
Police Crack Down on Burning Man - jkbyc
http://intellihub.com/2013/08/23/state-and-federal-police-crack-down-on-burning-man-in-unprecedented-show-of-force/
======
hga
If you believe the thesis presented in _Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop
Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested..._
([http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-
Reveals-A...](http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-
Arrested/dp/1556526377/)), that in a period of declining overall real crime
rates the bulked up police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the
"clueless" else there would be layoffs, then you'd expect these sorts of
events to be magnets for police to build up their arrest statistics.

Doing these sorts of events may be less and less practical in the future. I
can think of a number of countries where people tend to build walled compounds
to among other things keep the "authorities" out, or at least strongly
discouraged from "visiting".

~~~
rdtsc
> Doing these sorts of events may be less and less practical in the future. I
> can think of a number of countries where people tend to build walled
> compounds to among other things keep the "authorities" out, or at least
> strongly discouraged from "visiting".

Those are fascinating places. Not in a pleasant way, most often there are
drugs, own made up rules, human trafficking going on and so on, living
condition are probably terrible (slums). But it is just the whole setup is
interesting. Like a little fiefdom or small city state.

Authorities are either corrupt and are bought off and discouraged from going
in there via positive reinforcement or they are just so outnumbered and the
determination of the community to keep them out will make it very hard to get
to a particular subject to arrest them.

I can think of Brazilian favelas or that one criminal in Jamaica that was
walled off and protected by a large community who he was "taking care of". It
is also interesting at how self sufficient those places are. Is there always
rampant disease and crime or is there a support network, people helping each
other in need and so on. I guess it all depends who you ask.

Sometimes I think Detroit and inner cities our there are almost there. I
imagine and all out assault will bring the national guard out.

~~~
jeremysmyth
Have a look at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania)

Drugs, yes. Own made up rules, yes. Otherwise, not so much. No human
trafficking, no slums, and the authorities are neither corrupt nor
underpowered. They just largely choose to ignore them and let them get on with
what they do (I say largely, because that's not always the case; every few
years they have some crackdown or other).

------
malandrew

        "One DPW member was issued a $275 ticket for urinating on 
        the playa, and threatened with being forced to register as 
        a convicted sex offender."
    

Lots and lots of stuff goes down at Burning Man that could get you registered
as a convicted sex offender if that stuff occurred back in the normal world.
However, it's a sexually charged event and everyone who goes to the event
knows this before they go and the event occurs far far away from the normal
world. To be out there charging people for acts that are within the social
norms of the event, especially in a way that is going to follow them back to
their life where ever they happen to live is pretty shitty.

TBH I don't get why public urination deserves more than a ticket as
deterrence. Listing someone as a convicted sex offender is quite frankly
absurd for such a benign infraction.

    
    
        "If the cops would leave their badges and guns at home and 
        just be burners like everyone else in BRC, we’d welcome 
        them just like we welcome anyone else. We’d even build 
        them a Donut Camp!"
    

Not exactly the best comment to make if you don't want to attract the ire of
law enforcement. It may be a playful jab that burners will get and consider
not that big of a deal. But some tough guy LEO with a hard-on for prosecuting
hippies is going to see that as an excuse for going there and ticketing
people. It's now a known phenomena that police officers in many parts of the
country will volunteer at major events like political summits where they it's
likely that they might get a chance to crack some skulls. When you teach
people new paramilitary skills, they are going to want to jump at
opportunities to practice on real life human beings.

~~~
betterunix
"TBH I don't get why public urination deserves more than a ticket as
deterrence. Listing someone as a convicted sex offender is quite frankly
absurd for such a benign infraction."

Sex offender registration is absurd regardless of the crime. The entire
concept was a knee-jerk reaction to a rare crime, and now we have to deal with
a class of outcasts who have trouble finding a place to live:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Tuttle_Causeway_sex_offender_colony)

~~~
pessimizer
The Overton window has passed on that one. Now, no one remembers that sex
offender laws were controversial when first instituted, and were a big
difference from anything that had happened before. Of course sex is dirty, and
people who commit sex crimes should be permanently stained while murderers
live freely - the only debate is when people get that stain for something that
merely involved nudity, or teenagers get it for molesting themselves.

Sad, really. The Bill of Rights was the only thing protecting us from the
wolves, and each amendment has been reduced by the post-Warren courts into a
loose guideline or an unenforceable platitude.

------
jlubawy
Calling the police pigs and showing outright disdain isn't going to help
anyone, it only makes the Burning Man community look like a bunch of lawless
idiots which is exactly what the police want. That said, this is likely
retaliation for the lawsuit Pershing County sheriff lost against Black Rock,
LLC ([http://brcvpc.com/](http://brcvpc.com/)). The linked article said the
BLM lost but I don't think they were even involved in the case, as far as I
can tell the BLM has only been supportive of Burning Man.

~~~
kazagistar
I think we are forgetting that the point of the law is to protect people. If a
bunch of people do want to be lawless in the drugs and public urination sense,
but go out of their way to do it in an isolated, out of the way place, then I
support them 100%, and think the police and law should stay away. "Lawless" is
not a dirty word in my mind when the laws are wrong.

------
skore
Look, I'm all for weird stuff, but when a site features ads that read "FACT:
Cancer is a Fungus, It Can Be Prevented" and two "X banned/hate this video"...
hmm, how about no?

~~~
Houshalter
>"FACT: Cancer is a Fungus, It Can Be Prevented"

What on Earth. Are they serious?

~~~
sitkack
Cancer vectors vary far and wide,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease)
no comment on whether that particular cancer is a fungus which BTW would be a
new one to me.

------
ck2
Law enforcement is big money, big profit.

Sadly as every last non-service job is shipped overseas, you can only expect
more of it in every aspect of society as government sees it as boosting
employment numbers, especially as we scale down wars and switch to drones,
bringing home all those enlisted.

~~~
pstuart
The equivalent of strip mining the citizenry.

------
jlubawy
Here's a clarification from the official Burning Man blog:

 _[Note: It was erroneously reported on Boing Boing that BRC won a lawsuit
against BLM this year and that BLM may be retaliating by writing more
citations in Black Rock City. For the record, BRC was not in a lawsuit with
BLM this year. There is an ongoing lawsuit with Pershing County. More
information about that can be found at www.brcvpc.com. The information about
retaliation is unfounded.]_

[http://blog.burningman.com/2013/08/building-brc/law-
enforcem...](http://blog.burningman.com/2013/08/building-brc/law-enforcements-
comin-to-town/)

------
glibgil
"One of the most peaceful and long running festivals in the country".

If you don't count rape. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning-
man-rape...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning-man-
rape_b_1897689.html)

~~~
kemayo
Given the lack of information in that article beyond a single anecdote, we
have no idea how common rape is at Burning Man. However, rapes occurring
wouldn't preclude it from being "one of the most peaceful .. festivals"; it
merely has to be better than most of the others for that to be true.

(I have no idea whether it _is_ true. Never been.)

~~~
larrys
Agree.

Anytime you have large groups of people (in certain circumstances) things are
going to happen. As you noted w/o statistics it's hard to draw a conclusion as
far as the risk. Similar to when you hear about things happening on cruise
ships. They do but statistically chance is extremely small.

Also things like this:

"Reno. Joseph Pred, Burning Man's Emergency Services Operations Chief
confirmed, "Rape kits do not exist in Black Rock City. Forensic exams are
incredibly complex issues that have to do with the court system and are not
something that is really easily taken on. In Northern Nevada, there is only
one facility that does that type of exam."

I found this curious, so I contacted a hospital in Northern Nevada and asked
if rape kits were only done in specific facilities. A charge nurse in the ER
said that when a person is brought in for rape, they are instructed by law
enforcement to conduct a special exam and it can be done in any hospital in
Northern Nevada."

So we have one person saying one thing and another person saying another
thing. At least the person making the first comment is named. The 2nd is just
"charge nurse in the ER".

