Sandra Bland and the ‘lawful order’ problem | Hacker News Reader

Sandra Bland and the ‘lawful order’ problem

washingtonpost.com

29 pointsMBCook19 comments

Economically, even if Sandra Bland didn't die and served a few days in jail, this whole situation seems like such an mindless waste of resources. Sure, maybe she should have used her turn signal, but how does it her serve her municipality well at all well by jailing someone like this? The expenses of police and judicial resources on each side must be enormous.

If the department for the municipality does not use all or nearly of their yearly budget, their budget for the following year is frequently reduced.

I know a veteran of the US Navy who was ordered by his captain to throw quarter million dollar flight computers overboard. Had he not done so his aircraft carrier would not have used up its budget.

My roommates in college were in ROTC and they were always looking for things to fill that gap. I don't think they ever broke anything, but if I remember correctly they managed to get a popcorn machine.

Are there not better ways to spend the budget than jailing minor offences ?

Moreover, if the department didn't use all its budget, maybe it's a good thing to reduce it so that funds can be diverted to other, more needy departments ?

Judges, prosecutors and most of the media will always assume the cops side unless there is overwhelming video/audio evidence.

Add to that the fact that they have a gun and the right to use it with almost no consequences (some extra paperwork, maybe a paid vacation).

It has nothing to do with "lawful" it's about force, and force is completely on their side.

If there's one thing people like to do in political arguments, it's caricature the opposition. While fun, it's not very productive. In this case, I find it much more useful to actually understand why police behave the way they do.

Cops don't want to shoot innocent people. They want to do their job and get home safely. But last year, 62 cops were murdered while on duty.[1] Even more were shot and survived. For cops, every traffic stop is a second away from becoming deadly. They don't know if the person they pulled over is armed or crazy. Looking away for a moment can get them killed. Don't believe me? Watch this cop's body cam.[2] Now imagine seeing similar videos every few days, because that's how often it happens. You don't think you'd be on-edge?

While police work isn't particularly dangerous compared to fishing or logging, people can't internalize that fact. And in fairness to intuitions, much of the risk is compressed into short moments such as traffic stops.

Are some cops sociopaths? Yes. Should every cop have a body cam? Yes. Do I think most police departments have problems with excessive force, discrimination, and hostility? Definitely. But it makes no sense to demonize people who, at the end of the day, just want to see their family.

One more thing: I'm very glad the Sandra Bland video was released, as it is a perfect example of a cop behaving horribly. Hopefully, more bad cops will get the message: if you act this way, you will be discovered.

1. http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/reports/Preliminary-2014-O...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8-hgt8Z_qI&t=27 (warning: loud & graphic)

Edit: Apparently, this topic is poison to rational discourse. Please remember the principle of charity and avoid nitpicking or misconstruing.

> Cops don't want to shoot innocent people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-i-raided-ins...

> When I later visited the Fairfax County police station to gather details about what went wrong, I met the shift commander, Lt. Erik Rhoads. I asked why his officers hadn’t contacted management before they raided the apartment. Why did they classify the incident as a forced entry, when the information they had suggested something innocuous? Why not evaluate the situation before escalating it?

> Rhoads defended the procedure, calling the officers’ actions “on point.” It’s not standard to conduct investigations beforehand because that delays the apprehension of suspects, he told me.

Yeah, given how they reacted in this article and the fact they defended not even bothering to contact the apartment complex...yeah.

Sorry, I'm not really able to believe that. Its pretty clear this procedure exists to pad some kind of statistic rather than any rational cause. It can't be justified outside of that.

"Does the property owner know about this?" is literally the first question worth asking if you cared about not shooting innocent people.

>Hopefully, more bad cops will get the message: if you act this way, you will be discovered.

and then what? get put on paid leave while you're being investigated, and then cleared in a year or two, after all the public anger died down? At worse the cop loses his job and gets a fraction of the sentence that a civilian would get under the same circumstances.

I think part of the Sandra Bland story is the apparent escalation of the encounter BY the officer. Asking sarcastic, passive aggressive questions when you have the trust of the community and a gun at your waist is abusive. Its outrageous to many of us who watch the video and just juvenile bullying really.

Regarding your comments on the danger of policing, its somewhat fallacious--police work is generally safer than it's ever been and not any more dangerous than simply walking the streets in most U.S. cities. Im having a hard time pasting the link on mobile but Radley Balko has a number of articles on the subject in the Washington Post and Reason.

I completely agree. The behavior of that officer was egregious. Engaging in dominance games is stupid and petty; doubly-so when you have weapons, training, and legal authority.

I thought I addressed the stats about danger, though not deeply:

> While police work isn't particularly dangerous compared to fishing or logging, people can't internalize that fact. And in fairness to intuitions, much of the risk is compressed into short moments such as traffic stops.

I know police work isn't particularly dangerous, but I also think that during a traffic stop, it would take superhuman willpower to not be more prone to violence than the situation merits. That's just how people are wired. There might be some training or technology that could ameliorate this, but I don't think it exists yet.

It should be noted that those stats are averaged over all aspects of police work. Some particular aspects are more dangerous, and some are less dangerous. Traffic stops are more dangerous, accounting for something like more than half of on duty officer deaths and serious injuries.

Also, several people here seem to be reasoning that policing is safe, so there is no need for police to take strong control in these situations. Isn't it possible that taking strong control in these encounters is why they are reasonably safe?

Here's a useful article on what you should and should not do during a traffic stop if you want to both assert and defend your rights, but still have a good chance of getting off with a warning, or at worst a ticket.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/police-stops-when-pul...

A very important piece of information in there that I think many people here are not aware of is that you can be ordered to step out of the car during a traffic stop, and you do have to obey. (You can also be ordered to stay in the car).

Here's an LA Times article where they asked several experts to go over the Bland video.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-sandra-bland-arrest-expe...

They point out several mistakes officer Encinia made, but also note Bland made a serious error in refusing to get out of the car. Most of Encinia's mistakes occur in dealing with that and its aftermath.

I urge people to read the first article linked above, and keep it mind if you are stopped for a traffic infraction. By doing this, then even if you end up with another Officer Encinia, you can make sure the encounter doesn't get to the point where he has a chance to make the kind of mistakes Encinia made. It generally takes both the officer and the driver making mistakes to get a traffic stop to go seriously bad, so if you encounter a bad or insufficiently trained officer, make sure you don't make mistakes, and then report him later.

This seems like an overly complicated analysis.

The things can can be lawful, like ordering a suspect to put their hands behind their backs are the lawful orders, even if a police officer might be acting unlawfully if issueing the order without probable cause.

There are other things that are never lawful - ordering someone to sign a confession or answer questions. These are the unlawful orders.

If an officer gives you a lawful order you should comply, and if the officer was behaving unlawfully that should be subject to a complaint.

Another problem is that it doesn't really matter if you know what is legal and wasn't isn't. At least in the moment. What are you going to do? Physically fight the cop to enforce your rights? I'm also pretty sure that in many jurisdictions, if you fight a cop over an illegal arrests, you are still guilty of assaulting an officer.

Rights are enforced in a court after the fact.

I am sure this gets frustrating to hear over and over, but it is astonishing how little freedom there is in the land of the free.

There is the caricature of the German secret police going 'Papieren, bitte', but how is having to fear that any random encounter with police may end with jail or even death any different?

Black and white thinking is unproductive.

There are good cops and bad cops. I have many good reasons to hate and fear the police - but I dont, because I judge them as individuals rather than as a group.

If a law enforcement officer commits a crime they should go to prison.

But most law enforcement officers are good people who want to do right by others.

I think a refusal to accept any generalities is also unproductive. To make a mathematical analogy, the first few eigenvectors can capture most of the information about a data set.

I think we should be indoctrinated in school in how to behave when given orders by our masters.

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