wonder whether you’ve worked a minimum wage job. Most of those applications ask whether you’ve ever been arrested. It’s been a long time since I worked one of those jobs, but I remember that all of the applications I filled out back then asked me. Thankfully the answer was no.

Working minimum wage jobs is demoralizing on multiple levels. The jobs are often physically exhausting (I unloaded trucks and stocked shelves among other things). But the worst part is that the entire system treats you with disdain. You walk away with the strong feeling that nobody gives a shit. I knew that I wanted and could have better things but many of my coworkers internalized a different message.

Then make part of the settlement having the arrest expunged.

How would being arrested for memeing be a black mark? It would be a hilarious talking point that I would be more than happy to chat with a landlord, employer, or literally anyone else about. Anyone who would hold that against you is pretty much a textbook example of a bad person (banal evil or some such).

I could see firms doing background checks not caring about those nuances or taking the time to consider why the individual was arrested.

Especially if it’s just an AI review

In a perfect world, sure. But realistically, people don't dig into the context. They see an arrest on your record and move to the next guy. Either that or, some automated system sees you checked 'yes I was arrested before' and filters you out automatically.

Some won't ask for details and just reject. Which of course sucks but they may view it as less risky than trying to evaluate the details and make a judgement call.

That said if you do go into circumstances - "I did it to get arrested and get a payout" could also be viewed as a red flag - says "may screw you/the company for money". Probably not the employee / tenant / etc you might want.

I wouldn’t rent my house to someone who has been arrested for memeing. It’s an unnecessary risk with absolutely no upside for me. What happens when they decide to meme on their landlord?

>What happens when they decide to meme on their landlord

nothing? maybe a laugh? it’s a meme not a murder

Then you're part of the problem.

Convicted, sure. Merely arrested, with no conviction? Then you'd be an asshole

> Convicted, sure.

Convicted ... for memeing? I think that would still be absurd. I don't think landlords should be denying tenants for obviously unrelated matters.

When you’re basically trusting a multi hundred thousand dollar asset to someone basically on faith, you basically are looking for a zero drama situation, so I can see why a lot of “out of the ordinary” activities would raise a red flag for potential landlords. I would not have an appetite to even be a landlord because people suck and will destroy things just to spite you. And in the tenant situation, good luck suing the tenant for it, they don’t have any money to pay. You’re lucky in some states if you can evict them within a year for not paying rent. So yeah, it’s not a surprise that landlords are interested in choosing VERY boring tenants to rent to, not activists.

If your house became a meme house, you might actually make more money off renting it.

You’d be more than happy to chat. They often won’t give you that chance.

You don't even get a chance to explain it. Their background check software sees that you were arrested once, and discards your résumé.

For low level jobs the biggest risk is being automatically filtered out early in the job application process then dying in a cardboard shelter on the sidewalk

I could see less savoury companies(which is nearly all of them) to see potential whistle-blower like this as a risk in future. Most people are bad people after all. Especially those in hiring roles.

I think you are underestimating how anal the entire job and rental application process has become. You won't have the chance of talking to anyone. An automated system runs your name against a database before any human is involved in the process. And why would any human bother talking to someone with an arrest history when there are probably tens, if not hundreds, of applicants who are just as competent as you?

You must not have ever been poor because the idea of several thousand dollars right now completely obliterates any notion of "maybe less money later, possibly"

Particularly if you're young and poor.

Humans don't really work the way you're implying from your armchair.

I was poor (as in, well below FPL), the son of two immigrants, for many years.

That’s precisely how I thought - getting involved with a “get money now” scheme was not worth the “no money ever again” it often came with. I watched friends do things like this and face consequences later.

Not to discourage anyone from protesting, but not all poor people think alike.

There's poor and stupid, and then there's poor and smart

I can tell you which one is significantly more common

Ironically some of the smartest people I know aren't at all wealthy.

I was a poor refugee, but different people take such situations differently. For my family, it was a stern adherence to law and rules, an extreme low risk approach. For others, granted, it was dismissal of law and rules. Certainly, being poor and hungry made us even more averse to conflicts with the law / police / society / system. Again, others drew opposite lessons and approaches.

> stern adherence to law and rules, an extreme low risk approach.

Were any of the people who took risks also subject to deportation upon arrest? I expect they were all USA citizens with less to lose. Genuinely interested if this is not the case, because this seems very explainable if that aspect is different between you and them.

> Yea, an arrest on your record

What an awful data environment

The fact that you were arrested, charged even, if not convicted should not be discoverable by third parties

Uncivilised

> The fact that you were arrested, charged even, if not convicted should not be discoverable by third parties

That's how people get disappeared in failed states.

It's perfectly fine to force the state to clearly declare whom they have detained and their reasons for doing so. We also need to recognize that arrests are very often preposterous (or worse, retaliatory) and not hold it (absent other information or further proceedings) against people.

... subsequent to release.

The fact that someone is in custody should be always available. But it should not be up to Joe Random to pay $11 to my State Patrol to find out why I was arrested last week, especially if I wasn't charged.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding the nature of information propagation in the universe, but how do you propose to require the state to declare whom it has detained one week, and then to make that information unavailable the following week?

(and even if you were able to change the nature of reality as you suggest, why accommodate the state's desire to deny such an action after-the-fact?)

I think regulating the retention and processing of information is entirely feasible even in circumstances where the information is initially available for a different purpose. This is in fact the legal status quo in Europe as well as many non-EU countries.

Now there is no absolute guarantee that, if someone has the information, and they are legally required to delete it or not use it, that they don't break the law. But it works in the case of balancing the need to avoid people being disappeared against preventing dragnet misuse of arrest data by employers and landlords. Maybe organised crime employers would systematically break the law if maintaining a database illegal, but they also probably don't mind people with arrest records.

This is really far from true, unless you're talking about federal security clearances.

Which is why I believe criminal records should only be kept for serious crimes (killing, etc.), anything less, the record gets deleted after few months completely. Otherwise, just as you said, the black mark on the records are worse than serving a whole year in prison, and can be used to exploit others.

While there are a few other ways it can happen, my state likes to say that certain criminal records are available for expungement.

One of the criteria: "The person has reached 120 years of age."

Cool.

this is gonna have chilling effects on free speech in america. people are gonna be thinking twice about criticising authorities after a pattern of this happening on a national level is established

If you let them make you think twice before posting, you're letting them win.

I'm not saying that I don't think twice about how to word things or that I'm some sort of free speech warrior. I'm saying that when I make concessions, I feel bad about it. Try to be brave and keep speaking openly about your contempt for the people in charge.

I have an arrest on my record. It has never, to this day, impacted my life negatively. (Aside from the actual experience, including paying legal fees - I certainly didn't get a settlement out of it.)

to clarify, is this a 'record' in the abstract sense of 'something that can be known about your past' (someone googles your name and a news article mentions arrest) or some kind of literal record with arrest records etc accessible (publicly? by employers?) in the US?

Students are young and often have nothing to lose, aside from missing opportunities.

Opportunity cost is a real cost.

I have some alternative timeline SpaceX shares available - they are very valuable.

Are you interested in buying some from me using your money on this timeline?

And the ones who get the "payday" are just the ones we've heard of.

How many people didn't get media attention, don't have the ability (time/money) to sue, lost that case, and those where the intimidation and "punishment" was successful?

At some level the people doing this intimidation believe it'll be successful. Is that from experience?

Yes; it works. That’s why they do it.

>so, for some subset of people, they might be having to opposite of the desired chilling effect.

Those ones are the easiest though, are they not? Someone going into it with convictions (or even chickening out because they are aware of the consequences) have consolation and inner reserves. Some kid angry that he can't get a six figure salary at age 22 fresh out of college might regret it as soon as they're in the clink, but if that doesn't get them... the 6-10 years of lawyer-wrangling and stress certainly will. All for the payday to not even go half as far as they think... it'll pay down some bills, there won't be any sports cars.

not with that attitude there won’t! straight into investments, don’t touch for a few decades and she’ll be right. then again most people desperate for money don’t think like that unfortunately

> some of my students

When I was young, I might have thought this way for sure. I didn't expect to have a future anyway and this would have potentially been a cool level-up that I'd seize.

Responding to someone in another comment that happened after the parent, when I was young and had no real prospects (despite coming from a well-off but not super wealthy family), I had a lot of mental health issues and emotional issues that didn't seem possible to resolve and it wasn't realistic to think I'd finish a college degree or start a career. Imagine being a well-educated white male in the USA who expects to be trapped working retail forever while peers get white-collar jobs and you can see the appeal. Fortunately, decades of hard work and treatment can make a world of difference, but that's not anything you can bet on when you're young and desperate.

Much like peter thiel’s lawsuits against Gawker, which included funding a guy who dubiously claimed to have invented email and sued Gawker for pointing out this was absurd.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/peter-thiel-email-inventor_n_...

YC and its founders worship him like a hero.

Mostly this

> They did it to show that if you speak out against them, they'll arrest and inconvenience you. So the next person who gets a thought to speak out might decide not to bother.

That needs reiterating because an uncomfortable amount of people think this sort of thing simply doesn't affect them.

The process is the punishment.

This is why the saying “you can beat the rap but you can’t beat the ride” exists.

They know the charges won’t stick, they are using the process of fighting the charges itself as the punishment.

I was immediately reminded of this old piece on water quality issues and local politics...

> An Enemy of the People [..] is an 1882 play [..] that [..] centers on Dr. Thomas Stockmann, who discovers a serious contamination issue in his town's new spas, endangering public health. His courageous decision to expose this truth brings severe backlash from local leaders [..]

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

This is the sort of comment that really enriches my life. Not only would I not have known about this author (I'm an english-only speaker), but I clicked onto another work ("Ghosts" in english, possibly more accurate as "Again Walkers" per the wiki), and this quickly grabs my interest:

"Because of its subject matter, which includes religion, venereal disease, incest, and euthanasia, it immediately generated strong controversy and adverse criticism."

This author wrote stuff that broke norms with taboo. That alone doesn't make the work meaningful, but the accolades mentioned in the article make me think of him as a P.T. Anderson of his time. Thanks for the reference and link!

It seems suspicious to me that they do not include the "offending" Facebook post. It seems like this is it, and it seems completely in the realm of journalism,

https://scontent.fcps4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/6654022...

This link doesn't seem to load

The domain only has an IPv6 address, so the link doesn't work on IPv4.

Seems like someone is aiming for the future.

IPv6 is the present. IPv4 is the past. IPv8 is the future.

I disable v6 on all my networks.

Many people are stuck in the past.

Or still don't want to deal with random issues.

To make matters worse, some of us filter fbcdn (among other domains).

Not sure why they used that link (though it works fine for me). Here's the same screenshot from the article

https://media.reclaimthenet.org/2026/05/N35Bezr1GdxG.jpg

It's facebook post. Firefox's "copy text from image" gives this unformatted blob:

> Southern Belle Watch • 1h • 2 Author We have received reports that some citizens have been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. This is a serious public health concern that deserves immediate attention. If your water looks discolored, contains sediment, has a strong odor, or you have experienced related health issues, please send us a message. We are gathering information and reporting findings to the state. We are aware that not all areas of Trinidad are experiencing these issues. However, if your water is affected, your information could help identify patterns and ensure the problem is addressed properly. Please include: • Your area or neighborhood (no exact address needed • Photos or videos of the water (if available) • Dates and times the issue occurred • Any notices you may have received • Any health concerns you're willing to share Your information can help bring attention to the issue and support efforts to improve water quality for everyone. If you have information or your water looks like this, please send us a message Reply

It's in the article. The pictured post by "Southern Belle Watch".

wouldn't they be guilty of the same crime?

I'm not a lawyer, but I think qualified immunity should not apply to constitutional violations. Giving an opt-out for those violations is antithetical to the very substance of our (US) constitution.

Qualified Immunity should not apply ever. Period. No one should be above the law for any reason ever.

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Qualified immunity, as a concept, makes perfect sense. Police officers are not jurists, and they will make mistakes in enforcing the law. Making those officers personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive.

The issue isn't qualified immunity itself, but rather the maximalist interpretation that seems pervasive in the US justice system, and the overwhelmingly broad definition of "honest mistake" that seemingly applies to the police, and the police alone.

I think you would find that they would make far fewer illegal mistakes if they actually had to deal with the consequences of those mistakes.

Qualified Immunity didn't exist as a concept until the 1960s, and it was put in place to shield policemen enacting racist policies and corrupt cronies of Nixon.

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

I think we would see far fewer actions at all for fear of being sued.

They could just buy insurance. You know, like doctors, lawyers, and a wide variety of other professionals that deal with liabilities in their field.

Regardless, the police get sued all the time anyways. It's just that the burden currently falls on the taxpayers.

> They could just buy insurance. > the police get sued all the time anyways. It's just that the burden currently falls on the taxpayers.

I fail to see how this would change anything other than increasing taxpayer costs further in the form of insurance profit margin.

Malpractice insurance might increase the cost of policing, but I'd wager the malpractice itself is costing tax payers even more.

I'm not necessarily opposed to requiring something like malpractice insurance for being a cop, but I'm genuinely not sure how that would affect the cost of policing compared to the status quo (and I'd be skeptical of any research attempt to estimate it without actually trying it). But I'm also not necessarily opposed to spending more taxpayer money on policing in return for better policing.

Make the police officer like the Doctor pay for their own insurance.

The doctor's own fees just rise. You, the patient pays for it. There's this 10-20% of revenue parasite on the entire industry, and you're paying that while complaining that prices are too high.

Now you'll do the same thing with police, as if police wages and salaries won't increase proportionally, but 20 years from now you'll wonder why that costs so much. It's bizarre how economically imperceptive everyone is.

No, the people who can't afford their insurance wouldn't be able to work as policemen. Ideally, they would also eventually lose a license of some sort-- just like the doctors who commit malpractice.

We are already paying increased taxes to deal with all the lawsuits we already incur because these people know they are above the law and they think it isn't their problem.

I explained the problem in very simple terms. But your rebuttal is "nuh uh, here are all the details that irrelevant that I think are really cool".

The people still pay for it. They pay for all the settlements, plus they pay another big slice on top for the insurance industry (since they do nothing for free). Then cops do the same thing, and lobbyists push on the insurance industry to allow them to keep breaking heads because "you can't do this job without breaking heads once in awhile". And nothing changes, except to get worse.

I'm sure the idea seems really clever to you. I mean, you invented it. Or maybe just read a blurb about it on reddit once.

In the medical world, insurance premiums have never forced an incompetent quack out of the field. They have their licenses pulled by the board (but only after some small number of tragedies). And you can't use that model on police either, because there's a big difference between a professional/academic who must study and train over a decade to even be able to operate independently, and grunts that you need in large numbers to go insert themselves into fights, troubles, and disputes. It's very likely that if there is a sophisticated, intelligent solution to our problems with police you wouldn't even like the proposal upon hearing it. I will search the rest of this thread for things you criticize, since that might be a good signal that it's worth reading.

The parent poster is suggesting the cop needs to pay for the insurance. Cop salaries aren't going to rise to meet the most uninsurable person, eventually a cop will be unable to afford their insurance based on their salary.

You, in fact, argue in support of their idea -- there's lots of people who want to be cops. That keeps salaries lower, making a ballooning insurance cost impossible for a bad cop to continue to pay.

>The parent poster is suggesting the cop needs to pay for the insurance.

If you told McDonald's that they had to pay a 10¢ tax on every cheeseburger, and then you turned around and told me "Hey, it's ok, McDonald's will pay the tax, you don't have to!" it'd mean that you were intellectually defective. You can see that right? That McDonald's would instantly raise the price of the burger not even 10¢ but probably 11¢ or 12¢. No one needs to be told this, of course, but I need to lay everything out perfectly clear because not everyone is a non-idiot.

If this is true of McDonald's, how do you think it's somehow not true of cops? Do you think they will just take a $20,000/year hit in their effective income? Do you think that there is some mechanism that will prevent them from forcing the prevailing salary/wages higher until the cost is born by taxpayers? If you think there is such a mechanism, please explain how you came up with that bizarre notion. If you don't think there is a particular mechanism that will do this, please tell me that you're not just assuming there must be one.

>You, in fact, argue in support of their idea -- there's lots of people who want to be cops. That keeps salaries lower

I have never implied, let alone argued, that there are people who "want to be cops". There is generally supply sufficient to meet the demand for that particular occupation. Even that might be a little strong, these are people who earn far more than most Americans would guess, and definitely more than you'd believe given that there is no dire shortage of potential recruits.

>That keeps salaries lower, making a ballooning insurance cost impossible for a bad cop to continue to pay.

All doctors pay hefty malpractice insurance premiums. It is not "bad doctors" who pay it. All pay it, bad ones too... assuming that "bad" does not sink so low that they lose their license (the bar is truly low here, people need to die or suffer really horrible outcomes in ways that they can't make excuses or find scapegoats).

All cops would (hypothetically) pay these hefty malpractice insurance premiums. Not just "bad cops". All. But they really wouldn't pay them, because their salaries just aren't as high as, say, a pediatric surgeon or an anesthesiologist. So their pay would balloon higher through well-understood and uncontroversial principles of economics. Enough that, after several years, we would expect the difference in average salaries between the two time periods to be roughly equal to the average insurance premium.

You already posit that bad cops would be forced out because they can't afford insurance. This means that the burden of the payouts for settlements plus the burden of the value extracted by the insurance industry will be born entirely by non-bad cops. These cops won't just take a $20,000/year hit to their incomes. The candidate pool will shrink, making it more difficult to hire, and municipalities will be forced to raise their offers until they are able to hire to whatever level they had already decided upon.

Bad cops will be hired too (remember, the mechanism you are proposing is that bad cops will be forced out after being bad, because insurance will drop them). So we don't see an improvement in outcomes... bad cops do what they do until they are forced out (just as now). And we won't see an improvement in taxpayers footing the bill for their abuse, instead of paying directly, there will be another layer of indirection where the cops pay for the insurance company to do it (and the insurance company adding a fee on top for all their "work"), but then turn around and tell us to pay them more so they can afford the insurance. And you won't get to say "nope, not paying more", because you only make decisions indirectly, by voting every few years.

All human beings over the age of 11 and iq 95 should be able to reason this out from first principles.

Change the incentives, you change the behaviour. Granted, this might have lots of unintended consequences, many of them bad.

As it currently stands the police already do almost nothing. Any kind of push back or critique of the police leads to inaction by the union. Meaning, police twiddle their thumbs and take your tax money because they can. It's a very effective technique from them to get what they want, because ultimately we need them and we can't actually force them to work.

Good. The police do too much as it is.

Every interaction with the police is a dice roll to see if someone lives or dies.

Hey I have plenty of reasons to distrust the police - more than most, but this statement is a bit over the top.

I agree with voidfunc. A lot of what police do could be offloaded to other occupations. A lot of needless deaths could be prevented if there were more rungs on the escalation ladder between "do nothing" and "folks with guns show up". Like the same vibe as firefighters and EMS but just like for mild social disruption.

    Qualified immunity, as a concept, makes perfect sense. Police officers are not jurists, and they will make mistakes in enforcing the law. Making those officers personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive.

Your own usage of "honest mistake" is overwhelmingly broad, so it's not at all clear what alternative definition of qualified immunity you are advocating.

"Doctors and nurses will make mistakes in performing medicine. Making those doctors and nurses personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive."

How many other jobs can we apply this to?

And does it apply to, say, my tax returns?

Generally, yes. If you make a mistake in your return, the IRS is perfectly happy to accept an amended return, and you pay (or get paid) the difference (perhaps with a penalty fee). They usually only go after you criminally if they think you committed fraud.

AFAIK the IRS has historically been more, er, disinterestedly nitpicky as opposed to disproportionately vindictive.

More "you say X we say Y here's your options you are Z days over with a W% rate", rather than "Ah hah! $50 dollars error, time to make an example outta this poor bastard."

> Police officers are not jurists, and they will make mistakes in enforcing the law. Making those officers personally liable for honest mistakes is, IMO, excessive.

Or maybe police training should be longer than a coding bootcamp... in some countries, police work is an undergraduate major and the programs are quite competitive. Similarly, there are countries without qualified immunity as a policy, and it doesn't seem to fundamentally undermine policework there.

Where I work, we follow quality management systems to ensure mistakes don't happen. Of course they do, people are human, but the point is to find why something happened and enact a corrective action to ensure it doesn't happen again. Is it a personnel problem that requires more training? Do procedures need to be updated to cover something new? Do we need new tools? Sometimes it really does boil down to a personnel issue where someone has been instructed, trained, and given all of the tools they need yet they still error. That's when management steps in and either transfers or fires them. That same system needs to be applied to police. When camera phones came out, suddenly cops were faced with people recording them. We have had many lawsuits where the cops have been told that people are allowed to film them and there are plenty of department manuals that state the same. At this point, a cop should never have the excuse of qualified immunity for violating someone's right to film because how much it's been harped on and any that do should be personally liable.

Other jobs don’t require this kind of shield. Instead, they require insurance.

Qualified immunity isn’t qualified, and it’s a horrific distorting function on your society, as officers get to act with impunity.

They’re given more and more power, and less and less responsibility.

We should have the exact opposite of qualified immunity - committing a crime under the color of authority as a serious felony in itself.

Require them to get liability insurance like other important professions.

yup, i think a majority of people would agree with you, so why hasn't it happened? I think the answer is that elected representatives are more beholden to public sector unions than their constituents.

Texas: Famously pro-union

yeah texas is definitely not pro-union - except that the only public sector unions that are allowed are for police and firemen... with Texas police unions contributing the the 3rd highest amount to politicians (behind CA and NY) - so its a real thing.

https://www.pelrb.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Public-S...

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/06/police-unions-spend...

That’s called being pro-police

It's weird to me that courts don't at-least attempt to review if the conduct was in good faith and plausibly reasonable given the facts know at the time.

The idea that officials aren't personally liable for mistakes made in good faith isn't bad. But somehow the US tends to produce a lot of cases where good faith requires a lot of faith :)

You would think using your office to file false charges against someone would be corruption just like using your office to embezzle money.

It literally is not supposed to. The ruling that is currently used for the precedent is Harlow v Fitzgerald, which states:

> The Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known."

It seems to me that a reasonable person would know this violates constitutional rights if you arrest people that criticize the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlow_v._Fitzgerald

Qualified immunity shouldn't even be a thing at all, as far as state and local officials are concerned. It was a "mistake" (emphasis on the quotes).

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-imm...

The problem with that is sometimes it's not clear if something is a constitutional violation. Here, it was clear, but in general you don't want to do that.

Something that should be exempt from qualified immunity are actions that go against court orders.

The charges have already been dismissed: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/charges-dismissed-against-...

Good on the grand jury for not indicting this ham sandwich.

That town now has not just a bad water problem, but a large free speech lawsuit problem.

Maybe they could dock the Chief's retirement account?

Should be a “cut and dry” decision just like how he described the arrest

The chief of police stands proudly by his decision. This will happen again.

They always knew the charges wouldn’t stick. The punishment they were handing out was she had to spend a night in jail and spend money on a lawyer.

They already dished out the punishment, so they don’t care that it was dismissed.

"The punishment is the process."

The common saying is "you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride".

Bonus points if they can ransack the person's car or house searching for evidence of the crime. They could also seize all weapons and cash they find since those were used in the commission of a crime.

Yikes, they’ll have to arrest most of the current federal administration if they ever set foot in Texas if that post meets the criteria for that particular law. That’s going to cause problems.

Oh don't worry, the enforcement is extremely selective.

Never heard of Ken Paxton, I suppose?

who?

C’mon folks, I can’t really be the only one on HN who’s never heard of this Paxton chap. If you’re going to namedrop someone at least add some context.

ahem, that's senator paxton /s

"For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law."

This week, there was two different settlement close to $800K related to someone posting and getting arrested about what charlie kirk said.

This woman shouldn't settle for anything less.

Do you have information on this? I’m curious to see.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/politics/retired-cop-jailed-o...

Here's a post about it from FIRE, the org that defended him https://www.fire.org/news/victory-tennessee-man-jailed-37-da...

I predict it won't stand.

“We have received reports that some citizens have been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. This is a serious public health concern that deserves immediate attention. If your water looks discolored, contains sediment, has a strong odor, or you have experienced related health issues, please send us a message. We are gathering information and reporting findings to the state.”

that is pretty solidly "free speech", not defamation, not allegations of anything, not "libel"‡

‡libel noun 1. a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation

Example: he was found guilty of a libel on a Liverpool inspector of taxes

-defamation -defamation of character -character assassination

2. (in admiralty and ecclesiastical law) a plaintiff's written declaration

verb 1. defame (someone) by publishing a libel

Example: the jury found that he was libelled by a newspaper

---- But law can be complex and "injustices" happen all the time, so we'll see...

I once stated to one of my fathers aqaintences in the local town council that I was considering refuseing to pay my water bill on the grounds that water is defined as a coulorless, odourless liquid, and what comes out of my tap is niether, his imediate request was "can I use that?" and so, not too long after we got a significant upgrade to the towns water, which is now of a much better quality, withmore upgrades all the time.

The city issued a boil water advisory about about 13 or 14 days after her arrest.

they said to make sure you boil it slowly though, so the local frogs don’t jump out! /s

Somewhat similar premise to the recent settlement that came out for the man arrested for posting a meme in Tennessee https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/a-tennessee-man-was-ja...

If you look at the legal system through the lens of "what benefits the wealthy or powerful?" you will more accurately guess what is going to happen and this goes from local issues such as this one all the way to the Supreme Court.

We just had the Broadview 6 case dismissed (with prejudice) this week. The Broadview 6 included former Chicago Congressional primary contender, Kat Abugazaleh. It was a bullshit set of charges for daring to protest an ICE facility. It was always going away but what was more disturbing is the prosecutorial misconduct [1]. The level of misconduct should rise to the level of disbarment. It will get referred to the bar and it'll probably be some slap-on-the-wrist sanctions however.

Prosecutors hold a lot of power and can make your life hell. They need to be held to a very high standard and any whiff of this kind of misconduct should forever bar you from being a prosecutor or a judge.

In this case the prosecutor basically engaged in witness tampering (effectively) with the grand jury proceedings and then tried to cover it up by redacting those parts of the grand jury transcripts. Those redactions basically amount to committing perjury, making false filings to the court under oath.

That's the lengths prosecutors will go to to crush protests. This goes equally for exposing incompetence, negligence or corruption by the town for mismanaging the water supply. This kind of overreach and misconduct is all too common.

[1]:https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/broadview-6-trial-cance...

All arrests that don't result in a conviction should be completely expunged.

And they said it wouldn't happen.

Everything is an accident, an anecdote, only trust the state with your authoritative quantitative data! There's surely no philosophical issues with that! There's no issues with definitional authority!

> The city’s mayor, Dennis Haws, told reporters the pipes date back to the 1950s

How long should water pipes remain useful? Am I outrageously naive to think more than 75 years?

Perhaps they have been doing no maintenance....

Not surprised. Tarrant County told the US Marshals my styrofoam cooler with vomit in it was a “bomb threat” and charged me with use of a DEADLY WEAPON. Honestly. If my public defender hadn’t colluded with the Prosecution it wouldn’t be on my record today.

This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better in the US. I’m a nonviolent cripple. Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged. Totally depends what team you’re on right now.

"Meanwhile a pardoned Jan 6 rioter just told a City Counsel “they should be strung up” and isn’t even being charged."

A great candidate to get some money from the lawfare fund.

Is this from 2024? The news article mentioned a threatening note. Curious what it said.

It said they were covering up abuse by a Deputy and that they should clean house old school out front of their HQ. There was a drawing of a noose on it. At no point did the note say anything about action being planned or threatened against them, only that they should do it themselves. I’ve got a copy of it if you’re interested to see the real thing. that.sam.cliff via the mail service of the company under alphabet.

Even my public defender read it line by line with me and admitted “there’s no threat here” but he’s a fat drunk dependent on them giving him work. He even told me about his “chats” with the Prosecution attorney to “negotiate” the plea deal. Totally rotten. Turned my life around since then but by no means was justice served…I keep my squeaky clean self out of the County as much as possible.

FWIW 70 inmates have died in custody in the past 5 years. Place is understaffed by 100+ officers.

How does a town in the richest nation in the history of the planet not have the resources to get clear drinking water flowing through their taps?

Presumably because they are spending their money prosecuting people complaining about bad water.

Money does not grow on trees, you know!

Water is handled at the city level, not the federal level. If you have incompetent local leadership, this can happen. Incompetent local leaders can (and have!) bankrupted their cities.

Texas also is all about no/low taxes.

You must not own property in Texas

Meanwhile in Flint Michigan…

Thankfully most cities were not stupid enough to buy lead lined pipes.....

Theoretically. In practice, the total tax burden in Texas is above average for US states.

Cuz all that wealth belongs to about 14 people and everyone else gets police harassment and poison water

We have more than enough resources, but a lot of people don't want to pay taxes to clean it or restrain corporations from polluting our water supply inn the first place. I'm guessing that plenty of people in this woman's own town were cheering Trump's slashing of the EPA's budget and deregulating clean air and water. Just this week the administration announced plans to kill off or delay limits in the amount of PFAS in the drinking water. They argue it's too expensive to limit or filter the poison but then give no-bid contracts out to their unqualified friends for tens of millions of dollars and spend a trillion bombing other countries for no reason so it's pretty clear where the priorities are and it isn't with us.

You are mixing local and federal politics. This is a town issue and would likely have happened regardless of who occupied the Oval Office

The poster was pointing out the irony that the town's residents support pro-water pollution policies at the national level.

[Given that Henderson county went for Trump by 30 points, the probably also support pro-pollution policies at both the local and state level too.]

complete and utter incompetence by local elected officials. If one of the richest towns in America (average home price of >$2m) can do it - just imagine how bad it can be in "average" towns...

https://observer.com/2010/07/the-collapse-of-east-hampton-ho...

The country is the richest, but the money is not distributed equally. One factor to keep in mind is that the state would rather give the richest man in the world tax breaks rather than make sure everyone has safe drinking water.

>How can X in the richest nation in the history of the planet be...

I've honestly grown absolutely sick of this type of comment as I get older. If you're not from the states, it's maybe understandable, but throughout my life most of the folks with me on the left that make these statements are completely ignorant of how their own government works and just assume "shit should be taken care of" without actually having to put any work in. It drives me crazy.

The vast majority of our electorate doesn't pay attention to politics, and then votes for feel-good measures (often very expensive), and almost universally avoid actual long-term net positive investments, like urban density and avoiding bond issuances wherever they are impractical.

As you see small towns welcoming -- even courting -- data centers while everyone in the town hates and protests them... yea, it's almost certainly because the town is broke, and the only folks who realize it are the city officials.

>How does a town ... not have the resources to get clear drinking water flowing through their taps?

Many, many, many, towns in America are functionally insolvent! The amount of cost it takes to maintain our road/sewer/water/refuse/emergency/energy systems is very often more than the tax revenue that the town can bring in. This is literally the entire point of the Strong Towns organization: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020-5-14-americas-growt...

Rebuilding a water system is one of the most significant municipal finance events that a city will have to deal with, and more and more cities across the nation are requiring federal bailouts; e.g., the Jackson, Mississippi water crisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson,_Mississippi,_water_cr....

It's just so frustrating as someone who cares about municipal finances that American cities' sustainability that most people think that it's just supposed to work itself out when cities are just lighting money on fires... often to the cheers of the electorate who voted for it.

Well I'm not from the states and I stopped reading at that point. If you're "absolutely sick" of this conversation don't participate in it, but if you're going to you should do so politely and in good faith, not starting with a tirade like that.

If my tone is off-putting, I apologize. I'm currently in San Francisco, living through a combine federal, state, and local politics budgetary nightmare. Here, even the most politically passionate folks seem to struggle with basic civics (especially who has the authority to impose taxes and how) and most don't understand municipal finance, which has real world consequences. The "how can San Francisco not afford X with all the tech/ai money here" sentiment is prevalent. Currently, it is the potential collapse of the Bay Area public transit system.

It can all be exasperating. If you're curious about why a nerd like me can be so exasperated and scared by all this, I'd suggest a recent episode of Derek Thompson's Plain English podcast: https://youtu.be/OXKAfcgl7eU

Because the US is a third world country cosplaying as a developed nation. Much like their president is a corrupt and morally bankrupt fool cosplaying as a politician.

It doesn't matter in the US. Just pretend.

The US is a huge country. In general it has excellent water; the US averages better than the EU. The Environmental Performance Index is a report that measures many things, and they have a handy section where they measure DALYs lost from sanitation and drinking water. For this section the US scores 96, within a few points of Switzerland (100), Sweden (97), Austria (96), Denmark (94), Belgium (93) and comfortably above the Netherlands (91), France (88), Poland (80), Czechia (79) and Japan (78.)

There are isolated incidents of poor water quality in each of those countries, and especially in small towns of eight hundred people in rural areas, but generally speaking, clear drinking water that is free of bacteria is standard.

On the other hand the US often relies on relatively crude chlorination to reach those levels, which those 'top' European countries don't. They instead put a strong emphasis on protecting the source water and then treating it via ozone, UV, biofiltration and slow sand filtration.

The taste of chlorinated water generally isn't tolerated.

The US isn't a monolith and neither is Europe. Overall, yes, the US uses more chlorine than Europe, but Spain and France both have _minimum_ water chlorination levels (about 0.2-0.3 mg/L depending on the regional situation) and France has no cap on max chlorine, which is very different from the US, where you can drink completely unchlorinated water in countless places around the country and there is a nationwide cap of 4 mg/L. For example NYC (average 0.5 mg/L and many places with zero.)

Oh, but you were comparing the US to the top-ranking European countries: "For this section the US scores 96, within a few points of Switzerland (100), Sweden (97)"

Also: It's a bit of a culture shock to be served soft drinks made from very obviously chlorinated water in e.g. California (one of the richest regions in the world). Is it a taste that people just learn to live with? I don't understand how this is tolerated.

Where in California? Where I am in the bay area, we have quite good tap water. San Francisco famously built the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite national park in the early 20th century, which delivers excellent water from the granite Sierra Nevadas to supply the city and a substantial fraction of the water supply in other parts of the bay area. Hetch Hetchy water needs minimal treatment.

On the other hand, I remember being shocked as a small child visiting Disneyland by how nasty the water from the water fountains there tasted, and in general the tap water in the dryer southern part of the state isn't as good (LA also has its own famous systems for getting drinking water from parts further east).

My most recent such experience was in San Diego.

> How does a town in the richest nation [...] not have the resources to get clear drinking water

It's a large country. Texas is a very large state, larger in size than France.

Texas recently voted to approve a $20 billion investment in water.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/11/04/texas-elections-2025...

> [The mayor] acknowledged discussions about forming a committee to address the issue.

Sounds like concepts of a plan. So, they ain't doin' shit, except arresting people who speak up.

This is dumb af. There should be an extremely small subset of things you can say online that get you arrested. This is definitely not one of them. I hope she she’s and it’s sets a precedent for cases after. I’d hate to see a ruling like the UK. While is vervently disagree with some of the awful things they post they shouldn’t be arrested for it.

The craziest part is the police defending this action as a “cut and dry” case. Meanwhile the lawsuit this woman just filed will hurt taxpayers and not the corrupt city officials and police that caused this. We need to ban all forms of immunity - none for cops, politicians, or judges. They need to be personally liable for their actions.

Exactly which types of politicians, judges etc would be targeted by liability do you think? The unrighteous politicians? The judges in favour of those in power?

I mean that when someone files a lawsuit to defend their civil/constitutional rights and wins, the penalty must be paid by the offenders and not taxpayers. For example the police who made the arrest and their supervisors.

I hear you, but there has to be some balance between full immunity and no immunity at all. The one thing that comes to mind is rich and powerful people, because they have unlimited resources to sue and ruin the lives of cops, judges and politicians, which would lead to these officials avoiding to hold rich and powerful individuals accountable even when they have committed crimes.

I'm not a lawyer, but what you're describing sounds to me like an example of strategic lawsuits against public participation, just where the targeted "public" isn't a member of the general public but a public servant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

You're so close! Instead of patching the issue maybe let's solve the root problem of spiky power distribution among humans. We don't need to make sure cops have immunity to prosecute powerful people. We need to not have powerful people.

(though realistically speaking yes there's probably some level of procedural immunity that probably makes sense, similarly with business bankruptcies not ruining the people who start the business)

I agree with you, but most people aren’t ready to engage with basic anarchist arguments

I don't know if anarchy helps in this situation, I actually think you need robust social systems with buy in from citizens to prevent the natural accumulation of power. The fundamental problem is that there's a diminishing cost to acquiring power as you acquire power, this relationship should be inverted. The more powerful you are the harder it should be to get more powerful.

This is basic engineering, you don't want runaway feedback loops, the underlying system is unstable so we need a control system.

We need to not have powerful people

What does this even mean?

Make currently powerful people less powerful and currently powerless people more powerful.

C'mon, HN users forgot how to think? Forgot to ask Claude?

To do that you first need to become more powerful than those powerful people, right?

Well, no, you just a need a coalition that collectively is more powerful.

We already have two such coalitions within Congress: Republicans and Democrats.

How is that working out?

They got captured

Those are coalitions of politicians, which to an increasing extent are part of the "powerful" group that needs to be overridden. By coalitions I mean coalitions of the actual citizenry.

I struggle to imagine how would something like that form, function, or become powerful enough to matter. Do you have any examples of such coalitions?

Unfortunately most of them are bad. The Tea Party is maybe one, for instance. Note that I'm not describing any type of "structure" here. I just mean a group of people who are willing to vote for the same things.

It's very easy to get started on this, you tax the shit out of people who have a lot of money because the old adage is true.

Even if you could achieve that, there would still be rich people. Musk would still be a billionaire even if he had to pay 90% tax.

Plus, many powerful people in government are not that rich.

His ability to use his wealth to influence the government and the populous would be significantly reduced. There's a big difference between "rich" and "rich enough circumvent democracy."

Don’t you think a far bigger threat to democracy is that government allows this influence? And voters seem to be perfectly OK with both 250M campaign contributions and widespread lobbying?

Whataboutism. Which is funny because it's literally the same problem.

It's somewhat intractable at this point unless or until we can figure out how to structure society in a way that can actually prevent it. Not sure we have the organizational knowledge at this point.

The government used to have better guards in place, but then what happened? They got weakened because of the monied interests already existed were successful at largely capturing the government. Guess what else happened during much the same time period; The government largely stopped breaking up monopolies, and many unions were busted or otherwise weakened or eliminated.

Weird that you're getting downvoted for this. You're spot on.

"would"? There is currently a disparity in how rich and poor people are policed.

I get the point that there should be some limited immunity so they can do their jobs. Debatable, but worth the debate.

The argument about the repercussions of eliminating immunity is logical. It just seems like one of those things where there are multiple factors contributing to undesirable outcomes, and that makes it necessary to talk to experts.

These lawsuits need to be charged against the police pension funds, not the city coffers

I agree with you

It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy if you've paid attention to how cops behave at any point in the last history of the country. 100% agree about personal responsibility. You must understand that when the cops says that oversight means they can't do their job, that means they view their job as bullying, harassing and killing citizens, so yea, we should put a stop to that. 1312

> It's absolutely not the slightest bit crazy

Imo, speaking like this normalizes their behavior - it was crazy then and it's crazy now.

GP isn’t entirely wrong, our governing apparatus has made this something to be expected.

I will not put the blame on the bobbies, that's too convenient. Someone had to order them to do this. That's who needs to be permanently ousted from all levels of government and their voting rights rescinded.

Nobody has to order people to do anything if it's in their self interest. Yes corruption flows downhill, but until they flip, just following orders isn't a defense.

Just following orders of course does not excuse anyone but I would rather not play whack-a-mole. That is how they expect us to play "The Game" by throwing one of their tools under the bus.

I prefer to work my way up the chain of command first and find the head(s) of the snake. Sure, punish the cops but don't let their corrupt chain of command play The Game otherwise we all just lost and the problem just repeats with new tools.

Sure, I definitely agree that the highest impact work would be to shine the light on the corruption among the leadership and hold them to account, in all cases. However in the institution of American police the corruption is endemic.

Lmao no this is just American police chiefs doing what they love to do, guarantee this whole thing starts and ends in that PD

From the PDF looks like Trinidad City Councilwoman Marie Bannister and Trinidad Police Chief Charles W. Gregory, may have started this. The Texas governor [1] needs to start pruning both up and down from there. Actually the governor should take full control of that county, oust everyone and fix the water problems.

[1] - https://gov.texas.gov/

[redacted] all police but don't pretend it isn't crazy. Not every country is like this.

Just more actions from free speech loving Republicans. Exactly like that guy in Tennessee who got $800k.

In my experience (I sued my town for violating my first amendment rights), the city will have insurance that will cover any damages or settlement they have to pay. Their premiums will likely go up, but the impact to taxpayers is probably minimal.

Perhaps in the first order, but when premiums go up and go up across all policies due to the acceptability of litigation... Everyone pays eventually.

Its a bit like saying driving dangerously is OK because you have insurance. Until everyone drives dangerously and insurance is sky high for all.

That said, they should be sued.

Even making them pay their own lawsuit insurance premiums would be enough to stop 90% of abuse.

No change will happen until cities stop using police revenue for discretionary spending.

Nazi Germany wasn't chaos, just a lot of people following "cut-and-dry" protocol.

This entire debacle weirds me out. Surely the police is aware of the water issues. They drink from the same tap as the locals do. What would a sane person call arresting people that publicly call out that your water supply is obviously contaminated?

That would not necessarily be the case in my town. We have police who don't live in the county and fireman who don't live in the state. (Los Angeles)

I got to admit, whoever at the town hall or whatever sent the cop to this woman's door really has some balls considering the color of the water. I feel like when this is the water your citizens get out of the faucet you should be busy doing something else instead of trying to jail people who complain about it.

> "[Chief Charles] Gregory says she should have verified it with the hospitals first."

What is a hospital going to tell a member of the public with HIPPA laws? As police chief he has a great deal of deferred power. Officials will talk to him. Private citizen making an inquiry is going to get crickets. Heck--have you ever been walking down the street or walked outside your home and found a police or fire department cordon? Asked what's going on and the fire department won't respond to your questions and the police department will tell you to go back in your house or move along.

One point of Devil's Advocate. Social media, YouTube and mobile phone video has created a very difficult situation. People who are untrained in reporting are making wild statements. And Evil People are undermining good faith everywhere (news, politics, public safety, health, citizenship, the rule of law).

I've never ever seen so many legal cases taking this strong line against free speech in my lifetime. These are extraordinary times.

"We have received reports..." Is factually true and plausible given the accompanying photo and statements from city officials.

I would love to hire myself as legal professional in cases like this.

In fact I've already started collecting evidence on a no-win-no-fee basis.

Ready for action

> The water is brown. The city admits it.

No kidding! Looking at that picture, I would be beyond worried if that was my tap water.

Looks to me like a pre-emptive fence electrification

“Don’t share concern about water quality online, or else”

All the criticism the UK and European countries get from American tech billionaires for censorship…then…this. No one anywhere could argue this post is some sort of hate speech to even mildly cover their arses.

The difference with Europe may be that in this case the charges have already been dropped. Not saying it's great, but at least it was stopped, and she may sue for reparations. I don't think the "hateful posts" cases in the UK or Germany end up like this.

100% of all law enforcement is criminal. Nobody makes laws except criminals

I don’t agree with the arrest and definitely not every law either, but this has got to be rage bait. I’m quite happy to live in a society with laws

When people are paid to hurt others, they will always hurt the weak, not the evil.

Where is JD Vance preaching about free speech like he did in the UK. Twat.

Wow, many dictatorships wouldn't mind this level of speech.

Apparently people here will also censor speech that doesn't align with their narratives, but will complain loudly when speech that does is censored.

I see so many shitpost twitter and facebook pages that claim actually harmful misinformation, absolutely disgusting levels of picking one and ignoring the other. Especially when given the evidence now, she was sharing legitimate information.

so much for democracy

you forgot to date that properly, 20 January, 2025

Imagine the town of flynt getting arrested for having your government fail you.

I hope she sues the city and everyone involved personally for tens of millions. This is insane. The water is brown. Do not drink it. Instead boil it. Posts that it’s bad. Get jailed. Wtf?

Saving this one for the next time an American says, 'In your stupid European country you can get arrested for simply saying something online'

You left out the word legally. You can legally be arrested for simply saying something online. This was not a legal arrest. Small difference

Semantics. The result is the same. The cause: no repercussions for missing the system that is in place is a bigger fallacy imho

How is it semantics? If someone posts something in a land that has laws preventing it, then they know the possible repercussions. Someone posting something where it is legal gets arrested, they have recourse for the violations done to them.

It's so not the same, I'm straining to understand what you think the point you are making is.

I'd guess the semantics is along the lines of she was still arrested, and any legal recourse she may have will take time and money with likely zero repercussions to the police dept.

Doesn't 'legal arrest' have a specific legal meaning? How have you ascertained it was an illegal arrest? And what made it illegal?

Is America great yet?

This type of treatment of citizenry by the State of Texas, and its various (and especially red) localities should be all one needs to see of where conservatives (and Christian Naitonalism) will take our country in the future -- should they get their way. Republicans hope to enable just such a future by scaring Americans with made-up visions of transsexuals 'grooming' their children, yet they cleverly hide what awaits behind the curtain. The is the same curtain that hides why Israel is supposed to be so very, very important to the U.S. but not so much that we make them state #51. This is the magical (read: Biblical) rationale that the U.S. makes excuses for Israel's attack on its own USS Liberty in 1967.

Saying nothing of the future of abortion & contraception, U.S. conservatives base their worldview on sexuality & reproduction and seek to burden it with fixtures that we have already spent hundreds of year to free ourselves from. At the same time, they take their eye off the ball of keeping our country competitive in the world. How embarrassing it is now to have the Chinese president suggest that the U.S. is in decline and that it shouldn't get caught in a Thucydides Trap.

Yet, that is where Trump has put us indeed.

Well said.

> the U.S. makes excuses for Israel's attack on its own USS Liberty in 1967.

It's strange how this 59-year-old incident keeps getting brought up. Friendly fire happens all the time, and Israel apologized and paid reparations ages ago.

The conspiracy theory is that it wasnt just friendly fire but an attempted false flag. Make if that what you will

Except they don't happen all the time, because this incident killed 34 Americans & wounded 171. Is that not remarkable enough for a 'blue-ribbon' commission of investigation? If one of our European allies had done this, wouldn't a commission be held to review all the evidence and make a determination as to cause?

One needn't dig too deep to see there isn't too much wiggle room for mere misunderstanding. The nearly defenseless ship suffered 2 hours of withering attack by both waves of jets and torpedo boats; this with an American flag and its hull number in open display as it operated in international waters. The context was that this ship was an intelligence ship bristling with antennas and recording everything it could from the combatants in the ongoing six-day-war in 1967.

If there's any conspiracy, its how for years afterward whenever a congressman sought an investigation as requested by one of the family of those killed, the effort was silently killed despite its impact, over and over.

There are a lot of details involved and many actions to be assessed on both sides, but it should merit more than a Navy Court of Inquiry. When the captain of the ship received his Medal of Honor for saving his ship while injured, it was awarded to him by the Secretary of the Navy quietly at the Washington Navy Yard. The usual procedure is that the MoH be presented by the president in the White House in a ceremony. So, there's that.

> this with an American flag and its hull number in open display

Soldiers have uniforms with distinguishing colors/marks in open display, yet millions of soldiers have died by friendly fire. Lots of friendly planes have been shot down too despite IFF. No system for identifying friendly (or neutral) assets is foolproof.

Land of the free

World Cup Tourists about to get some “civic lessons” if they buy that too much, mmmhmmm.

I assume you mean "Land of the fee"

This is newsworthy because it's a clear and flagrant violation of her rights.

Source: I was threatened with a lawsuit by my own town for criticizing them online, but the ACLU helped me counter sue and win a settlement for violating my first amendment rights.

Was the comment you are replying to edited?

'Equal Justice Under Law'

Yea compared to Europe where you get arrested for memes

In Europe, this sort of thing is routine and doesn't make the news.

This is a textbook free speech issue, versus not being able to post your conspiracy theory on some web site which has nothing to do with free speech.

Who decideds what is free speech and what is a conspiracy theory?

For a long time saying tabaco creates lung cancers was basically a conspiracy theory and saying it is healthy was free speech.

Since at least the 70s everyone knew that it caused lung cancer. It's just that industry spending prevented anyone from doing something about it, in the exactly the same way that we've been seeing with global warming.

Again, free speech as commonly used, is about Constitutional protection from the government trying to curtail and/or punish individual's speech.

Prior to the internet, the "free speech" you're thinking of was down to whoever owned the printing press of interest.

The OP was about the government punishing a woman for criticizing their public utility.

I wasn't replying to the OP.

upon inspection of images pertaining to water at the point of usage, i declare said water to be Alaskan well water.

use a 5micron, and 1micron particulate filter in series, and it looks like it came from a bottle.

you would be well advised to test for heavy metals, esp. arsenic

most people here dont use softening or reverse osmosis

These small towns are often just armed HOAs and the law is usually secondary to administration whim. One would imagine that state and federal police are the weapons to bring to bear on them.

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