How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help | Hacker News Reader

How I Ended Up In Solitary After Calling 911 For Help

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1,249 pointskf789 comments

After reading the first paragraph I already knew where this was headed.

White America welcome to black America. You'll be arrested for nothing at all. The first time it happens you'll be really upset and threaten to sue, and file a police report. And when you do there will be some sort of roadblock, they won't have the forms, the officer in question wasn't on shift that night, the detective is quite hostile to you, the victim.

You'll learn what I've learned. Don't trust the police for shit. All of the things I've listed I've done and it only made life difficult until I left for college.

Third world countries have third world police for a reason: out of necessity.

It seems you have been the victim of a similarly unjust arrest, but frankly I can't see how you "already knew where this was headed" after the first paragraph.

Given the photo at the top, at first glance I assumed that the woman at the lectern was the OP, only towards the end of the story did I get understand that the OP was a man. I cannot see any reference to the OP being black in the text (his About thumbnail is too small to see clearly).

yardie isn't saying the author was black. They're saying that this is the typical experience of black people's interactions with police in the united states. Whereas the author is surprised at being treated this way, many people learn to expect it.

As a black programmer, I remember the cliche about problems and regular expressions in my head as "regular expressions are like calling the cops."

That's unfair to regular expressions, though, because I actually have seen them solve a problem before. Cops improving a situation? Never seen it.

LOL you win the thread. "Unfair to regular expressions", that's comedy gold.

Some citizens, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll call the cops." Now they have many problems.

I really can't stand how often this view is repeated. Of course their power can be abused, but once you know how to avoid the abuse, regular expressions are a great and easy to use tool.

Especially if well-commented thanks to /x or if live-previewed in an editor like IntelliJ (though it still needs additional live-previewing if you ask me). As to the subject at hand... Yeah. I feel like I've woken up to the reality of what it means to talk to cops. I'd call if I had video evidence for insurance or something, but I'm not sure otherwise. I've never had anything turn out right when involving cops. Nothing bad either, but they didn't help as much as I expected. My problem (a theft) meant far more to me than to any detective. So I learned to protect my stuff better, make backups, keep things hidden. The world's a scary enough place without cops adding to it. Then again, maybe part of the problem is how arrests are performed. I'd try to fix it, but I'm worried about attracting attention ;-)

You win at internet.

> "...Cops improving a situation? Never seen it." I suspect that's really just an emotional lashing-out at a pervasive problem. But if it's not, I assure you - I have seen cops improve a situation, and I'm certain that others have too. I might be biased from watching cops running into the chaos of 9/11, while I was running away from it. Or from having my family protected from crazy, violent people while I was busy and oblivious at work. To be clear, I'm no police-state apologist, and I know there are vile sociopaths attracted to positions of power and authority - but I've also met some pretty OK cops who really mean to help people, and often do. I'm just saying.

are you black?

He states that he is pretty clearly.

You got thread-confused. jrs99 was asking thotpoizn if he was black. pessimizer is one level up

>I suspect that's really just an emotional lashing-out at a pervasive problem.

It's not. It's my personal experience and was stated that way. I, unambiguously, have never once seen the police improve a situation. I've never even really heard about it happening.

It's good that it's happened to you - it probably makes you feel more secure in the place where you live.

Brilliant.

Cops are in a weird place. People don't like them until they need them. I work with a lot of cops and most of them are good (and yes they can occasionally get overreaching) but that generalization widens the divide between on-duty police officers and civilians. I would say if we treated them like I get treated being part time Military (hand shaken, dinners, etc) that they will be better people. You'll also see less of this.

Humans like positive situations, they like being praised, they like feeling loved and needed. They will defend the things they hold dear.

I'm pretty sure we all know or have known cops. The ones I've known definitely love praise. They seem upset and angry that people aren't praising them constantly, in my experience. Very high opinions of themselves. </(probably) unfair stereotype and generalization>

Hero worship is not the answer and may actually contribute to the problem. The solution is basic accountability ie police do not investigate themselves and a change of culture from "war on crime" to community policing. As someone else commented here, the police training actually turns well meaning future officers against the average citizen. An example re: accountability is the California city that significantly reduced complaints by requiring officers to wear cameras. Small sample size but encouraging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-ca...

But I don't think the military should get the worship it does, and cops are supposed to be civilians and neighbors, not soldiers.

People don't hate on EMTs and firemen. You know why? Those people don't shoot your dog, beat you and arrest you when you look at them the wrong way.

Until there is a STANDARD of good cops throwing out bad cops and NOT facing retribution;

Until there is an established, effective and formal method of oversight and accountability for verifiable acts of police brutality and false arrest,

I will not invite any police officer to my home until I've known them for quite some time.

---

Final remark, To your comment directly: Officers need to change their behavior first. This isn't going to be resolved by people loving cops in the hopes they'll get in a better mood. 'They' need to remember they are 'us'.

Are there some countries where the daily interaction between police and citizens is not antagonistic?

In the States most of the interaction with that I witness police is negative: get pulled over for speeding, ticketed, etc. Even when they're doing sobriety checkpoints on St. Patrick's day, they're inconveniencing people who are responsible.

If the daily interactions between citizens and cops are like this it'll be very difficult to get people to change behavior.

People don't like them until they need them.

Then when people need the cops, they call the cops, and their dog gets shot, their door gets broken, their kids get taken away, they get a beat-down, and maybe get to spend a weekend in jail, it goes from "don't like" to "really don't like".

As a white person thrown into psychiatric solitary a couple times, I'd say that he got pretty cushy treatment compared to what black folks get. No trial, out in 12 hours? Try that if you're black.

Sounds crazy, but considering how many questions he was asking the officers after they'd cuffed him he got off quite easy. I wonder if my friends that went to UCSF around the same time as him knew him. I know a lot of folks like him, but they don't know much standard "know your rights" type stuff that teaches you to do nothing, say nothing once you are cuffed.

Unless you are making them laugh, you're probably on their bad side.

I've spent an entire weekend in holding for resisting arrest. There is no food and nowhere to sleep in holding. On Monday, when I finally met the magistrate, all charges were dropped because nothing happened.

When I tell my white friends this story they logically conclude I must have done something, police don't simply "detain" you without cause. Yes, they do. My other friends are much more understanding. Either it has happened to them or someone they know.

Uhh... dude that was your fault for getting arrested on a weekend. Duh...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand_(detention)

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_commitment

are really important subjects for people who want to understand their freedoms. If you are a danger to yourself, others or gravely disabled you may be taken into a hospital and honestly you should be. If you are arrested, you might be held for up to 72 hours in the US. I think there are a lot of really good reasons for those laws honestly, but they can trip up people who are focusing on broad constitutional aphorisms instead of real state and local policy.

Well, goddamn me for being "a black male, between 5 and 6 feet."

Sounds suspicious already.

>"White America welcome to black America."

Pretty much.

I was honestly dumbstruck by the naiveté expressed as soon as the action starts.

"She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome."

It's an odd mixture of feelings to read about someone who lives in the same country I do who was able to grow into adulthood without having to learn the basic rules some of us had to learn by 4th grade.

Basic rules like "have no compassion" and "respect people with guns?"

Respect != fear.

Watching your mouth because you fear the authorities with guns is quite the opposite of respect.

No...more like "leave when the cops show up". What is some drunk yahoo gonna do to help after the call has been made?

I'm sure the cops have all kinds of anecdotes about how helpful the drunks loitering around a scene at 1AM are!

I don't believe the police have any right to give a lawful order to compel a citizen from leaving a public area unless there is a public disturbance or danger. The samaritan, according to her own story, was not creating a problem. 3 drinks in 3 hours makes few people intoxicated. The people have a right, nay, an obligation, to resist unlawful orders. If her story is true and accurate, that law enforcement officer and the jailors with poor behaviors need to be fired, arrested, and prosecuted. I don't care what bad examples "cop logic" can use to justify their immoral and prejudicial thoughts. This story is a travesty and LE's actions reprehensible.

There's a difference between what the cops have a right to do and what they will, in practice, do to you if you don't give them the respect they have come to expect. E.g. this story.

Nobody, least of all the black community, are saying it's right, they're just saying it's naive to think the world works any other way.

I'm conflicted. I agree avoiding law enforcement is a good idea, and I'm pretty straight and narrow. Too many stories like this and shooting dogs. But I feel like a coward absenting myself from the tyranny. Like someone else said, we the people are starting to get more and more fed up.

If you're in that situation you have a choice.

Comply with what you're told and complain later or take a stand and face the consequences. They have tasers and guns and handcuffs and colleagues who will arrive on scene later and assume that you're guilty. Death is a real possibility.

http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/20/kelly-thomas/

Basic rules like "don't argue with cops".

They tell you to leave, you can either comply without saying a word, or start an argument knowing where it will take you. Both attitudes are fine.

But starting an argument and then be shocked, shocked! that it lands you in trouble? That's just stupid.

I'm glad it wasn't just me who felt like that. I'm white, middle class, and grew up in Britain as a native. But as a member of multiple minority groups, I've seen hints of this world, and it is not pretty :(

The worst part of all this? First thing I did was check the author's gender and skin colour. And then I read the article. I normally work hard to be free of the prejudice of this society we are forced to live in, and yet I realised I took this article more seriously because it was by a white male :(

That is why it is vital to understand privilege, and that we live in a society that is constantly pushing its values that we cannot help but to make such mistakes. That it doesn't matter how good your intentions are, how much of a meritocracy you think your community has, but if it isn't free from the constant pressure of our base society (ie, realistically impossible), you'll end reading something like this and trying to excuse away those thoughts I just admitted.

Interestingly, I assumed the author was female until well into the story. But speaking of privilege, I can't imagine even the most obnoxious cops treating middle-class white women that way.

>I can't imagine even the most obnoxious cops treating middle-class white women that way.

Umm do you remember the OWS protests?

Yeah, and I was on the ground for the 2008 Republican convention, too. I know what tear gas feels like.

But police behavior toward masses of people in crowd-control situations at protests (where everyone in sight is treated as a criminal) is fundamentally different from police behavior toward individual bystanders at a small, nonviolent emergency scene. So I don't think your exception is valid or applicable.

The essence of privilege is the default treatment you typically receive from strangers. Middle class white women are perceived as the least threatening stereotype by police. Men are more likely to be seen as a threat to be subjugated, non-whites more so, the obviously poor more so.

I did too, I think it's because the photo at the top is of a woman speaking. Knowing nothing about the author prior to visiting the site, it's not unrealistic to assume that it's a photo of the author. At least, that's what I think went down in my subconscious.

like this woman who's face was shattered by the cops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMWDxwL1Zog

I changed the photo to prevent this misconception. I fear that I may have received more sympathy and readership because of the false notion that I'm the attractive female in the photo. You can see me in the photo where I'm being loaded into the van. I'm a Soviet born Jew who immigrated to the US in the late 80s. At the time, I also had a beard. Here is a more flattering photo of me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgoralnick/6128547691/in/photos...

Just because you are prejudiced in favor of white people doesn't mean every other white person alive is also a racist.

There are shades of racism. At the extreme racist end, there are those who genuinely and explicitly believe that dark skin makes you a worthless scum. At the other end, there are people who feel, at a gut level, that skin colour is irrelevant. Between the two, there are people who will infer various things from skin colour, such as the propensity to crime, IQ, or whatever.

The sad fact is, a correct assessment of reality is racist to some extent. Not because of skin colour, mind you, but because of confounding factors such as income, or self-fulfilling prophecies such as racism itself. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is still there, and we can still draw inferences from them.

As for my personal assessment of the credibility of this story, I assumed the guy was white to begin with. If I believed he was black, I would have been like "of course", and marked off the story as even more credible. Because I have this stereotype in my head about police being racist. I'm now wondering to what extent this is actually true…

Jesse Jackson said this: “There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”

Does that mean he is a racist?

I was thinking similar. If police will crap on someone like this when they misperceive that they're wealthy and can afford a lawyer (wannabe billionaire) imagine what they do to people who can't defend themselves. It's a very sickening abuse of power. Perhaps the one good piece of the story is that it gets the word out.

Off topic: are you Jamaican? (I ask because of the username).

You guessed correct!

Excellent. I was born in Kingston. Grew up in the States though.

Girls town. Grew up in Miami.

I gained a perspective that is a bit more in depth than the typical white guy. I went to university in a town in Canada where the police seemed to be very interested in guys with long hair. I had long hair. As a result, I got stopped, intimidated and threatened by the police. I was never arrested. No doubt I would have had it worse if I was black.

A few years later I moved to Toronto. I still had long hair, but the police seemed to ignore me. I was really curious and paid extra attention to the police. It took a while, but it finally hit me: "they're only interested in the black guys!" The black guys were being watched with the same sort of intensity that I had experienced. I didn't observe the same sort of interactions I had, but I could imagine.

Canada is a bit different from the USA and I didn't get the full "black treatment", but I think I got to see the curtain pulled aside just a crack. One thing that really struck me was how incredulous non-blacks were when I related my story years later.

> White America welcome to black America.

Try living in a minority majority area.

Most of your cops are non-white too.

If you get your fingers broken, it's likely an Indian or Hispanic cop with a grudge.

The media hasn't caught up to that yet, but when do they ever?

So awesome and true. There is no situation the police can't make worse.

A (black) friend told me this story.

Many many years ago, him and his friends (a bunch of black teenage boys) went to Walmart. Two of his friends stole a couple of packs of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. They got caught, and the police were called and serious criminal charges were brought against them. My friend wasn't charged as he didn't do anything wrong, but signed a paper saying he wouldn't go into Walmart ever again.

They did shoplift and commit a crime, but I can't help but think if it was some middle class white kids taking Yu-Gi-Oh! cards they would have just called their parents to come pick them up.

I remember, once, a very cynical person telling me not to call the cops, in any circumstance, unless mine or someone else's survival or long-term well being is completely dependent on it. If you see someone shot dead in the street, for example, don't call the cops; leave. You're the first suspect if you do anything else, and you'll be treated like one.

I was very put out by this attitude. I'm starting to wonder if it's perhaps quite realistic.

I don't know what the cynic would have suggested in this situation. I don't believe he would have said, 'leave her to fend for herself,' but perhaps to call a hospital directly, or ask her to call a family member or something, I don't know.

Police are dangerous. They have too much power and not enough brains. I'm an optimist; I think there must be some possible infrastructure that incentivises police to be good, and incentivises everyone in the system to weed out those who are not. The current system doesn't resemble that remotely, and for now, perhaps the cynic is right.

Your cynical friend was correct. If you have to call 911 for someone else, do it anonymously. As long as police (internal affairs) are the only ones to police police, there will never be any justice. Also, remember that suing police hardly ever works. Police have immunity by law and they use that to their advantage to cover up any cruel and sick acts they feel like. They are above the law. Ask any minority and they will confirm this is the case.

I agree. I posted this elsewhere in this thread, but I want to say it again: If police officers are officers of the court, judges should have the authority (and use the authority) to strip the officer of the authority to act as an officer. Much like contempt of court, it should not require formal hearings or process to immediately remove bad officers from duty. At that point the police department would effectively have an ordinary citizen on their payroll, unable to wear a uniform or make arrests or risk being charged with impersonating an officer and kidnapping.

While I was a student living in a "gentrifying" part of the city, I once went outside to discover my car was full of bullets. Several in the hood, several through the windows, one in the rear tire and most disconcertingly one in the driver side headrest.

When I called the police and the investigator came, I could tell I was instantly suspect #1. He began grilling me lengthily about my whereabouts the night before and who I lived with.

An officer in blue joined as well and they were basically threatening to confiscate my car until I started talking about getting a lawyer.

Of course this situation is nowhere near the authors in terms of harm or even potential harm, but it definitely showed me that ANY interaction with the police has the potential to go VERY badly for you no matter what.

He assumed you were a gang member and the shooting was gang related. Which probably isn't a bad heuristic. Most of the time when gangs shoot up a rival gang members car, they don't accidentally get the wrong one.

Something tells me that in those cases, the gang members don't usually call the cops to investigate it.

Most of the time...

Citation needed.

Doesn't the fact that assumptions like these, when made by the police, can land you in jail or much worse prove the point?

What if he also assumed I was lying, drunk or armed?

Where were you last night?

Shooting holes in my own car so I could waste 20 minutes of your time. Why do you ask?

Wrong answer. Never try sarcasm or irony with cops. Either they don't understand it - or they just don't want to. All it does is getting you into trouble.

Or with Hacker News, apparently.

> Either they don't understand it - or they just don't want to.

You missed an option: They willfully misunderstand it because they're looking for a promotion or they have to make their arrest quota.

Wasting time reminds me of a positive story about cops: At 3am, some guys thew a hammer through my driver-side window and tried to take my car to go street racing (it looked faster than it was...). The idiots jammed the handbrake on and couldn't release it. The endless revving of the engine woke up my housemate, who scared them off, then called the cops, then woke me up.

I was annoyed. Great, now we have to wait an hour for the cops to show up, and they're going to be pissed off that they had to leave the comfortable station to waste time dealing with something that they can't do anything about. Broken sleep, broken window, and now I have to manage an interaction with grumpy police.

The cops that arrived showed empathy. Yes, they couldn't do anything about it, but their underlying tone was "this was a shitty thing to have happened" rather than "why the fuck are you wasting our time". I was so taken aback by the shift in tone that I actually said the line, corny as it is, "I've lived here for 11 years and this is the first time I've had a positive experience with the Fitzroy police"

The cop searching with a torch behind my car doubled over in silent laughter while the one in front of me smirked "Actually, we're from Collingwood..."

I had two incidents within a year involving members of my family that make me keep cops at a huge distance.

First was my father, he was a farmer at the time, late 50s. He found a crop of marijuana on the farm and turned it into the police. The planters of the crop decided that what happened was that my sisters boyfriend must of stolen it to sell. So they drove to my fathers house at dinner time, four of them, and started demanding payment.

My sisters boyfriend confronted them and told them what had happened, which then resulted in a four on one beat down. My dad ran back into the house grabbed a bat, ran back out and hit two of them. First guy dropped unconscious with the first blow, second guy stumbled dazed. The last two took off so fast they left the car behind.

My mother had rung the police before the violence had started, and they arrived before my sisters boy friend had managed to get off the ground. They arrested my father and he spent the next 3 days in jail. No other charges where laid.

Tens of thousands of dollars later the case was thrown out by a jury and the judge scolded the police for there actions and for wasting the courts time and tax payers money.

During the proceedings evidence came forward that the police had received the crop, and instead of filing paper work just disposed of it being lazy (the same cop that arrested my father). Before the court the cop was fingered by other police officers as a liar, breaking laws, my family pointed it out, even the four guys fingered the cop as a liar. Official complaints where laid, the response was no wrong doing could be found.

A few months after the incident my cousins mates where doing burn outs around, being little bastards really, but the cop couldn't catch them. Angry he went to my cousins house, it was around 3am. Knocked on the door asking where they where.

My cousin is also a farmer, gets up around 5am, he opened the door tired and confused. Said he hadn't seen them. The cop got in his face yelling at him, so my cousin said "listen I got work in a few hours and I need some more sleep, they aren't here, you can see that, how about you just fuck off". Which resulted in the cop kicking the door out of his hands and beating my cousin so bad he had to be taken to hospital with a broken jaw, and swelling so bad he couldn't open his eyes. During the beating the cop threatened my cousin, his mates, and father directly.

My father, and my family are pillars of the community. My dad grew up in the town, was the local scout master, organises the christmas parades, helps with local stage performances. So the event did not go down well at all.

The next bit of what happened is all heresy but this is what I've been told happened. Photos where taken of my cousin. A group of local farmers went to the police station, handed over the photos and said if the cop steps out of line once more he will be lynched (black mail essentially). I've heard variations where they roughed the cop up to send the message to him.

He was told he wasn't welcome on any bodies property in the area and to search for a new position immediately. If he failed that then the town was going to turn on his big time, and the photos would be used if an investigation began to make him loose his job. I can remember being in the supermarket on a visit and watching someone eye ball the cop as he was shopping, staring straight down the isle at him, as the cop moved to the next aisle the guy just moved along to the end of that aisle and eye balled him till he left the store.

The cop was gone in 6 months, but it took an entire rural community to stand up to him when the police and the complaints organisation wouldn't. You could say there are procedures to deal with these situations, but there aren't when they are design to protect the police.

The real sad bit is that prick just moved to another station. He's probably still trying to beat confessions out of kids right now.

So I have become a "don't talk to the police" person as well. I don't treat them badly, I smile at them on patrol, but the moment anything starts to get tense I have less than zero trust.

> During the proceedings evidence came forward that the police had received the crop, and instead of filing paper work just disposed of it being lazy (the same cop that arrested my father).

I hate to break this to you, but I don't think the crop was 'disposed of' in the way you were thinking of, and it wasn't motivated by laziness.

LOL yeah there where always jokes about that. But apparently he just threw the plants into his compost heap.

Someone else said they had seen the cop doing that. From memory it was another officer that said that (I didn't attend the hearings).

So who knows :) I think the plants where pre harvest though, my dad noticed the moment they arrived and acted immediately.

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong.

This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie...

This is not a person we should fear. I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, but the abuse and brutality of what followed are just plain wrong.

I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police or that all cops should be killed and I find those to be childish nonsense. For us to have a free and effective society, the rule of law is important and should apply equally to all. I know this isn't always the case but it is the goal. Wishing harm onto authority figures simply muddies the waters.

What I want, and what I think all should want, is justice. The best outcome from Peretz's suffering would be reform and we should work towards that end.

I'm Brandeis '01, I was a little surprised to see that link.

Along with justice for this individual event what about something bigger. Right now there is no way to track these violent interactions officers have with the public. This police officer can do the same thing over and over and get away with it because the precinct will protect her. What if we had a way to keep track of these incidents making it easy for us to review the history of officers each time an event like this happens. If this officer had a fear of a violent interaction with the public going on her 'permanent public record' that might influence her behavior.

I love this idea. Also, the ability to track police abuse-of-power/brutality instances by location would be extremely useful.

This would make an outstanding .onion site.

"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..."

It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave?

And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you?

I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me.

The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything.

Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.

It's rational for a police officer to respond to civil disobedience in some circumstances with detention. That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger.

My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good.

We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve.

Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster.

To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.

Your comment reads like this:

"It's rational for officers to arrest law-abiding citizens who are slightly annoying officers."

And I get that a lot of people believe that. But you're wrong. You're so, so wrong.

It saddens me that a lot of cops (like the one in this story) feel as you do, that it's fine for police to grossly abuse their powers.

In a rational world, the cop would no longer be a cop.

In this world, he probably could've raped the kid with a toilet plunger and still remained on the force.

I'm not the person you're replaying to and I don't think that someone should be arrested in the described situation, but I think the logic follows like this.

Police are the people we've put in charge with keeping public order. In the course of that job, they're going to arrest and / or detain people. We want them to always detain the right people, but even a very good police department will detain the wrong people sometimes. So, we give the authority to individual officers to detain people, and we don't second guess their decisions at the time.

Of course, this system only works when there is a functioning review system. Where the policed populace feels like their concerns are listened to by the authority figures. Where officers who misbehave, even by the loose standards of american police, are publicly disciplined. None of these things are common in modern america - but you can still believe in the right for police to detain people and push for better accountability.

I think you should consider how much you are reading into statements before you ascribe particular views to people. You both agree the author was treated deplorably, and you both agree (I assume) that police can do better.

> this system only works

It doesn't work. You are naive.

All countries with police are police states? Any arrangement with police officers of some kind will inevitably abuse their power?

The system doesn't work at all. Police are NEVER held accountable, even when they blatantly needlessly kill citizens.

If anything, they get to take paid time off until they are cleared of wrongdoing.

There are no citizen review boards with teeth. There is no way that police departments can self-regulate.

Never is a strong word, though it's pretty close: http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/01/police-involv... (not a great looking source, but obviously this is not a topic authorities like talking about). In general, I agree with all your points, and I favor a system were non-LEOs investigate LEOs.

following the 911 operator's instructions is not civil disobedience.

Well, now you're talking in the abstract. Before you were explicitly calling it reasonable on some level in this particular situation. That's what struck me.

You aren't using the term "civil disobedience" correctly. You're not really using the term "rational" right either.

>> That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger.

Which was absolutely not the situation here.

Being self-proclamably rational is perhaps the worst attribute to reveal when dealing with this type of situation.

I don't follow. Care to explain?

It is in the same thought process as telling a cops you have Miranda rights or don't have to answer their questions. From their perspective, you are acting like you are smarter than they are, and they will actively try to be vindictive towards you for it.

You can espouse the abuse of police power from a safe distance, but when you are in their faces you need to shut up because in the near future and moment they have the capacity to make your life hell with no recourse.

The police cannot be trusted, and that is not childish nonsense. It is a rational response to the fact that the police consistently act like thugs, and the problem is only getting worse. One of the most important problems is that the mechanisms for righting these wrongs are almost wholly ineffective or out-of-reach. Peretz talks a little about that in his piece.

The most practical thing you can take away from this is to not trust the police. Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment - but what specifically can we do? I would say: you can at least think about the nature of the systematic problem that takes away essentially all accountability from city police departments. Why does it seem like the public is no longer outraged when police abuse occurs? Why does it seem like government officials don't admit any wrongdoing or apologize for anything anymore? Why are lawsuits so expensive?

What it seems like to me is that, somehow, the public has been convinced of their ineffectiveness. They have been cowed into submissiveness. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry, and I haven't been abused by the police. It's just not that big of a problem. And the monotonically increasing complexity of government has provided amazing levels of defensive cover for bad actors. It's an almost perfect shield of immunity to prosecution and incredibly expensive litigation barrier-to-entry. "Reform" sounds nice - but what do you think we should do? And in the meantime, are you really advocating that the police should be trusted in the absence of any reform? That's childish nonsense.

> Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment...

Not to sound overly pessimistic, but "reform" isn't usually how citizens extricate themselves from a police state. Totalitarian governance is inherently insular and well protected from peaceful reform, using the state monopoly on violence to maintain and cultivate its will.

The antithesis of peaceful reform also conveniently starts with "re," but I can't seem to remember what it is... Re... rev-o-something, I think. ;)

We don't have a police state! We have one of the shittiest justice systems in the world that protects bad actors and gives our police unlimited power to abuse their office without fear of repurcussion. However, freedom of speech is still very well protected, and therein lies our hope for peaceful resolution.

And you know what, if Aung Yung Suu-Ki is any indication, even if we did live in a totalitarian state, there would still be hope for a peaceful resolution. And that's important because I don't believe that a state born of brutality can be anything other than brutal.

> We don't have a police state! We have one of the shittiest justice systems in the world that protects bad actors and gives our police unlimited power to abuse their office without fear of repurcussion [sic].

Struck a nerve?

You're absolutely right. We're not a police state--yet. But if left unchecked, the powers in control of the democratic process inevitably degrade into totalitarian rule. We're seeing a glimpse of that through the paranoia of the state (think extensive surveillance). A totalitarian United States will be made known when the Bill of Rights is nullified in its entirety, and we've already started on that path. Some might argue we've been on that path since the early 1900s, some since 2000, and some since more recently.

Honestly, I don't think we're at a point where reform is possible. An insufficient percentage of the population has yet been inconvenienced to enact reform. But by the time the majority is demanding it, then it will already be too late. And I fear that the average US citizen is too complacent and too ignorant to care. Neither one of those bode well for reform.

[takes off tinfoil hat]

How do you kill a frog? You put it in a pot of water and in very slight increments you slowly and systematically turn up the heat so the frog doesn't feel or perceive the change even as it boils to death.

I suspect that means we're in agreement.

Great Story -- more of a myth though: http://conservationmagazine.org/2011/03/frog-fable-brought-t...

> I don't believe that a state born of brutality can be anything other than brutal.

This is kind of a funny sentiment. Can you name a state that wasn't born of brutality?

Um...we peacefully purchased Alaska from the Russians.

I'm pretty sure that that's not the sense that "state" is being used here. He's talking about sovereign states; Alaska is subordinate to America (a sovereign state) which is evident in the fact that it was purchased by America.

Sealand?

Just taking stuff from the wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand )...

Emphasis where it appears is mine.

> In 1943, during the Second World War, HM Fort Roughs [Sealand] was constructed by the United Kingdom as one of the Maunsell Forts, primarily for defence against German mine-laying aircraft

> On 2 September 1967, the fort was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters.

> In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort.

> In August 1978, while Bates and his wife were in England, Alexander Achenbach, who describes himself as the Prime Minister of Sealand, hired several German and Dutch mercenaries to spearhead an attack of Roughs Tower. They stormed the tower with speedboats, jet skis and helicopters, and took Bates' son hostage. Bates was able to retake the tower and capture Achenbach and the mercenaries.

And of course...

> While it has been described as the world's smallest country, the world's smallest nation, or a micronation, Sealand is not currently officially recognised by any established sovereign state, although Sealand's government claims it has been de facto recognised by the United Kingdom (after an English court ruled it did not have jurisdiction over Sealand as territorial water limitations were defined at the time) and Germany

Both of those claimed recognitions took place after an act of agression toward British / German citizens mentioned in the above excerpts.

So you've got a platform in the ocean that was created as part of a war effort, that has been the subject of a failed and a successful military coup, whose only unofficial recognition by established states came after assaulting their citizens, and that is still not officially recognized by any other state. (And which is currently sitting in British territorial waters, after they unilaterally annexed its surrounding ocean.) And all this is for a "state" with a population estimated at "over 50".

It seems like a lot of people share this sentiment that police abuse is getting worse all the time. An optimistic part of me wants to think that maybe the problem isn't necessarily getting worse, just getting more exposure than it has in the past. How much harder would it be for this same story to reach this kind of audience 5 or 10 years ago? Hopefully the spreading awareness will lead to improvements down the line.

"There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there"

What a weird place America must be.

In America we tolerate brutality and are intolerant of nudity.

Tis' a silly place.

There's a ton of law around 'lawful orders' by the police, and how a citizen is supposed to respond to them. Ignoring everything else (please), George Zimmerman was accused of not following a 911 operator's "lawful order" to leave the scene. While I think most of America would have been happy for him to have heeded that device, it is not necessarily a 'lawful order', unless there was a reason for him not to have been there.

A lot of Americans presume "not unlawful orders" or "reasonable orders" to be presumed legal, if those orders come from a law enforcement officer, but in actuality, most lawful orders that are given are not lawful as they are not predicated on authority. If an officer tells you to leave your home, for example, that is not a lawful order unless you're under arrest, or if you're interfering with their effecting a warranted search. As such, people see orders like "Go stand over there" as being followed on television shows, and assume that the state (or its officers) have the authority to tell you where to stand. Generally speaking, they do not, usually.

The problem is in the myriad of exceptions -- we have the freedom to assemble, generally, but that assembly must be lawful. It's pretty obvious to say that we don't have the freedom to assemble on a trafficked highway, for example. Similarly, many 'free speech zones' require permits for use. That may seem unlawful, where those permitted places are common areas, but their issuance is predicated on the idea that if a 'pro' group and an 'anti' group are attempting to protest in the same space, then violence might reasonably ensue. The fix for that is to permit the space, and permit issuance is done on a first-come basis. The contra-position there is that the opposing protestors are effectively allowed to protest _anywhere but within the permitted space_, so, across the street is generally fine, and is also generally does not require a permit. A police officer at a protest may well be making a lawful order if you're in the wrong assembly area.

So yeah, it's interesting, and it's completely convoluted, and while I generally scoff at people who don't know even the basics, it's pretty near impossible to understand the intricacies of what does or doesn't comprise a lawful order depending on a myriad of circumstances. To be sure though, I think it's safe to say that most lawful orders are in fact not predicated on any actual authority, and are hence unlawful.

Unlike the author here, Trayvon Martin was an actual bad actor.

It was perhaps an unnecessarily polarizing example, but it was the first and only thing that came to mind regarding "move" as pertaining to a lawful order without digging up the name of the rather obscure case that recently got a verdict (wherein it was determined that the officer had no authority to tell the citizen to move, that it was indeed an abuse of authority, and paired with 120+ other abuse of power complaints against that officer, resulted in his termination).

I don't think it was a bad example. Are 911 dispatchers law enforcement officers? They seem like they're usually wrong in the advice they give.

No, they're not generally law officers, however, they may redirect your call to an actual law officer or police dispatcher. I do not know whether George Zimmerman was talking to a civilian 911 rep or a police officer, but either way, the 911 agent did not offer any lawful orders, the most authoritative statement given to Zimmerman was "We don't need you to do that."

Having interfaced with law enforcement at local and federal levels as part of employment, I happen to know that particular phrase literally has no meaning, except "please don't sue us if you do that, because we aren't liable, and need it on the record that we did NOT tell you to do whatever it is that you're about to do."

It's not a statement of encouragement or discouragement. That said though, if you consider the outcry that he "deliberately disobeyed a police officer", it's clear that many do not understand the concept very clearly (or they were blinded by the rest of it and went in to full witch hunt mode, which may or may not have been warranted).

For standing his ground against racist stalking and getting shot for it?

> There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there

The question here is the same question we face with the TSA:

Separating actual threats from threats to someone's personal perception of their own authority.

The author wasn't a threat. The cop screwed up. Then again, you'll never get 100% good people, and so there are going to be some screwup cops. I wish I could say our office was 100% solid. But you always get a few.

> I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police

A rational individual in America is absolutely justified in not trusting police. Wake up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

I've made a few 911 calls, but the last one was pretty surreal.

My partner and I were walking past a high rise where people go to score and in front of us on the pavement we saw a man and a woman trying to wake up someone who seemed on the verge of OD. He wasn't responding, the two were frantic, and everybody was watching from the other side of the road. She was screaming at him and us, saying he is ODed, and get an ambulance, so I called emergency, asked for ambos, didn't give my name, and described that a guy was unconscious and needed medical help. 20secs later we heard the sirens, and we saw the cops screaming down the road in the distance, no ambulance in sight. The man started dragging the woman away, and the previously comatose looking man started re-animating in front of us, trying to get up with great difficulty. With stupendous effort he rose to his feet and then through sheer willpower got his bearings and tried walking on the sidewalk. All together 3 cop cars screeched into the intersection, I put my phone on silent, and like the Truman Show every pedestrian did their bit and started ambling and chatting as if nothing had happened. My partner and I ambled on while my phone rang silently in my pocket and the previously ODed looking guy should have got an OSCAR as he walked (slightly stiffly) in a straight line past the cops. The 6 cops looked around the intersection, observing people and running around looking behind walls for a minute and then sped off. No ambos in sight.

What the fuck. Where do you live?

Melbourne/Australia

Intense. Haha.

When a cop gives you instructions to leave, you leave. Not because the cop is right, but because this shit happens. And if you're naive enough to think that this shit won't happen to you, try not complying with a cop's instructions. Doesn't matter where in the US you happen to be. It's that simple.

Look, here's a simple rule. In every interaction with the police, ask if you can leave. If you can, count your lucky stars and leave. If you can't leave, determine if you can get out of the interaction with a ticket or a summons. If you can, work toward that outcome. Regardless, don't tell them your life story. Keep it brief and if they start asking about things that relate to you, exercise your constitutional right to shut up.

Cops are not your friends. Their job is to enforce order. Not to be your best bud.

Or as one Chicago cop famously pointed out: "to preserve disorder."

That was the city's mayor.

"In every interaction with the police, ask if you can leave. If you can, count your lucky stars and leave. "

"count your lucky stars" is not what I'm paying my taxes for.

I don't think he's saying 'be happy with the outcome', he's saying 'save your own skin and scramble, given the chance'. While us taxpayers have plenty of rights to be angry at being poorly treated by civil servants, getting into a fight with someone at the bottom will do us no good. Stories like this are the evidence.

Then get involved with local politics and/or become a cop. otherwise you'll get what you're given when it comes to your taxes.

It's not "I'm paying so I'm buying." When paying taxes you are being extorted by definition. You are not paying taxes for anything.

You think paying taxes makes you the government's customer? That's pretty funny.

Yeah you are. You're paying taxes because the alternative is the state employing violence on you.

Best advice ever. It stands to reason the police deal with the worst of humanity on a regular basis. At a small cost to pride, respect and humility shows you're not one of those.

Seriously lol. Dealing with authorities 101:

1. Be respectful at all times

2. When an authority tells you to do something, do it. Unless you have a really good reason not to. In which case, see 1, and communicate your concern or question.

3. Don't let them push you around/power trip, but stick to 1

4. If shit goes down, don't panic! you'll only make things worse. Accept that your circumstances are temporarily out of your control, be patient and non-confrontational.

The world is not made of rainbows and flowers, there are plenty of self-important people with some kind of authority over you. Generally speaking though, unless you have to constantly interact with them, like a boss, they don't matter. The less interaction and thought you give them, the sooner you can get away from them and on with your life.

Good advice. The other thing to remember is that standing on principle with the police is rarely going to change anything anyway. In some circumstances it will, but usually trying to prove anything to a police officer is basically saying "I'm better than you, see", which isn't a great thing to throw into the equation.

The officer isn't going to have an epiphany because you knew law better than them, go off and take up Buddhism. You're not going to get more of your life back if you stand there and argue. If you can leave, leave. There is rarely anything to be gained by continuing a confrontation - especially if there are no or few witnesses.

It's kind of unfair to paint all the police as the same -- it varies both by officer (hard to predict) and by department (easy to predict). I try to deal strictly with California Highway Patrol and various Peninsula PDs.

BART PD, SFPD (and SFFD), EPA PD are pretty horrible. I'd go out of my way to avoid contact with them, be wary, and use protection (a lawyer).

OPD is bad too, but by virtue of being a rich white guy I'm not really at much risk from them (except through inaction). Oakland Fire is surprisingly good.

I've called 911 for road obstructions, traffic accidents and the like hundreds of times. I've stopped for some fairly serious accidents before anyone else got there, called 911 and gave an accurate and detailed report , set up flares and blocked with my car (when victims were ejected from the car), first aid, etc.

Never once have I had a problem. In the cases where someone was seriously injured and I had better medical training than the CHP who arrived, I waited until the paramedics and ambulance got there and talked to the paramedics before leaving.

Taking this story at face value, these SFPD officers need to no longer be police officers.

Glossing over some of your assumptions, I find I agree whole-heartedly with your conclusion.

SFPD seems to have gotten a lot worse between 1999 and today. All the good officers I knew back in 1998-2000 were in their late 40s, so probably retired. I don't know what has happened to the department otherwise.

As the article's dialog mentioned, I suspect that they have been priced out of the area by real-estate value increase - the good ones may have found postings in locations more favourable to people employed in the salary range of a police officer.

This might be the core of the issue.

If businesses complain that they can't find any good developers for $60K/year, we say that they should be paid appropriately.

I hear a lot about teachers in the states being terrible, and I also hear a lot about teachers in the states being paid poorly (because it should be a calling or some other bullshit reason).

Is it the same with cops?

I live in Canada and feel like we don't have it nearly as bad. Teachers are paid very well, and it is a difficult job to get. Cops are paid reasonably well and it is a difficult job to get.

One thousand good cops do not make up for one bad cop. Cops nearly ruined my life in 2006. I will write about it someday, but suffice it to say, I am out at least $30K (didn't bother doing the math because it's too depressing) and still paying for something I ABSOLUTELY HAD NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH. My only mistake was saying anything besides "I would like to speak with a lawyer" over and over.

Do not speak to cops, ever. They are not there to help you or find out the truth.

The issue with the idea 'some good cops vs some bad cops' is that the good ones will still protect and aid the bad ones.

> they 'good ones' will still protect and aid the 'bad ones'.

Those aren't good cops.

And this comment does not grasp the issue. For practical purposes, you'd better assume there are no cops who are that good. In cop land, that would be 'saintly'

but are those true scotish ?

This can't be said enough.

I used to have faith in the fundamental goodness and rightness of the police. I knew, in the abstract, there were some bad apples, but doesn't every organization?

Then several years ago I learned from experience that it doesn't matter. The concrete reality of what happens when a bad cop singles you out outweighs all the good cops in the world.

I was out about 15k - which I really needed at the time - but that's not what sticks with me. What sticks with me is the fear and humiliation. I have had some bad times, but my arrest was the absolute bottom.

Other than the immediate experience, I think part of it was the knowledge that it didn't matter that I was innocent, the full force of the law and the state had come down and declared me a scumbag among all the dregs of society. It's something that has to happen to you to understand, I think. Maybe it's just because I always regarded myself as a good, law-abiding (and not very humble) citizen, who did things the Right Way. I don't know.

What I do know is to this day, I get anxious when someone even mentions the police, let alone when they show up.

For the love of God don't ever, ever ever ever ever talk to the police. If the police want to arrest you they will arrest you. Talking can only make it worse. I thought I was being polite and helpful. It doesn't matter.

The former sheriff of a nearby county (now a felon) said he had the job because he loved arresting bad guys. They will see bad guys everywhere they can.

Even the person in the article could have gotten out of trouble if they kept quiet. "Where you do work?" isn't a question they should be answering. Just exercise your right to remain silent. ALWAYS. Keep quiet.

I'm sorry you have to learn this the hard way.

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

For those curious, this is the law which allows you to sue the police: 42 U.S.C. § 1983

"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia."

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enforcement_Act_of_1871_(third_...

The narrative is totally not credible. There are gaps where its obvious that the author did something to elicit a reaction, but what that was is omitted from the story. My guess would be that the author was being a smart ass, and given the drinking more belligerent than he recalls in retrospect. No, the cops shouldn't have roughed him up just for being a pompous asshole,[1] but the author should tell the whole story.

[1] "My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." My god imagine listening to this self indulgent tripe at 1 am while keeping your cool.

Just to provide a data point: I know the OP personally. I can't be sure that there are no omissions, but him saying things like that is not surprising and it doesn't feel like there are holes. His particular demeanor and pattern of speech would likely make it seem not so much pompous as just eccentric. He's very obviously earnest, and not in the naive way often encountered in the Bay Area these days. Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty. To me, one of the core points of this story is that you can never assume you won't be perceived as a member of a group not so advantaged.

Were I not very familiar with him, an interpretation such as yours would definitely be one of my high probability estimates, which is what compelled me to add my views. Take it as you will.

> not in the naive way often encountered in the Bay Area these days.

Really? Because reading this, he comes across as the epitome of naivete. Are people really this clueless about how to interact with cops?

FTR: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik

I don't know him, but I doubt he is naive in the "believes in fairy tales and doesn't understand how the world really works" manner that you suggest. Here's a story about the author's background and how he ended up coaching basketball in Afghanistan: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie...

No. We expect better, I guess.

You probably should, too.

You do realize that he was born and raised in the late USSR, right?

You are seriously defending US police actions that made a former Soviet citizen worry about what would happen next?!

> Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty.

That doesn't exist any longer. Our elites are corrupt.

You are absolutely wrong. Almost the exact same thing happened to me, about 400 miles south, last January. Many of the details are even eerily similar. Your claims of omission are totally baseless, and I would guess driven by the same sort of illusions I used to have about the police, their role in our society, and the mechanisms that are in place to deal with bad apples.

My claims of omission are based on the sequence of events being nonsensical as presented. I can buy that the cops were bullies. That's not acceptable behavior for a cop, but I acknowledge it does happen. Cops often act punitively towards those they perceive as giving them lip, and while its not right it happens. You shouldn't mouth off to a cop but cops shouldn't use their office in retaliation. But this story where the cops spontaneously seem to react to nothing is difficult to believe.

Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode. In the same way, her asking for a doctor was the trigger for the jailer to strip her and put her in solitary. If you haven't been in the system, then you don't understand how brutal, arbitrary, and nightmarish it is. Good heavens, almost the exact same thing happened to me, and I live in a sleepy, peaceful little town. It's startling to think that this kind of treatment is only a phone call away, for everyone.

>Her

The author is a man.

>Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode.

Even if he was doing something wrong, assuming he wasn't violent, what happened to him was way out of proportion and should be illegal.

However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.

>However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.

I know where you're coming from. It is hard to believe. I could hardly believe it when it happened to me (see my other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7234781). I still have a hard time believing it.

But the simple fact is that it happens, and what really enables it is the fact that there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The police are incredibly well-protected from any sort of accountability. The will to reprimand has to come from the inside, and that is usually done silently, if it's done at all. Cops are big on loyalty.

I have plenty of problems with the way police departments are ran in this country, but I think he was probably a bit drunker than he mentioned in the story.

Because drunks don't deserve equal protection under (and from) the law, especially when phoning in an accident, amirite?

C'mon, dude.

Note to self: don't pitch to cops at scene of accident.

> Note to self: don't pitch to cops at scene of accident.

B-b-but I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food!

The advice given for dealing with cops seems like the advice given for being in a bad area of town.

"Keep your head down, don't give them any lip. Don't say anything unless you don't have to and certainly don't diss them in any way, you'll probably be fine..."

Interesting that a person acting imperfectly (which I can buy happened, and that this account is colored in that direction) is enough to make him the greater of the people who screwed up here. Roughly 9/10 of your comment is directed at attacking him personally--in terms you have no justification of, since you have no concrete knowledge of the situation--while only 1/10 is a concession that the police screwed up. Despite the police screw up being far more violent and egregious.

I was in grad school with Peretz for a few years, and I can assure you that he was neither drunk nor a smart-ass. And I have no doubt that his narrative is entirely credible.

(And to be clear, we're talking about a guy that has a PhD from one of the top five biophysics programs on Earth.)

He is earnest and sincere, and I can imagine that the officer mistook him for someone he is not that night, but I don't think any of his actions come close to justifying how he was treated.

Further, it was my experience while living near his current neighborhood that the police were as dangerous (if not more so) than any of the myriad criminals operating there. I'm not anti-police, but I am not a fan of the cops that covered those areas while I lived there.

> At this point, I’m left no choice but to present this case to the investigative court of public opinion, be it brave or foolish.

Um, no, you can leave it to an actual court of law by finding a good attorney and filing a civil complaint. But until you find competent representation, here's a piece of advice: for the love of god and your own well-being, learn to STFU.

The story makes it clear OP has no idea when to stop talking and observe his surroundings, even to his own detriment. Instead, he acted (and wrote) in such a way where he's constantly assuming the role of a victim and then being shocked when people treat him as such.

Remember folks, you have the right to remain silent in any interaction with authorities (not just the police, pretty much only a judge can compel you to speak), and your failure to do so only ever leads to a world of hurt.

Um, have you actually filed a civil suit against a police department? Do you know how expensive and time-consuming it is? Those who choose this route have me total admiration, as it is grossly expensive, it takes years, and it extends the suffering caused by mistreatment at the hands of those supposed to protect you manifold.

Yeah, I love the attitude of "look, if you want to make a complaint about police beating you and falsely imprisoning you, you should quit your job and invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case against them, anything else is stupid." Super realistic and clearly enabling a better world to happen very soon.

Have you ever sued the police?

I'm stretching my brain as hard as i can to figure out how this is relevant?

Thanks for providing a nice example of a rock bottom terrible comment. Yes, the problem with this person being beaten up, put in solitary and abused for no reason simply comes down to their inability to shut up. If only they had the wisdom to know that the police, who are paid by our tax dollars just HAVE to beat you up and abuse you if you say anything they dislike. I mean, its not as if they had a choice of whether they wanted to beat the person up or not, they basically HAD TO! Because, you know, that person was mouthy.

"he acted (and wrote) in such a way where he's constantly assuming the role of a victim"

What type of brain got you to the conclusion that this person was something other than the victim here?

Look, I get your point that shutting up is a good idea, but we can't blame the person for not shutting up, the police should be blamed for their actions. The fact that we have people like you standing up for the police here makes me think we probably have no chance as a society anymore.

We can both blame the author for not shutting up and the police for not responding reasonably to someone who was nothing more dangerous than a smartass.

I would argue that the police deserve somewhere in the neighborhood of one million times more blame for false imprisonment and beating than a civilian deserves for, gasp, talking when they people they pay to protect them didnt want them to talk.

No problem, thanks for providing an example of the naiveté that underscores way too many HN comments.

First off, I never said that there isn't a problem with the way the police treated OP. In fact, I'm encouraging him to sue both the police department and the officers personally for the way they treated him, which was clearly unacceptable behavior. Translation: I want to see him get justice.

But I also am able to see nuance in a situation, which clearly you're lacking. He might be a victim, but he's not blameless, insofar as: • Refused to pipe down and leave the accident when ordered to by a police officer. • Continued to instigate police officers who were securing the scene. • Yelled like a crazy person while in a holding cell.

or, as I said in the parent comment: OP COMPLETELY FAILED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIS RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT AND AVOID AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE.

His behavior was unacceptable, and holding him to account for that as someone who enjoys their constitutional rights and insists upon defending them in NO WAY MAKES ME A POLICE APOLOGIST. Police aren't the only one who can trample upon rights, those who fail to understand or abuse them are culpable as well. The fact you don't understand that makes me wonder if our free society held together by liberty and a respect for the rule of law has any chance any more, yet I'll remain an optimist.

You seem to have projected some bizarre stuff on my comment. I understand that the OP failed to take advantage of their right to remain silent, I really do. However, none of the things you say the person should be "blamed" for, should EVER result in the punishment they got. The fact that you're not able to see beyond "well they both fucked up" is pretty shocking really.

"His behavior was unacceptable, and holding him to account for that as someone who enjoys their constitutional rights and insists upon defending them in NO WAY MAKES ME A POLICE APOLOGIST."

"Holding him to account" in your book happens to mean beating the shit out of him and putting him in a cell, whereas I simply don't think someone who is yelling things the police don't like deserves this treatment. If that makes me naive, I'll take it.

"But I also am able to see nuance in a situation, which clearly you're lacking."

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Because you were able to see subtle details like "this person wasn't being polite!" only super wisdom filled you is able to understand that the police were right to beat them up and put them in solitary. I genuinely cannot believe that someone could make such an utter shit argument and then have the gall to blame the OTHER person for a lack of understanding of the nuances, like yourself, who is of course brilliant.

In civilised countries, the police are the good guys, and having them nearby makes you feel safer. Encounters with the police should not be scary if you've done nothing wrong.

There was a place I've heard about where the police was scary, though I never lived there: that was communist Romania, where my parents grew up. And the US, too, it seems.

Fuck off, is it not 'unacceptable' to decide not to use your right to be silent.

You're high, the guy did NOTHING wrong. The police are to blame for this.

Nope, we can't. This type of thinking is a strong indicator that one may be suffering from antisocial personality disorder.

The police work for the public. They are "public servants".

Who should be the one shutting up when the boss is talking?

Did you even pause to ponder that OP could've been you ? What if everything he says is indeed true. And he has presented a bunch of facts that point in his favor. If you would've been arrested to simply calling 911 and trying to help - at 1am - how would you feel ? Oh and about suing the Police - you ever tried it ? I'm assuming you have a $50K minimum retainer and a good lawyer ready ?

He wasn't arrested simply for calling 911, though. It's an undeniably shitty situation, but based on his own account, if he and his friend simply got the cellphone back, said "thanks", or even just shut up and went home, we most likely wouldn't be arguing about this right now.

I have no idea what it would take to curb a significant portion of this sort of overreach, but it is worth being stripped naked and thrown in solitary confinement? You tell me.

> you have the right to remain silent in any interaction with authorities

Is it true that in some states you have to identify yourself, as in at least state your name?

Good point.

I significantly disagree with Hiibel, but alas, SCOTUS says that you have to give your name.

To any reader, this is a perfect example of the Just World bias and victim blaming. See how Gorbzel makes it clear that the fault of the encounter lies on the victim, not the perpetrator.

This is indeed a perfect example of what is typically called "victim blaming". Where I disagree with you is that I do not read Gorbzel as suggesting that the perpetrator is not at fault: by my reading Gorbzel says nothing one way or the other on that subject.

If you read the comment with the preconception that every interaction has one side which is Right and one side which is Wrong, then you will see the cops portrayed as "Just". If you read the comment without that preconception, you will not.

I am very afraid of people with that preconception, because they pick sides and then try to stick to them by confirmation bias. Like the cops.

(Just in case it wasn't absolutely clear: my position is that the victim here was careless-in-a-way-that-would-have-no-negative-consequences-in-a-perfect-world, like I was careless the time I left my flat unlocked and a guy tried to steal my laptop. Whereas the cop's actions were criminal, like the guy who tried to steal it. Both sides are "at fault" in some sense, but hardly equally.)

I probably should explain my position more fully. The cause of a result and the fault of a result are entirely separate concepts. I think of "cause" as anything that, when prevented, would prevent the final result. By this definition, both the officer and the author caused the abuse and arrest.

However, "fault" is in the deviation from a perfect world that caused the result. The author, showing concern and asking about the well-being of another person, is not at fault for the abuse he received. The police officer, abusing his position, is at fault.

To apply these to your example of your stolen laptop, I would say that it was partially caused by you, but was not your fault.

The way that I read Gorbzel's comment as that both cause and fault were on the author, not just cause.

Thanks for explaining. I agree that there is a distinction between "cause" and "fault" as you describe.

Gorbzel's comment is pretty blunt: for sake of argument, it basically amounts to "[Victim] is an idiot and should have known better, for his own sake". But to me it is very clearly an assignment of "cause" not "fault" in your terminology.

I understand this from phrases such as "for […] his own well-being" and "to his own detriment", as well as the fact that it's phrased as "advice". These make clear that Gorbzel is saying that the victim erred from a self-interest point of view not a moral point of view.

Necessary link to Pr. Duane's lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Don't talk to the police. Ever.

Don't pay taxes in places the cops are mostly criminals. Ever.

This doesn't seem like practical advice.

You can find shitty police behavior everywhere, including the EU, Germany and Canada. The probability is just different.

"Mostly" speaks to probability.

I'm not anti cop but the Sûreté du Québec have a pretty bad reputation.

This will force you to become very intimate with the local prison guard population however.

He means "move", not "evade taxes while living there".

Does he? Because I read it as the latter, and with the amount of internet bravado that surrounds any talk about the police, I'd be unsurprised if it was meant as the latter.

I know him, and he's moved from one corrupt third-world shithole (Detroit) to an almost civilized city in a civilized country (Berlin) for this reason.

The police in Detroit (where I grew up) are saints compared to the cops in NYC (where I lived when I moved to Berlin).

The NYPD is the largest terrorist organization in the United States. They are a blight on this nation.

So, move to your own private island?

Thank you - this is the only practical solution. Emigration is maybe the only practical and morally viable option.

But how can she call the paramedics without the police?

When you call 911, don't you get the option for Police, Fire or Ambulance? That is the way it works in Australia.

In my location in the US, all three come when you call.

Isn't that kinda an over-exaggerated response, if you only need one of them?

Mmmm tax dollars. So tasty.

You jest, but that's actually the reason.

they assume the caller ins't qualified to make the right determination. Not only is the US a police state, but also a Nanny state.

I admit that this is probably the consequence of living in a less populated state, but when they ask the nature of your emergency here (NM), the dispatcher typically makes a decision of what response is needed.

All three are sent for most vehicular accidents for traffic control (state police, county sheriff, or city), fire suppression (volunteer FD, usually), and medical services (sometimes volunteer, especially in the county). Judging by the comments below, I suspect there's an advantage to living in an area that doesn't have tax money to blow. ;)

Same in my location, a neighbor had a small fire in the wall due to plumbing soldering: police, firetrucks and ambulance. Then extra police kept stopping by (I guess they were bored, and the paramedic chick was cute and flirty).

That is so weird. Where I live, Israel, they actually have different phone numbers (police - 100, medics - 101, fire dept. - 102), and they come only if you call them specifically (if at all). Of course if something really bad happens you call the police first and they call everyone else, but police arriving for someone who fell of their bike? Really? What a weird place.

I had a friend call the paramedics from home when she got seriously injured. The police did not show up. USA.

No.

Depends on the situation. I've had operators ask if anyone was injured so they wouldn't have to send out an ambulance. Usually, the police are there anyway.

Of the three groups (fire paramedics police) which is most likely to be bored with nothing to do? Of course the cops are going to light the lamps.

This nation would have much better policing if we had half as many cops. I had a single day of jury duty two weeks ago and was dumbfounded by how many sheriff's deputies there were wandering around the courthouse in a daze, loitering around the metal detector, setting off the metal detector, speaking at inappropriate volume, eating in unsettling fashion, etc.

I'm sorry, but have you been to a dispatch room? I spent a day with in a sherriffs department once and then had went on a ridealong - there's no 'loitering around', arranging a half an hour's break for dinner was difficult.

Both you and the person you are replying to have taken personal anecdotes and expanded them out to decide that America has either too few or too many cops.

Oh, no. Both of us already knew the truth. The anecdotes are just for color.

And let me tell you, I've had acquaintances nearly die from overdoses because they've watched too much American TV; here in Aus, if you call the ambulance the police will not come unless you report violence.

But hey, Australia is surprisingly progressive in this way: I just got my prescription for Naloxone needles and did my training today. I'm an ex-addict, and don't hang with those people very often, but if I ever do I can save an overdose :) this is in QLD of all places, despite Newman trying to turn us into a police state.

Don't call the paramedics either. Desperately try to find your own way (or help the injured person find a way) to the hospital if something is wrong. There is no shortage of stories where people call the police, even for relatively serious issues, only to have the police show up and promptly murder the injured person or another nearby innocent.

This is terrible advice.

It would have greatly reduced the likelihood of this guy getting assaulted and imprisoned, so I would consider it good advice.

"Don't leave your house, ever!" and "Don't try to stop and help anyone with anything" would also have prevented this. That doesn't make either of them good advice.

There's a difference between simply leaving your house, and actively requesting that a group of armed thugs come to your location.

I recently had an encounter that was a little surreal. At the art studio a forlorn man walked upstairs into the lunch room. Someone asked him how he was doing, he just looked like he was having a bad day, not super shitty, but bad. Lots of people come in and out of that studio space, it is common to see people you don't recognize. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just want to die." The art studio is mostly women, and his response put them all on edge. I could tell someone wanted to call the cops, the guy was definitely mentally ill. But the first thing that flashed in my mind was there was a high likelyhood this guy would be dead pretty shortly after calling them. Either by choice, suicide by cop or because that is just how the cops do things. Somehow it is ok for cops to shoot the mentally ill and get away with it. We eventually talked things out and he left before I could track him down again. I wish I handled that part better. I don't even want to call the cops when I am in danger for fear they will mistake me for someone else. Never been on the wrong side of the law, but I'd like to keep my cop exposure to zero. They never, ever, make a situation better.

The scenario you were afraid of happens. It's not too rare to read a story where someone calls the police because their friend is in medical distress, only to have the police show up and murder the person right there in their own home.

Video all interactions with police more serious than a traffic stop and video those if you can get away with it legally. Cameras are cheap and Internet streaming is easy.

It seems like the less serious offenses should be video tapped as well. Why not? Nothing serious is going to happen, right?

Police themselves should wear cameras at all times, and that footage should be made freely available to the public.

I'd say that the ones where you think it might not be serious are precisely the ones you should definitely be recording: you might not treat it with the same gravity, especially when you feel that you've done nothing wrong or that the most likely outcome is a ticket or scolding.

recording of police is illegal in many cities - and i mean the voice recording. unless there's an app that lets u record without sound i'd say do not record.

Secret recording is illegal in 12 states, the ones that are two-party consent states. These states require all parties to know that they are being recorded.

Openly recording the police is prohibited in two states - Illinois and Massachusetts. Every other state, you have the right to record the police, as long as you do it openly.

Now, there are a few things that go along with this. You are not allowed to interfere with the investigation. So, for example, you can stand a respectful distance away and start recording. You cannot run up to the cop's face and yell "AM I BEING DETAINED?!"

Oddly enough, police in one-party states want to keep the status quo. Because it means they don't have to get a warrant to record suspects' communications with police/informants.

There was a case in Boston a year or two ago, someone openly video-taped a police action. BPD arrested him, it was later thrown out in court.

Recording the police doing their job in public in generally legal and is a protected First Amendment activity. Courts keep ruling in favor of recording police. Laws prohibiting it are not constitutional.

>Openly recording the police is prohibited in two states - Illinois and Massachusetts

No, not really.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/05/7-rules-for-recording-...

Last week the City of Boston agreed to pay Simon Glik $170,000 in damages and legal fees to settle a civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2007 felony arrest for videotaping police roughing up a suspect. Prior to the settlement, the First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Glik had a “constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public.” The Boston Police Department now explicitly instructs its officers not to arrest citizens openly recording them in public.

The law in 38 states plainly allows citizens to record police, as long as you don’t physically interfere with their work. Police might still unfairly harass you, detain you, or confiscate your camera. They might even arrest you for some catchall misdemeanor such as obstruction of justice or disorderly conduct. But you will not be charged for illegally recording police.

Twelve states—California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington—require the consent of all parties for you to record a conversation.

However, all but 2 of these states—Massachusetts and Illinois—have an “expectation of privacy provision” to their all-party laws that courts have ruled does not apply to on-duty police (or anyone in public). In other words, it’s technically legal in those 48 states to openly record on-duty police.

....

Fortunately, judges and juries are soundly rejecting these [anti-police recording] laws. Illinois, the state with the most notorious anti-recording laws in the land, expressly forbids you from recording on-duty police. Early last month an Illinois judge declared that law unconstitutional, ruling in favor of Chris Drew, a Chicago artist charged with felony eavesdropping for secretly recording his own arrest. Last August a jury acquitted Tiawanda Moore of secretly recording two Chicago Police Internal Affairs investigators who encouraged her to drop a sexual harassment complaint against another officer. (A juror described the case to a reporter as “a waste of time.”) In September, an Illinois state judge dropped felony charges against Michael Allison. After running afoul of local zoning ordinances, he faced up to 75 years in prison for secretly recording police and attempting to tape his own trial.

It's high time to just make the cops wear video cameras. A whole lot of this sort of crap could just vanish.

Out of all the comments on this thread, this is the only one with an actionable solution to the problem.

SFPD are going down this road, OPD (Oakland) and many others already do, but the officers often find an excuse for their camera to malfunction when they want, and in many cases they are instructed to turn the camera on themselves before interacting with anyone, and they simply don't.

It turns out that telling the cops what to do isn't very effective.

But the existence of the cameras can solve this problem (assuming that the footage is made available for subpoena). For instance, if this particular officer has a history of having their camera malfunction right before arrests and do so at rates far higher than other officers then this fact could be brought up in court.

The real world just doesn't work that way. Cops are not accountable. We need to take more responsibility for policing our own communities and spend less time demanding that more money is spent on police budgets.

These SFPD were whining about how they can't afford to live in SF, but they make as much as I do SPECIFICALLY to address that problem.

Police are "State Violence". They exist to encourage the rest of us to follow the rules for fear of SPECIFICALLY this sort of situation.

They are never, in any precinct, going to be an acceptable institution. They will not find your stolen shit, they might arrest you if you witness a tragedy, and if you want to go tell your elected representatives they are a bunch of assholes, they will come out in paramilitary gear and spray fucking pepper spray or teargas in your face.

They have one of the strongest unions in the country and their own bill of rights. Cameras are a good idea, but they're just not going to fix this.

I would love to see people in the tech industry get involved in CopWatch, talk to people that have been doing this, esp in the bay area for decades. It is ASTOUNDINGLY difficult to get even a reprimand on file. Look at Johannes Mehserle and John Pike, extreme cases, but if their behavior is above reproach, how do you think that grabbing a random person and stomping you into the ground for noncompliance while you are in a state of shock is going to get them anything but a few laughs at the cop bar.

I wish technology could fix the police, but it cannot.

I simply cannot share in your level of pessimism. I believe that if the behavior of the bad actors were visible that it would change. I am not saying that things are not terrible: they may be. But I am saying that things can get better.

You write:

> "[Police] are never, in any precinct, going to be an acceptable institution."

which I think is patently untrue -- there are several precincts where the police as an institution function excellently.

It's high time to make the cops wear video cameras that are permanently turned on while on duty, and to make it a penalisable infraction for them to obstruct the camera without filling in reams of paperwork to justify it afterwards.

FTFY.

Or... Even better...

It's high time to hire better cops.

It doesn't even need to be enforced. Just give every single cop a reliable camera and make sure that it is well known that they have the things.

Then you can ask them why they don't use the evidence recording device that would remove ambiguity from so many situations.

"hire better cops" usually translates to "pay cops more".

SF and Oakland are already amongst the highest paying police departments and neither has almost any residents of their city working for them. I have met some of the police who are natives in both cities and it's a great way to get uninvited from Thanksgiving, and with good reason.

You're probably right; there'd need to be incentives.

Maybe tying pay and funding to available footage?

Live video uplink... and they can call all the officers with "malfunctioning" cameras back to the station to get a replacement.

And to immediately fire the chief of the SFFD who actually killed the helmet cam program because it showed how grossly negligent the SFFD responders were in the death of one of the three victims of the Asiana crash at SFO.

All of the police I know are in favor of this. They want cameras on at all times that they ideally couldn't interfere with. Not only will those cameras protect the public from police misbehavior, it will protect officers from frivolous lawsuits and an alarming amount of people calm down when they're informed their actions are being recorded.

Other than the logistics of making it happen and ensuring the entirety of the video from an encounter is available, I can't see a problem with the whole idea. The only people that lose out are crooked cops and members of the public wanting to file unwarranted abuse claims.

There was a guy on HN recently showing off his startup which makes sunglasses with built on camera. Cops should be required to where those by law and we should pass a law that basically states that an arrest is automatically invalid in any situation where a camera "malfunctioned" or was turned off.

Obama passed this law in Illinois, it launched his career to the Presidency.

In jurisdictions that have this law, the cameras are amazingly unreliable. The failure rate is just huge..

Yeah, it's crazy - the battery keeps getting disconnected right before an arrest.

That evidence will never be available to be used against cops.

This was in Texas. I don't recall the exact details. My bosnian friend was racially profiled (as hispanic) by the police. He was ticketed after not coming to a full stop, then arrested because the officer incorrectly assumed that his real driver's license was fake and that he was not a legal citizen. At the precinct, he was told some racist stuff by a working officer before being put in the cell. A lawyer took up his case, asserting that the conditions leading up to his arrest were not actually legal.

What happened then? On the books, he didn't exist. He supposedly never spent a night in jail, was supposedly never arrested and taken in, the fees he paid for bail were supposedly never received or requested, the surveillance camera footage the night he was put in jail happened to be corrupted, and even if he succeeded in getting the bail money back, he'd be out at least an additional thousand for court an lawyer fees.

Needless to say, they didn't pursue the case further.

Some police departments wear them, and they dramatically (~80% iirc) reduce complaints / reports by citizens. You can only have video footage go missing so many times before it starts to get old for judges / the media / etc.

You'd have to combine it with systematically firing people if footage goes missing.

This is the only logical way for police to do their job, if the servant of the people is given more power, so should come more scrutiny and observation.

I'd take it a step further and say that all on-duty officers should have to wear cameras that stream continuously into a third party repository.

The BART police are mandated to wear cameras in the wake of the killing of Oscar Grant. Unfortunately it's up to them to activate the camera. Recently a BART cop was shot & killed by another officer when searching a robbery suspect's home. Supposedly none of those officers had their cameras running. http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Fatal-BART-shooting-not-...

Internal investigations are also BS. If police officers are officers of the court, judges should have the authority (and use the authority) to strip the officer of the authority to act as an officer. Much like contempt of court, it should not require formal hearings or process to immediately remove bad officers from duty. At that point the police department would effectively have an ordinary citizen on their payroll, unable to wear a uniform or make arrests or risk being charged with impersonating an officer and kidnapping.

I had a similar experience, and honestly, I have been afraid to go to City Hall and speak to the elected officials I have personally met many times because I fear that my initial arrest for public intoxication while standing outside a bar which I planned to take a cab home from, smoking a cigarette, was retaliation for participating in protests, and that I will be retaliated against worst. I happened to be out celebrating a new job, so making me miss the last day of my old job was not much punishment, but I'd rather not go through that again. Fortunately I was out with the manager of the restaurant at my gym, who brought my bag to meet me the next morning, where I was able to take a shower before going to sign onboarding paperwork.

I don't feel safe in San Francisco anymore.

Back in November, I was arrested in Brooklyn for running a red light on my bike while on my way to work in Manhattan.

Normally you're given a ticket and let go, but in this instance, the officers took issue with the fact that I was not carrying ID. Both officers told me that I "could be arrested for not having ID." For clarification, I asked if it was a city, state, or national law, and the officers adamantly maintained that it was a state law. I, stupidly, thought to educate them on this misconception, and one officer in particular decided to bring me in because she "knows the laws and doesn't need to be told how to do [her] job."

I was brought into the local precinct (Brooklyn's 88th). When I arrived, both officers denied saying I was required to carry ID when I asked the captain about the law. Of course the captain confirmed that I was not required to carry ID, but at that point it didn't really matter anyway. The charge was failure to obey a traffic signal.

I was held in solitary confinement for 10 hours. During that time, the female arresting officer would periodically come by to taunt me, and tell me that I shouldn't have questioned her, and then threw a huge tantrum when I requested not to be touched by her for fingerprinting. They sent another officer in to do it, but for a moment, I honestly thought was going to beat the shit out of me.

The other arresting officer, a guy of Filipino descent, noticed my Filipino flag belt buckle when they were taking my belt (so I couldn't hang myself, apparently). We talked about the country a bit (I was a volunteer there for 2 years) and to his credit he apologized to me, admitted that he was wrong about the law, but said that there wasn't anything he could do now that I was in there because the other officer wanted to make an example of me. I was, curiously, allowed to keep my shoelaces.

The other officers that would walk by my urine soaked cell and ask why I was there did not believe at first that I had been arrested for running a red light. When I mentioned who the arresting officer was though, they all gave a knowing sigh. One told me that she was not at all respected there, that she had a huge temper, and that I should not have crossed her. One officer went across the street and bought me a slice of pizza, which was nice.

Around 8pm, I was personally escorted by two other officers to a courthouse in downtown Brooklyn, where I was retina scanned and placed in a holding cell with around 10 other criminals. Charges ranged from domestic abuse to armed robbery. One man was on the floor going through drug withdrawals. Everyone scoffed at the idea that I was there because of a traffic violation, and likely assumed I was making that up. I talked to my escorting officers a bit and they also confirmed that my arresting officer was a bit of a joke at the precinct, and that I had been unlucky.

While at the courthouse jail cell, the officer that was watching everyone at one point began banging on the cell bars with his hands and yelling at the inmates, calling them niggers and going on about how they're all in there because they never had any fathers growing up. Some of the inmates laughed, but others were visibly scared. When that calmed down and another officer came by to drop off someone else, I told him what had happened and his only response was "so?"

I was offered the chance to make a phone call, but the only number I even have memorized anymore is my mother's, and despite knowing that my friends were probably scared to death looking for me, I wasn't at the point of calling her. She still does not know that any of this ever happened.

I was then given a chance to speak to my public defender through plated glass. That took about 20 seconds. She basically told me this whole thing was ridiculous, that I had likely pissed off an officer (I hadn't told her anything) and that we were going to ask the judge to dismiss the charge and that the judge would do so.

At 11pm I went before the judge for about 5 seconds and the charges were dismissed and I was allowed to go home. Unfortunately, I first had to walk back to the precinct to get my bike, keys, phone, etc. Luckily it wasn't too cold.

I had thought that I was handling things fairly well, but when I arrived at the precinct and was faced with the notion of going back in there, even as a free person, I began vomiting in the garbage can beside the steps leading in. Dehydration and stress were probably the causes, and for a moment I feared being seen, in case they would arrest me again right there for something or other.

My phone was dead, so I couldn't get ahold of anyone until I got home, but I was too tired and afraid to get back on my bike, so I walked back to my apartment. When I finally did get back on the grid, I had found that my brother, girlfriend, and work colleagues had all been desperately looking for me when I hadn't shown up to work, and had been calling hospitals and police stations. They eventually did get a confirmation from the 88th precinct that I was there, which of course no one relayed to me. My work was prepared to send their lawyer down, but my brother talked them out of it, thinking that it would likely make things worse for me inside (he was probably right, but go work). I felt even worse for putting them through such an experience.

All told, I was in custody from around 10am to 11pm and I've learned a few things on the inside. Knowing your rights doesn't matter. There are no repercussions to any officer for anything they say or do. If they want to make your life hell, they can and will. Carrying ID may not be required by law, but it will save you a lot of hassle and explaining if you ever do have a run in with the law. You can either exercise your right not to carry ID, but you put yourself in danger of the wrath of an ignorant police force (I still don't carry it). Also, don't run red lights on your bike.

Thanks for sharing!

I believe in that situation, that you can defuse the dynamic of being accused of not having your ID, by sharing your social security number. So one response to the police in that situation is to acknowledge not having your ID, but offer to share your name and social security number so they can identify you in the database.

...or the SSN of anyone who resembles you.

This is a bad idea. If for some reason it escalates and they need to check that, lying about your identity to a police officer is a crime in many states and you could be in much more trouble.

Um absolutely not. I am not giving my ssn to a random police officer.

Out of curiosity where did they get you for running the red light specifically?

Flushing Ave, on my way to the Manhattan Bridge. The specific light, hilariously, has only a lefthand turn when going towards Manhattan.

Yeah, I got a red light ticket there. My court date got postponed to more than a year after the original infraction. The cops like to pick off cyclists along the north side of Flushing because cyclists will (quite rationally) run those lights -- there is no crossing auto traffic (bike lanes run along the top of T intersections) and very low volume (and easy to see) pedestrian traffic. Sucks.

In NY it is a "violation" of the law for most traffic offenses. Technically you can be arrested for any traffic infraction but in practice they give you a ticket. Upon conviction you can be imprisoned for up to 15 days.

With violations the officer has 100% discretion about what to do. They can decide not to write a ticket/arrest someone for any reason. This officer was obviously a bad officer that is on a power trip but the OP has not much recourse for what was done. It is sad. I guess it could have been worse. The officer could have made up just about anything and made it worse (like saying you swung at them or threatened them)

I've always wondered about this with traffic tickets: How can officers have discretion on how to prosecute and still satisfy "equal protection under the law"? Or does equal protection only apply to federal statutes?

[Edit: Thank you to OP for sharing, and my heart goes out for your exp]

"Or does equal protection only apply to federal statutes?"

Actually, the 14th Amendment (where the "equal protection" clause is) applies specifically to the states:

"...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."[1]

The 14th Amendment is applied to the federal government via a process called "reverse incorporation":

"Whereas incorporation applies the Bill of Rights to the states though the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, in reverse incorporation, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has been held to apply to the federal government through the Due Process Clause located in the Fifth Amendment."[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_bill_of_r...

Can an officer simply drive by and make up a story like you were running a red light, and give you a ticket?

Or maybe just make up a story that you swung at them and then kick the crap out of you?

This would solve a lot of problems for both police and civilians: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/business/wearable-video-ca...

Arrested. NYC. Turnstile ducking. No Miranda rights. Zero crim history. Mugshot. Prints. Solitary 5 hours.

I recommend you listen to this if you're wondering why (apart from bullshit police state) people like us are getting arrested for petty offences:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/414/r...

Just a quick clarification since people assume Miranda Warning is required, it is only required before interrogation. If they visually watched you duck turn style they don't have much reason to interrogate you about it and will skip Miranda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_warning Edit: See the section called "The six rules"

A bit more clarification. Miranda isn't ever required, however anything you say to them before having been read you rights cannot be used against you in court, nor can evidence acquired as a result of what you said (with exceptions for both cases).

A bit more clarification still: Anything you say to them while in custody cannot be used unless you have been Mirandized.

Even more clarification: never talk to police. Give your name, ask for a lawyer.

I'm sure there's a few lawyers out there who think that even giving your name is too much of a risk.

I think it's a problem that this is the case, but ignoring it doesn't make it not the case. So I agree: if you have the choice of talking to the cops, don't; if you have to, wait for your lawyer. But let's give some thoughts to how we can un-fuck this part of the system, yeah?

But we just got done establishing that police officers have

1) The authority to imprison you on a whim and suffer no repercussions for exercising that authority in ways that judges and other police officers agree is excessive.

2) The authority to lie about what you said or didn't say and suffer no repercussions.

There's a large cost associated with the "never talk to police" strategy, and it only starts to probabilistically pay off after you've gotten to the point of requiring complex court proceedings (which you might never have gotten to if you were more cooperative in the first place).

It's easier for them to misremember what you said (or "misremember" what you said) when you said something then when you said nothing at all. I believe that - on most police forces - even the most problematic officers are worried about telling outright lies that might be shown to be outright lies.

They can always lie about you. Control what you have control over. If you force them to lie, maybe you can force them to lie stupidly, and that may save you some point down the line.

The point is that there is no way that talking will help you. They are trying to make a case against you.

There are many ways talking can help. It can help you avoid the police officer's discretionary punishments. It can help you avoid increased scrutiny that turns up something incriminating. It's less probable that it will help you avoid being punished due to a baldfaced lie on the part of the officer, since presumably the courts are good at filtering those out, but it's not impossible.

Once you require the services of a trial lawyer, the benefits of talking are off the table and the price of silence looks like pocket change. That's why you hear the advice "never talk to the police." Not because it's a good idea in general (try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes), but because it's a very bad idea in certain very specific cases, which happen to be precisely the cases seen by those giving the advice. Your prior probabilities are different, and your behavior should reflect that.

Non-cooperation is just as likely to make a cop lose interest as cooperation. When you cooperate to the degree that you're obligated to, and decline where you're not, that can cause a cop who respects the law and knows that they have no cause to move on, and I've seen it happen often. It can also piss him/her off and make them decide to try to ruin your life. The more you speak to a cop, the more likely you are to say something that you'll regret. The only indication that talking will cause the cop to let you walk away is the gentle look in his eyes.

Thinking that you can control the situation is a mistake. If the result of this police contact results in a criminal charge, you may have saved yourself from the worst possible outcome (at the time) by being silent. You can't make a cop not beat you to death by talking.

Silence is simply a dominant strategy.

> Non-cooperation is just as likely to make a cop lose interest as cooperation.

If they're in a good mood today. Maybe.

> The more you speak to a cop, the more likely you are to say something that you'll regret.

Yes. My point was that staying completely silent makes it more likely you'll piss off the cop. You'll regret that, too.

> Thinking that you can control the situation is a mistake.

Right back at you.

> You can't make a cop not beat you to death by talking.

If you can make a cop beat you to death by (in their eyes) being obstinate, the difference is immaterial.

> Silence is simply a dominant strategy.

I still don't buy it, unless the cop is already antagonized or you suspect that a judge/jury will be involved before this is all over.

I can't recommend enough watching this video. The law professor explains why you should never speak to the police. It's 46 minutes long, but every minute is pure gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE

This. A thousand times this.

I find it ironic that when the cop starts talking he mentions that in the US people should be thankful because they are given a Miranda warning, because, according to him, in other parts of the world like in "Spain and Italy" cops beat up citizens. Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe. More cop BS.

To be fair, as an Italian living in Spain, there have been cases in recent years where "cops beat up citizens" in both countries, mostly occurring during large rallies.

Still, these occurrences are isolated cases, receive large media attention and are definitely not considered "the norm".

Don't take my comment out of context: the video refers to the context of an interrogation, questioning, stop by the police. Not a riot. The policeman follows the presentation by the lawyer regarding the 5th amendment, where it applies, and how it used, where do Miranda warning apply, etc., in line with HN link conversation. This is not a topic of riots - which is quite a different story to the OP.

Oh, it happens. In Germany as well: http://www.dw.de/preventing-police-brutality-in-germany/a-16...

But my impression is that it's rather less common than in the USA and the courts, prosecution and conservative public don't side with the police as much.

Yeah, it definitely can. I've lived in Europe all my life, and traveled over Europe since I was kid, and I've seen mainland European police openly abusing people on the street. I've seen cops randomly firing their firearms in the air as 'crowd control' (the crowd in question was three old women trying to get on a boat, this was in Greece), policing openly punching someone in the face for some remark they didn't like (again, Greece), police demanding a person's passport papers at a port and refusing to return them until UK police got involved (France), and so on.

The only countries where I've never seen any open abuse by police so far have been Britain and Germany, and I haven't spent a lot of time in Germany.

EDIT: Actually, there has recently been a famous case in Britain where a police officer shoved a citizen to the floor and the citizen died of internal injuries [0]. I didn't actually witness the abuse, but it proves that even the UK isn't immune.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Ian_Tomlinson

> Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe.

That sounds like wishful thinking. Where exactly did you check?

The video refers to the context of an interrogation, questioning, stop by the police. There seems to be a constant theme in the US regarding police abuse (and I'm not talking about a scenario of a riot, etc.) during these moments – that is what I refer to when I say "Last time I check such abuse can't be seen anywhere in Europe." Are there going to be cases of such police brutality? Sure. Is it as frequent as the cases in the US, absolutely not. Do take a look at the NPMSRP reports and compare that to any EU country.

This video was what I had in mind when I wrote

> the "never talk to police" strategy ... only starts to probabilistically pay off after you've gotten to the point of requiring complex court proceedings (which you might never have gotten to if you were more cooperative in the first place).

> Once you require the services of a trial lawyer, the benefits of talking are off the table and the price of silence looks like pocket change. That's why you hear the advice "never talk to the police." Not because it's a good idea in general (try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes), but because it's a very bad idea in certain very specific cases, which happen to be precisely the cases seen by those giving the advice. Your prior probabilities are different, and your behavior should reflect that.

This is good stuff - also why privacy is so damn important - those who don't believe in it are simply clueless, or morons, or logically both.

> try it next time you get a traffic ticket and tell me how it goes

It worked quite well, thank you. I did not say a word, gave the cop my license and registration as required by law, signed my ticket, and hired a lawyer to get it thrown out later.

Why hire a lawyer for a traffic ticket? Would that not cost more and kind of be a waste of time for everyone.

While the fine itself was negligible, a moving violation significantly increases insurance premiums. A lawyer who specializes in fighting traffic tickets is far cheaper than overpaying for insurance for the next decade.

Some people have it has a hobby. I know a guy who on principle never pays a parking or traffic ticket without dragging the whole thing through court for as long as he can. For him the time and money involved are immaterial when compared to the principal of the matter.

In Croatia you now get a 50% discount if you pay the ticket on the spot.

On the spot, like cash directly to the cop?

Are you describing a bribe?

No, not a bribe, just the new laws, see http://www.croatiaweek.com/tag/traffic-fine. And it seems to be working quite well for now.

In the US and many other countries you have an adversarial legal system [1]. Cooperating or waiving any rights seldom gives you a tactical advantage. Be polite when stopped but don't be a pushover.

I used to drive for a living and would speed all day. Every day. Not excessively or recklessly, I had over a million miles without any preventable accidents. But still I would always exceed the speed limit on a clear stretch of road by 10-30mph or so. The extra income from this more than offset the occasional legal bill. By a large margin (somewhat ironically my job's 'safety' bonuses usually covered the lawyer fees). I sped, kept my record clean, and never accepted a ticket without legal representation.

I'm not advocating that others do this or that it was smart, I'm just saying that for some people it makes mathematical sense to speed + hire lawyers versus doing the speed limit and/or accepting tickets without challenging them.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_system]

I'm glad it worked, but that isn't proof of much. We already know most cops aren't out to get you, the question is what to do when you face one of the stinkers.

I wish you the best of luck in the future, specifically with regard to the moods of the police officers who will try to speak with you.

I disagree and here is why. Even in a perfect world with perfect integrity of the police, volunteering informtion when you are the subject of an investigation is generally a bad idea.

The problem is this: "investigation" in any discipline means "finding a story that matches what I can show." This means whatever you say that matches the story will be held on to and whatever you say that doesn't match it will be easily forgotten. This is the root of confirmation bias. It's a very dangerous thing in this context.

Yes there are times to talk to the police. Give an alibi along with sources who can confirm it if that is relevant. But say as little as possible. Stick to the minimal details. The less you say, the less they are likely to grab a hold of something you said and hang you with it.

But remember: The job of the police is to arrest someone and tell a good plausible story as to why they are guilty. They are there to gather evidence. The DA is there to convince a jury. Nobody can know what really happened who wasn't there. So don't give them ideas.

A bit more clarification: what's to stop them from LYING that they have Mirandized you?

A jury of your peers...

Who'll be able to tell how? Their word over yours? And if you're black and your "peers" are 80% middle class whites?

And that's the problem. The police officers know they'll probably get away with it. Until there is a fair process things like this will not change. The hard part is figuring out what's a fair process.

Have all policement wear google glasses and having them on during an arrest/interoggation/etc.

If there's no video, the arrest is invalid.

Also heavy personal fines and loss of pension for any misconduct.

This is not my understanding. If you volunteer information not in response to a question, the lack of Miranda is not important. All the more reason to not say anything.

> Anything you say to them while in custody cannot be used unless you have been Mirandized.

Dudes, seriously? You just read a blog post about how thuggish police officers just abuse you however the fuck they want to, with no regard to your rights or due process or anything, and you're citing some obscure, minute details of the laws that were supposed to somehow prevent those very same abuses from happening?

It's like you've just seen fish swimming, but proceed to cite some obscure document that says fish cannot swim.

Adrian Schoolcraft, a good cop. Pay attention to how he was treated.

A summary of Schoolcraft's ordeal can be found in the Wikipedia article about him:[1]

"After voicing his concerns, Schoolcraft was reportedly harassed and reassigned to a desk job. After he left work early one day, a SWAT unit illegally entered his apartment, physically abducted him and forcibly admitted him to a psychiatric facility, where he was held against his will for six days."

But Schoolcraft was expecting them to do something like that, and was able to make a recording of the entire incident.

It seems that the NYC police have adopted the Soviet practice of using the psychiatric system as a weapon against their enemies[2] (which happened both to Schoolcraft and the author of the posted article).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_psychiatry_in_the_Sov...

So The Wire basically had it right, they really do just play a numbers game? Comforting.

Thanks for sharing.

When I read stories like this and the original article, I genuinely wonder how long it will be before the people start to fight back. And I mean literally fight.

I'm not for a second suggesting that any individual should fight or even argue with the police, but I can't imagine how an entire society can tolerate this kind of behavior from the police.

As much as I hate to say it, it really only seems like a (short) matter of time before Americans start violently fighting back against this, as we've seen in the Ukraine, Egypt and now Venezuela (obviously all for different reasons)

We should at least fight back at the voting booths. Pay attention to local politics!

Pointless, politicians have no control over the police. A guy was elected here as a police reformer, his job was to not resign the current police contract and build a new force that was actually accountable to people who live here instead of federal thugs for hire who had been out of control and corrupt for decades.

Instead he was promptly raided by the same corrupt cops he wanted to disband a week into his term. Slammed with elections funding act violations and dozens of other charges. Didn't matter they were bogus charges, he spent his 4 years in office fighting the allegations and in and out of court, and even though fully vindicated when all charges were dropped and proved to be baseless, it was too late because the political image damage was already done, his party benched him and he soon resigned saying what a sham democracy has become, and how police reform is a pipe dream. The guy who replaced him resigned the contract for another 20 years.

Just because it failed once, doesn't mean it's pointless. The more it happens ("Gee, the last 7 mayors elected promising police reform were raided, none of the others were...") the more obvious it gets, and the harder it will be for police officers to look their friends and family in the eye while not standing up to such blatant corruption. That's not to say it's the only thing we should be doing, but it's something we should be doing.

Next time you get jury duty, and a cop takes the stand (or even if not), remember how cops treat the citizens they serve.

How often do you get picked for jury duty? I've never been picked. (And given current trends probably never will be - they seem to have gotten too good at weeding out people who have opinions about anything.)

The people are bloated on Big Macs and television.

This happens every day. The police call is resiting arrest.

Usually the police win due to overwhelming force, but in cases where the force is more equal (e.g. during a large scale protest) people who are arrested by police are sometimes forcibly "rescued" by fellow protesters. There are plenty of youtube videos of this happening.

There have been many cases of standoffs between minority groups and the police. Honestly, to say that even mid-high income/status people will do this on a large scale is laughable.

The chance of being shot dead or seriously injured in a situation like this is very real. I know I'm not willing to take that risk. Are you?

> I was retina scanned and placed in a holding cell with around 10 other criminals. Charges ranged from domestic abuse to armed robbery. One man was on the floor going through drug withdrawals. Everyone scoffed at the idea that I was there because of a traffic violation, and likely assumed I was making that up

"...Running a red light.... and creating a disturbance" is what you should have said. herbig's situation sounds reminiscent of a modern-day Alice's Restaurant Massacree.

This policing technique is also known as "You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."

What was the "disturbance"?

Asserting your rights.

Even if you don't assert your rights, you are subject to a militarized police state's rules:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5928424

Keep your powder dry!

It's just a pop-culture reference to Arlo Guthrie's song. Look it up if you like humorous 12 minute long folk-monologues.

12?

  I've been singing for 20 minutes, I can sing for 20 more.    
  I'm not Proud.
  Or Tired.

Clearly, we all need to walk into our local police station, sing a bar of Alice's Restaurant, and walk out.

..After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put Us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your Wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting myWallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you Want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I Said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?"

Obie said he was making sure, and Obie was, cause he took out the Toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took Out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the Toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie Was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few Nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back To the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, And didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court."

It's a long song, there's a lot before and after this bit.

> retina scanned

He was IRIS scanned. I don't know where this idea that retina scanning is a thing comes from, but there are literally no products that do this. All eye-scanning technology for biometrics are iris recognition systems.

Sorry to hear this happened to you.

Compare NY bike laws to Idaho, where "bike traffic is allowed to treat a Stop sign as a Yield -- and a red light as a stop sign".

http://www.sfbike.org/?idaho

http://legislature.idaho.gov/idstat/Title49/T49CH7SECT49-720...

you might not know this yet.. but most US states that bought into the Federal ID on top of the state ID have some slight traffic law that basically states no ID on traffic stop can and will get you arrested..

I actually see a silver lining in this story. The worst thing an officer of the was able to do was inconvenience you for a day. Compare that to pretty much another other time in recorded history, and indeed still many places today, and you could have been locked up for far longer for pissing off someone in an authority position.

Now obviously this is a ridiculous situation and the officer was on a powertrip, but you did break the law and technically she was within her privileges to bring you down to holding. Still, the fact that you encountered pretty much the worst scenario possible and were only held up for a few hours from start to finish is, to me, a sign that the system is working pretty damn well.

>The worst thing an officer of the was able to do was inconvenience you for a day.

The worst thing that officer could have done to that person for that day, rather. A different officer, different victim, different judge on a different day? Could have been a lot worse. It often takes a couple of days just to see a judge.

>encountered pretty much the worst scenario possible

No.

That was not the worst thing she could have done.

The female officer could easily have beaten or killed this person and would never see justice. Don't even bother trying to convince me otherwise.

> The worst thing an officer of the was able to do was inconvenience you for a day.

Wrong.

Job application. Have you ever been arrested? No job.

Mortgage application. Have you ever been arrested? No mortgage. No house.

Rental application. Have you ever been arrested? No apartment.

These are just a few places you will have the door slammed in your face. Now, the OP was lucky, because the matter was dismissed, the arrest record evaporates. If he was convicted of even the most minor criminal offense because the judge was having a bad day too, his life is now fucked.

Isn't the wording 'convicted of a crime' rather than 'arrested'... you could be arrested, and then let go without being charged or convicted of anything.

It depends. The Global Entry program for instance cares about arrests, not convictions. Work background checks will turn up arrests as well.

How is that legal ? As a European, I am utterly puzzled.

It's usually "convicted of a felony or alcohol related offense". Being arrested usually has no negative impact on your job prospects unless you are also charged and convicted (of a felony).

Arrest records do come up in the system when a background check is run as I can vouch for personally. They also come up (in Colorado) with the initially charged crime whether or not the charge was changed or dismissed. This has never hampered my ability to obtain employment, loan, or a lease.

I have filled out job applications that ask if you have ever been arrested, specifically clarifying "whether or not convicted".

Getting involved with "the system" in any way, even if you're not guilty, appears to be a red flag for some employers.

In New York City, landlords will run background checks that check if you've been arrested or appeared in housing court, but not whether or not you were convicted (or even charged!) in the arrests, and not whether you won or lost the housing court case (or even whether you were the plaintiff or defendant).

It's incredibly pro-landlord, but because there's a shortage of housing supply, they can get away with it.

Only source I can remember for this offhand is behind a paywall, but I used to work in drug policy, so this is something I've witnessed many times: http://bklynr.com/arrested-developments/

It's in everyone's interest for criminals to learn from their mistakes and become functioning members of society. How could they conceivably do so if they're eternally denied education, employment, or even shelter on the basis of their past deeds?

NB, this is argument applies even if you're trying to make the argument to a very pro-law-enforcement person who accepts the premises that only guilty people need to worry about the police and that the laws are perfect so everything that is a crime ought to be one.

I wouldn't want to work for a company that would slam the door in my face because I was arrested for a petty offence like the one mentioned. There are plenty of companies out there that will treat me like a human being.

highly skilled worker problems

That things are worse in other times or places isn't much of a silver lining. More of a description of yet further human on human bullshit.

It's telling that you're comparing America in 2010+ to bad times in the past and developing and undeveloped countries.

Surely America should be compared with Developed (1st world) countries if it's to be considered one...

It's a common police tactic to arrest somebody Friday night on bogus charges so they have to sit in prison all weekend to see a judge on Monday. Cops here would round up anybody unsightly like the homeless, protesters or people they thought would protest before some big weekend or Friday night event, just to keep them off the streets until it was over. They did this until false arrest laws came in where you could sue the police but before that there were dragnets every weekend.

Now cops just hand out tickets for every petty violation they can to the homeless since they know they can't pay, and ticket protesters for jaywalking or some other BS, and when a major media covered event comes through they now have a legit reason to round them all up.

Cops can also detain you longer, like this guy who was kept 24hrs in a psych eval, even though he had already spent hours in jail.

Was there an impound charge for the bike, or other processing fees? If so, that might explain some motivation too.

No impound fees or anything. I didn't pay anything aside from the entire day in jail.

The whole idea that bicyclists somehow are above the law in terms of traffic signals needs to end. We need to start stopping at red lights and stop signs if we're ever to be taken seriously. Time and again I've had conversations with bicyclists friends of mine who are adamant about how helmets are as optional as obeying traffic signals; it's totally hypocritical and asinine. They knowingly break the laws then bitch about the police. These are, by the way, people who are very adamantly against "1 percenters" which, I don't know if you've heard, also knowingly break the law on a federal level all the time and expect to get away with it. The hypocrisy runs deep.

Anytime I get pulled by a cop I just assume they're already pissed off so I act accordingly. I'm not going to obviously break the law and then have the balls to give them a hard time about what they are and aren't allowed to do. I just broke the law by blowing a stop sign. It's just such a mind-numbingly privileged viewpoint to think I can break the law and expect to just get away with it. I'd expect that out of some white collar criminal or something, but not Joe the cyclist.

All because you blew a red light, which by the way is basically instantly a ticket if you're in a car, and couldn't immediately admit wrongdoing and move on. Sorry, if you were a buddy of mine telling me that story, I'd tell you you were a moron for deciding to "educate" the police officer. Smart move bro.

How is this in any way related to the parent comment? He did not contest the traffic offence at any point. He did contest the requirement to carry ID and was then punished for raising his rights.

My point is, why contest anything in that moment? You just broke the law and could've potentially caused serious bodily harm to someone. I feel like there's a small window an officer gives you to get out of the ticket. They walk up. They ask you what you did wrong. You tell them. Everyone moves on. Sometimes they write a ticket or a warning. Parent dude completely and intentionally overcomplicated the situation. Wasting his own time and the time of the officers.

In terms of practicality "shut up and don't ask questions" is certainly going to be minimum hassle. But when the police threatened additional punishments for not having his ID he was perfectly justified in questioning them on the legitimacy of that claim. Acting within your rights shouldn't be punished because it's inconvenient.

I agree, but like some other commenter said about hackers needing a reality check; only the most disconnected of people would attempt to "educate" a police officer about the law. Why would he do that? I'm not justifying the officer's reaction, but, really, what did he think was going to happen? Most officers probably just aren't in the mood to deal with your shit; I'm not saying that's a good thing I'm just saying it's the reality of the situation.

Aside from all that, aren't us hackers trained to never say a damn word to a police officer let alone "educate" them about anything?

The OP did write "stupidly". So you aren't arguing with him.

No. When faced with an officer, you record the interaction, note the badge number, and comply with orders, and the only question you ask an officer is "officer, am I being detained, or am I free to go?"

If the officer is wrong, unless your life is in immediate danger, you comply and you sort it out later. Call your lawyer to complain when you get home.

Well said.

What I hear you saying is that you enjoy the somewhat arbitrary primate street rules that apply to interacting with people who have more power than you, and you'd rather live by those rules than laws.

Those primitive and brutish rules are sometimes easier to understand and follow compared to the complex legal spiderweb we have created.

How about his duties first? I may very well to be mistaken, but to me the story sounded like he was ok with paying a fine and then doing the same again. Alas, for whatever the reason there is indeed hollier-than-thou vibe among cyclists. As other comment mentioned police can hold you if you broke the law and have no id.

> The whole idea that bicyclists somehow are above the law in terms of traffic signals needs to end. We need to start stopping at red lights and stop signs if we're ever to be taken seriously.

I would like this too. I've seen multiple accidents caused by selfish and arrogant bike riders, motorcyclists and pedestrians.

This is in addition to the single persons -- it's always just one in the vehicle -- who drive gigantic SUVs and assume that it's my job to stay out of their way, even when I have the right of way and am trying to do something like drive from point A to point B down the street. Silly me, I should be second-class to them because I didn't buy a giant SUV.

Shamefully public lack of empathy and holier than thou attitude, "bro".

I'm empathetic towards how shitty the process he went through, that sucks. But there's no need to make a bad situation worse which is what he "stupidly" did; so says him.

The post has absolutely nothing to do with cyclists being above the law.

Neither do your personal anecdotes about cyclists. Try not make generalisations about groups of people based on your narrow experience.

Cyclist breaks the law and then feels entitled to talk down the arresting officers? I can't say it's the first time I've heard this story.

Replace the word 'cyclist' with 'driver', 'woman', 'jew' etc. See where I'm going with this? Your anecdotes are not evidence of a larger problem. All that you're doing is exposing your personal bias.

Personally I notice a lot of bad drivers, but I'm not going to then leap to the ridiculous conclusion that drivers think they're above the law. Because there is larger percentage that I don't notice doing the right thing, just like with [insert chosen group here].

We're talking about people with a preference for bicycles not their religion, race or gender. And, yeah, you could replace it with driver, that one at least is valid.

I don't know if you've heard of this rift between cyclists and motorists but it gets pretty heated and intense in urban areas. Typically the people pushing for legislative changes and updates to infrastructure are cyclists. Typically, those cyclists are the militant ones and NOT your "A-to-B style cyclists, just going to and from work with a bike, yeah a bike lane would be nice but whatever"-style cyclists. Many of the militant cyclists hold an attitude similar to parent, which is "yeah I broke the law but fuck the police" which makes it very difficult to enact any change.

I'm talking specifically about the militant cyclists which, like I said, are also the ones attempting to push the cause, enact positive changes, for cyclists.

So.

We can't have MILITANT cyclists(again the ones doing the walking when it comes to updating infrastructure etc.) pervade an attitude that they're above the law because surprise no one will take them seriously and thus no positive changes for cyclists.

>We're talking about people with a preference for bicycles not their religion, race or gender

You're missing the point. I'm talking about your personal experiences not speaking to a larger issue.

You've clearly had negative interactions with cyclists that have helped you arrive at your view, that isn't in dispute here. What I'm trying to say is don't apply your narrow vision on what is a diverse group of people, the majority of whom obey the law and make a positive contribution to society.

Again; Your personal observations do not equate to evidence of a widespread problem, just as my negative interactions with red haired people does equate to evidence of a MILITANT Ginger brigade out to do harm.

In your desire to complain about cyclists (rightly or wrongly) you are blind to the abuse of a citizen that happened here.

You're overlooking the fact that the cyclist in question ran a light and then tried to school a cop. Being arrested under the circumstance is not abuse - on the contrary it's just about standard procedure. Do you really expect you can give a cop lip - while being cited for a traffic violation - and skip away?

When you have an altercation with a cop, give at least the respect you expect to receive.

Do you really expect you can give a cop lip - while being cited for a traffic violation - and skip away?

Yes, because I live in a country where--supposedly, anyways--I am given the right of free expression. Telling a cop anything short of a threat, especially as it concerns the laws and especially especially when it is the cop being wrong about the laws, should be a non-issue.

You're a damned fool if you think that this being "just about standard procedure" is anything other a really bad sign.

There's a time to exercise your right to free expression, and a time to shut up and let a cop do her job. If you're being wrongly or unjustly persecuted, speak up. When you're pulled over after committing a traffic violation, you ought to shut up.

It bears repeating: treat people with the respect you expect to receive. Cops are no exception.

Let's be fair about this. You have a right to mouth off to a police officer as much as the police officer (in this case) had a right to arrest the offender. Neither are necessarily constructive, but simply allow stubborn people to prove some point. Practically speaking, one has to ask if proving that point (whether it's a point about morality or about power) is worth the risk of negative consequences.

You are conflating several things and speaking rhetorically, not logically.

Here's what you want: "Vehicle operator runs a red light and is arrested"

>All because you blew a red light, which by the way is basically instantly a ticket if you're in a car, and couldn't immediately admit wrongdoing and move on. Sorry, if you were a buddy of mine telling me that story, I'd tell you you were a moron for deciding to "educate" the police officer.

So, the "american way" you propose is to BEND OVER and take abuse and injustice from police officers?

You sure are pragmatic -- but I would hate to live in your world.

The abuse and injustice is irrelevant at that point because it hasn't happened. What 'debt' is saying is that it was a stupid reaction to getting stopped for a red light violation, not that the abuse that followed was justified. Those two views are not contradictory.

>What 'debt' is saying is that it was a stupid reaction to getting stopped for a red light violation

Besides getting stopped for a traffic violation he was asked to provide something that was not mandatory by law. Even worse, the policemen cited the law wrongly (and for something quite basic). This is indefensible.

But that's beside the point. I take offense with the notion against his "stupid reaction" in general.

What this talk about "stupid reaction" reveals is a citizenry that is conditioned to receive all kinds of abuse from police officers and to blindly obey orders, to avoid getting on their nerves.

He should be allowed to have any kind of "stupid reaction". He should be allowed to voice his protests and discuss the matter without being hailed to jail. There's nothing "throw him in jail" about "trying to educate a police officer".

In every country with a civilized police force (at least in Western Europe), that is in any country where police is catering to citizens and not barking at peasants, you CAN have all kind of "stupid reactions" when talking to the police and you don't get beaten or thrown in jail for it (at least not as a regular occurence -- it might happen from time to time).

That you can casually get shot for reaching for your mobile phone or tased just because you said something to protest being asked to leave some place, is something that just does not happen.

Even the "hands on the dashboard" and "don't get out of the car when pulled over or you'll might get shot" routines are unheard of.

Perhaps it's time to demand more courtesy from the police, instead of taking for granted having to be all too cautious whenever they appear.

It's very easy to sit at your computer and say these things. But once you've been in solitary for no real reason, for hours and hours, with no knowledge of when you're going to get out, your opinion changes about how you should deal with police. I had the same experience. Give us your ID! I declined reasonably, stating my states law on the matter. They then started harassing me, pushing me around. "You don't have any rights." etc. Taken to county, solitary for 18 hours. I'd like to avoid that in the future.

My bad, there was an explanation of the way the law worked in this case and for some reason I thought it was in our thread (and I was talking under the assumption that you had seen it too).

> He should be allowed to voice his protests and discuss the matter without being hailed to jail

"while according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, you are not legally required to carry ID, they say "Lastly, an officer cannot write you a summons if you do not provide i.d; instead he must arrest you. That means that if you are stopped for a violation such as loitering and do not provide i.d., you will be arrested"

He wasn't arrested as punishment, but as policy (they can't just write you a ticket if there's no way to identify you on a bike). There are cases of polices taking people at their word that they give the correct name, but for obvious reasons that's a courtesy. This re-casts the story from "police spitefully violate the law in response to shit-talking" to "police (spitefully) refuse to extend voluntary courtesy and instead go by the book, in response to shit-talking".

Now obviously the way he was treated _after_ arrest was an abuse of the system, and there are no arguments here about that. But 'debt' is correct in that you shouldn't expect to be rude to someone and then turn around and demand that they violate by-the-book law to do you a favor.

As far as the rest of your comment, I really feel pretty much the exact same way; I just don't think it contradicts the advice given by 'debt'.

I find it sad that the officer could be a "joke around the precinct" - presumably incompetent and apparently eager to abuse their power - and still be an officer.

Police solidarity, and labor unions, for the win!

Yup. Police solidarity over fair treatment and good pay is something I approve of. Police solidarity protecting police misconduct is a threat to the public and should be dealt with accordingly.

What professional or semi-professional group doesn't close ranks? From politicians to doctors to plumbers, I can't think of any group where outing a bad apple is the norm.

This is actually quite amazing insight.

The ironic bit, that each group will tell how other group is bad by doing exactly the same misconduct.

Not all professional groups have ironclad unions and official rules that prohibit their victims from even knowing the result of the investigation. And most of them aren't allowed to shoot innocent people [1] or beat them to death [2] and suffer no consequences. It's one thing if you let the colleague slide on a minor infraction, it's another think when murder becomes minor infraction. That corrupts. One can not see people around you literally getting away with murder and not have consequences for your morality.

[1] http://jonathanturley.org/2014/02/12/eight-police-officers-f...

[2] http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/12/kelly_thomas_f...

In Seattle, 120 strikes and you're out:

http://petapixel.com/2014/02/04/police-officer-threatened-ar...

I know it's just 2 photos, but that body language serves the story well. It's very threatening. I know glasses are needed to look after eyes, but when talking with someone you don't know, take them off. Especially when in a position of authority.

I totally understand an "allegation", not sustained, not counting as a full "strike". Only 21 were sustained, and we don't know the seriousness of those allegations. It still seems late, but I'd like to know more before being confident about that.

In other news reports of official stats (sorry no link), this officer had way more allegations and sustained complaints than his peers.

Never worked in an office before?

You don't see that there's a distinction when the behavior in question involves abuse of a position of power?

No, I don't think it's uncommon that incompetent assholes end up in positions of power and aren't pushed out.

This isn't "a position of power" in an office sense. When a person is in a position of power in an office, those the power is over can quit. Still quite a different thing.

And beside that, it's certainly the case that incompetent assholes should be pushed out in other circumstances. It is simply far less crucial when it's not as likely to end people's lives.

Result of using gender quotas, maybe? Does anyone know to what extent the NYPD relaxes its standards for people who aren't qualified but are "under represented"? If there's a bias in the hiring phase, there's likely to be similar laxity in the firing phase, too.

Could move them to less sensitive positions, even in that case. Although it occurs to me that traffic duty might be such a position.

There should be an app where anyone accused of a crime/citation by a cop, could open the app up and enter the citation and get info/advice.

Initial app response is all automated.

"Consult my Lawyer" it should be called... You could choose to pay a fee to push it to a live legal person and seek a lawyer. Record audio during the encounter and have it attach to the incident.

Even video.

And the entire thing should be protected by law as a right to defend a truthful position.

Sayang, amigo.

Isn't there an ID requirement when driving a vehicle in NY State? It varies by state, and usually if you're not being a dick even if you don't have it, but give enough information to be looked up, it's fine.

I don't know if bicycles are considered vehicles in NYS/NYC. Clearly you can ride a bicycle without ever having a drivers license (as kids can do it), but it may be the case that if you have had one issued, you'd be required to provide it to them.

This is probably a nuanced enough argument that I wouldn't consider having it with a police officer who had just detained me for a real traffic infraction.

In France, when you run a red light on a bicycle, the police will fine you but they can't ask for your driving license because it is not required for cycling. As a delinquent cyclist, I can attest that enforcement is now quite tight and done fairly - and I welcome that !

> Carrying ID may not be required by law, but it will save you a lot of hassle and explaining if you ever do have a run in with the law.

Thanks for pointing this out. I have always been told that this was required in NYC, and I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that it is not[0][1]

[0] http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAW...

[1] http://www.nyclu.org/oped/column-showing-id-nypd-our-times

Sounds like there is one major thing you did NOT learn: STFU!!! Why the heck would you engage in some much conversation with all the other random officers??

It's not like that everywhere. I live in New Zealand, and have chatted with police at length even when they are there to get us to move along (as teenagers skating and bmxing). Yes, there are shameful episodes (Louise Nicholas, accidental shooting on Auckland motorway, Arthur Allan Thomas, et al), however by and large, it seems to mostly be the older generation of police that are/were involved. I have no fear of police here and I don't know anyone that does.

Gahh so sorry, but this is prime tl;dr material

As a rule, don't mouth off to cops

I implore you to read Dale Carnegie's _How to Win.._

Cardinal rule: Don't correct people, it's really not worth the hassle most of the time.

I'm terribly sorry this happened to you. For what it's worth you can sue, and you can get money for your trouble and maybe even cause the police department to change it's policies. I did it back in 2000 with the MPD, it took almost 8 years in the courts but eventually I got justice. If you roll over, the bad cops will just keep doing what they do. You'd be surprised at all the law firms that will take your case for free.

8 years? And what happened to the actual individual police who messed with you?

In my experience there aren't many cases against government entities that attorneys will take on contingency. A friend of mine was held for nearly 2 years without bail because he was deemed a flight risk (the white collar charges he faced were eventually dropped). He spent most of that time experiencing violent and painful vomiting attacks. He was told he had an ulcer and was given ulcer medication that had no effect on the attacks.

Upon his release, he immediately went to an ER where he was told he had developed gallstones and that it had gone on so long that it was affecting his other organs. His pancreas was on the verge of shutting down. He was told that it was good that he came in when he did, as he would have been dead in another month or so. It was eventually revealed that the gallstones diagnosis had been made by the jail doctor approximately 16 months before his release, and that he had recommended a surgery be scheduled. That never happened and he was never told about the diagnosis. At one point during his incarceration, his attorney requested bail based on the jail's inability to properly diagnose/treat the problem. The prosecutor mocked the request in open court, saying he "had stomach pains sometimes too" and the judge denied the renewed bail request because jail staffers insisted that they were doing everything medically reasonable.

I helped him contact probably 50 attorneys. Not a single one would take the case on contingency, mainly because there was no permanent injury or death that had occurred. The government got away with nearly killing my friend while he was being held without bond on charges that were ultimately dismissed.

That is horrible! It sounds like story from Kazachstan or Africa. I hope your friend is better now.

He is, this occurred over 10 years ago.

Or something that would happen in the Czech Republic or Greece

I am not saying it could not happen in EU or post-soviet country, but I find it unlikely. Neglect is criminal offense here, he was diagnosed by doctor so there was paper trail. Also approach to medical care is totally different.

And maximal imprisonment without conviction here is 1 year. Not so popular ex-politician was held for 18 months on corruption charges and it was national scandal.

Sadly, in our "free" country you are held until the charges are resolved if you are denied bail or don't have enough to post it. He told me someone he was there with had been in for over 8 years fighting his case, and he still hadn't gone to trial. The defendant does have to agree to such extensions, but given that essentially every crime on our books carries penalties up to 30 years, it's not hard to see why people postpone them while preparing a defense.

I just looked up criminal law in Czech rep. Maximal length depends on maximal length of sentence:

* normal crime (under 4 years) such as less violent robbery, bar fight... 1 year

* violent crime with death or permanent injury (around 8 years sentence) 2 years

* 4 years in exceptional violent cases (over 15 years or life-time sentence).

There is also condition that trial must start within first 1/3 of time period.

Unfortunately, it wasn't Kazachstan or Africa. It was in the much vaunted Silicon Valley. This occurred in the Santa Clara County jail just across from the San Jose airport.

Nope. In kaz, the police are corrupt, and will shake you down for a bribe, but arresting people is way too much effort. I'm far more scared of US law enforcement than I am Kazakh.

Very likely some sort of bribe could be arranged in most parts of Africa as well.

Coincidentally, I (the author) have had experience bribing police in Kazakhstan: http://www.offsilkroadin.com/2009/11/the-last-hurdle/

Likewise. Bet you didn't have to bribe the Russian secret police in kaz, though! Much tougher crowd. Surprised you got pulled up over an expired visa - have seen people get in and out with no visa, just a wad of cash.

That's awful and shameful that no firm would take the case. I was helped by a reporter friend that published my narrative of what happened to me, which got the word out to a lot more firms. Eventually I was contacted by several, and eventually settled on one that was focused on pursuing cases similar to mine.

I guess my two cents would be to not get down and assume no one will help. I was furious about my experience, it really shocked me on a fundamental "I don't trust the system anymore" level. I was pretty close to just becoming more cynical and just deducing to hate all cops forever. I even had some friends say "well you must have done something" to deserves it. It was a terrible blow to hear that.

But I fortunately was so upset I didn't want to just get angrier, I wanted justice. I wrote my experience down while it was still raw, and shared it with some friends, one of whom was a reporter. I really did this initially for validation, I wanted someone to know what happened to me, to agree with me that what happened to me was an injustice: because up to that point I felt like no one cared. And I wanted to do something. I had to do something. I wasn't going to just accept what had happened to me as inevitable and just part of the system. It was wrong, horribly wrong.

My reporter friend asked if he could publish it, I was frankly surprised he wanted to publish it verbatim but I guess a raw emotional narrative makes better copy than and interview. And from that I started getting emails from law firms.

I know how awful it can be to unjustly treated by the police, how helpless you are, how dehumanized you can be, how violated the experience can be when you did nothing wrong. Don't give in. Youre not alone. You're a survivor. Yes, It can be hard to fight back, but it's worth it. It's a positive experience for me now, because you realize you can help prevent this from happening to someone else. That you can get justice. That you're not crazy, that what happened to you was wrong.

Just know the process is long, and there will be set backs. The system is overloaded with cases, don't expect anyone to hand victory to you quickly or easily. The cops will close ranks, and lie for each other. The courts will let them, just keep at it. Eventually they'll either settle to make you go away to spare them the continuing costs, or you'll get your day in court.

That sucks and is rather unfortunate. However, while according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, you are not legally required to carry ID, they say "Lastly, an officer cannot write you a summons if you do not provide i.d; instead he must arrest you. That means that if you are stopped for a violation such as loitering and do not provide i.d., you will be arrested"[0]

So, there were three outcomes once you ran the light and they had you: 1)they let you go without a summons because you don't have id (in which case getting out of summons would be easy). or 2) they detain you until you are id'd most likely either by a) escorting you to your apartment to get ID or b) arresting you. ( Note, option 3 doesn't exist: taking what ever name you give them for a summons, clearly shouldn't be an option as if you give someone else's name, they are in trouble.)

[0]http://www.nyclu.org/oped/column-showing-id-nypd-our-times

Option 3, from what the other officers told me, is the usual procedure for bike violations.

Similar thing happened to me and I was not willing to fight the Police force. A lawyer after hearing my story approached me and told me "you dont bend before wrong laws or wrong application of the law, you fight them".

> If they want to make your life hell, they can and will.

Not only that, but a great portion of the so-called good cops will look the other way and do nothing about it.

Cop's language was fuzzy but they were right in principle and you were mistaken. You have right to not carry ID. But if you broke law and they can't readily ID you, they have right to hold you till arraignment for belief of citable offense.

There are a sequence of laws resulting in you locked up (not exactly arrest, but held, same difference to you in the moment) if not carrying ID (you did), doing citable offense (you did).

1. If NYC cops suspect you of citable offense, felony or misdemeanor, they have right to stop you and demand you identify yourself:

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAW...

2. Next step is, if you are going to be cited (the cop's discretion, so de-escalate first) then if they can't verify your ID, they can take you in till identified. Also true in many states, here's how Colorado sheriff puts it about cyclists:

"Another warning – When issuing a citation for a violation, if we can’t verify the identification of the cyclist, they WILL be taken to jail pending identification and their bicycles impounded. This isn’t a threat. Its the way we operate."

http://www.bicyclelaw.com/articles/a.cfm/legally-speaking-yo...

TL;DR:

In practice, if you might screw up to level of risking citation, your trade off is carry ID or donate your time:

"It's not against the law, of course, to be out on New York's streets without identification--but the courts can detain people without identification in jail until their arraignment in lieu of issuing them a summons."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/york-city-cop-imprisons-...

So carry your ID or a good book.

This is an outrageous abuse of power by the cops, and shows the damage that one bad cop can do. Imagine if you didn't have any backing or support.

This also suggests the importance of bit ever talking back to police. I know of situations in Chicago where acquaintances were beaten up by police for disrespecting them.

Obligatory DK's Police Truck:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-hKw9TCEmI

Perhaps it would have helped to have a lawyer from work call them. Corruption hates the light of day.

It's also a bad indictment of the system that the 90% of cops that are good don't stop the 10% that are bad. Could it be that every cop has a mistake in their past, and that keeps them from disciplining each other?

Back in 1991, at the age of 16, I was arrested similarly, for skateboarding on a downtown street. I wasn't even damaging property - just skating down the street.

Three cop cars surrounded me. They got out, took my board, broke it, man-handled me, cut up my wrists with handcuffs, threw me in the car, and drove me to the jail. They put me in a gross-ass tiny cell with shit on the walls and vomit on the floor. There I stayed for 24 hours - no where to even sit.

The next day, I sought legal advice - just an ignorant kid, with ignorant parents. I called about 10 different law offices in the city. None would represent me - they all claimed that they represented the police and that it would be a conflict of interest.

Pointless story - but pretty much solidified my suspicion of the police ever since.

> I was held in solitary confinement for 10 hours.

Is this really a problem? Every time I've been arrested (in the UK) and placed in a holding cell, it's been 'solitary confinement' in the sense that the police cells are single-occupancy rooms. This is the case in every police station in the UK, although my understanding (from film and TV, admittedly) is that in the US shared cells are the norm for post-arrest detention.

Also, 'solitary confinement' for only ten hours is not a huge deal. In general population prisons, the solitary blocks are used to punish people for weeks at a time. Any period less that 24 hours is hardly worth mentioning.

Those of you who are still in denial and think that this person did something wrong, should read up about the Amelie leMoulac case. TL;DR: woman on a bike gets run over by a truck. SFPD claims they couldn't find any surveillance video, blames the cyclist and lets the trucker go. A couple of days later, an SFBC (SF bike coalition) person decides to go around and ask the nearby merchants; and finds a shop with surveillance video that shows trucker was at fault.

Note also how the SFPD comes by and harasses the protestors, and puts other bicyclists at risk by blocking the bike lane: http://sf.streetsblog.org/2013/08/21/at-safe-streets-rally-s... http://sf.streetsblog.org/2013/08/23/sfbc-finds-what-sfpd-di...

Learn the lesson: police are never your friend, helping others WILL get you punished eventually - all good deeds are punished in the long run, police can and will do whatever they want to you with no repercussions. Keep your head down and enjoy your free country.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, don't you?

not at all this story is a great example of this, but there are others

Of course there are others. There are also many people having pleasant experiences with cops every day - they don't make it to the top of Hacker News.

Really? Who has pleasant experiences with cops besides other cops? Honest question.

Me. Last night, actually, and it wasn't the first time.

Here's another honest question: do you actually believe that nobody has pleasant experiences with police?

Well, for the most part they're like lawyers: you only need them around for shitty situations, so that's what they're remembered for.

I'm not saying all cops are bad people (though almost all police forces are bad institutions), but why would you just hang out and have a good time with a cop, in his cop role? I'm sure they have friends, but they're not being cops when they're watching the game with their friends.

My comment was more about the fact that police don't walk the beat and help old ladies with their groceries anymore. When cops are around, shit's going down. So even if they are doing their job professionally, it isn't a pleasant experience. And if they're doing their job poorly, it's a nightmare.

>Well, for the most part they're like lawyers: you only need them around for shitty situations, so that's what they're remembered for.

And because of this they get a lot of irrational hate, but it's often still irrational.

>I'm not saying all cops are bad people (though almost all police forces are bad institutions), but why would you just hang out and have a good time with a cop, in his cop role? I'm sure they have friends, but they're not being cops when they're watching the game with their friends.

Is this a question for me, or the general public? If the latter then I'll defer to someone else. If the former, then I'll clarify that I never said that I "hang out" with cops.

>My comment was more about the fact that police don't walk the beat and help old ladies with their groceries anymore. When cops are around, shit's going down. So even if they are doing their job professionally, it isn't a pleasant experience. And if they're doing their job poorly, it's a nightmare.

The cop I had a pleasant experience with was doing his job professionally. You seem to assume that my "pleasant experience with a cop" involved hanging out at a bar together watching the big game, or something like that. I had a pleasant experience with a cop doing his police duties, and it wasn't the first time.

I have. I'll admit this is rare, but one time I paid the city to put up some no parking signs the day I was moving so that the moving truck would be guaranteed to have a place to park. (This is apparently normal in Los Angeles.) When the morning came and one of the spots in front of my building had a car in front of it, I called the police to have it towed. Since the moving truck hadn't arrived, the cop actually went to my neighbor's buildings and checked to see if the owner was home. (He didn't know who it belonged to, so he checked a few different buildings.) He was going to let them move their car instead of having it towed. But as luck would have it, he couldn't find the owner, so he had it towed. I can't believe he went to the trouble, and had it been my car, I would have really appreciated it.

I'm not saying all cops are great, but on occasion some can be nice.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/01/police-officer...

Me, I'm European though.

I have had just about nothing but pleasant experiences with the cops. I was an EMT for three years, and the cops that I worked with on a daily basis were the ones that got me — and others, including druggies that ODed, domestic violence victims, and suicide-attempts home at night.

Of course, the natural extension is to say 'well, who has pleasant experiences with cops besides other cops and EMTs and firefighters'?

Even after I moved out here to SF and into Bayview, I still had good experiences with them, meeting them on walks home and pulling up next to them on my motorcycle.

Yes, there are bad cops, and we see articles like this, but that doesn't mean that all cops are bad, and saying 'all of them are fucking pigs' undermines the entire system, and only makes things worse. The bad cops should be ejected from the system, the good cops should be commended. The system itself isn't broken, and treating it like it is just makes it worse.

I can think of four experiences I've personally had with cops and all four range between pleasant and even better than pleasant.

I've certainly had enough negative interactions to make me very wary, but I also remember some positive ones. Off the top of my head:

* An incident where I was driving and spun across a lane of traffic and off the road in a heavy snowstorm, very fortunately hitting nothing but a reflector post in the process. A highway patrolman stopped, checked to make sure no one was injured, congratulated us on being lucky, and encouraged us to be careful out there.

* An incident where I was being followed around -- no, pursued through -- town by a car I didn't recognize, and I called the dispatcher and eventually drove to the police station.

* A few incidents where I'd pulled off highways to sleep, and officers knocked on the window just to make sure everything was OK. One, when I told him why I was there said "Smartest person I've met tonight" (I suspect any highway patrol officer has seen more drowsy driving accidents than they care to).

* Incidents where I'd been hanging out in my car, using my laptop tethered to a cell phone, in a parking lot or neighborhood long enough to make someone in the neighborhood apparently uncomfortable. In two cases I remember, the officers were gently inquisitive, explained what was going on, ran a check on my plates/ID, and said I wasn't doing anything wrong but might want to consider moving on before too long.

* Incidents where there was nothing particularly positive about the interaction but the officers simply did their jobs and either issued reasonable instructions or a citation.

I've also had a number of incidents where this has gone somewhat less well (attempts to escalate to a search of my car or a DUI investigation, weird and menacing lines of questioning, threats to charge me with illegal camping/vagrancy, occasional browbeatings, on-site detention with no explanation, and at least one encounter where an angry officer was threatening me with extralegal violence), so I understand it doesn't always go like this, so I encourage reforms and increased accountability. But I also think it's fair to remember appreciate the officers who acted reasonably, kindly, and professionally.

I don't really get this. It's nice that many police officers do what they get paid to do, but what about the three bad examples you cite, which were probably abuses of power?

You cited five pleasant events, two where you were suspected of doing something wrong and three which are abuses of power. A considerable amount of your interactions with the police were abusive. So clearly there is a big, systemic problem ehre.

I've been pulled over and harassed by the police for doing absolutely nothing except driving with an out of state license plate. I got no citation and the officer had no reason to pull me over.

I was also pulled over and harassed including being made to take a roadside sobriety test (I was completely 100% sober) for doing absolutely nothing except driving around at 3:30am. I got no citation and the officer had no reason to pull me over.

Both times my first question was "why did you pull me over?" which they made up some crazy story. One was my passenger apparently wasn't wearing her seatbelt (she was - the whole time) and one was I apparently "drifted left slightly while making a lefthand turn." WHAT!?

I've also have good interactions with the police but they aren't really notable. I'm most upset about the roadside sobriety test. The officer then proceeded to litter (illegal) part of the breathalyzer, after I blew a 0.00.

Your name is BlackDeath, but I assume that you're white, for saying this?

Well, look who it is.

Why is my username relevant? Show me where I suggest that no bad cops exist. However, "police are never your friend" is an exaggeration.

Exactly. No good deed goes unpunished.

I posted this in another thread today but it's even more relevant here. We need a way to track when police officers have violent interactions with the public. We should be able to look up any officer and find their history of abuse of authority if it exists to make it easier to identify patterns. We can't trust these people with power if we can't hold them responsible. I would love to help work on this with someone.

Same here. This hits close to home for me--literally, my girlfriend lives right there, she broke her elbow on a bike, and we go to that bar sometimes. We could of very easily been in that same situation. I'm a developer and happy to help.

I'm interested in working on this as well. I've never been a victim of violence by the police, but I've had a couple interactions that I mishandled that didn't go well for me. My contact info is in my profile.

TheFunded for Peace Officers.

much respect if you pull this off, sort of like those mugshot sites that scrape public jail mugshot pics and extort people to remove them from their site-- except for cops and no way to remove the public info. I would donate for features like this.

Cant be wikipedia?

This comes from personal experience in the USA.

Never talk to/Interact with cops unless asked directly.

Never call 911 unless there is a threat to life, risk of serious imminent injury to you or to family. If you have to do it for a bystander, call 911 ANON & LEAVE. The chances of tracking you down if you are truly uninvolved are remote - OTOH if you hang around and expect a pat on the back....

The cops are generally working under totally different incentives than your well-being. A surprisingly large number are also Bullies and Thugs on a power trip.

The best outcome is that you are left alone - the worst is ...well you can imagine many, many horrible things including loss of life.

Why were the cops in charge of this scene at all?

Around here the ranking medical provider would have been in charge, and the cops wouldn't have gotten involved unless they were asked to by EMS.

As a paramedic, I would be seriously pissed if a cop dragged a helpful bystander away from my patient (for all I know they have useful information that I need to know).

This was my first reaction as well. If a call comes in of a bicycling accident, why would the 911 dispatcher send a fire truck and multiple police squads to the scene?

In my city they always send both an ambulance and a fire truck when an ambulance is requested. Perhaps they think that the caller may have forgot something and they could always use the extra help.

And this is why I fucking HATE COPS. I don't care if it's the few, this god damn country-wide gang is a piece of shit and I will do everything I can to avoid them and teach my two children about staying away as well.

Fuck these pigs.

It's really easy to focus on the bad ones, but good cops exist whether you know it or not.

Like I said, don't give two shits. The risk is too high. All pigs are evil to me and I'll keep the hell away from them. If they abused a white woman in her 30's what the hell do you think they'll do to a latino like me? Pfff.

Your mistake is your idea of "they". They aren't all one.

I don't know that I can blame you for taking the "safe" approach and avoiding police, but don't punish them for your irrationally-negative outlook.

I don't find the parent's attitude irrational at all. If police brutality was a rare unicorn-like event, then I could understand your point of view, but it's not. Not even remotely so.

I've been lucky in that my interactions with police have ranged from professionally neutral (mostly traffic cops) to indifferent and bored (cop at a police station clearly not giving two shits that I'd just been mugged). (Of course, me being a white male helps with this "luck".) But the stuff I hear about makes me wonder: if I need the police at any point in time, what are my chances of getting a cop that's helpful vs. one that's on a power trip and wants to fuck with me?

I seriously wonder about that, and I seriously will think twice about calling 911 in an emergency. And that's the problem. It doesn't matter one bit what the percentage is: maybe 0.00001% of cops are bad, and the rest are good. But the perception is that a significant portion of cops are just power-hungry assholes who love being able to strap on a gun and show that they have authority over you. Perception matters more than reality sometimes.

>Perception matters more than reality sometimes.

Hence, the irrationality comment. Somebody who has one pleasant experience with a cop has had a good day. Somebody who has had one friend murdered by a cop probably never trusts any police again.

And I think that's rational. A pleasant experience with a cop should be the absolute norm and should be unremarkable. Having a friend who is murdered by a cop is so far in the negative tally column that I don't think there's any recovering from that.

But treating all police like scumbags because of one bad encounter isn't rational. It's a response born out of fear, and while fear can be useful it isn't always rational.

I hate to be the "Norway" guy again, but here we go: The current situation in the US is a perfect example of one of the bad outcomes when running a police force: Systemic misconduct by police officers undermine the police's trust among the population. This leads to a lack of will from the citizens to cooperate with the police, also in situations where it would be in everyone's interest to cooperate with the police.

In my country, you have to go through a 3-year training program in order to become a police officer, and these principles are underscored time and time again in training. As a result, most people do in fact trust and respect the police. This makes the job of the police much easier, which in turn leads to a safer society. You never hear normal people say "don't talk to the police", which is something that seems really weird when reading about the US. Granted, I've heard it so often that it doesn't surprise me anymore - especially given stories like the ones in this thread.

I think if a type of animal killed people on a regular basis but was fairly useful otherwise, it would be more rational to assume and plan for the animal attacking me and so minimize my encounters with it. To that end, if I'm going to paint that animal species with any wide brush, it's going to be the one that makes me more likely to survive.

Reinforcing stereotypes certainly isn't going to do you any favors if you do have to interact with police in the future.

They aren't actually good ones if they go about business as usual in an organization where there are so many bad ones.

I don't necessarily agree with the idea of standing by when you see what you consider to be evil being done, but I think you fail to take a lot of factors into account here.

Where are the good cops when things like this happen? Why don't they speak out? Why don't they throw their bad-cop colleagues under the bus?

Nope. The supposed good cops are bad too.

I'll respond to this in the same way that I responded to another user posing the same questions.

Who says that they don't speak out about this sort of stuff? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?

What happens to cops who condemn other cops?

They get their concerns treated seriously by responsible professionals who's work tirelessly to keep everything at the department above board. [1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

I'd like to believe you (I really would), but you've made quite the extrapolation here, given one single link to a Wikipedia article about a guy who once succeeded at routing some bad police.

I think that must have been sarcasm; because NYPD treated Schoolcraft badly, and reacted badly to his reports. Also, how many links and sources do you need?

If you are a police officer tasked with enforcing the law, and you see coworkers of yours breaking the law by kidnapping people like the one in the OP, why would you not arrest your coworkers?

What happens to me after I arrest my coworkers?

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2014/feb/11/florida-highway-p...

Unfortunately, there are a lot of police officers who are thugs.

It's frustrating; I personally know a few cops who are decent enough people, but they protect their own. They don't do this because they like protecting shitbags; they do it because if they don't protect everyone, they run the risk of getting their own careers ruined by bullshit accusations. The result, of course, is that the good cops get protected from bullshit, but at the cost of protecting the bad ones as well.

They are completely inflexible about it. Their attitude is, "Well, that's too bad for the poor bastards who get brutalized. I have a wife and kids to feed, and I care far more about their future than the well-being of some random guy."

So, people who violate this sort of immunity get bullied and harassed.

I understand this mindset, although I find it repulsive. I think that the only way to prevent this is to smarten the review process and make it easier to get to the bottom of complaints. This would require constant video recording and a smart Internal Review staff who can differentiate between abuse and the necessary use of force.

If you have a specific point to make regarding your parent commenter's response , then make the point, even better substantiate it with verifiable data, dont ask loaded questions. You keep railing about "several" people here claimed good cops dont exist. Please help me find that "several"

EDIT: Responding to BlackDeath3's comment below

    ----

> I'm sorry, I don't think I'll do that

Because you cant, so stop trolling. If lack of intelligent commentary so annoys you, it is only fair that you hold your comments to an equal standard. Sadly evidence shows otherwise.

Come clean, in some posts you respond with "I exist" when people complain about public invisibility of good cops and in others you insult commenter's for suggesting you are a cop or a law student.

And you have still not addressed this: If you have a specific point to make regarding your parent commenter's response , then make the point, even better substantiate it with verifiable data, dont ask loaded questions.

>Please help me find that "several"

I'm sorry, I don't think I'll do that. If the consequence is that you completely discount what I'm saying and don't believe me, then that's fine. I don't feel like I should have to point others to relevant comments within the same comment page. I may have time to waste here, but I don't have that much.

All we're trying to do here is understand. We hear reports about bad cops doing bad things. I don't hear reports about good cops condemning those bad cops. I do hear reports about the rest of the cops quietly rallying around those bad cops, closing ranks, and hiding and protecting them. At absolute best, I hear about press conferences where the police commissioner will say the absolute minimum to cover his/her ass while providing no real belief that bad cops are actually accountable for anything.

If you're going to say that good cops do condemn bad cops, show us examples of this happening. I would love to see them, but I haven't heard of even one. If you're not willing to do the work to come up with these cases, then I'm just not going to believe you. Not saying you have an obligation to prove your case to anyone, but from the volume of comments from you in this post, it seems like you really do care about this issue.

Would you eat apples from a bag if there was a chance that 50% of them were poisonous? 25%? 10%? 1%?

You're reading too much into what I'm saying.

There are other bags of food. There aren't other police forces. If the only food you had for the next, say, term of office was that bag of apples, you'd be tucking into it in short order rather than starve.

And to be a pedant, green/unripe apples are poisonous. They make you feel unwell; they just don't maim or kill you. Plenty of people would tuck into a bag of apples where some of them were still not yet ripe.

> There aren't other police forces.

That's the problem, combined with the fact that police forces are funded by force rather than by providing a service that people are willing to pay for.

Noting your criticism of another comment on this story let me tell you this comment of yours comes across as equally if not more vapid. No one, I think, doubts that there exist good cops. But thats almost irrelevant because its the bad ones that one has to watch out for. You have not claimed so,its not a response to you, but I also dont think "only a few bad apples here and there" holds as well as one would like either.

Well comments like "the only good cop is a dead cop" come across as blisteringly stupid. I'm primarily responding to those sorts of comments because it seems as though some people really do think that no good cops exist.

I'm not speaking to the rational here.

No one said the thing you're claiming people say...

When the entire basis of your point is a clear strawman, and your argument is literally "cops aren't bad, because there are a non-zero number of good cops, is, as the above poster said, vapid and lacking in rational thought. The idea that you need to make up an opponent to make up an argument and call it "blisteringly stupid" to make your point, seems pretty silly.

Well, who has constructed the straw man now?

My argument is "good cops exist". This is in response to somebody in this comment section who quite literally (yes, the real literally) said "the only good cop is a dead cop".

What exactly am I making up here?

"And this is why I fucking HATE COPS. I don't care if it's the few, this god damn country-wide gang is a piece of shit and I will do everything I can to avoid them and teach my two children about staying away as well. Fuck these pigs."

This is what you were responding to. This person never said the main thing that seems to have incited your tantrum. At this point you're either trolling or stupid, so there isn't much of a point in us continuing here. Cheers.

When I say "responding to" I didn't necessarily mean the post directly above me. A minimal amount of effort put into looking at the rest of the comment page would have remedied your apparent confusion.

Please, do stop responding to me. I have enough to fill my time without trying to explain (what I thought was) the obvious to you.

You seem to be having some trouble with basic logic, which may be the cause of your current "I'm leaving this community because they think my tantrum isn't a valid opinion!". If you say "I'm responding to someone who said [thing x]" and you're not responding to someone who said that, it is really me who is to blame for trusting what you said? But yeah, as I said in the other post, I doubt I'll get anywhere disagreeing with someone who has a complete inability to admit theyre wrong. Hope you find some good buddies over at 4chan.

If good cops don't publicly condemn this type of behavior then they are by definition not a good cop.

Who says that they don't? How many good cops do condemn this behavior? How many of them do you not hear about? What happens to cops who condemn other cops?

As typical of somebody posting a throwaway comment to an online forum, I'm not sure that you've taken everything into account when you make such a broad statement.

I've quite thoroughly considered it. The police are a civil service given power and authority by the public. That power is turned around to abuse the public. Now, to whom does a private condemnation best serve? Hint: It's not the abused or oppressed.

Condemnation that you aren't aware of != private condemnation. It seems pretty damn arrogant to imply that something doesn't exist because you aren't aware of it.

Every good cop who is managing to effectively stop a bad cop, means yet another bad cop.

That is, we're hearing about bad cops who aren't being stopped by good ones. A lot. "Well, the good ones are out there!"; they're either ineffective, or effective, in which case the number of bad cops is even higher than we hear about. Neither of those is particularly placating.

You aren't aware of it, so it isn't so? Really? Next, you'll tell me that Fox News really is "fair and balanced".

Good police exist, and will continue to exist, despite civilian hostility and shifting definitions of what it means to be a "good cop". I'll never claim that no police are bad, or that there aren't many bad police, but I know that I'll never envy the good ones as long as the people filling this comment page comprise the majority of our population.

Did you even read my post?

I'm saying, we hear about X bad cops.

There may indeed by Y good cops. I am not making any claim about the existence or non-existence of Y good cops (in fact, I've interacted with good cops, so if I was to make any claim at all, it's simply that they exist, and the effects they have on bad cops are unknown).

These Y good cops are either doing nothing to stop bad cops (and thus are ineffective at stopping bad cops; this may be simply because they are in different departments, and/or unaware of it if it's happening within the same one, and/or they may be powerless to stop it, etc etc), or they are effective at stopping Z bad cops (for a total number of X + Z bad cops, since X are still not being stopped).

Either of these situations is terrible, because either the good cops are not stopping bad cops from being bad, or they are, but there are enough bad cops that the good cops are unable to stop them all (and thus the numbers of bad cops are even higher than we hear about).

I'm not sure how else I can put that for you.

Well, please do try to put it another way, because it sounds to me like you aren't satisfied with the good cops simply because bad cops still exist. I'm not really sure what your point is.

I agree that our current situation is sub-optimal. I don't remember ever arguing otherwise.

...good cops exist whether you know it or not.

So they're like leprechauns?

I exist whether you know it or not. I'm not a leprechaun.

What is your point?

Three parties: you, good cops, leprechauns.

Of the three, with whom have I ever had a conversation? (Hint: this is a singular answer!)

Can I ask a question that would help me narrow it down?

Are you mentally-ill?

If I answer, will you explain why you've commented 25 times on this thread?

Because I had twenty-five responses to give, and many of the posts I've responded to were directed (if only implicitly) at me. It would be rude of me to ignore such intelligent discussion.

Quid pro quo.

A: I'm not mentally ill.

Since I've submitted to your analysis, a turn about is fair play. I think you are a cop. You'd like to think you are good, which is understandable, because most people would like to think that. You realize that you are judged, often unfairly, by various parties. You find yourself valuing the judgment of fellow officers most, but occasionally you are surprised and disappointed by the opinion of the general public. They just don't understand your situation, they don't appreciate your efforts, and besides they don't know how the system works. Still, it hurts.

At the same time, you are genuinely uncomfortable about some of the things you have done and seen being done. You don't blame the police; it's the fucked-up system and the dirtbags they have to deal with. So far you've toed the line, although you imagine there are some things that would cause you to break ranks. Every year, though, those things recede. Sometimes you wonder what you'll find yourself stomaching a decade from now. Maybe you'll switch to just working security. Got to get that pension first, though.

Forget it, you're probably a law student or something. Still, that was fun.

I argue for the existence of good police, therefore I'm a cop and a law student?

Unfortunately for yourself, your off-the-cuff analysis is quite far off the mark. I do appreciate your trying though, as I've never had the pleasure of having somebody so publicly try to profile me. It was fun!

So we've established that leprechauns exist, but that still doesn't address the issue of good cops.

No one is denying that good cops do exist.

The problem is that (especially for minorities in large cities) calling for the police is a gamble.

That many white, suburban kids are taught from a young age that "all police are your friends, you can always go to them if you need help" and that many minorities in cities are taught from a young age "cops are people near complete immunity, great authority and guns; they are to be feared; you would do best to avoid them at all costs and if you must interact with them, be as non-confrontational as possible and if you are arrested say nothing until you have a lawyer".

From the article ...

> I was standing 15 feet from the scene beside Officer Kaur, a stocky female of South Asian complexion. She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. I told her we were headed home, just across the way, when my friend and I encountered the accident; and that I’d recently broken my elbow in a similar bike accident here and deeply cared about the outcome.

The cop told the author to leave, the author indicated otherwise.

I guess the author got the "police are your friends" story growing up, not the "avoid at all costs and be non-confrontational if you cannot" story.

Every time the author got confrontational, the situation worsened. Want a doctor? Solitary.

From here, the next thing is "but what about the author's rights? even if the cops don't like you, you still have rights!". Sure, and exercising your rights is inconvenient, at times requiring things like going to jail until things are sorted out.

For a cop arresting you, it's just another day at work. For you, it's missing work unexpectedly, maybe some legal bills, worrying who is watching your kid in a few hours, etc. Your life goes upside for a bit even if charges are ultimately dropped or if the first time in front of a judge your lawyer convinces the judge to throw out the case. You have everything to lose and they/the system/etc. have nothing to lose (except for once in a while when it gets really bad and there's a huge lawsuit, like this recent local story[0], unless you've got some clout, in which case the mayor will call to see how you're doing[1]).

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/nyregion/man-51-dies-in-th...

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/nyregion/de-blasio-defends...

>No one is denying that good cops do exist.

If you'll look closely through this comment section, several people have suggested that good cops don't exist. I'm speaking to them.

I do not deny that calling police can be a big gamble.

My apologies, I think we're on the same page then.

They're being hyperbolic, there's no point arguing when someone says there are 'no' good cops.

It just sidetracks the conversation.

A bunch of people slinging hyperbole around sidetracks the conversation more than anything else.

I would agree with that. The problem I have is that I fear that hyperbole promotes an attitude that causes people to act as though the extreme exists. I hope you understand my meaning.

Go to any online cop forum. You will find zero "good cops" - only cops making excuses for other cops.

This is why cops involved in vases like these need to be made internet famous, including high resolution photos so that face recognition software can be used to spot them at a distance.

This kind of crap is why I left law enforcement after 14 years in it. I was a jailer for a while, and ended up hating myself for witnessing but not being able to stop things like the article author went through. I went from jailer to dispatcher, then terminal operator. Even there, detached as I was from the violence and corruption, I still knew I was supporting it as well. I'm finally out of that career, working as the sole IT staff for a private company.

While I know that there are a lot more good cops than bad cops, there are also, among the good cops, way too many bullies who seemingly don't even realize what they are doing. They are generally good, family oriented, helpful people, but they are trained in the POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) classes to never, ever trust the citizen. That mistrust bleeds over into their personality and they sometimes don't even realize they have become jerks and bullies. I'm not defending them; it's just been my observation that while the job does attract a certain bad element (low to average intelligence combined with laziness and a lust for authority), it also attracts those who want to do good but end up warped into becoming oppressors despite their good intentions.

And there are a few truly good cops who would prevent something like what we read escalating like it did. They do exist, but they generally don't last very long in that line of work, because they can't take the constant pressure to be part of the team and cover up the bullshit.

This is exactly why it wont get fixed until the structural incentives of the system is fixed, which is a top level policy issue. A very very difficult political issue.

> but they are trained (...) to never, ever trust the citizen

Same for me: I never, ever trust the cops. I teach my kids the same (as I was taught by my lawyer mother).

You need to watch this: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

Once you're in custody you're in a system built to treat psychopaths and killers. The system isn't built to recognize your unique and brilliant capabilities. It's there to treat the lowest common denominator.

Reduce your surface area. Recognize that you are dealing with a system built to function by 1700s timescales.

This guy admits he screamed over and over that he wanted to see a doctor. He not only made himself a problem to be dealt with, he acted in such a way that they could defensibly put him in the psych ward. "he was screaming the same phrase over and over."

Reduce your surface area and remember the system is built to deliver eventual justice as often as possible, not immediate justice in your case.

I feel very sorry for the OP. Unfortunately, this is what happens when you're not a customer of the organization that protects you. Police officers will not be paid less if they mistreat the people they're supposed to protect. To get them to justice, as was mentioned in another comment, would cost tons of money and time and there's no guarantee of any kind of result. They know it.

The only places where police is actually humane and does mostly good are Scandinavian countries. My explanation of that phenomenon is that those countries are small (both in territory and number of citizens) and are, indeed, operate like small companies. Thus it's relatively easy to keep them accountable. Of course, many other small countries have very corrupt police, so this can only account for a part of the explanation.

My opinion is that where there is no market mechanism to effectively communicate customer satisfaction, you will see abuse. People see it again and again, yet they keep paying taxes to sponsor this shit, because they are being told there will be anarchy or the poor wouldn't have the money to hire a private police protection. I wonder if the poor would actually be better off without police "protection" at all. After all, they are mostly after people who conduct victimless crimes and are never there when a woman is getting raped or someone's being mugged. That's not protection, that's extortion.

> My opinion is that where there is no market mechanism to effectively communicate customer satisfaction, you will see abuse.

That's a great criticism of government in general.

> Scandinavian countries. My explanation of that phenomenon is that those countries are small (both in territory and number of citizens)

Add to that:

- Socialist governments that redistribute wealth so there isn't as much of a socioeconomic class gap (specifically mentioned by the cops in this article as an explanation for their harassment)

- Racially and culturally homogenous (especially compared to USA)

I'm not saying these traits' effects are solely positive, or that those countries are inherently better for these reasons, or that these are directions the USA ought to go. I'm merely pointing out that it seems many of the US's problems are due to class/racial tensions that don't exist in other countries with different histories.

> only places where police is actually humane and does mostly good are Scandinavian countries

Research does not seem to bear this out. See eg this Gallup study:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/102346/many-world-citizens-trust-...

Of the top 10 "public trusts the police", only 1 or 2 are Scandinavian countries (definitions vary whether Finland is part of Scandinavia).

Afaik, Swedish police don't take bribes and generally don't commit criminal acts. At least not if compared with most other countries.

The main problem with Sweden is that the police is trusted to drink coffee instead of working. :-)

(That was a simplification, the Swedish police seems to mainly have organisational issues. The Finnish police is one of the most trusted societal functions there. I have never understood why a Swedish government won't head hunt top level Finnish police and fire the locals... Just the threat ought to be enough.)

The point is that people have relatively good relationship with police in many countries -- as nice as Sweden is, it doesn't appear in the top 10. The very good standard of Scandinavia is common.

I would press charges. I have seen multiple times police being shady, including one time when I was pulled over and told I could either pay the officer $40, or go into the court house for an $80 ticket. Supposedly I was speeding the road back, but I didn't even drive on the road they were talking about...

Another time I turned in $2,000 I found in an envelope and asked when I could pick it up if no one claimed it. Called back a couple weeks later and they had no record of it.

Point being, police officers (in my opinion) are no better than anyone else, they could be good or bad, but you need to help keep them in check.

You didn't get a receipt did you? Any time cops take anything get a receipt...

I wrote a report, figured that was enough... oops.

If you'd gotten a copy of the report, with the receiving officer's signature that would have been a good start.

I know this is probably going to get buried, but I believe that this is part of a larger scam. I believe that the Police receive kick backs from the bail bonds men, in the form of institutional charitable contributions at the very least, if not outright cash kick backs. With this in mind, the police are inclined to make what they call 'Money Arrests', which are essentially an arrest to scare people into getting bailed out, since that the money paid to bail bonds men is non refundable even if the charges are dismissed. I have no evidence of this money trail. But based upon my personal experience, and the language that I've heard used during an arrest, such as the 'Oh you must be one of those tech billionaires', I believe that this is the case.

Interesting. I commented earlier in the thread that they maybe the police were hinting they wanted a bribe -- this would have a similar outcome but maybe more legal / less traceable.

I had a similar initial situation -- I was in North Oakland, in the Rockridge area, when I observed a traffic accident. I safely parked, exited my vehicle and rendered aid to the two injured individuals involved in the accident.

Police and Fire were called. I hung around for more than an forty-five minutes. Oakland PD was nothing but kind and understanding. They did not ask me to leave. They took my story, and the story of other witnesses. They made sure everyone was okay. They helped direct traffic. They were fine officers.

Is Oakland PD better than San Francisco PD? I've considered moving from Oakland to SF -- but if the police department is so terrible that most people recommend never calling the police, then I might want to stay away for that reason alone.

I was going to post it here. I wrote it. But you beat me!

So can I ask why you chose Medium?

Trying out a new platform. I had some support from the editors. It looks nice. I wanted to get it off my chest and it was a path of least resistance. Some other outlets wanted me to do much more rewriting.

I sincerely hope you sue and get paid an exorbitant amount of money for your trouble. You were kidnapped and held without charge, abused and lord knows what else.

Assuming the truth of this story, I agree. Best of luck to you, drpp!

I've had friends who got into this sort of situation. Being dragged into the criminal justice system is a real eye-opener.

Without downplaying the distress one might feel in this situation, it's worth pointing out that here in the US, assuming you have resources (meaning, money and/or friends/relatives who will advocate for you), you almost always can get out of the clutches of this Kafka-esque nightmare within at most 72 hours.

If you lack those resources, your life can become fucked pretty hard pretty fast. And it goes without saying that there are countries where instead of 3 days, you can spend weeks, months, or years in the grip of a system every bit as evil and frightening as a cheap horror flick.

In fact, we (US govt) have some people like that languishing down in Cuba right now.

In Japan, I believe the police can hold you for up to three weeks without charge. AMA from someone who was held in Japan - http://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/1t09ud/did_time_in_a_...

Previous discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7231012

http://photographyisnotacrime.com/

Always film your interactions with the police, because they WILL lie to make themselves the hero and you the villain.

Also, know your rights, exercise them. Especially your 5th amendment.

Did anybody read the links about the guy that is suing the same cops? http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/index.html?id=2989730 Poor guy got really messed up, has huge medical bills, and obviously filed the lawsuit himself because he has no money and can't spell. Feel way worse for that guy than the OP. If something positive can come out of this story, maybe that guy can find some help from people here.

Being named 'James Holmes' must be really annoying! ( google search for it... go ahead )

>"I painstakingly retrieved all possible documentation, including: the police report, transcript of radio chatter, audio of my 911 call, security footage from Radius restaurant"

So post it! The only thing he linked to is the audio of the 911 call. Why not post the other evidence. I have a feeling there is more to the story. While I am sure there are many cops on "power trips" most cops I have meet (including the ones that arrested me) have been pretty decent people.

I'm in the completely opposite.

Here the police is afraid of taking action, they won't chase a robber for fear of being injured or crash the car (yes, they pay for the police car repair). They are totally useless and some of them are even illiterate.

Those are the "good" cops, we also have cops involved with the mafia, this guys are a worse problem than criminals, believe me.

So, honestly, I'd rather live in the US. Just follow cop's orders and you'll be fine, at least they won't break into your house to steal your TV.

Just follow cop's orders and you'll be fine,

Ahahahahahhahhaha no try again.

Where in Argentina is this so I never go there on vacation?

The real problem with all these stories is that it's as if the police are above the law and not held accountable for abusing it. They should all be thrown in jail and have their badges removed. Nothing sickens me more than people who abuse their authority over innocent people (eg. child molesters. yes, I compared corrupt policemen to child molesters)

Generally I disagree that litigation is ever the answer. But in this case OP should take their jobs because they don't deserve to wear the badge.

I admit that I dislike cops and that I've never had a positive interaction with one. But there are some cops who legitimately want to do a good job and make their city safer. And these guys are shitting all over that.

What kind of idealistic fantasyland do you live in where litigation is never the answer?

The world where litigation versus police fails 99%+ of the time...?

It's weird that government tends to side with government.

If you don't have money to burn for a lawyer, litigation is basically a fantasyland.

Generally => Normally in most situations. With exceptions.

It does not mean never or always.

“I mean, there are a lot of young cops on the street, trying to make a name for themselves.” - oh, so it's OK then. Absolutely disgusted by this story, particularly after reading another story about a different fucked up justice system in America (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7229930).

I did and somewhat still want to live in America for a year+, but seeing this shit daily puts me right off. So glad to be European right now.

Europe has similar stories of being horrible in spots too, look at french jails for example: http://www.newsweek.com/french-prisons-are-becoming-embarras...

Thanks for the link, really interesting/enlightening read. I would hope, at least, that Europe's police officers are on the whole less pointlessly violent (though, as Peretz points out the majority of SF police probably don't act as such).

I've heard of similar bad behavior from spanish and french police forces in general. I wouldn't be surprised you see it in almost all of the southern european countries. When you start getting into germanic/english/scandinavian countries you start hearing the opposite, but even then you hear of controversial behavior during big political protests in england & canada. I'm not going into the eastern european countries since they are still developing nations for the most part.

Japan for another example has scary high conviction rates, even though it's a very safe country where police will probably never harass you. Once a prosecutor there goes ahead with a trial, your pretty much guaranteed to be going to jail.

I'm not trying to be morally relativistic here and saying your screwed everywhere, but law enforcement systems show this systemic flaw in their organizations in general. How much they control the bad behaviors is up to the culture and design of the incentives. The better designed ones will have a much better probability of not screwing you over. But most people, including unexposed Americans, don't realize the unjust nastiness of law enforcement gone bad and think police are a good thing in developed nations, just like you do in europe.

I think you have a well thought-out comment in general, but, like in many many cases on many topics, you have overlooked how much of an outlier the US is.

Look at the US prison population. What kind of policing and prosecutors and courts are needed to feed a system like that?

As Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

Try refusing or questioning the polizei in any regard sometime, see if they don't bloody your mouth just for opening it.

Get a lawyer and sue. Make those fuckers pay, and make sure the fucks who arrested you are fired. But she for sure!

We all know what would happen. The government would side with the government.

You have to at east try. Most good lawyers will take this case on a contingency. Otherwise these cops will just get away with it yet again. Also, I wish this case would be picked up by the news. If anyone knows a reporter, send this to them. This needs to be public.

If you have the funds and time to try, by all means try. Most people don't.

Make the People's Republic of San Fransisco pay? They need the funds to run Paradise.

If there is a video of Officer Kaur stomping on his fingers, she might have to take some time off. In no case would I expect her to be fired.

> Make those fuckers pay

> make sure the fucks who arrested you are fired

Defense attorney and former prosecutor Ken White, of the law blog Popehat, says of a case of much more serious police abuse which resulted in a $1.6 million settlement:

"you can assume that...taxpayers, not the law enforcement officers who engaged in a conspiracy to commit torture and rape, will foot the bill...The only thing out of it that would surprise me is if any of the individual police officers or sheriff's deputies faced any genuine significant consequences arising from it."

[1] http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/16/update-the-quantum-of-reco...

How does this happen? I'd love to know the motivations and perspectives of people involved. Did they make a mistake? Were they confused? If so, what was their line of thought? Did they try to intentionally cause harm to innocent people? If so, what was the reason.

Also, is this a rare unusual occurrence, or does this happen 75%+ of the time you call 911?

It just seems like a situation that should not have happened the way it was described (which may or may not be accurate).

The police overreacted. And it sounds like one cop in particular overreacted and then triggered a cascade of nonsense.

This kind of thing is not rare, but it's not common, either. It happens nightly, but it's unlikely to happen to you.

A good rule of thumb is to not be anywhere near a scene that has an inbound emergency response. There will be police, and if they have nothing else to do, they might harass you for fake reasons.

But it all depends on where you are going. In most places, this is not a common problem. In certain areas of larger cities, the police can be a bit over zealous.

Thanks, that's helpful.

I worked my way through school as a police dispatcher. I remember the officers had a saying about otherwise innocent people who they took to jail after they gave the officers a hard time: "You may beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride."

If a cop asks you what you do and you say 'I work at an early stage startup' instead of 'I'm a computer programmer', you have lost all perspective.

My girlfriend lives right there. We go to that bar sometimes. She recently broke her elbow on a bike accident. We would of called 911 in the same situation. This could of easily been me and her. Wow. What can I do!?

You call the cops/ambulance. This one experience, even if 100% true, is not necessarily indicative of the entire system.

Why should the opposite be any truer? Without any evidence to prove otherwise, calling the cops is equally wrong.

...Right

> I begged them to watch out for my recently broken right elbow.

They don't give a shit about your elbow nor should they. Everyone who gets put in cuffs complains about some current or former injury.

I'm not sure I buy every second of your recount. but there is a big difference between a good samaritan and a do-gooder. If the cops tell you it is time to leave the scene, it's 1 AM on a city street, you've been drinking, then it's time to leave.

Yes cops are generally assholes. The nice guys don't last out there.

> They don't give a shit about your elbow nor should they.

What? Just because you are being arrested doesn't mean that they can treat you like that.

They have guns. They have the power to end your existence. So yes, they CAN treat people like this. We gave them that power when they were hired and our tax dollars started paying their salary.

Its almost as though the citizens can remove that power if its abused...

Is your point that because citizens gave police power at some point that they can't possibly object to them abusing it...?

Well, it's not very rational to tell your objections to the same people that you want to take power away.

Yes, the police must treat every innocent person with respect and even reserve some dose of respect to criminals. Yes, it's our duty to try to fix the situation when that do not help. But no, it's not advisable to try to fix that in the exact instant the problem is happening.

Arbitrarily injuring citizens isn't a power we bestowed on them, nor is arbitrarily murdering citizens.

What the hell are you saying?

I'm saying that the gun is what gives them power. They shouldn't abuse their power, but it's hard to argue with someone that will end your life if they decide to.

The cemetery is full of brave people. I'd much prefer to live, even if that means taking a little abuse for a few moments.

nice try officer

I've started off in worse situations than the OP.

Apologize but not profusely. Then, shut up. Acknowledge the officer's authority, show some respect, and do as your told. Do it whether they deserve it or not. It's about making it home safely, not about being right.

If you want to be an activist or some kind of martyr for all those abused by cops then do so. Afterwards file a lawsuit for unlawful detainment, excessive force or whatever.

I prefer to stay out of it.

"They don't give a shit about your elbow nor should they. Everyone who gets put in cuffs complains about some current or former injury."

Of course they should give some shit about person arrested, especially if that person is not danger for them in any way. I would expect cops to use only necessary force.

And if everyone complains about current or former injury, then those handcuffs are either too tight or cops to brutal. Especially if those handcuffed people, again, represent zero threat.

> The nice guys don't last out there

Because San Francisco is a war zone? Give me a break.

No, because being a cop is a shit job and it wears on those who take it on. So, the nice guy eventually becomes a prick.

Last I checked, people aren't forced to be cops.

Didn't you heard? There are drugs out there left un-fought.

What is especially infuriating about “Ah, you’re one of those billionaire wannabees in this neighborhood.” is the fact that SF police have very high salaries, possibly higher than the poster:

"Due to the high cost of living in the Bay Area, SFPD officers starting salary is the highest in the country at $88,842 to $114,164."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Departmen...)

This happened to me last January in Seal Beach, CA. Only I was not courageous enough to step forward and be heard - there is a certain shame in being put in jail, even if you didn't do anything wrong. The shame is really on the officers, and the system the enables them to abuse the citizens who might even be operating under the delusion that the police are there to protect and serve, rather than bully, escalate, and abuse.

And I hear the defensive tone in her voice. She feels, as I do, that many people in the public won't believe, or if they do believe, that they will rationalize the police behavior. Or even if they don't rationalize, they will keep quiet, feeling powerless and not strong enough to make a difference. But, what Peretz has shown me personally, is that there is a certain strength in numbers, and sharing your experience so that other people don't feel like they're the only one who got treated that way, that they are not the only one who got brutalized by American city police - and then were left with absolutely no options to keep them accountable.

The system is fucked and it needs to change. Police should be required to record all audio and video of their actions, and provide this footage to anyone they interact with, on request. And if that device doesn't work, they should be severely reprimanded. (Officer Sasenbach of the SBPD, the one who threw me in jail without arrest and without reason, had a recording device which "failed" the night of our interaction.)

Much of my experience was eerily familiar - the suddenness of the violence on the street, when Sasenbach decided I was trouble. The taunts from the jail keepers. The taking of clothing (jacket and shoes), and kept in a cell too cold to sleep in for 12 hours. Asking for a phone call, and being ignored. Asking if I was arrested, and being ignored. Asking what right they have to keep me, and having them smirk and say, "because I'm on this side, and you're on that side".

When I filed a complaint, the sargeant assigned to the case was sullen, bored. Sasenbach's personal recorder was broken; the video feed in the cell i was kept in was broken. I could file another complaint if I wanted.

I remember feeling so out-of-body, like the system I'd grown up to believe in, the system that was supposed to represent "the good guys" was completely upended. These were brutal, horrible people drunk on their power over me, and delighted to cause as much harm as they could get away with, for no other reason that they could. It was an important moment in my life, when my illusion about the state, the police, and the bare issue of who we trust with a monopoly of violence became starkly defined: none of us are safe. The police can invade our lives at will, and do what they want to us, and we are helpless to defend ourselves. The only thing preventing general rebellion is statistical: the number of people who "win" the shit lottery that is interacting with the cops is very low, and it's hard to convince others that they are indeed at risk of suffering the same treatment. Who knows, perhaps things will change.

Interesting that even after reading all or most of the account you still refer to the victim as "she". For awhile, I also thought the victim as a "she" and I'm wondering if that clouded the account at all or there was any purpose to including the top picture.

I suppose i was reacting to the picture associated with the essay.

Welcome to the everyday life of a black man in America. Events like and far worse this occur approx. three to four times a minute. Check out http://newjimcrow.com/ by Michelle Alexander.

Don't engage police in any circumstance except when your life is absolutely in danger. It's simply not worth the risk.

In contrast to this example of abuse of power I'd like to link to an article in a Swedish tabloid which was published today:

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/jan-fick-se-polisens-spaning...

In short it tells the story of s man suddenly receiving police-related messages in a chat program which clearly were not intended for him. As it turned out, a police office had mistakenly added his phone number to the distribution list.

This is how the police officer reacted when confronted with this mistake: '– Oj, oj, oj...vad ska jag säga. Det är naturligtvis djupt olyckligt att de här uppgifterna kommit ut den här vägen. Jag beklagar det verkligen. Det var jag som skrev ett felaktigt mobilnummer och får ta på mig ansvaret för det (...).'

Translated to English: '- Oh, oh, oh... what shall I say. It is of course very unfortunate that these data became public this way. I'm truly sorry. It was me who entered a wrong telephone number and I'll have to take responsibility for this'

While it is in my opinion less than commendable for the police to use this specific chat program (which is known to be as leaky as a rusty bucket) and rather careless to enter a phone number without checking whether the messages actually reach the intended recipient, this police officer does not try to hide his involvement. He takes responsibility for his fault.

Just a couple of days ago I was having a conversation with my friends about police brutality in the USA. We dug up some articles from US news papers with searches like "police shot" and "shooting". In most cases it seemed right that the police used force. In most cases the amount of force was way too much.

The latest case of a police using a firearm here in Finland was when a man was walking in a populated pedestrian way carrying a knife and a pistol. He didn't comply with orders to lay down his weapons and was shot once, in the leg. One of the first questions in media was whether an electroshock weapon could have been used in stead. The use of a firearm in a populated area was also questioned. These sort of questions didn't seem to be asked in the articles from USA.

The OP's case was from the other end of the spectrum. He may have had the smell of beer in his breath and didn't comply with the order to leave the scene. The police tackled him done and handcuffed him. One explanation given is that the officer was on a power trip. But it also seems that the police was having difficulties in adjusting their use of force. They dragged away a man who was supporting an injured person. They tackled OP for not complying with an order to leave.

After reading those news articles my friends and I started think about the training that police officer receive in the USA. How much time is used to teach giving orders? How much time for hand-to-hand combat and controlling a person with or without a weapon? How much time is spent in the firing range?

FWIW I'm not going to offer an opinion on whether 20+% is a good tip, but tipping with a credit card has a lower value to the server.

All tips are notionally taxable income, whether a server chooses to declare all their cash tips is their choice, when you tip with a credit card it stops being their choice - and there's no way of telling how much of the tip is diverted by the establishment.

Downvoted for encouraging tax fraud.

Upvoted for discouraging tax fraud.

Yeah, it's our responsibility to fund the police to perform the beatings!

That, and the roads that the ambulances use, and for that matter the ambulances. Sheesh.

Well then, the administrators of roads and ambulances should probably lobby to have the police taxes be separable, before too many people decide to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Nobody is going to decide that.

Well that's certainly the assertion modern bureaucrats feel entitled to.

It works right up until it doesn't :/

One of the restaurants I worked at would take a percentage out of my tips for credit card processing fees.

This isn't always true.

YC (S14): "Yelp for Police Officers"

Wouldn't it be great if there was a 911 equivalent that just called a fucking ambulance or a fire truck?

"She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately." -- Police ask you to leave the scene. You don't. You wind up in jail. I've read a lot of these "brutality" stories. The one common ingredient: not doing what the cop says. Police are just trying to do their jobs. If they ask you to leave, just leave. The less gawkers and people meandering around the easier it is for them to do their job. Generally speaking, I'd say that after an accident in which an officer has asked you to move along that it is not a good time to "exercise your rights." Sure you probably have the "right" to stick around and get in the way, but why?

I'd still like to know what the proper procedure is after a police officer declares their intention to handcuff you, and you end up handcuffing them instead. I mean, is he under arrest then? Should I take him home and keep him in the spare bedroom for a couple of days?

Serious question, I have seen it happen. Personally as far as hostile encounters with polices go I'm batting 2/1/1 which is not really anything to brag about, and none are fun stories.

Anyway, if you end up in an emergency situation, and the cops do show up, offer help in a clear slow voice and then follow instructions. The worst that ever happened was being asked to give a hand with moving some heavy branches, which is what I was doing when they showed up anyway.

If this in fact went down exactly as described, the officers who initiated use of force need to not be officers. I caution against undue private agitation against the officers named, though, because that's a big "if" - I don't expect the story was deliberately colored by the narrator (although we can't completely ignore the possibility) but the way humans work it always gets colored somewhat and we don't know what things seemed like from the officers' POV. I do hope the incident is taken seriously - this tendency of the police to make themselves enemies of even the law abiding does nothing for our safety.

They say the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Well, that's wrong. For evil to triumph, all the good men must be gone, because a good man won't do nothing when faced with evil.

Whenever a bad cop does a bad thing, and no one steps in to stop it, there are no good cops left. Whenever the thin blue line is deployed to protect one of their own, it damns the entire company. Qui custodiet custodes, indeed. Andy Griffith retired long ago, and Barney Fife rose to power. Now there's no one responsible left to tell him when he can and cannot put his bullet in.

On laws regarding video taping the police: http://gizmodo.com/5900680/7-rules-for-recording-police

> Don’t call 911. Obviously, there are exceptions, but the sad lesson is, there are fewer than you’d think.

Are you fucking kidding me? Do NOT listen to this advice. If you see someone injured, CALL 911!

Do NOT move the person if there is suspicion of spinal or head injury. Wait for the HIGHLY TRAINED emergency response team to show up.

> Call Lyft to take you to the hospital. (Worked well when I broke my elbow.)

Are you fucking kidding me? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

All of this is some sort of thinly veiled attack on our public servants and what seems to be public government infrastructure in general.

Public servants. That's a good one. The only public the police serve are their own sick and cruel interests. If they served the public, perhaps they'd actually stop real crime.

I would say that is not a joke but rational reaction to police state. Why 12 police man has to come to bike accident?

Even with "gold level" insurance a ride in an ambulance is $$$$. If your injury is not life threatening taking alternate transport to the Emergency Room is perfectly acceptable.

All of this is some sort of thinly veiled attack on our public servants and what seems to be public government infrastructure in general.

I'm all for calling bullshit on general unfounded anti-government rhetoric in general. But law enforcement are not your friends. They're trained that the citizen is an untrustworthy crook, why should we treat them any better?

Dude, this is about someone getting in to a bike accident.

Please, for fuck's sake, if you see someone hit by a car or otherwise bleeding on the street, do the sane thing and call 911.

I can't believe we're having this conversation...

I didn't say don't call the cops. I was speaking to a single line of your post, the one I quoted.

Someone should try this and document their experience.

Uhm, you know that paramedics get called to accidents on almost a daily basis in a city like San Francisco, right? I'm pretty sure it would be national news if everyone calling 911 was being thrown in solitary.

The social contract is broken.

Your brain is broken. Close the laptop and go outside and walk around San Francisco. It should be pretty obvious that things are pretty free and pretty orderly. If you and the rest of your video game playing hacker buddies can't see that, I dunno what to say. Get some more life experience?

...call 911 and be assaulted and thrown in solitary for... well, some doubtlessly minor reason, if any at all? No thanks.

If someone's having a serious stroke and immobile, yes, of course call an ambulance. A broken arm or leg? A Lyft is probably your best bet. I'd draw the line at something like "minor heart attack."

Wow. In my country (Uruguay), you can and should call an ambulance for broken bones :(

And ambulance service costs U$ 50/month and is included with 90% of the populations' health services.

You know America is in decline when Uruguay is out classing her!

To be honest, we're blowing everyone out of the water :) :

- Legalized marijuana

- Legal gay marriage and recognition of LGBT rights

- A much better healthcare system than the U.S. (ok that part isn't too hard)

- One laptop per child

- The Economist's country of the year :)

Hey dude, don't listen to these people.

The vast, VAST majority of people in San Francisco and the rest of the United States deal with emergency responders with no problems whatsoever.

You're just experiencing a bunch of whiny, self-entitled assholes who're making more money than their underdeveloped brains know how to deal with and now think that they literally shit gold bricks.

This is causing WAY more problems in San Francisco than the SFPD.

If there's going to be any sort of protests in SF it is going to be against these asshats, not the SFPD, mark my words.

Perhaps the safest (certainly not right) thing to do is call 911 and get the fuck out of there rather than trying to help and being imprisoned/abused for it.

All of this is some sort of thinly veiled attack on our public servants and what seems to be public government infrastructure in general.

Why would you think he's kidding? I don't see a veiled attack: I see desperation. He (and others in this thread) believe that you are putting yourself into greater risk by calling 911 than by solving the situation any other way you can.

I don't share their opinion, but I would think deeply before dismissing the sincerely expressed belief of those who feel the emergency response system in the US so broken that you are better of trying to make your own way to medical care rather than taking a chance on calling 911.

Again, that is terrible advice.

Literally all professional literature on the subject suggests the following:

Remain calm, be aware of your surroundings, and closely evaluate the scene to protect yourself and others from further injury.

Do not move a critically injured person unless instructed by emergency medical professionals.

Do not try to drive someone who is critically ill or injured to a hospital unless there is no way to summon emergency help.

Call 911 or ask someone else to call: - If you think there is a medical emergency, - If the crisis could get worse left untreated or not treated properly.

Listen carefully to the 911 dispatcher's questions. Answer them calmly and quickly.

Remain on the line until the dispatcher tells you it's okay to hang up.

Ask someone to wait outside to meet emergency personnel if it is safe to do so.

Paramedics may want to know a brief summary of the circumstances that caused the emergency. Remain calm and cooperative as they gather information.

You apparently missed the part where he did all of that, and then ended up naked in solitary for 12 hours.

He did all of that except for the part where once the emergency services arrive, get out of the way. Don't let someone bleed out in a cab just because you're too proud to go away once the cops tell you to; they might not have the right, but you can avoid the naked solitary.

If you see someone injured, CALL 911!

Agreed. But then get away from the scene ASAP once anyone officious turns up.

Bad advice. Paramedics could obtain useful life saving advice from witnesses.

Do you people really think there is an epidemic of people being thrown in solitary confinement for calling 911 to report accidents? REALLY?

What the fuck is going on here? Is one of my office mates pranking me with a man-in-the-middle attack and then trolling me hard? Or are there really that many retards on this forum?

I don't know.

If the cops who did stuff like this were actually punished, if the dept. came right out and said, this shouldn't have happened, we're gonna do this and this to fix it.. I wouldn't be afraid.

Instead I see, well, he must have pissed them off somehow, just be quiet and maybe nothing bad will happen to you.

All my encounters with cops have been good, but I understand the police dept. where I am is a pretty good one. Still, it only takes one bad encounter, one bad cop, to ruin my life.

I'm not gonna stop from calling the cops because I'm afraid of them. Someone else's life, their health, matters more than what could or couldn't happen to me. But I can't support this system and I don't know what to do about it.

HN commentators are smart, but they are not above the effects of the limbic system, unfortunately.

> If you see someone injured, CALL 911!

When the police arrive, stay out of their way. If they don't need a witness, go home.

Have you ever lived in that neighborhood of San Francisco?

99.9% of my interactions with the police have been entirely professional and exactly what I would expect.

The 0.1% occurred in the Tenderloin, Mission, and SOMA (neighborhoods of SF). A SFPD beat cop, at night, in one of those areas... Yeah, no.

I've had more pleasant and rational interactions while being mugged in the Mission than I ever had with cops on the Mission beat.

So what do we do? Tons of us live here, we should be doing something. Squad up and protest? There has to be a decent number of us who have flexible ours, how about we team up and manually surveil officer Kaur for a week? Is there someone would should be calling to complain to that will hurt this persons career?

I don't know what to do, but this city is tiny and there are a lot of us, surely we can have some effect. My email and website w/ pgp key are in my profile, email me if you're interested in trying something.

The primary reason this isn't happening, is an intense fear of the police state and what it can (and often will) do to any given individual person either just out of typical abuse or intentional malice.

Seattle had / has such a vile police force it had to be put under Federal control.

I make it a point to avoid all interactions with LEOs. They are new militarized, angry and highly uneducated underclass and they want to take it out on you. I don't even drive any more just to avoid interactions. It's much harder to be arrested in a Lyft/Uber than in your own vehicle and you don't risk them 'finding' anything in your vehicle. Never call the police, never help the police, never talk to the police.

"Consider wearing a video camera at all times. It has been shown that when police wear cameras and are aware of being filmed, it moderates their behavior. As self reports of the need to use force decrease, so do complaints."

This. I'm certain that this is our collective future where every interaction is recorded by civilians and law enforcement alike. The jury is still out as to whether or not this is a good thing in the long run.

And this is why all police officers should be wearing badge-cams with the video feed removed from their (and the department's) control.

I recently heard the suggestion that police should carry an equivalent of doctors' malpractice insurance; so the same taxpayers that they abuse aren't the ones who ultimately pay to compensate for their abuses. Sounded like a good idea, especially if insurance companies can identify the officers most at risk of doing legally actionable things while on duty.

When insurance is priced correctly, the premiums will roughly match the payouts. The taxpayers will still be paying the premiums.

It would introduce some sort of independent oversight, but it seems like a roundabout way of doing it.

> The taxpayers will still be paying the premiums.

If the police pay their own premiums directly, we'll have to raise their salaries; so the taxpayers will still be paying them.

But, there will be an independent entity with a financial interest in identifying officers likely to commit crimes and abuses; instead of a subdepartment of the police itself with conflicted interests. Ideally, abusive police officers will not be able to afford to be police officers.

Couple of words:

This is only the tip of the ice-berg n if us, the people, keep acting like sheep and never question "authority (whatever that word means anyway), they will have their way with a very nice fascist-like nanny/police state...

Nothing to see here people, just abuse of power which we will call "normal procedure". Nothing to see here, carry on with your dreadful lives...

Welcome to the militarized police state, criminal.

Cops generally do not care about your constitutional rights.

They care about their authority.

Unfortunately, this is a tough lesson to learn.

Most minorities in the US know learn this at a very young age.

The irony is that the police are losing the respect of decent people every day when they pull this behavior.

They are making their jobs more difficult by separately themselves from the public.

The police treat neighborhoods like war zones. Us vs. Them.

I feel sick reading stories like this. Yesterday I read about the guy that made a stupid facebook comment and is now facing 10 years in prison. He will probably win and walk away a free man, but still he had to spend 2 months in prison. Reading these stories or stories about the TSA I really do not want to visit the USA in the near future.

OP definitely needs to sue the city, as well as the aggressors personally. Every cop involved in this situation should be spending years in prison for battery, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and torture. Until justice for victims of the police becomes routine, they're nothing but another gang and the only good cop is a dead cop.

> OP definitely needs to sue the city, as well as the aggressors personally.

I upvoted this comment for that; it seems like a prudent step to take.

> the only good cop is a dead cop

And then I got here and wish I could undo. I don't understand why you would say such a thing. That's just not right.

That's the attitude police departments prop up and justify every time they close ranks around officers who commit this kind of misconduct, instead of feeding the bad cops to the dogs and maintaining high standards of public service.

Is the attitude morally right? Immaterial.

An attitude of fuck the police on the side of the citizens makes the problem worse. Both sides have to meet.

Also, like hell morality is immaterial.

No, there is no requirement for both sides to meet. Police serve the citizens. That's how public service goes.

Their job is hard. They deal with assholes the likes of which most of us never see, they get shot at and kicked and punched and spat at and sworn at, and still their job is to protect and serve the public without fail. No shortcuts.

Every public servant is a person. Refusing to recognize that isn't pragmatic.

Of course police departments do this. Oppressive groups use public disdain of the oppressive groups to justify intensifying their oppression. That doesn't mean the disdain isn't justified.

If police forces were organizations of justice, they would compensate victims of false imprisonment as a matter of course. Say you spend a night in jail for an errant arrest, you get an immediate $2k for time lost and distress incurred. This way, they wouldn't be able to shuffle the damages from their run-roughshod approach onto innocent people.

But instead, they do everything they can to stick with and make-proper the mistake, and pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it. They know full well that time in their jail is (an extrajudicial) punishment in and of itself. This entire blue-shield assume-everyone's-guilty mentality makes them just another gang of thugs to be avoided. The fact they're given a fancy costume by the out of touch populations of whatever jurisdiction they're in ceases to be relevant.

While still extremely callous, one would take far less issue with what I said if it were explicitly about "violent gangbangers". And given that the problem is institutional yet new recruits are still signing up for the trip, I have little empathy.

edit: and I will admit that short of things like automated home-defense turrets becoming commonplace, empathy is the only thing that is going to fix anything and what I said actually hurts that. But given that the problem stems from police getting things mostly right (because most of who they interact with are criminals), I don't see reforms to make them impartial justice organizations ever gaining much support, as the sheer majority will always see them as doing a good job.

> If police forces were organizations of justice, they would compensate victims of false imprisonment as a matter of course. Say you spend a night in jail for an errant arrest, you get an immediate $2k for time lost and distress incurred. This way, they wouldn't be able to shuffle the damages from their run-roughshod approach onto innocent people.

Oh yeah, this would not cause more problems than it solves.

Correctness is more important that expediency. If you start off trying to be good, you can learn to be fast. If you start off trying to be fast, you will never learn to be good.

> Say you spend a night in jail for an errant arrest, you get an immediate $2k for time lost and distress incurred.

There are a lot of people who would instigate an officer for that kind of money.

Besides, having served on a Jury, I know what they think my time is worth. Getting a check for $200 (a more realistic number) would be an insult after getting stuck overnight in a jail cell.

> But instead, they do everything they can to stick with and make-proper the mistake, and pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it

This could be said about the first group, but he even admits that his own actions are what got him put into solitary confinement. If he hadn't made a ruckus they wouldn't have put him there. Note that they did overstep by doing that, but not massively.

> Getting a check for $200 ... would be an insult

This amount wouldn't meet what I said, as they'd still clearly be externalizing the collateral damage from their approach (just like the jury theatre, as you point out).

> If he hadn't made a ruckus they wouldn't have put him there

Which stemmed from them denying him access to medical care, outside communication, and due process. I covered this under "pettily punish those who don't just submit and take it".

It's also not right that the police abuse their power to such degrees.

They really should up the qualifications on becoming a cop. Right now it's "Eh I can't any other job, guess I'll just be a cop" and you're left with these incoherent slimeballs thinking they run things without any regard for actual law.

I've been thrown in a cell for one week. I was drunk the night before, woke up in a cell. No window, no view, locked door. I was slipped cheese sandwiches for a week and juice boxes.

Do you know what that does to a persons sanity? After day 3 I had literally just accepted it, that I'm staying here with 0 answers and that's just the way it is.

Who is accountable for that? Nobody. Nobody gave me any answers.

Don't shame me for playing the Simpsons untapped (Simpsons farmville clone, whatever) but I think the cops name is Lenny and he says things like "Don't make me late for Pilates" when you click on him.

but the one that cracked me up the most was "This is where my weekend of police training really kicks in."

Holding is truly screwed up. When I went I saw so many shitty things. Cops abuse their power every day. I should have known when the managers at my shitty University food stop started on a power trip when I worked there and fired me for eating 8 old wings that were left over when I only ordered 6 for my meal... Went against protocol (needed three strikes, only got one). When I was arrested I was really drunk, I was slammed, and forced to sign a piece of paper banning me from a local college campus indefinitely. They said if I signed they'd let me go. Then they arrested me right after I signed it. Slammed multiple times because I said I couldn't leave into the snow with only socks on since my shoes were in my friends room.

They really should up the qualifications on becoming a cop.

Cops will take the best candidates they can get. They don't get a lot of people wanting to be a cop. It's a shitty job that most people would not do by choice.

I agree, that's wrong. I am hoping that maybe they're referencing the idea that if there are bad cops, the good cops are just as guilty as the bad ones - if they're not doing anything about it. To that degree I agree, though I wonder how much unions have to do with keeping bad cops in jobs.

I agree. This isn't the first time I wish I could revoke an upvote, but I suppose that's my fault.

ditto

I think it's unnecessarily sensationalized language, but I agree with the general point, which is that cops are bad.

If this is really how things went down, then suing the city seems reasonable. The rest of your comment is a little over the top though, no? Have the police in question spend years in prison? The only good cop is a dead cop? I'd imagine the OP doesn't think this way given his usual, positive interactions with the SFPD.

I agree, the rest of that comment is silly.

I wonder if, somewhere out there, there exists a Bizarro Earth where people go out of their way to tell everybody about their pleasant interactions with police. I just had one last night, actually. Very friendly dude, and it wasn't the first time this had happened.

Agreed, I've had multiple interactions with police in various settings (college, traffic stops, etc.) and none have ever been rude. Just doing their job.

I too have had decent interactions. It's when it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong with police. Which is why you must have a higher standard like you have higher standards with space shuttle software engineering vs. your casual game app.

While I disagree with the sentiment I can easily see how this sort of thing reinforces it. If justice isn't justly applied; if the police get a pass for brutalising people; then The Law's not the law - it's just another way of keeping people down.

One of my friends, when I was younger, had the attitude pig until proven cop. And the more of this stuff that's floating around the less tenable the contrary position becomes.

they're nothing but another gang and the only good cop is a dead cop.

Hacker News is rapidly becoming Reddit. Reddit has its place, but this is not a good thing.

I've noticed the same. Inflammatory comments being upvoted, unpopular discussion being downvoted.

When somebody finds the next Hacker News, please let me know.

(I expect this comment to be downvoted, and it probably should be. Just expressing my frustration.)

https://lobste.rs/ is a viable alternative if you are looking for decent discussions on technology.

Smaller subreddits seem to have much better discussion as well.

I didn't really expect a good, helpful response. Thank you for the link!

"This site sucks because they think my opinion is bad." Cool, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right? Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?

You're 0 for 2 with me so far. Don't join the debate team.

This is the top comment right now: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ie3mmcm0acuzxgv/Screenshot%202014-...

Do you read this 1000+ word well written point as "having no more substance than 'cops should die'"? Or did you simply decide that you should just ignore that post since it didn't fit your utterly insane narrative? Never mind the fact that even the exact post youre referencing doesn't even say the thing you keep claiming it says...

I'm sure I'll continue being 0 for as long as I'm arguing a different point than yours, because you've shown that its not evidence, or eloquence that matters, rather how well aligned the other person's argument is aligned with your own. I doubt there is a forum where you will fit in well. Maybe you can just scream irrational nonsense at people on 4chan or something?

I'm not necessarily talking about the current top comment in this particular thread. Christ, man.

Why do so many people attempt a proof-by-example and then act surprised when it fails to convince?

Um, so your two arguments so far have been:

"The person I'm responding to LITERALLY said he wanted all police to die" "Well, he didn't literally say that, in fact, he didn't say anything close to that".

"fuck the police shouldn't be the top comment" evidence is presented to the contrary "Dude, its not like I meant THIS top comment".

There's no chance you're anything but a troll or stupid, so either way, I'm wasting my time. Cheers.

BlackDeath3's argument was that a voting system is the means through which the best comments, as deemed by the majority of users, receive the most exposure. You misunderstood them and referred them to the current top comment, pointing out that it was quite substantial. Without realizing it though, you were demonstrating their point.

Thank you. It's difficult to get your point across when somebody takes your words, twists them, and forces you into a whole separate argument based on those misconstrued words.

This was his point:

"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right? Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?"

Sentence by sentence just to make it easy on you:

"Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right?"

What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?

"Comments with little more substance than "cops should die" shouldn't be at the top of a comment page, right?""

Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint? Oh right, its a stupid strawman with no merit whatsoever, which i pointed out. If BlackDeath3 wants to throw a tantrum when someone says cops could die, he's more than welcome, but the idea that this is what he bases his argument on when no one said anything like that is utter lunacy. I cannot imagine going around being this irrationally angry. It's like being a republican and just screaming BENGHAZI!!! whenever confronted with something unsavory about your own party. Try living on planet earth with some rational people.

>What does this even mean? How on earth would this work? He's genuinely upset that voting reflects peoples opinions? I'm shocked that someone could say this and not immediately realize what a dumb thing it is to say. But yeah, this problem in his mind, will be solved by finding a different community, with opinions he likes. See the problem now?

If I think that somebody has said something worth exposure, I upvote it. If not, I downvote it. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with it or not. Does it contribute to the conversation? Is it needlessly inflammatory? These are the sorts of questions I ask and answer when voting.

You can argue that "worth exposure" is subjective, and it is, but I didn't say (or mean) vote objectively. One can try, but mostly I just meant that one should pay more attention to the merit of a post's content, rather than their personal agreement with it.

>Right. And they aren't. So what is the complaint?

You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen.

And by the way, the "cops should die" comment quite literally was the top comment in this thread at one point. Perhaps you weren't here early enough to see it, but I did, and that's what made me say what I said.

"You're too focused on the specifics. Shitty comments get upvoted all the time. Thoughtful but unpopular comments get downvoted all the time. Anybody who has been around these sorts of places (HN, Reddit, etc.) for more than an hour has seen it happen."

Probably the first time I've ever seen someone lament the idea that someone focused on the specific example they gave...

Anyway, I've seen this happen on reddit plenty, but I would honestly say its a distant second place to the bigger problem, which is what is happening here. Someone like you gets the idea in their head that "saying thing x is popular amongst community y". At that point, all logic goes out the window and actual, reasonable evidence is ignored at the cost of any sort of evidence that remotely confirms your hypothesis. Was the top comment of a thread something bad about cops for a few seconds? Hey, that must mean everyone here wants cops to die, which means the voting system is flawed which means I should throw a tantrum and threaten to leave the community. Like I said, I have no problem with responding to people who actually said this and discussing it, but when you start throwing tantrums about things that weren't said, there is a disconnect between a logical world where people can have conversations, and the world where youre sitting in a room by yourself mashing the keyboard and convincing yourself everyone else is stupid. I'd say you'd probably be better off letting these insane thoughts go...

I tried coming back to you, nearly a day later, and civilly explaining myself and my position, again. Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here). Still, you have insisted on misinterpretation of my posts, picking out and making a big deal of small details, and generally being an asshole to me since the very first post you sent me (which pretty much set the tone for our entire conversation).

It's clear that nobody will be persuading anybody here, that we're both right in our own eyes, and this is going nowhere. I'm tired of trying to explain myself to you. I'm tired of you constantly ending your posts with (not so) clever remarks about how I'm a stupid trolling troll. I'm tired of you. You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye.

In response to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7241518 (because apparently I'm submitting posts too often):

I've clearly explained above the way that I think the voting system should work, and I'm not even close to the only person who thinks that way (see: Reddiquette). You've crossed the line from argumentative to disingenuous.

I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts.

"I realize that you strongly dislike me, but please don't allow that to cloud your vision when reading my posts."

Uhhhhh, I know nothing about you at all. I simply mocked the fact that you threw a tantrum over the voting system on this site, said you were leaving (yet you're still making posts at the frequency that you're literally making the algo block you because you're posting too often...), said "I wish the top post wasn't always some no content crap like 'all cops should die'" when a) It didn't say that and b) The actual top post was, quite literally, the exact opposite of your mid-tantrum prediction. If you've taken me mocking your hilariously bad point to mean a strong dislike, I really don't know what to tell you. Perhaps the rest of us don't hold the same irrational grudges you do? But the idea of this level of emotion for a stranger on the internet is simply too foreign for me to understand.

"You're argumentative for argumentation's sake (which is fine when you can listen to reason) and I'm really, actually, truly done with you now. Bye."

So should I take this to mean that you're going to be responding to my posts literally hundreds of times over the next hour? Because thats what happened when you said you were done with HN? Or was that because you were just being an attention whore making a shit point?

"Another poster has even explained my position to you (oddly enough, they have no trouble understanding the points I'm making here)."

I love the "I've been totally civil" next sentence "heres a not at all subtle dig from me! LOOK HOW CLEVER I AM" Bravo for pretending you're taking the high road? I guess you convinced yourself and that seems to be all that matters for you. But yeah, one guy agreed with you while everyone else downvoted you. I guess this is better than you normally do so I can see why you're proud.

In closing, no, I don't strongly dislike you, or even care about you at all. I simply think that throwing a tantrum about a community, saying it is so terrible you have to leave because your opinions aren't popular, and then making up a bunch of idiotic, disingenuous straw men to make yourself feel better is stupid and is nothing but a detriment to this community. As I said originally, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Fuck the police? Wrong, wrong wrong.

Exactly the opposite. Do not fuck the police.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata

> Voting should be independent of opinion, should it not? Voting should reflect the merit of a post regardless of its popularity, right?

If that were the case, democracy would actually work.

"Should be", not "is". The fact that there are problems with democracy doesn't mean that people shouldn't attempt to improve the system.

Sure, but in your case "improve the system" means "make voting work the way I want", which, among every single human being who isn't you, I'd imagine you'd see some disagreement.

What attribute of Reddit are you talking about? Is it that people here accuse other people of acting like members from some other website, rather than actually confronting their arguments?

Despite your insincerity, for those who actually care the negative trait I was talking about is sophistry: The collapsing of complex situations with many players and perspectives into single-dimensional, black and white, clear-cut projections that everyone can circle around and beat with their strawman beating sticks, all while acting enlightened. This whole thread is absolutely crowded with such positions.

I love Reddit, but outside of certain subs it is not a productive place to discuss complex situations as the crowd naturally wants the story simplified. So you end up with a day 1 version where one actor is clearly the aggrieved party, the other pure villain, and everyone runs out to send nasty emails and to fill voiceboxes with nasty messages. On day 2 a new piece of information comes out that demonstrates that the story was't as stated, and some new situations completely upset who the good guy and the bad guy is. The pitchfork mob goes in the opposite direction. It is useless and destructive, and became such a problem that a number of anti pitchfork rules had to be imposed.

In this case the post I replied to outrageously declared that the only good cop is a dead cop, which is incredibly offensive if you actually have friends who are in law enforcement. And even if you don't, it should be offensive to virtually anyone in a lawful society who relies upon those people more than many of you care to admit.

Add that there is some hilarious irony in a board primarily dominated by the unfit and privileged supporting such notions. I can understand the sentiment in some poverty city inner-city neighbourhood (heck, I grew up in poverty and was surrounded by the "pig" attitude), even if it is often self-defeating, but it is to the point of parody on HN.

"I heard a story about some cop two thousand miles away who did {x}. See, they're all terrible!"

> I love Reddit, but outside of certain subs it is not a productive place to discuss complex situations as the crowd naturally wants the story simplified.

That is the brutal truth. It's why the site favors memes over dissertations.

It's not "sophistry." You are way overthinking it.

It's hostility. Maybe it's been earned.

This is a harrowing tale, but remember this is just one side of the story. And you don't know how inebriated this guy really was. But always best to follow instructions from the police, especially when you are not involved in the situation.

When police tell you to leave a scene it's very suspicious.

He said he had 3 beers over 3 hours. Assuming he is of average build for someone working "in an early stage start up" then I would think he wasn't wasted at all.

Given that he called 911, he definitely had some connection to the situation.

If I see the police unfairly brutalizing you someday, you won't mind if I just cower and slink away, then just forget about it? Maybe you were drunk and therefore deserved it?

See, when you spew crazy BS like that, not only you give bad cops like the ones in the post a basis but you lose most of the support of people that you will need to make the change.

In order to make these officers spends years in prison you will need law to apply. And that will take pressure and public shaming through posts like this. If you feel so hot headed about this issue you can sign up with organizations like ACLU and the like and help bring the change.

Or, you can play gansta, go at it vigilante fashion, and see how far that takes you.

the only good cop is a dead cop.

This sentiment is a wish for things to get worse for everyone, in every way. It's lazy, cowardly, and beneath HN.

I may have ended up editing out that last part after some reflection, but it had been already quoted. So alas what's done is done. Frankly I expected to get downvoted a bit, and the fact that it was so positively received is actually a bit disconcerting.

But while I agree that an attitude like that will lead to nothing constructive, at some point one's only recourse is spite.

Perhaps OP will receive monetary compensation after a drawn out lawsuit, only because there are specific things the arresting officer can be pinned with. But the worst that will happen to the officer is that she will lose her job, rather than be brought to trial for her crimes. And everybody else in the chain that dug in their heels to make him miserable rather than treat him as a human is utterly unaccountable.

And I see no avenues of recourse for fixing these systematic abuses. Reform will always be hampered by the fact that the sheer majority of people that police deal with are actually guilty, and that the sheer majority of people don't get arrested. That's two very strong priors that lead to the police being nearly universally accepted as "the good guys".

The only way that's going to change is by eroding the idea of police as de facto heroes, and promoting the idea that they are a malevolent culture that needs to be deprecated so new institutions can take their place. Otherwise, there's no incentive for them to ever change.

I disagree entirely. The presence of the current crop of cops is what makes things "worse for everyone, in every way".

Police have a responsibility to the people they protect. Right now in the US, cops act like the public are there simply to be subjugated, and regularly and routinely shirk that responsibility inherent in the task of policing.

The whole reason we as a society give cops the monopoly on violence is because they're supposed to operate at a higher standard. Police in the US don't do that, as is evidenced by the police force in any major US city.

It's time for a system reboot.

Solution is easy. No guns for police like UK. But citizens should have a gun.

It sounds simple but think, ex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

The issue is if they have more power than you, it auto equals abuse.

Maybe i am wrong, but is there a chance that this types of incidence happens more with urban cops than suburban?

>Consider wearing a video camera at all times. It has been shown that when police wear cameras and are aware of being filmed, it moderates their behavior. >As self reports of the need to use force decrease, so do complaints.

What is a good wearable camera that wont broadcast all I do to the alphabet soup?

When this kind of things happen, you should call a lawyer right away. When you are not free to leave, you are under arrest. When you are under arrest, officers should read your Miranda rights. Even if they don't read them, you have the right to counsel.

I wonder if there is any kind of "I was fucked by government insurance". For example we can pay say a $100 per month just in case government decides to create trouble like this for us and we will get an attorney paid for by the insurance company.

Just goes to show you, if a cop finds a reason to arrest you, you an be detained for up to 72 hours without charges being laid upon you.

This story is what a typical arrest feels like in 2014. All the stuff you see on movies? forget it. it doesn't apply anymore.

America The land of the free... if you're a cop and careful to never get caught on camera or recorder in any way shape or form.

But what do you expect when you send a swat team for every arrest.

Even the cops start to think that their allows to use as much force as they like.

https://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/criminal-l...

Somehow, with stories like these being so common in the news, I just don't think I want to live in that country. Apart from warmer weather, I'm not sure there's anything worth moving for.

...and this is another reason (other than bystander effect) why people ignore emergencies that don't concern them - not wanting to get caught up or have something like this happen.

I think you should contact ACLU and work with them to sue the officers/department. obviously your rights were violated (they didn't even read the Miranda warning)

Everyone needs to read this, no given person, our group of persons should ever have the power to detain, abuse and incarcerate like this. This is sickening.

So... I know one of the original injured (Rebecca), boy was I shocked to see the blog + this on HN. wow, everything about this is surreal.

Don't we already have reddit to commiserate about injustice? Honest question - just not sure why this is a good fit for hacker news.

I am tired and bored of reading these rants on HN. Why don't Americans just give themselves a spring?

you were not arrested. you were detained. it's called the patriot act. they can detain you for 72 hours without charge and release you without any repercussions.

as fucked up as it is, their actions were legal.

as for stripping you naked, you might have a good shot at a successful lawsuit there.

I think instead of building startups, some of us should start super PACs instead.

Disgusting.

Wow.

At the point where the person was bluntly told to leave immediately, why did they not?

He wasn't told bluntly. They said they no longer needed him. He said he would like to stay, and then he was tackled, cuffed, and sent off for a bit of solitary.

Somehow I'm reminded of Bonfire of the Vanities.

Jesus Christ, will you look at the mountains of bullshit social commentary here. Even you the author does it, with your apologies for them because they're schnooks who resent tech workers.

I can't be profane enough here.

USA is fucked

This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers" and the real world. I consider myself part of the HN community because I hope for a society shaped by its ideals, but the real world is so far removed that time spent here becomes more of a therapeutic escape than anything else.

I strongly recommend people study history, and understand human nature at both scientific and societal levels. There is too much to discuss here, but in brief:

Homo-sapiens, much like other primates, create status hierarchies while competing for resources and mates. Status is directly proportional to the ability to exercise power. All of human history has been a result of this inter and intra-hierachy competition.

In a police state such as the modern US, the lowest police officer has an unimaginably higher potential to exercise power than any median income citizen. As such, that power is often exercised. As the author realized, you have no ability to fight back in a police state. You can sue, but good luck getting results.

So the real question is, why do you think your startup is worth pursuing given the situation you're in? Do you really think "bringing transparency to the food industry", or the thousands of other startups that go through YC, are even relevant given the reality of the US police state?

This has been my biggest criticism of "Hacker" culture. Closing your eyes and pretending you live in Galt's Gluch is not going to make it a reality. Wake up and look at the world around you and realize that just because you haven't been crushed by the state yet, doesn't mean it's never going to happen. Once you realize that, your priorities will hopefully shift in a more reasonable direction.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, is safe from totalitarian police states. This is a fact history has shown repeatedly.

Act accordingly.

P.S. Just saw that immediately race was brought up. As a tip to anyone who wants to make a difference, people in power will divide you into as many groups as you let them in order to subjugate you. When the system is in place, it doesn't matter what ethnicity you belong to. If you piss off the wrong person, you're finished. The trick is to unify to disassemble the monstrosity, not balkanize into smaller and ever more powerless units based on: race, income, sex, height, attractiveness, beliefs, democrat/republican, pro-life/pro-choice, LBGT-hetero, pro-KONY/anti-KONY, ...

Please, understand power. Understand how little you have, and how to make best use of it to attain your goals. Balkanize at your own peril.

You say that, but this ideal world is the world I live in, and have lived in all my life. You should consider moving to Europe (UK and Switzerland in my case).

As a realist, I wholeheartedly believe this to be the rational choice (and I've made it). As an idealist, I stubbornly have hope that like-minded intellectuals will affect change, not just for the US but globally. Moreover, fixing US domestic and foreign policies will have massive benefits worldwide (end of wars, arms exports, military occupations, arms races, etc.), such that I believe it to be a worthwhile cause.

I honestly wonder what a society would look like if we got a group of experienced system engineers with a deep understanding of human society to construct it from the ground up. Working incentives, set goals (science and technological progress), and, above all, a rational understanding of poor incentives and abuse of power.

Unfortunately, Startfleet has yet to be founded.

Edit: For those who want more information on the nature of power in the US, I would just like to honor Aaron Swartz's memory by referring to this excellent piece [1].

1. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/epiphany

Western Europe has its own problems.

The U.K. has "superinjunctions" and aggressively punitive libel laws and press restrictions.

In some places in Switzerland, relationships with non-Swiss residents are so strained that local authorities have sometimes sought to ban "asylum-seekers" from public places because they are seen as dangerous criminals ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/swiss-segregati... ).

In Ireland, police seized a baby girl from her family because she was blonde and did not look like her parents, who are from Romania; they returned her after performing a DNA test ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/blonde-girl-rom... ).

A bit of a nitpick:

Maybe you have their nationality from another source (though I googled the case and didn't find any articles stating their nationality), but this article does not state the nationality of the Roma girl or her parents.

Roma or Romani refers to the ethnicity of a people that emigrated from India as a group, and does not in itself have anything at all to do with Romania.

While Romania has one of the largest Romani concentrations, and there certainly are Roma that are also of Romanian nationality, many other countries - including Ireland - have populations of Roma that may have lived there for generations and whose ancestors may very well never have lived in Romania at all.

(The mother of the boy that was taken in a separate incident is mentioned in the article as being Romanian, on the other hand)

Oops, sorry, you're right — I had misread the Guardian's reference to a different case in which the parents were in fact from Bucharest and their son was taken from them.

No, I don't have any special knowledge about the nationality of the folks in Ireland whose daughter was taken from them.

But yeah, I am a little uneasy about the casual way the word "Roma" is used today to refer to people who were formerly referred to as "Gypsies".

It's particularly confusing to see this particular word ("Roma") used to refer interchangeably to three different, differently sized groups of people ("Roma", "Romani", "Romanichal").

I'm used to hearing "Roma" to mean a very particular sub-group of the Romani people who live in Central and Eastern Europe.

But in today's usage, the word also seems to be used to other folks from various subgroups of the overarching "Romani people" group. Many of the Romani people living in the UK come from a subgroup traditionally called "Romanichal", which is very much different from the "Roma" group — but in conversation today the distinction does not come up and we often see news stories use "Roma" instead of "Romani".

How that happened, I dunno; maybe the words just all sound the same?

The big difference is that the cases you mentioned are exceptional and typically make the news.

From the looks of this thread, the situation with the Police in the US is an everyday, normal, expected thing... That's very bad.

Abuses will always occur. It's when they start to be normal that you should worry.

Europe is declining even faster than the USA. The worst part is that Europe is emulating the USA. Although I did find the recent Swiss immigration decision to be interesting.

That recent immigration vote has been a major point of discussion with every Swiss person I've spoken to since the weekend. It's not business as usual, it's very concerning, and people in the more populated parts of Switzerland are very much opposed to it.

I strongly suspect that something will happen in the three years that it will take to implement this nonsense that will invalidate it.

I too live in airstrip one, the most heavily surveilled non-constitutional democracy on the planet! Great, innit?! Remember to hate the bulgmanians. We have always hated the bulgmanians.

Where exactly are you going with this? The author is doing something that they are passionate about and would seem to have an audience. Not only that it is more socially conscious than working for King or some other crap app factory.

So what's the beef and why are you so condescending about it?

The highest class in this country creates this reality. There is no police state if there is not economy to protect. There is not economy to protect if there's not huge multinational corporations. Legal violence is a tool used indirectly by the largest players in the economy.

Police and militaries preserve order which reduces risk to highly invested economic interests; it helps keep the growth curve slowly moving up and to the right.

As fucked up as that whole situation was, it's born out of a massive economic disparity and not a "deluded hacker" mentality.

> This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers"

The people here aren't hackers. Hackers do not trust the system. These people want to manipulate the system for profit.

> P.S. Just saw that immediately race was brought up. As a tip to anyone who wants to make a difference, people in power will divide you into as many groups as you let them in order to subjugate you.

You can simultaneously recognize that the system is biased against certain races while also avoiding infighting based upon race. It's kind of ironic that you tell people to pay more attention to reality and then essentially tell people to pretend racism doesn't exist in one of the most racist segments of US society.

> You can simultaneously recognize that the system is biased against certain races while also avoiding infighting based upon race.

maybe you and i can, but in practice, that doesn't really happen. one of the biggest problems with our social justice movement is the complete lack of unity. many times when i see privilege brought up, it's used to invalidate opinions and justify hate towards those with more privilege ("i'm oppressed so my hate is irrelevant compared to the oppression inflicted on me"), not as a simple reminder of people's relative advantages or disadvantages. the crux of the problem is that the issues of a minority community have a much greater chance of being solved with support outside of that specific community.

but groups that advocate for social justice for minority groups too often create a dialogue of hate and "oppressor / oppressed", and outright exclude those who don't belong to the oppressed community for which they are advocating. in this way these communities become insular echo chambers, since rather than taking outside voices with a grain of salt, outside voices are simply not tolerated. the dialogue becomes more and more partisan / hateful and the rift between relatively advantaged and relatively disadvantaged groups grows wider.

I don't identify with the "social justice" movement for similar reasons, but that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist, and that certainly doesn't mean it's productive to try to remove discussion about racism from an arena so profoundly racist.

Look up "The Southern Strategy" and its relation to drug criminalization. Look up "Stop and Frisk". Look up the reasons behind criminalizing crack at a higher level than cocaine. Incarceration rates, prosecution rates, execution rates, literally everything even vaguely related to this topic. It's pervasive. If you choose to ignore that, minorities who think you don't have their interests at heart probably have a point.

> that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist, and that certainly doesn't mean it's productive to try to remove discussion about racism from an arena so profoundly racist.

wat? i didn't say these things at all. we're on the same page. i agree with you.

> This is a perfect example of the disconnect between "hackers" and the real world.

You're reading way too much into this. The OP's story is completely unrelated to "hacker" culture or the faux-libertarian belief system that is fashionable in SF/SV.

The OP's story is a perfect example of what happens when people who believe they're smarter than everyone else play games with people who don't play games. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The OP wrote that he was told by a police officer that his presence was no longer needed and he was explicitly asked to leave the scene. Instead he stayed and as the situation deteriorated just about every one of his actions had the effect of making his situation worse.

The common characteristic of each of the OP's actions? They were driven by the underlying belief that he was smarter than the people he was dealing with. With just a little effort he could convince the police officers to see things his way. And why not? Many "smart" people have never encountered a tricky situation they weren't able to wiggle out of using logic and reason.

The OP simply learned that you can be too smart for your own good. But let's be clear... as bad as the police state is don't pretend that there aren't other groups that would have responded even more harshly to the OP's attempts to prove his intellectual superiority.

Lesson? Please, understand that you're probably not that smart. Get yourself into avoidable situations that you have to try to talk your way out of at your own peril.

I wouldn’t really say that the OP thought he was smarter than the police officers. He believed could clear up a misunderstanding just by talking – and that may be naive, but it’s not arrogant. Now, if he knew that he had done something wrong and thought he could argue his way out of trouble, that might be thinking he was smarter than those who would get him in trouble. But he was just trying to clear up a misunderstanding – he wasn’t trying to fool anyone using cleverness. If anything, the OP was assuming that the police officers were equally smart as him, and thus intelligent enough to distinguish a threat from a misunderstood bystander.

He was also assuming that he didn't have to follow direct commands given to him because he was in posession of certain facts which, if the officers were made aware of them, would certainly countermand those orders. To someone who is in authority giving commands, to have those commands received as polite requests or invitation to debate, that could easily be perceived as "this guy thinks he's smart (or in charge)"

Keep in mind we only have his version of the story...

Well, he called 911 himself. I think this part won't change from version to version. Now how many people who call 911 when they witness an accident actually are a "problem" enough to warrant an arrest?

Only the drunk, self-entitled assholes like OP.

Drunk? I suppose you refer to the 3 drinks they had in the course of 3 hours. And they probably had eaten not long before. Self-entitled asshole… You mean, working in a startup, and tell the policemen when asked what he does for a living?

And even if he was a drunk self-entitled asshole? Was he a hindrance? Was he dangerous in any way? My probability for both is extremely low. And even if he was a real hindrance or danger? Does that justify stomping on his fingers after having handcuffed him? No way.

I understand you may trust cops. But Officer Korr specifically doesn't look too trustworthy: she got sued.

Unless… the OP is actually lying. Not distorting the facts, or conveniently forgetting some details, and exaggerating others, but plain lying. That is indeed a possibility, but I'd think twice before suggesting it to the OP's face: if he wasn't lying, I'd be insulting a victim.

Apparently, you're not that cautious.

I (the author) understand the comments above and the reasonable skepticism about my self interest in portraying only one side of the story. I'm not an angel. This was avoidable. I can even understand the police perspective and sympathize with the difficulty of their job. For full transparency, I'm preparing a followup post with all of the assembled documentation, including the police report. And yet, this still should not have happened.

But at the time, it was all very sudden. I was being yelled at while my friend (and co-founder of a yc company) was being manhandled. The fact that I was "obstructing with the emergency response" didn't enter the realm of possibility, as I was on the periphery of the scene and far away from the medics. The fact that I was at risk of being arrested didn't cross my mind until the moment I was tackled from behind.

I tried to resolve my issue directly with the police. Mediation would have quelled my anger. Only when I felt that I wasn't being heard, I published. I didn't expect 365k views (and counting).

I think that these situations are common, but rarely do the victims take the time to write the story in full detail. I've seen it happen to others, and felt powerless to interject. And now that it happened to me, I felt an obligation to do my best to write it as accurately as possible. In the least, it's an anthropological case study, and I hope you felt it was an informative story that was worth your reading time.

I too understand the scepticism. But I cannot condone the insult. Sure, what happened to you was avoidable. But not just by you. From the look of it, you bear very little responsibility there. Your biggest mistake was in your model of the cops: you assumed they were trustworthy, and could be reasoned with. Some were not.

I would have made the same mistake. So, thanks for the tip. Your story was definitely worth reading.

SFist contacted the SFPD for comment. Spokesman Albie Esparza explains that Partensky was arrested for interfering, resisting arrest, and public intoxication. According to police, he was both drunk and disruptive as police and fire department medical personnel arrived, he was told several times by officers to back up and remove himself. "If someone calls 911," Esparza says, "They are expected only to be a good witness, and to obey anything they're told to do by arriving officers." During Partensky's ensuing detention, one officer sustained an injury when Partensky swung his elbow and struck the officer in the eye. That there probably led to his subsequent poor treatment, though Esparza says he can not comment on what happened while Partensky was in the custody of the Sheriff's Department overnight.

Ah, but trying to talk about a situation labels you as an elitist snob, or as Frito put it... "You talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded".

> The OP's story is completely unrelated to "hacker" culture

> [OP's actions] were driven by the underlying belief that he was smarter than the people he was dealing with.

Not unrelated in the slightest, imo.

> They were driven by the underlying belief that he was smarter than the people he was dealing with. With just a little effort he could convince the police officers to see things his way.

Uh, where are you reading all that?

The OP saw a friend being manhandled and didn't understood why. He said he'd like to go home with his friend. He got arrested.

Where's the "I'm smarter than all these people" coming from?

Understanding the problem should not make you puss out and be wary of it and act scared all the time, avoiding those problems, because that's how those problems grow until you can't fight them anymore.

Explaining society doesn't justify the issues at hand.

Understanding the problems should allow you to see your errors and rectify and communicate your best intentions, and then tell you're sorry so you can get out of the situation.

OP demonstrate that if you don't have that essential pearl of wisdom to communicate your best intention and if you're not able to keep your calm in any situation, you will fall into this police jail trap.

I think this article should point out that it's stupid to argue that you should keep your calm, because statistically, many people will get an abusive treatment if they can't keep their calm.

If the police is preying of your lack of temper management to get a chance to get you, then that's a real problem, because if it puts a distrust in the police, it's potentially dangerous for society.

Understanding nature will help individual, but won't help society, because you can only help society by setting better standards.

There is another disconnect. Calling the US a "totalitarian police state" without so much as a hedge is incredibly ignorant. While the US has the potential to become a totalitarian police state, it is far from one. You can go ahead and list all the violations of civil rights you want - the fact that you can do that, and that victims in those circumstances have a high chance of prevailing with the right representation, is evidence that you are terribly wrong.

Using this sort of inflammatory language is counterproductive.

Reading your law enforcement stories, combined with mostly broken checks and balances due to an arcane election system, judging it from the outside and comparing it with what we have in my home country, I'd say you're not close but you're about half way there.

If there was a more sane way to introduce new law into your system, I'd suggest something like 'make it illegal to make their performance reviews depend on the number of arrests'. But how would you even start a movement like this? It is still possible to shoot down laws pending in congress (as demonstrated with SOPA), but actively steering into a new direction? I guess if you have a few hundred millions to get get yourself elected it would be possible - the problem is, having this sort of money is not a good filter criteria to get a balanced congress. So how to even start?

Reading your law enforcement stories

This is exactly the problem. You read the stories, that is, the exceptional cases. Don't extrapolate from exceptions.

I expected this comment and I phrased it specifically to get this reaction. Let me ask you this: Are you sure these cases are exceptional, not systemic? Naming something exceptional usually means that the system can be left alone. This might be the case, but I'm worried that you people are in a frog-in-boiling-pot situation.

So, let me rephrase: do you have trustable statistics showing that police brutality is not systemic? How about all those 'exceptional' cases where the system very much seems to work against correcting itself by protecting the offending police officers?

See, I'm not surprised that in a ~300M nation there are lots of cases of authority acting violently and that we only hear about those cases where people are treated badly - but what's worrying to me is how bad the 'exception handling' usually appears to work. If your program throws an exception every 10'000 users, but the exception leads to the user being electro-shocked, jailed and possibly loosing his job, wouldn't you throw in some additional exception handling?

So, let me rephrase: do you have trustable statistics showing that police brutality is not systemic?

I agree with the implicit assumption in your question. When trying to evaluate whether there is a serious problem, in any area, we should rely on data. These stories, heartbreaking as they are, are just anecdotes. Thus, lacking proper data, I can't tell whether there is a systemic problem with police brutality in the US: I can't answer your question. I'm sure such statistics do exist, but since I'm not from the US, it's not exactly something I tend to pick up on.

However, I am somewhat familiar with the dynamics involved with issues like this. There are usually some few exceptions that stand out enough to be picked up in the media, but most don't. I'd guess that there are an order of magnitude more cases that are either not severe enough to be reported on, or too common to be interesting, but are still beyond what a society would consider ideal, were they to come to light.

Perhaps the folks who report this stuff are the exceptions. If you find yourself in these scenarios and you're not white, or aware of your rights... who's going to believe the ramblings of some gaolbird?

These stories, even if they are exceptions tell me:

1) The rate at which these things happen is sufficiently high that I see 20 or 30 of these stories a year without looking for them. My reaction is now "one more of these".

2) The system is very bad at dealing with these things even if they are exceptions. I'm ok with that when the system is "Google's tech support for free products" and not ok when it's civil rights.

3) Even if the arrest itself is an exception the story that comes after (filthy cell full of people, verbal and racial abuse, etc) is incredibly consistent.

Nominally, the US isn't a police state, but practically...

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

Your view is probably skewed by personal experience, but the fact of the matter is most people who have to deal with the police regularly do not get the "right representation." And of course, those people "can" talk about the violations of their civil rights, but what good has that done them? It's fairly clear that both the state and those with the means to change the situation are not listening.

This statistics is mostly War on Drugs. As soon as US citizens wake up and end it, this will drop pretty sharply (unless they'd do something as monumentally stupid as WoD again).

What happened here is called "arbitrary detention and release". And is one of the characteristics of dictatorships or of a police state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_arrest_and_detention

Having one characteristic of a police state marginally met in a single instance does not mean sufficient characteristics are met most of the time.

I can guarantee you, living in San Francisco and having lived in actual police states, the US is not a police state and you do a disservice to those in Egypt or North Korea by suggesting so

Relevant bit from the article:

    Don’t call 911. Obviously, there are exceptions, but the sad lesson is, there are fewer than you’d think.

    Call Lyft to take you to the hospital. (Worked well when I broke my elbow.)

    Take such incidents to trial, where justice isn’t veiled by the POBAR. It’s not a matter of litigious vindictiveness. It’s just the only available way. The SF Office of Citizen Complaints is not a valid alternative.

    Consider wearing a video camera at all times. It has been shown that when police wear cameras and are aware of being filmed, it moderates their behavior. As self reports of the need to use force decrease, so do complaints.

Folks, that right there is a breakdown of the social contract and the fabric of our fucking society. These incidents (finally, one that happens to the wrong people, right?) are a sign that something is seriously fucking broken.

Stop working on ads and organic food sourcing and microfunding and start fixing the fucking system. Vote. Call. Protest. Write articles like this when your friends are abused. Praise politicians that are doing the right thing.

It sounds like you didn't know the simple guideline "always do what the police say". Otherwise you're gonna have a bad time.

Government is a parasite that protects its own interests. It defends itself against you, and to do that, must neutralize anyone who does not do exactly what it wants.

The solution is to overthrow government and replace it with organic power structures. Most people are afraid to do this however. It insults their sense of autonomy and uniqueness.

Thus for the sake of pretense, we continue with this idiocy.

"Organic power structures"

Never underestimate mob mentality. When one officer apologizes for another, its simply a case of good cop bad cop and that officer excusing themselves for the same behavior on a different day.

This is the problem with creating an underclass of criminals in the first place, it excuses vast overreach in the execution of even the simplest tasks of law enforcement, to intimidate and exert power over another, and to simply abuse.

Why did she selectively describe the race and skin color of only some of the police-people? I'd like to know the race and skin color of all of them.

There's a "Paramut Kaur" listed here:

http://sfpoa.org/journal_archives/POAJournal_Aug2012.pdf

>she

OP is a he.

Can't have a Socialist Paradise with a police state to enforce your idealism.

So sad to read stories like this.. I empathize with you..

Rope.

Why is the lead photo of a delicate blonde white woman, when the story is about a grizzled bearded man who could pass for some various ethnicities?

That totally changes that context. The story is much less sensational than if it was the pictured woman.

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