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Comment by copsarebastards | Hacker News Reader

> Police officers are trained to be aggressive, assertive, controlling, and correct in all situations.

Well maybe this should change.

I am a night owl and sometimes take walks at night. I don't drink, I'm completely sober. Nevertheless I've been stopped and patted down a few times. Once I was illegally searched because the officer "smelled weed" (I favor legalization, but I haven't smoked since college--I don't like how it makes me feel). And I'm a white guy in my late 20s who dresses like a businessy nerd--if I weren't who knows whether I'd be in jail for some made-up charge by now.

Cops in the US have a combative relationship with the people they serve and that has to change. They work for us--we need to get them under control.

Stopping medical professionals from doing their jobs puts the lives of civilians in danger. Cops should be required to defer to medical professionals unequivocally.

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I went for a walk late at night, trying to clear my head after a rough breakup. I was just wearing my pajamas, and was walking the sidewalks just a few blocks from home.

I turned down a nearby alley in order to head back home, and was half way down it when a creepy-looking car with no lights on squeaked to a stop and blocked off the end of the alley. I froze and looked at it, and that's when the spotlight came on, and I realized it was a cop.

Unfortunately, my thought process went "oh, I must look suspicious. But wait, I don't have any ID. Maybe they didn't see me yet...", so I hopped into a driveway, out of sight of the cop. Oops, bad move. They went full lights-and-siren, and burned rubber down the alley towards me.

I took off running towards my house, zigzagging between houses to break line of sight. When I got back home, I hopped my fence and went in the back door, just because it was the closest entrance.

Double-unfortunately, apparently the cops decided I was a serious threat, and several minutes later I looked out the window to a police car in my own alley, following a cop with a german shepherd. The dog circled my property, and then barked at the fence, so the cops kicked my gate down and searched my back yard. They jiggled the doors and windows, found them locked, and decided to call it a night.

I got up early the next morning to fix my gate, and my parents never found out about it.

For the future, or maybe you know by now, you are not required to carry an ID while walking anywhere in public. However, you are required to identify yourself in most places, if asked by an officer of the law, usually by giving your full name.

You are only required to identify yourself if they have reasonable suspicion that you've committed, or are about to commit, a crime. Of course, that all gets sorted out post-arrest if you don't cooperate, which sucks for us.

In the described event, particularly a person fleeing an officer before the officer even talks to them - I would not be surprised if they considered that reasonable suspicion.

Per the recent events in Baltimore, simply running from the police does not appear to be a reason for arrest (IANAL). However, it's probably a good enough reason for police to pursue and detain you for questioning.

Although N.B. that, per other recent events, there is apparently a risk you will be shot dead regardless.

I think we just have too many bored cops.

After crime fell dramatically in the US, we should have laid off a few. Instead we just hired more and more and more. Now we're seeing the effects of over-policing.

http://i.imgur.com/vjqZQO4.png

You realize that the drop in crime may be related to increased policing.

A lot of things may factor into that. Even if the increased police numbers are 100% responsible, we would still have to have a discussion about the diminishing return on that investment in order to maximize social good.

What is this graph showing? Is it "Sworn officers per civilian"? Or is it absolute data, just from a single state?

It's interesting, for sure, but certainly difficult to understand or draw any conclusions from without further context.

Just from reading the graph:

Figure 1 -- This one I'm not too sure about. It says "Cumulative percent growth in number of full-time sworn personnel."

Figure 2 -- It says "Full-time state and local law enforcement employees, 1992-2008". Each bar has "Civilians" "Sworn Officers" and "Total". I'm guessing that this is the break-down of "Sworn Officers" vs "Civilians" from the pool of "Full-time state and local law enforcement employees." Not all of those employees are sworn officers.

Figure 3 -- Just like Figure 2, but the numbers are "per 100,000 residents."

I agree.

Police have too much free time. Basically, their career path requires that they bring in money or arrests and if crime is down, they'll find ways to meet the unofficial quotas that are held over them.

Crime is down. This is the predictable result of having more police officers to handle less crime. Add in other factors like increasing militarization of law enforcement and the disqualification of people with high IQs and we get the mess that we have today.

Disqualification of people with high IQs?

Yes. Sounds ridiculous, right?

Search for Jordan V. New London.

George: Cops. I don't even care about cops. I wanna see more garbage men. It's much more important. All I wanna see are garbage trucks, garbage cans and garbage men. You're never gonna stop crime, we should at least be clean.

Jerry: I tell you what they should do, they should combine the two jobs, make it one job, 'cop\garbage man'. I always see cops walking around with nothing to do. Grab a broom! Start sweeping. You sweep sweep sweep... catch a criminal, get right back to sweeping.

http://www.seinfeldscripts.com/TheChineseRestaurant.htm

I was once stopped as a kid (age 12). I was going birdwatching that morning, and was up around 5am because the walk to the lagoon was a good 45 minutes from where I lived, and early morning is great for birding. I had a pair of binoculars, a field guide, and a lunch in my backpack.

Two obviously bored deputies stopped me, talked to me for about 60 minutes, checked my backpack and generally couldn't believe a kid would be out on his own free will at that early a time.

No probable cause, I wasn't trespassing (walked the entire way on the sidewalk), but stopped because I was out of the ordinary. This was in a sleepy coastal California town in the late '70s, no real crime to speak of, but no, these guys had to be dicks.

If they had been cool, they would have called my parents to see if I was a runaway, or at least given me a ride to the lagoon, but no, they just wanted to be dicks.

Running from a cop is pretty much the worst choice you can make, whether you're doing anything wrong or not. Cops don't like running. If he has to chase you, chances are he's bringing an ass-kicking with him (thanks, Chris Rock)

Reference: https://youtu.be/QR465HoCWFQ

Also:

"Two things get your ass kicked faster than anything: one is making a cop run. If he catches you, you're 18 years old, you've got fucking Nikes, he’s got cop shoes, he's wearing a utility belt, if you fucking run and he catches you, you're gonna take some lumps. That’s always been part of the code. Rodney King could’ve quoted that much of it to you."

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on...

My wife and I have been in the US for 2.5 years and we had a surreal experience while taking a walk at night once. I must say, we were walking around late at night because we love being in a safe area were we can finally do that - back in our home country, we simply couldn't do that because of the absurd crime rate.

So we're walking around downtown just enjoying a nice summer night, when a police car shows up in a corner. No big deal, it's actually nice to see them around. We walk a block and there's the police car again... and it was like that for basically every block we walked until we got home. Fortunately we were not stopped, but we were definitely being followed and watched.

We come from Latin America but we're both white (German ancestry). I can't help but think the experience would likely have been a little worse if we had more typical Latino looks.

What was it about your experience that made you assume negative intent? Have you considered that maybe their presence had nothing to do with you, or perhaps couples had been targeted by robbers in the area that night and they were merely ensuring you didn't become another crime statistic?

I dislike authority and cops more than most, but I also like evidence and I don't feel like this supports the implied harassment.

1) Everything I hear about American police in the news and from people I meet. Ever since I got here I'm amazed how much I hear the "never talk to the police" advice. I don't know how accurate that is but because I hear it so much I'm afraid of even greeting them when I'm walking around.

2) The whole thing made us feel very uncomfortable. Sure, they could have been looking out for us... But if that was the case, why didn't they just pull over and tell us that? Our relaxing evening walk became tense with us wondering why the police was watching us.

You were a white couple walking downtown at night. I want to live in the utopia of Star Trek, but the reality of our world is that you were probably being shadowed by the police because they were looking out for you. You likely experienced the reason many downtowns are so "safe" these days. I know many police officers personally because of my past in the military (guard), and this is not uncommon, for police to circle around if they see someone that looks like they're up to no good, or if they look like an inviting target. I really wish we could live in a world where racism wasn't so rampant, but...

Somehow Europe manages to have very safe cities without this sort of behaviour from the cops. I think the Americans have been slow-cooked into finding the police state apparatus to be normal and justifiable.

I travel to Europe often, and yes, it is a mentality. I think also the opposite is true, however: Criminals will not commit crime if they have the mindset that a police presence is particularly heavy in an area. Europeans don't need guns to keep them safe, but in America, we "need" our guns to keep us safe. It's absolutely a mindset, you're right. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

I'm not an American so I don't feel a gun will "keep me safe" i.e. I won't be attacked or house broken. Though when that happens I can defend myself much better than without.

Is it generally that people feel they won't be victims to crime if they're armed?

Americans have a pithy sound-bite-style quote for that:

"When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

This is a large and diverse country. There are significant areas of land where the median time until an emergency first-responder will appear is a multiple of the median duration of a typical criminal (or dangerous wildlife) encounter. With the right planning, I could probably walk coast to coast unarmed, without ever feeling unsafe. But if I took my hotel budget and bought a tent and sidearm instead, I wouldn't need to do nearly as much research ahead of time. Besides that, not all dangerous animals are human enough to know the law.

I don't typically go about armed, but several people that I know do. They consider it to not just be protection for themselves, but for their entire community, like vaccinations.

The weapon does not prevent the crime, but it does suggest a more favorable outcome.

Not to discount your comment, but it's also probably worth mentioning that the NRA and gun manufacturers comprise a very large and politically influential lobby. Gun culture in the US is in some part manufactured and sustained by the interests of big business.

One could say the same about a lot of different businesses and industries. Profitable businesses spend money on advertising and lobbying to stay profitable. I mistrust people with vested interests on both sides.

In this particular instance, my opinion of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not clouded by any doubt.

The anecdotal facts I have at my disposal suggest that common gun ownership is neither necessary for public safety nor detrimental to it. The security of a people seems to be correlated more to the strength of their character than that of their arsenal.

The U.S. has always been a fantastically more violent place than Europe (at least, than the UK), since long before the modern era of militarized police: http://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/homicid....

Do you mean looking out in the sense that they were protecting them, or looking out in the sense that "white folks downtown must be here to buy drugs"?

> Once I was illegally searched because the officer "smelled weed"

It's tacitly understood that "smelled weed" is one of several simply accepted pretenses that give an officer the ability manufacture probable cause out of thin air.

I wonder what they'll switch to next when marijuana has been legalized.

"You know what you did" is a common one I've had from cops (ex USSR States mostly) looking for a bribe that evidently works pretty well.

There's a classic TV sketch on this topic: 'Constable Savage' from 'Not the 9 O'Clock News' circa 1980.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO8EpfyCG2Y

It's simply wrong that smelling something is probable cause because of the potential for abuse.

If you can't reasonably rely on the testimony of police officers, you have a really big problem.

Like, require they take photos and they can just plant the evidence before they take the photo.

Compare and contrast a dank whiff with gun fire. I'd like police to be able to respond to the sound of gun fire. I don't see how it is less problematic than responding to the smell of marijuana.

Standards should be (and, I believe, usually are) different for crimes that pose an imminent danger to the public.

I read the concern to be with the reliability of their testimony. I'm fine with the idea that simply smelling marijuana should not be probable cause. I'm not fine with the idea that it should not be probable cause because it creates an avenue for abuse of power.

The checks on abuse of power should happen at a higher level in the system than making rules about what an officer can reliably testify about.

Isn't the whole idea of requiring probable cause to prevent abuse of power? If we fully trusted the police then we wouldn't bother with any of this stuff. We'd allow police to search people at any time for any reason. But we don't trust them that far, so we put limits on what they can do. They can't do some searches without probable cause. Others require a warrant.

The line shifts a bit in the case of imminent danger, because we prefer to take more of a risk with the cops than the criminals in that case. A smell of marijuana doesn't indicate a life-threatening situation so we're back to the whole abuse-of-power bit for why the police can't just search people entirely at will.

Probable cause just outlines a set of situations where use of power is authorized. It is the line between authorized and unauthorized use of power more than it is a check on abuse. If an officer pulls someone over just for the heck of it, their lack of probable cause isn't going to stop them from illegally searching the vehicle.

I see what you are saying about limits on power and trust being mixed together, if someone is literally 100% trustworthy there is no need to limit their power. I still think it is reasonable to consider whether police can reliably testify that they smelled something (this should at least be a goal for a just system) separately from the question of whether they should be allowed to act upon smelling something.

Where's "testify" coming from? The only comments in the thread I see that mention testimony are from you. The question is about what's sufficient cause for a search, and why. And the reason an officer should be allowed to perform a search based on hearing gunfire but not based on smelling weed is because the latter isn't life-threatening. Testimony in any subsequent court case is a completely different matter.

What other potential for abuse does allowing the smell as probable cause introduce? As far as I see, a cop can be a bastard with or without it, but with it he can later say he based a search on the smell (whether it was present or not).

> The checks on abuse of power should happen at a higher level in the system than making rules about what an officer can reliably testify about.

Why should there even be such rules? An officer, like any witness, can testify about anything they observe that is relevant to the matter under consideration by the court, and not barred by any generally-applicable prohibition (e.g., hearsay, etc., to the extent that is barred.)

Whether such testimony is reliable is a matter for the court/jury receiving the testimony to consider, based on the statement, any evidence of bias of the witness, and any conflicting or corroborating evidence.

Treating cops as privileged witnesses in any domain makes no sense, and seems to be contrary to the whole thrust of the Constitutional constraints on the criminal justice system, which are to protect the individual from arbitrary action by the government or its agents.

Yes, I inferred the idea that there should be rules from the comment I replied to and replied in order to reject it.

I think I probably agree that police shouldn't base searches on smelling weed (I'd have to think about whether they should be able to stop a car and tell them to tone it down).

What I don't agree with is making that determination based on concerns about fabricated statements about smelling weed.

> What I don't agree with is making that determination based on concerns about fabricated statements about smelling weed.

The concern about fabrication by the government underlies much of the Constitutional restriction on government power in the criminal domain. I'd say that restricting government based on that concern is generally legitimate, and has a strong tradition in the US.

> If you can't reasonably rely on the testimony of police officers, you have a really big problem.

Yeah, but, you know, we actually do have such a problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_perjury

There's a lot of people that will be truthful about evidence, but lie about motivation. And gunfire is a lot harder to lie about.

Hell look at parallel construction.

If there were a bunch of attacks in my area where someone is throwing bleach in people's eyes (this has happened), I'd want the police to be able to treat the smell of bleach as probable cause.

The problem is that marijuana shouldn't be illegal in the first place. But it is illegal, and it's also common enough that if a cop smells weed, it's believable. Part of the problem here is that we make too many things illegal, and since cops have some choice in which laws they enforce when, it gives cops far too much power.

In Massachusetts the smell of marijuana isn't enough for police to search your car. This was changed recently (summer 2014).

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/07/09/sjc-odor-unburnt...

I did a stint working in Virginia, used to walk a few miles out of town to home after a night's boozing, as unlike seemingly most Americans I won't get behind the wheel drunk, taxis were a rip-off at that time of night, and nothing like a five mile stroll to shake off a hangover.

Long story short, was there for two months, walked home maybe five times, got stopped and id'd twice. Both occasions they were really confused as to not only why someone would walk "so far" to get home, but how.

They were totally fine taking my student id as a drivers license when I got pulled over speeding though. Ho hum.

Yeah, I've had a number of WWB/DWB stops, and in one case a cop pointed a gun at me and forced me to the ground. My crime, jogging in the majority white neighborhood I lived in (there was no active crime in progress, the cop decided that I was 'suspicious' and even after finding nothing on me (I was dressed in sneakers, shorts, t shirt since I was you know, jogging) he proceeded to run my license multiple times and ask me repeatedly what I was doing in the area (apparently 'I live here' and 'jogging' were not satisfactory answers). In the end I got my license thrown back at me with a sarcastic 'have a nice day'.

I have had very few police interactions where it was not clear that the cops viewed their role as dominating and using overwhelming force. U.S cops seem to have a very militaristic mindset which is really bizarre, considering compared to other jobs, being a cop is not that dangerous.In fact, the one case that stood out to me was one where a cop acted the way he should have. I got rear-ended on New Years Eve (as luck would have it, right in front of the State Trooper Barracks). The State Trooper who responded was amazing. He checked on everyone, found that the passenger of the idiot who rear ended me had a broken nose (she had no seatbelt on), called an ambulance, squared everything. He had a truly calming presence. That is how cops should be.

In my experience, in countries with heavy firearm regulation, cops are more mellow. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but that's been my experience.

The aggressiveness in the police along with the adversarial attitude needs to change, it's been unhealthy for a while, on the other hand crime is down, but no one can agree why. Is it police aggressiveness, tougher sentencing, removal of pollutants from environment, aging population.... There are several explanations, but none are completely convincing.

I think some day we'll have to reconsider the interpretation of the second amendment, short of that, change people's perception of firearms. Households with firearms suffer more injury due to accidents than they prevent via deterrence. So, we need to change the attitude so that owning firearms are frowned upon as much as being a tax dodger is frowned upon.

It's hard to avoid feeling that being preemptively aggressive when you know there are people either crazy enough or desperate or foolish enough to use a firearm against a cop and that having your guard down can result in premature departure. But if the likelihood of guns circulating was low, you could give the public the benefit of doubt.

Per a recent NY Times article:

"No police officer in England has died from a weapon attack during the past two years, according to the most recent published data, and none have been involved in fatal shootings during that period."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/us/police-start-to-reconsi...

Households with firearms suffer more injury due to accidents than they prevent via deterrence.

I think you're mistaking correlation for causation.

Consider: a household that's more likely to be in danger is also more likely to have a gun. For example, a drug dealer is frequently in dangerous situations, and so is likely to have a gun. He's also more likely to be injured or killed than your or I. Is that because he owns that gun? It seems unlikely. Many more legitimate professions and activities carry risks like that.

So simply showing that correlation isn't anywhere near sufficient to demonstrate that the gun owner would be safer without his gun.

"Stopping medical professionals from doing their jobs puts the lives of civilians in danger."

One of the first, and most important things we can do is to change the language we are using. Above, you spoke of civilians as different from - separate from - police officers.

Please stop doing this. All police officers are civilians - just like you and I.[1]

If you are not in the process of being arrested you are the peer in every way of the police officer. Don't forget it.

[1] With the obvious exception of the reader of this comment who is an active duty soldier/sailor.

Civilians just like you and I, but with elevated rights to carry firearms and demonstrable bias in their favour in the legal system.

I like your distinction, and for the same reason think that there shouldn't be separate laws for the assault of a police officer -- there should just be laws for assault.

The concept of what you're saying is nice, but I don't know if I agree. In an ideal society, yes, cops would just be other citizens. But talking about cops as if we existed in that ideal world doesn't do anything to move us toward that ideal world. The fact is, cops are largely above the law and incarcerate thousands of people annually, disproportionately along racial and economic lines, and frequently for non-violent crimes. An average citizen can't walk up to another person and put them in jail, basically at will. A cop can: all it takes is planting a little evidence. Cops in America aren't ordinary citizens, they're threats to ordinary citizens, and speaking wishfully about them isn't going to fix that.

Dejure you are correct, but not defacto. The ability of an officer to arrest someone and openly carry firearms (Canadian) sets them apart even if they're not using them, particularly as they can abuse their powers.

Police should be held to a higher standard to compensate for this, and the civilian legal system is poorly equipped to handle them.

What city was this in?

Philadelphia.

It may surprise you to know that cops often deal with truly violent, aggressive individuals and often place their lives in danger. Being assertive and controlling is a proven way to keep situations under control as much as possible when they don't know who they're dealing with. The cop-hate is really getting out of control. Inner-city blacks kill a lot more black people than cops do, yet we bend over backwards to not be judgemental of them. Yes racism is bad. But automatic hatred of cops is really driven by the same kind of thinking.

Having lived in a few different (western, first world) countries, US cops have been by far and away the rudest, most aggressive and entitled I have encountered. It is possible to deal with truly violent and aggressive individuals without always being violent and aggressive yourself.

> Inner-city blacks kill a lot more black people than cops do, yet we bend over backwards to not be judgemental of them.

I haven't encountered many, if any, people who bend over backwards to not be judgmental of inner city blacks who kill other black people, least of all the people who like to point to the number of inner city blacks who kill black people as a means of dismissing specific criticism aggressive behavior by cops.

> It may surprise you to know that cops often deal with truly violent, aggressive individuals and often place their lives in danger.

Violent, aggressive EMTs trying to treat a patient?

And a huge portion of the people jailed in the US are jailed for non-violent crimes.

If you can't deal differently with violent, aggressive people than with people who are clearly non-violent and not aggressive, you have no fucking business being a cop.

Having lived and worked in some pretty nasty areas, I've dealt with some violent, aggressive individuals, yet every day I manage to restrain myself from wrongly accusing people of crimes and beating up innocent people. I'm not sure why you think this is hard.

> The cop-hate is really getting out of control.

I think I have a right to hate people who are violent and aggressive.

> Inner-city blacks kill a lot more black people than cops do, yet we bend over backwards to not be judgemental of them.

No, I hate inner-city blacks who kill people just as much as I hate cops who kill people. I just don't talk about it much, because we don't seem to have much problem giving inner-city blacks who kill people the jail time they deserve.

> But automatic hatred of cops is really driven by the same kind of thinking.

I don't automatically hate cops. It just so happens that cops frequently go out of their way to give me reason to hate them.

When you have cops on film choking a man to death for selling cigarettes, on film shooting a man in the back then planting evidence on him (and, worse, having his original lie backed up by his fellow officers), and so on, and so on, it's quite a stretch to say that the cop-hate is the thing that's out of control. It seems more like it's the cops.

Yes racism is bad. But...

Oh, yeah, there it is.

Because it leads to another interesting police/EMS interaction, I'd like to shed a little light on how Eric Garner died. He was not 'choked' to death. The choke hold only lasted a second or two, and wasn't even really an effective choke hold.

He died because he was placed on his stomach, with his arms handcuffed behind his back. This, combined with the fact that he was overweight made it impossible for him to breath effectively [1].

The 'interesting' (and depressing) thing is that the EMS crew that responded should have recognized this and had the cops reposition him. Instead, they just went with the flow, and didn't intervene... The one positive that has come out of his death is that his case is now the go-to example used to show EMS students how not to handle situations like that, and how to be an advocate for their patients.

[1] It's actually a bit more complicated than that... if he were just 'resting' in that position, he likely would be fine, but his inability to breathe deeply prevented his body from being able to compensate for various processes that kicked into overdrive when he was resisting the cops, but the tl; dr; is that if he had been placed on his back, or sitting up, he would almost certainly still be alive. Placing him on his stomach was against NYPD policy, and both the cops and EMTs/paramedics should have known better.

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