Comment by knodi123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by knodi123 | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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