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Comment by kyleblarson | Hacker News Reader

It's sad that my immediate reaction upon reading this headline is "what ISN'T a magnet for police harassment these days?".

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More to the point, is there any thing that is a repellant for police harassment? I can think of a few things, but generally not easily achieved (e.g. large amounts of money or power or celebrity status)...

A few:

  - Being white
  - Being middle class or wealthy
  - Being well-dressed
  - Not having a disability or mental illness or addiction
  - Having many people with cameras trained on you and the police
  - Having a home

Notice that many of those are not things under your direct control. Either you were born lucky enough to live a life mostly free of police violence, or you'll be subject to stop and frisk, regular harassment, probably jail time for minor crimes that wouldn't result in jail time for a wealthy white person, etc.

I've occasionally run interference with police at protests and when homeless folks were being harassed by cops because I fit the right stereotypes for not getting the crap beat out of me or getting arrested. I'm simply not the kind of person they harass or arrest, in general. The thought of arresting me or putting me in my place crossed their mind on occasion, I'm sure, but there were usually, maybe always, cameras rolling when these occasions arose. Many people aren't lucky enough to get through police interactions without harm.

Cops in the US are simply terrifying, and in many jurisdictions simply out of control. Not all the time, and not with all people (you could live your whole life without ever having a bad incident with a cop if you were born white/wealthy in America, so it's easy to be oblivious to this). I was oblivious for years...I read Reason magazine back then, and so I was aware of the deadly no-knock drug raids. But, the regulatory targeting of minorities to force them out of their homes and neighborhoods so that gentrification can proceed at will, the police targeting of the homeless and the mentally ill to make downtown districts more profitable for their owners, and drug enforcement only on the poorest in our communities, is the dirty little secret of "progressive" city governments.

My current home city, Austin, is allegedly quite progressive. And, yet, illegal camping (i.e. sleeping while homeless) can result in a $500 ticket, and APD regularly clears out homeless camps, arresting anyone with drugs.

Social cohesion is one possible one. For example, if you lived in a small community where the police officers knew you personally since childhood you would, on average, be less likely to be harassed by police.

As long as you meet all the social mores of that small community, as evaluated by your local busybodies. Otherwise, you're likely to be pervasively harassed.

That, sadly, is too often true. The only solution I see to this problem is allowing lots of different communities to exist with different sets of mores.

That's a useful condition, but it ought to be completely unrelated to law enforcement. You shouldn't be required to live around people who look and think and act the same as you do to receive equal treatment by the law.

While I agree with you that it ought to be a separate issue I strongly doubt the separation is ever achieved in practice. Actual policing and "policing" of human behavior, looks and other norms appear to me to be inextricably linked. I'm sorry to single out this instance in particular but reinforcement of the local mores happens even through seemingly innocent behavior like your ought-statement above, which I happen to agree with but some people might not have, especially in the past. Police officers, persecutors, judges, etc. are affected by their own set of ought-statements in work as well as in life. (And the effect is exacerbated when you implement trial by jury.)

On my part, I cannot come up with one historical example of people generally satisfied with how significantly different outsiders to their community policed them. I have come to think it's more or less an inevitability and the best we can do is to make it possible for people to freely move to where they find the mores agreeable.

Diversity within the police department would probably help.

The fact that negligent investigation, false arrest, willful misconduct, and unlawful conversion are all valid civil causes of action, combined with knowledge on how to file a proper statement of claim, is all the repellant I've ever needed.

In this case at least, the solution seems to be to not use illegal drugs.

No, it isn't. The police is targeting people that are exactly trying to get away from drugs and are seeking professional help to achieve that goal.

My immediate reaction upon reading this headline and story was "Wait, this is in BuzzFeed?"

Probably the first time I've noticed a BuzzFeed article on HN, definitely the first time I've upvoted one.

They do some top-notch reporting occasionally. They got the reputation for their listicles and click-bait, but they have recruited some excellent journalists and have released some high-quality work. Some other examples;

An article from a foreign correspondent about Kurdish Iraqis fighting ISIS: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/kurdish-forces-show-the-s...

Or their rather large investigation into abuse and corruption inside the foster system: http://www.buzzfeed.com/aramroston/fostering-profits#.lhYnKY...

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