Please, someone tell me this is fucking illegal.
It took me about 4 months to get my phone back from the NYPD, which was fun.
I love it when white people are shocked by their first arrest, because it (unfortunately) means something might get done. The system sucks. Now please scare other white people about it.
This. My arrest taught me that there is zero humanity and zero fucks given in "the system".
It's unclear to me why race has anything to do with this. Are you implying that you expect non-white people to handle "their first arrest" more casually, as if it is something they are familiar with and know will happen?
If we really want things to improve, we need to stop complaining about how "white people don't see how bad it is for the rest of us." Focus on what we have in common, not what you arbitrarily perceive as what makes us different. The system is shitty for everybody. Your argument would have been just as informative and a lot more pleasant to read if it didn't begin by partitioning your readers by race.
Almost none of my white friends understand the terrible truths in the system beyond reading accounts like this in the media. I include myself among them. Part of it is probably population realities - when a minority segment of the population suffers the majority of indignities, it's more likely to hit close to home.
Yeah, I'd like to remove black and white from many conversations. White guilt feels almost vogue, I have to hear about it so often from white friends and colleagues. But when it comes to the criminal justice system...
However, to suggest that the experience of the system is the same for everybody is naive at best. I read task_queue's comment more as the following:
"Societal structures do not change until those with more (social, political, economic, etc) power experience the inconvenience and injustice that people without the power to effect change experience on a more regular basis. That this is true is unfortunate."
Swaths of people go through this regularly or are targeted and treated, much, much worse than this guy for the sole virtue of being the wrong race. Somehow, many white people, especially those in the upper class, never have to see this injustice ever.
There's a reason MLK's strategy during the civil rights movement worked. It inconvenienced or scared white people into seeing the injustice of the system they are a part of and control.
Police brutality and injustice is a side of America we are privileged to be mostly excluded from. When it becomes our problem, the system at least attempts to correct itself.
As an aside, for many people I know, the whole police brutality meme really started brewing when it became common knowledge that cops can come into your house and shoot your dogs. It doesn't and didn't matter that has been going on for decades to those of the wrong race or religion, often with deadly consequences.
https://thenib.com/great-moments-in-peaceful-protest-history...
Please, someone tell me this is fucking illegal.
What I'm about to suggest is not meant to remedy or suggest alternate remedies to the workings of the criminal justice system as it currently operates.
I'm merely expressing amusement at the colossal unfamiliarity of most of the generally law-abiding public (Black, White, Hispanic or otherwise) at how poorly our system works, even with the best intentions of the law makers and policy wonks.
I can't but find people who expect an uniform carriage of justice, across all wealth levels, across all demographics and in all instances of law-breaking, to be nothing short of, deranged.
Not so long ago, I held such similar delusions of equality and fairness, albeit not to the same degree as some here on HN.
I always knew there was more than a little truth to the adage that it is far better to be wealthy and guilty than poor and innocent, in America.
Any speck of doubt cleared up after I sat in a courtroom to witness the pre-trial consultations of a high profile defendant in SF. In a criminal case.
It was a farce, to put it mildly. Just the resources available to the prosecutor on one side and the defendant with his high powered legal team -- which came with their own personal scribe to document the exchanges in the court, a videographer and the partner of the law firm among others -- on the other side, settled the matter for me.
I don't quite know if its standard courtroom protocol to call both the parties - the prosecutor and the defendant's attorney - into recess to discuss matters in the judge's quarters but I counted 7 such times they just left to talk behind closed doors.
I was floored at the deference with which the judge spoke to the defendant. The whole thing seemed like some closed door Congressional testimony with ranking members. I've never seen anything like it although I've seen the inside of a courtroom in unrelated matters before. I've seen common folk arraigned before. This was something else.
And mind you this was in proletariat-loving SF not some courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama or Angola, Louisiana. I don't know what one should expect in those places.
Try it sometime. Go to a courthouse and sit in one of the air-conditioned courtrooms and observe the proceedings.
Edit: see comment below. Thx refurb.
To be honest, the US is particularly bad in that regard.
Suddenly that picture of a luxury condominium overlooking a favela is less hyperbole and more of an accurate depiction of what we're doing over here.
tbh, I'm German and while we have our own issues with police, conduct like this is next to unheard of.
I have thought of the police tactics shown in e.g. NCIS (shouting at people until they confess, tricking them into confessions, ...) as typical Hollywood exaggerations, but apparently I was blatantly wrong.
If anything, what you see on shows like NCIS are a romanticized, sanitized, whitewashed version of what really happens.
Can I be a german please? I'm just about serious at this point.
Although I would personally recommend that you stay where you are and join a movement to change your country.
I'm Italian, moved to the US a few years back.
"Once arrested, protesters, including five Britons, were taken to a police barracks where they were beaten again, sprayed with asphyxiating gas, threatened with rape and forced to sing fascist-era songs."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/12/night-police-be...
But yeah, coming from the UK, this whole thing strikes me as a little mad. But I suspect the author is omitting some details for dramatic effect. It would very much surprise me if it wasn't made very clear what she was being arrested for, and the officer explained her rights etc. I'm also sceptical about the "u turns to show off" - in the UK, all police vehicles have incident recorders, so showing off for shits and giggles is dangerous and likely to get you fired. It#s I'd be surprised if there weren't similar devices. It's also made exceedingly clear you don't post pictures on duty in social media unless it's approved etc.
Nonetheless, sounds all very horrible, and it shouldn't be. I like to think we do it a lot better.
I had to walk from downtown Brooklyn back to the precinct that had my stuff because I didn't have any money or keys into my apartment.