
“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book” - gabemart
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/07/%E2%80%9Cwhy_did_you_shoot_me_i_was_reading_a_book_the_new_warrior_cop_is_out_of_control/
======
Nrsolis
I knew Sal Culosi.

He was a nice enough guy that used to hang out at Fast Eddies Sports Bar in
Fairfax, VA. I saw him there often just tending a beer and minding his own
business.

If you can believe it, he was an optometrist at a Wal-Mart that just measured
eyeballs and wrote prescriptions. If he was a bookie (as alleged) then I never
saw anything that gave him away.

I followed his story in the paper and was surprised to hear that a 17-year
veteran of the Fairfax County Police was the one that shot him. Apparently, he
said he was bumped and accidentally discharged his gun DIRECTLY INTO SAL'S
CHEST.

The police department eventually settled with the family for negligent
homicide. That was only after they fought tooth and nail to protect a cop that
didn't know how to control a deadly weapon.

In the end, I think the cop got a 3 week suspension. AFAIK, he's still on the
FCPD.

~~~
sneak
It's shit like this that flies in the face of all those "but most cops are not
bad guys" arguments.

If an organization fights to protect bad guys, I don't care how much good they
do: they are complicit in furthering criminal behavior. And they're in a
position of trust, at that!

It's an open secret that cops lie to protect other cops.

Why do we allow this? Any other person in a special position of trust and
responsibility that contravenes their duty gets _extra_ punishment.

Lon Horiuchi was an FBI sniper that shot Vicki Weaver in the back while
holding her infant daughter in her arms: case dismissed. That cop that pepper
sprayed those protesting kids at UC Davis, John Pike, was never even charged
for "lack of evidence" (nevermind that video of him doing so was on every news
show in the country that week). The FBI and BATFE set the Branch Davidians'
home on fire, burning up the children inside.

Instead of meaningful outrage, we simply let cops get away with murder,
literally.

Fuck the police.

~~~
ryanSrich
Cops have no legal obligation to protect you.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia)

~~~
wdewind
You make it sound much worse than it actually is. The court ruled "a
government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public
services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." If
the opposite were held true any person who was ever the victim of a crime
could sue the government agency with jurisdiction for damages. Warren does not
hold that the police have no duty to protect you if they are witnessing a
crime being perpetrated upon you.

~~~
programmarchy
I disagree.

This ruling, and others like it hint at a fundamental flaw in constitutional
law and how most people perceive their relationship with the state,
particularly in regard to social contract theory. These rulings call into
question the very legitimacy of state authority.

Let's assume for a moment there is a social contract with the state. Then, as
in all contracts, there is a reciprocal obligation. Specifically, as a
citizen, I have a duty of allegiance (obey state laws, pay taxes, etc.) in
return for the duty of protection, from my government. Since the state itself
has ruled it has no constitutional duty to protect, then the contract is
inviolate, and long since void. In other words, there is no duty of allegiance
to the state per the rulings of the courts if one takes social contract theory
to be valid.

In my opinion, police corruption is one example of a foundational flaw in our
current institution of governance: rule by means of coercion.

~~~
wdewind
I disagree.

I think you are assuming Warren has a broader impact than it does. The state
does have an obligation to protect the public at large, and to do so uniformly
(unless a special relationship is created). The state has not ruled it has no
constitutional duty to protect you, it has ruled it has no constitutional duty
to prevent every crime that occurs. Again, if the opposite were held true the
state could be sued out of existence in its own court. There was no other way
for this case to be decided.

Essentially the state has ruled it cannot be perfect in terms of crime
prevention, and considering the backlash against the NSA wiretapping that much
of HN has been extremely concerned about, it seems that the state is not
frequently rewarded for attempts to get closer to proactively preventing
crime. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

I don't disagree with you about police corruption, but it has absolutely
nothing to do with Warren.

~~~
gohrt
Actually, our cake was taken away, and we can't eat it, or whatever.

The public is caught in a catch-22: it is illegal to defend ourselves
physically against attackers (we can be held liable for harming an attacker,
and often for posessing a self-defense weapon, and so criminals are
emboldened, knowing we are defenseless), and yet the police provide no
guarantee of protection against crime, and in fact are frequent perpetrators
of violent accidents against civilians.

Like sheep to slaughter we go.

------
Ovid
Is this really the America that America wants?

The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant
for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives
from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the
place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find?

Two sample bottles of beer that weren't labeled as samples and a bottle of
vodka in the office. The fourth circuit court of appeals upheld the search.
According to the article: _So for now, in the Fourth Circuit, sending a SWAT
team to make sure a bar’s beer is labeled correctly is not a violation of the
Fourth Amendment._

~~~
mikeash
Sadly, yes, it _is_ the America that America wants, as far as I can tell.

I think this is where efforts to fight these problems fall down. They're
almost all based on the assumption that the populace doesn't want this stuff
to happen, but that the government pushes it through by abusing power,
subverting democracy, etc.

But from what I see, this is not the case. Most Americans want this. Whether
it's gun-wielding maniacs, drug dealers, or international terrorist
masterminds, they feel _unsafe_ , and want the government to help. They _like_
heavily-armed SWAT teams available at a moment's notice. They _like_ the
government spying on every communication they can get their hands on. They
_like_ x-ray machines and body scanners in airports.

There is a sizable minority where sanity remains, but it is a _minority_. I
think that efforts to fight these problems need to recognize this, and realize
that you have to convince the _people_ as your primary action. Fighting the
government won't help, because the people will insist that these things be
done, as long as the majority feels this way.

No, I don't know how....

~~~
smky80
They do not "like" it. It's just that, to be very blunt, most people are
basically peasants at heart. They're going to go along with whatever the king
says. Twenty years ago, on that side of the line on a map, the people believed
in capitalism, while on the other side the people believed in communism. On
this side of the line people believed in this god, on that side, they believe
in that god.

It has nothing to do with some kind economists' "rational utilization
maximization" function and everything to do with basically a "k-nearest
neighbours" algorithm on their social graph for assigning beliefs.

And that is precisely why control of the media is so important.

~~~
kevinmchugh
This is a somewhat ugly and self-aggrandizing view. It's easy to let people
you don't know and will never meet become sub-human, but it's dangerous and
harmful. The relevant xkcd is of course,
[http://xkcd.com/610/](http://xkcd.com/610/).

I don't presume to know why most people are not particularly vocal on these
matters, but it's certainly not because they lack critical thought.

~~~
speeder
Here in Brazil not only people are usually like that (the "shocking" protests
here, were still a minority... 1 million people in total, spread over the
entire country, when the country has 200 million people... Compare that with
european countries with a history of population fueled government changes,
that regularly do protests with more than 1 million people and have less
population), but people in Brazil are PROUD of it.

Here when you attempt to talk about politics, a common reply is: "Dude, I
don't care, and I like it that way, don't come with that politics bullshit
toward me."

This applies even during the elections...

In fact, here vote is mandatory, because when it wasn't, less than 5% voted at
all, but making vote mandatory only made the thing poisonous, people vote
because they must, usually on whoever they see most on TV, or some random
candidate or another, if you ask a random brazillian who he voted for as
representative, most of them don't remember at all, not even the party they
voted for.

Also we have plenty of proof, that all elections since electronics ballot were
introduced here, were cheated, and people DON'T CARE. I show videos of people
hacking our machines and showing how they can steer election to whatever way
they want, and most people react with complete apathy, they feel that politics
is irrelevant, that all politicians are the same, thus it does not matter if
whoever wins won cheating or not, because the result is not important to them.

~~~
rehack
>In fact, here vote is mandatory, because when it wasn't, less than 5% voted
at all

But voting being mandatory, is a very alarming thing. Does not sound like
democracy at all. What happens, when one does not vote?

~~~
dools
Mandatory voting is essential for a healthy democracy.

~~~
DanBC
It's scary, because what do you do when 58% of the total electorate tick the
"None of the above" option?

2001, 2005, and 2010 UK elections had less than 70% turn out. That's a scary
30% to 35% of people forced to tick a box.

I'm not sure having that many people randomly ticking a box is good for
democracy, especially because it's probably not a random choice but determined
things like position on the ballot paper.

------
alexvr
In order to stay safe from the government,

1\. Don't buy sparkling water if you're a college student

2\. Don't bet with friends because an arbitrary threshold of about $2k
warrants your execution

3\. Don't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or
you'll be charged with espionage

4\. It's probably a bad idea to bear arms these days, because saying "Officer,
I have a weapon in the trunk of my car" might give him reason to shoot you in
self defense

5\. You don't actually have free speech anymore, so be careful about that. If
you threaten to shoot up a school, even jokingly and totally within your
rights, you will be incarcerated for half a year before your trial. And who
knows if the judge will let you off? You just have to pray for one who knows
and abides by the constitution.

~~~
tokenadult
_3\. Don 't tell American citizens that their government abuses its power, or
you'll be charged with espionage_

Point 3 is patently false. All of my Facebook friends, and I, regularly say
that the United States government abuses its power, some from the right, some
from the left, and many from a general freedom-loving perspective, and we all
go on posting as we please. All of these statements are exaggerations. Many of
these statements refer to problems that are much worse in other places. (If
you think that arbitrary abuse by the police is the worst it can be in the
United States, you haven't traveled very much.) Sure, protest fearlessly about
any abuse you find anywhere. But don't lose sight of reality.

AFTER EDIT: People who follow my comments on Hacker News

[https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tokenadult](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=tokenadult)

will be well aware that I participate in public protests here in the United
States, in full view of TV news cameras and police observers. (The last
protest I participated in was across the street from the headquarters of the
Minneapolis police department.) I am an equal-opportunity democracy movement
activist, desiring more power for the people in every country of the world. As
one of the grandchild comments to this comment has now said, it's silly to
exaggerate conditions in the United States, as that just robs a comment of
credibility. If you want to establish a better trend line for United States
policy, be specific in your policy proposals, and make your policy proposals
public fearlessly, early and often. Don't be an anonymous coward. Put your
name behind your convictions.

People power democracy movements that nudge countries from dictatorship to
democracy can really work. I have seen it done. A successful movement for
greater freedom requires great courage, and a degree of social trust among the
movement participants that is not easy to find. Allow me to repeat advice I
have shared here on Hacker News before. If you really want to be an idealistic
but hard-headed freedom-fighter, mobilizing an effective popular movement for
more freedom wherever you live, I suggest you read deeply in the free,
downloadable publications of the Albert Einstein Institution,

[http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html](http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html)

remembering that the transition from dictatorship to democracy described in
those publications is an actual historical process with recent examples around
the world that we can all learn from. You can find publications in more than a
dozen languages there to share with your friends around the world.

~~~
akiselev
Oh yeah it's all much worse in other places. We're still "better" than all the
dictatorships and authoritarian governments in the world, and that makes it
all just fine and dandy. The only people losing sight of reality are the ones
deluded into thinking that America/ns is/are immune to what appears to be a
fundamental feature of power: corruption.

By point 3 he meant actions by USG whistle blowers with access to classified
information, not a civilian's facebook account.

~~~
Kylekramer
There is a problem with broad statements like the grandparent comment. College
students buy water everyday without trouble, people own guns without being
harassed daily, people makes bets daily without any trouble, people make
joking threats daily without incident. There is plenty bad going on without
the need for exaggerations and outright lies.

If you want reality to change, you have to accept reality. Skewing it to the
most sensationalistic interpretation only makes it easier to dismiss.

~~~
akiselev
If you're going to talk economics, politics, sociology, or just about any
massive and complex systems, you cannot avoid broad statements. I dislike
them, but that's just the way it is. I notice a lot on HN that broad
statements generally are called out and (usually without being defensive)
clarified in the discussion.

However, in this case, there is no clarification needed. Compare the United
States across whatever subjective experience and online indices you can find
(economic freedom, press freedom, happiness, quality of life, etc but take
them with a grain of salt) and make up your own mind.

After having traveled a little bit and lived in circumstances very different
from my current life in SF, I have become less concerned with the water, guns,
bets, and bad jokes and more concerned about the creeping changes in massive
institutions like the US government. After all, one of the hallmarks of a
democracy is how it protects the minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

~~~
d23
> If you're going to talk economics, politics, sociology, or just about any
> massive and complex systems, you cannot avoid broad statements.

Of course not, but they need to semi-accurately reflect the way things are
going on a broad scale. If someone steps on my toe at the convenience store
and doesn't apologize, I don't start a rally cry about how America is full of
toe-hating assholes. If it starts happening systemically then I might be more
willing to make that charge.

------
wavefunction
Again and again we see questionable or outright illegal police shootings of
dogs and people and nothing ever comes of it. The responsible parties are
never charged with manslaughter or even fired. I want to support the police,
but the thin blue line bullshit has to stop!

I get that police work is often dangerous but individuals that have shown poor
judgement are retained on the force. That police officer that shot the dog 4
times had already shot and killed a developmentally disabled guy who was
brandishing a knife but could have been tazed or bean-bagged.

These are not the sorts of people to be handing out guns to.

~~~
danbruc
Are there any reliable statistics quantifying this? I found some numbers for
Germany on Wikipedia [1] but not for the US. The article states that per year
for the period of 2007 to 2011 the German police fired between 36 and 57
bullets at humans killing between 6 and 12 of them. Older numbers are less
reliable but similar regarding the number of people killed (peak since 1970 24
in 1983) but with a larger number of bullets fired where reported. Are the
numbers for the USA way worse after compensating for the difference in
population?

[1]
[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_D...](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffengebrauch_der_Polizei_in_Deutschland)

~~~
hammerzeit
I'm astonished by the total lack of conversation around the actual data here.
Both the article itself and the discussion below are predicated on the
assumption that this is a rampant problem in the USA, but not a single
subthread on the actual incidence of this.

I'd expect better from Hacker News.

For what it's worth, Wikipedia has a complete list of people killed by US
Police Officers and the police reports from them. In 2012, there were 587
people killed by police [1]. This is much, much larger than in Germany, even
accounting for population difference.

I would argue that more relevant than pure population is differences in
homicide rate. By the data you've given, approximately 1-2% of all homicides
in Germany are by police officers (6-12 officer killings, 690 homicides in
germany [2]). It's worth noting that in the USA, approximately 3% of all
killings were by police officers (547/14748[2]) which seems in line with what
my understanding would be -- it's worse in the USA but not ridiculously
disproportionate.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforce...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate)

~~~
wavefunction
We (US residents) haven't posted annotated lists because this is in our face
via newspapers and TV news and viral videos passed around on the Internet.

[http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/29-black-p...](http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/29-black-
people-have-been-killed-by-policesecurity-since-jan-2012-16-since-trayvon/)

Here's one take, which is focused on black folks shot and killed over the past
year. Note how many were armed.

~~~
hammerzeit
I'm american as well.

When TV news and viral videos and newspapers make us feel like terrorism or
kidnapping is more prevalent than it actually is, we call it sensationalism.
Why is this any different? Is it because it confirms things you already
believe to be true?

I looked at the list you provided, and tried to correlate it against the
Wikipedia list. Many of the dates etc don't match up but I tried. A number of
the cases where the suspect is listed as "unarmed" don't jive with the police
reports, at the very least. Others involve things that are clearly assault
even if there was no gun (like assaulting someone with a car).

That said, I do think in particular if you are a black male you are likely to
be mistreated by police. That's not justifiable. But I still don't see real
evidence that this is an epidemic or particularly pervasive.

~~~
wavefunction
Well, believe what you want to believe.

I have friends who are police officers so it's not like I hate cops. I do hate
the fact they close ranks and protect the bad ones though.

------
sgaither
We have to ask ourselves: where is the money? Our rights aren't being lost to
a sprawling military-police state just because there's a Big-Brother wannabe
conspiring to destroy the constitution. Police departments grow the same way
our project departments grow in engineering companies: by managers arguing for
bigger budgets and spending more, sometimes wastefully, to justify bigger
budgets come next fiscal year.

These hyped-up (sometimes roided-up) SWAT teams do what they do to justify
their existence....no manager wants to preside over a shrinking department. It
takes a lot of thinking and long-term policy making to reduce this perverse
yet basic economic incentive

~~~
llamataboot
Don't forget all the war-on-terror funding and politics that have provided
even rural police departments with armored personnel carriers and the like.[1]
Or outfitting police departments with tons of equipment in advance of protests
planned there which then filters down into daily use. In some cities, there is
so little for the "anti-terror" cops to do that they have been conscripted
into arresting drunk people and pot smokers.[2]

1) [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/police-
militarizati...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/police-
militarization-9-11-september-11_n_955508.html)

2)
[http://www.startribune.com/local/209811381.html](http://www.startribune.com/local/209811381.html)

~~~
alex-g
There's another side to that, which is that overfunding of the police is
coupled to underfunding of other institutions; too many social issues are
framed as law-enforcement problems, and tackled with a militarized version of
the law enforcement mindset.

------
llamataboot
Reposting this from the killed-dog-thread. It certainly won't help when the
SWAT team is already in your home, but for the creeping sense of out of
control cops everywhere:

"Most of us carry video cameras in our pockets now. Filming police needs to
become ubiquitous. There should be no police officer in the United States that
doesn't know that at any time they could be being filmed and held accountable
for their actions by the public they are paid to protect and serve. It is one
case where I think constant citizen surveillance could be useful. After a few
years of it and constant court rulings that it is protected, perhaps cops
would stop yelling at people and arresting them for doing nothing wrong. Yes,
I'm talking to everyone on this site. If you are walking back from grabbing a
burrito and see the cops "talking to" a homeless person on the street, or
pulling over a driver for running a red light or detaining someone, /you/ need
to stop for 5-10 minutes, get out your camera phone, and start filming.
Please. For the love of a police state run amuck."

~~~
seiji
Is there a service to record live streams online (easily, cheap/free) from
phones? The key is to send the live stream out for storage. Common "we'll sync
after the video is recorded" services are no good if you get your phone
destroyed half way through trying to record.

~~~
Wingman4l7
I _just_ read about a service that covers this use-case _(sorry, I can 't for
the life of me find it now)_. It streams low-quality video to a server to
cover for the eventuality that the phone is destroyed. I'm pretty sure it was
some sort of open-source software that wasn't Bambuser.

~~~
arrayjam
OpenWatch: [https://openwatch.net/](https://openwatch.net/) iOS:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/openwatch-social-
muckraking/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/openwatch-social-
muckraking/id642680756?ls=1&mt=8) Android:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ale.openwa...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ale.openwatch&hl=en)

------
drone
It seems like every day, more and more political posts about the US are made
here. It's getting to the point that it seems that 35% of the point of HN is
about getting opportunities to make political statements about the US. There
are so many, so so many, places to have on-going political arguments.

I'm of the mind that any place that allows free commentary ultimately becomes
a political discussion board, and HN is proving this well. It used to be that
HN was a place to get away from that - but it looks like these days it's
becoming not much different than the comment section on any political
newspaper.

~~~
hammerzeit
It's hard to comment on this post considering how many times we've seen the
"HN-is-dying" meme, but for me this time it really resonates.

What has made HN interesting is the fact that it was boring to the vast
majority of people on this planet. The topics were generally speaking on a
very specific set of subjects that you largely had to be in the technology
world (and of a certain technical disposition) to relate to.

The relative boringness of these topics led to comments by folks who found
them particularly fascinating, setting a high community standard and
discouraging soapboxing (comparatively speaking, of course -- I'm under no
illusions that HN was ever the most pristine and idealistic place). For a long
time I thought PG did a good job of enforcing that culture by shutting down
off-topic conversations and keeping the focus fairly intense.

The problem with political posts is that they are often extremely relevant to
hackers, especially these days. But everyone finds politics interesting, and
everyone (myself included) believes their political beliefs are equally valid.
Watching snarky posts and soapboxes get rewarded does send a message that this
is how to get noticed. Long-term, I fear this fundamentally coarsens the level
of discourse by making it easier to dismiss the beliefs of others and making
it easier to participate in situations where I feel ignorant.

Unfortunately, I think there's only one way I know of to stop this -- which
would be for PG and/or the moderators to take an active role in enforcing the
"no politics" rule that's already in the guidelines. But I think they're
perhaps legitimately concerned about censorship -- anathema to hackers -- and
have kept a loose hand. Beyond that I'm not sure what they can do.

~~~
twoodfin
I thought pg was just waiting for this stuff to blow over post-Snowden, but
maybe he's happy with the direction the community has taken. That's fine, it's
his site, and I've noticed an interesting inverse correlation between the
quality of hn and /r/programming posts which will hopefully continue.

------
jonknee
The article's photo is from the 2012 RNC in Tampa, FL. Despite an army of
police with all the equipment a paramilitary outfit could wish for, there were
almost no arrests. In total for the week there were 2, far fewer than there
would have been in a normal week.

A year later and they're still riding around in their RNC purchased bicycles,
cruising in RNC speed boats and zipping around in RNC bobcats. The high-tech
CCTV system is also still in use (and has yet to actually solve a single
crime). It's bizarre.

~~~
dmix
They did the same thing in Toronto after G20 in 2010 (where 700 were
arrested).

The police petitioned to keep all the CCTV cameras and all the equipment they
spent millions of dollars on to prepare.

~~~
jonknee
Similar situation here. I spoke up at the city council meeting about keeping
the cameras and the Mayor used some budgetary magic to make it something the
council couldn't rule on (they bought the cameras with RNC money and built in
a maintenance contract--the council could only get rid of them if it were a
financial decision). Once you give a police force a new toy you will never be
able to take it back.

------
Spooky23
End of the day, swat teams exist because the guys on the department like cool
toys, and the Feds pay for them via grant programs.

My local police department has a "command center" rv and telescopic lookout
post that the Feds paid like $3M for. The machine guns are usually bought with
seized drug money, and tactical training paid for try the Feds. Most cities
don't need paramilitary squads, so they end up using them for stupid stuff
because they get to have fun, or they get extra overtime for a detail.

Fire departments are similar. A local volunteer fire department near me got a
$1M state grant for some insane fire truck with all sorts of gizmos and an
aerial platform that can reach 5 stories up -- in a town with no buildings
higher than 2 stories and about 70 total calls per year. (I think they had to
call in another department for a fire because the thing is so big that it
cannot make it down roads) Total waste of taxpayer resources, but at least the
firemen won't kill you!

~~~
babby
I think a point you may not be considering is that the reason why they use
these paramilitary squads for stupid shit is not just to have fun, but instead
to justify the purchase of all of this gear and training in the first place.
If you never use the stuff then it stands to reason that it may not make the
budget in the future (assuming budgeting competence).

~~~
Spooky23
The training/gear isn't a budget issue, because it's externally funded via
grants and seizures. Except for the largest cities, nobody is going to the
mayor for $1M to buy something like this: [http://gs.flir.com/integrated-
systems/skywatch](http://gs.flir.com/integrated-systems/skywatch) . But when
the Feds are giving away money for lookout towers, speedboats, etc, everybody
needs two.

What they DO need to justify is the overtime and the extra pay for being in
the SWAT detail. That's where driving tanks through buildings to liberate and
euthanize chickens comes in.

------
mark_l_watson
Sorry if this is off topic, but: I think that taking reasonable steps for both
protecting our rights as citizens and not screwing up the environment are
sort-of the same topic: making sure that future generations have life as good
as our generation (or my generation, I am in my early 60s) have it.

Native American Indians have a philosophy that our actions should be guided by
what is best for future generations. Being apathetic and sleep-walking into a
less free future society, and screwing up the environment are selfish acts.

~~~
wavefunction
Not to take away from your message but you can just say "Native Americans" and
leave the "Indian" part off.

Otherwise I totally agree with your post.

~~~
benihana
This comment sums up what Hacker News has become perfectly.

Front and center is the sentence correcting some slight, inconsequential
anachronism that has nothing to do with the overall point of the comment and
only serves to show the perceived intelligence of helpfulness of the
commenter. Then there is a short sentence, more of an afterthought, addressing
the point of the comment.

~~~
seiji
Well, have you met these people? It's common in work/life too. "You're smart
and do good work, but stop being so pedantic and socially inept!"

You can't break out deep thinking from the surface layer aspie absent-social-
mindedness. Just smile, accept them for what they are without pitying them,
and keep making the world a better place together.

~~~
wavefunction
Maybe I made a simple mistake of unintended rudeness in a post, how does that
make it worthy of me being autistic? Fuck you douches!

------
matwood
_After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to
begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into
raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between
friends to make watching sports more interesting._

All the more reason to never speak to the police. Ever. What happened to
'protect AND serve'? The police have made their jobs harder by systematically
turning every citizen into a criminal and forcing every person to not trust
them. If I were ever to witness a crime I would hesitate to contact the police
at this point out of fear that I would somehow be
blamed/included/railroaded/etc... I starting to see how in other police states
throughout history the citizens did and said nothing.

~~~
dllthomas
Wouldn't this be reason to never speak to anyone, ever? It doesn't sound like
Baucum identified himself as a police officer.

~~~
skore
No, I think the logic is straightforward: If talking to "anyone, ever" can
become a fatal problem involving the police, that makes talking to the police
directly an even worse option. "You shouldn't talk to anybody, especially not
the police."

~~~
dllthomas
While I don't think the conclusion ("don't talk to the police") is necessarily
wrong, I don't think the logic is valid at all, much less "straightforward".

------
nnnnni
Isn't the first story in the article a clear case of entrapment? The cop
encouraged the guy to do something and then killed him for it.

~~~
tsotha
Entrapment laws are a defense from prosecution, and they're different in every
state. _Normally_ it's only entrapment if the cop is enticing someone to break
a law he wouldn't have broken otherwise. In this case if the guy was betting
on games every Sunday the jury probably would have taken a dim view of an
entrapment defense.

The shooting is another issue. The cop is saying it wasn't deliberate, and
that's probably true.

~~~
learc83
I don't know the applicable state law, but from the story he was betting 50
dollars on games every Sunday. The cop spent several months pretending to be
his friend and convincing him to bet more and more.

It seems to me that he would never have bet anywhere near that much without
several months of persuasion by the police.

Therefore, if it weren't for the cop pressuring him it is very unlikely he
would have ever broken that particular law.

Granted it's a moot point, because as you say entrapment is a legal defense
and the would-be defendant is dead.

------
parennoob
Slightly tangential, but Ted Dziuba makes a good case for gun control for
these over-armed local police forces in this post
[http://teddziuba.com/post/37961127287/i-am-a-gun-owner-
lets-...](http://teddziuba.com/post/37961127287/i-am-a-gun-owner-lets-talk-
gun-control)

Police forces seem to be totally exempt from, say, the ban on assault weapons
or such in some of the States. Possibly a law that limits the weaponry that
police forces can carry along with a reduction in civilian-owned guns might
help curb some of these incidents involving trigger-happy cops.

------
AnthonyMouse
>Since Seattle, this had become the template. At the 2008 Republican National
Convention in Minneapolis, police conducted peremptory raids on the homes of
protesters before the convention had even started. Police broke into the homes
of people known to be activist rabble-rousers before they had any evidence of
any actual crime. Journalists who inquired about the legitimacy of the raids
and arrests made during the convention were also arrested. In all, 672 people
were put in handcuffs.

And people question why the government collecting intelligence on innocent
civilians is a problem.

------
ypeterholmes
Excellent article but it fails to ask the question why. Why is this happening?
Who benefits? Why isn't the people's will being realized politically? Why do
the courts no longer protect our Constitutional rights?

There's a critical piece missing in these discussions- the global banking
cartel that has corrupted all of our political and social institutions. Until
their agenda and activities are included in the scope of our analysis, things
will just keep getting worse.

------
Apocryphon
It almost sounds like the situation in unstable Central American or Arab
nations where the police are hated by the people, while the military is seen
as their protectors.

~~~
stcredzero
That is the POV of many in the US.

------
bjornsing
_In the Fourth Circuit, sending a SWAT team to make sure a bar’s beer is
labeled correctly is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment._

[http://www.restorethefourth.net/](http://www.restorethefourth.net/) comes to
mind.

------
Lusake
So Shaq, Matt Damon and Steven Seagal participated in SWAT raids. Is this for
celebrities only or anyone can sign up? Not that I would like to participate
though.

~~~
allannienhuis
You have to convince a sheriff to deputize you first. For some reason this is
easier for celebrities. Go figure. What does that say about the judgement of
the sheriff that approve that sort of thing? Not sure what a sheriff's
responsibilities are in the US system, but if that's the same person
responsible for deciding that a SWAT team is necessary to investigate a poker
game going on in someone's house, it's not surprising to see poor decisions
being made in that area too.

------
leke
Wow that was some article. If these kind of things happened in my country, I
would get the fuck out of my country. Actually, I didn't like the way the UK
was going, so when the opportunity came about, I moved.

~~~
tokenadult
To where did you move?

~~~
leke
Finland. It's not paradise, but I had a choice to stay in the UK or move. I
moved and have settled here quite well.

------
Amadou
When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

~~~
glogla
In this case, I think the original "when you _are_ a hammer" feels more right.
Imagine what kind of person you must be to pretend to be someone's friend,
make him commit crime and them murder him in cold blood, while thinking you
did the right thing.

Even then, hammers have uses. People like this don't.

~~~
brazzy
The victim here was _not_ "murdered in cold blood", and the policeperson who
shot him by accident was not the same one who'd goaded him into committing the
crime.

------
pico303
I wonder if anyone is considering or doing any kind of studies correlating the
lack of investment in government (i.e. low taxes) and these kinds of problems
with law enforcement? It seems like if we're investing less in government,
which means less in police, fire, and the agencies that train and oversee
them, we're not going to get the quality of service from our law enforcement
officers that we're accustom to. Shorter training programs, fewer applicants
due to lower pay, less oversite, higher workloads, etc.

I don't know if this is the case, but in a country where we barely get that A
leads to B, we might want to start taking a hard look at A to B to C to D.

~~~
gohrt
That doesn't compute. Spending goes up, not down, to buy all the war toys and
pay back the campaign contributers.

No one is complaining that the fire department sucks.

------
merraksh
_But the Occupiers, who tended to be young, white, and middle-to upper-middle-
class, knew social media like few other demographics. They knew how to live-
stream video directly to the Internet. They all had smart phones, so police
couldn’t suppress incriminating video by confiscating one or two or ten
phones—someone was bound to have video of not only the original incident but
also of police trying to confiscate phones to cover it up._

Looks like another good use of Google glasses, if used by protesters en masse.

~~~
oftenwrong
The US police have already learned! I have already seen articles about cell
service being suspended to stifle protests.

For example:

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/barts-cell-phone-
shutd...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/barts-cell-phone-shutdown-one-
year-later)

~~~
merraksh
Hmmm, then they'll need to use local wifis.

------
jMyles
Cool to see Radley's writing in the HN top ten. He's a great guy and a hacker
at heart.

------
drblast
The lack of accountability here disgusts me.

Therefore, I propose a rule:

Discharge a firearm while serving as a cop, no matter the reason, and that's
it, you're no longer a cop. Take your toys and go home, thank you for your
service.

Yes, you'd fire good people, but you'd also remove any incentive for less-
than-good people to act irresponsibly and ensure they thought twice about
using lethal force. I'd argue that by far this is the greater good.

~~~
adambratt
So in an actual dangerous situation the cop would have the choice to either
run or to fire his gun and lose his job.

Would you really want someone to protect you at the risk of losing their job?

~~~
drblast
I think that if this were the rule, this would be understood going in, and it
would be fair. The nature of police service would change. Why should being an
officer be a lifetime career?

We ask people in the military to protect us at the risk of losing their lives,
why is it so much to ask for a cop to risk his job?

Edit: I'm coming from a military background and the lack of accountability
there is disturbing too. I think people with responsibility to protect and/or
kill other people should be risking their jobs regularly. Otherwise, there is
no real accountability. See here:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-
failure/309148/)

~~~
cheald
> _Why should being an officer be a lifetime career?_

Because it's an occupation that takes training and experience to do well?

But by all means, if you _want_ a bunch of untrained newbies running around
with guns and the legal standing to use them on the citizenry, your idea's a
great one.

The problem isn't police using their guns. It's the Blue Wall of Silence when
they do.

------
danmaz74
Watching Hollywood movies, I often wondered if they weren't exaggerating the
diffusion of SWAT teams in the US. Looks like they are not.

~~~
alan_cx
Not to mention the heroic worship of characters who break every law and human
right going to get the bad guy. Well, I say get, I mean kill.

------
jcromartie
Serious question: why are private bets on private games illegal? Is it because
money changes hands without the gov't taking a slice?

~~~
spiritplumber
I think it's part that, part that private games are easy to rig.

------
Tomis02
> Llovera’s suspected crime? Cockfighting.

Well, he had it coming. Excessive use of police force for sure but I can't
feel sorry for the guy, only for the animals harmed before and during the
police raid.

Edit for the downvoters: the fact that you're not affected by the suffering of
animals, even for the ones that you barbarically eat, says a lot about your
degree of civilization.

~~~
gohrt
Care to wager how many of the cops that destroyed Llovera's house, and
euthanised his chickens, were vegetarians?

~~~
Tomis02
> I can't feel sorry for the guy, only for the animals harmed before and
> during the police raid.

I didn't think I had to repeat myself on HN.

------
kdeberk
To me it seems that there are a lot of issues at play that led to the death of
this man, but temporarily ignoring the fact that it seems hypocritical for a
state to both punish gamblers while promoting a state lottery, it appears
necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes
given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for
protection.

I'm not saying that firearms need to be outlawed for anyone but government
agencies. I'm just arguing that when people need to be arrested (lawfully or
otherwise), police officers want also want to protect themselves in their line
of work, so they necessarily need to create an imbalance of power for their
own self-preservation. The victim was unarmed, so the use of SWAT teams
certainly was unnecessary and he could have been arrested by two officers and
a single patrol car, but given any other case, he might have carried a weapon
and gunned down an officer.

~~~
noelwelsh
Well, you're wrong. From the same article:

Indeed, that’s exactly what happened to seventy-two-year-old Aaron Awtry in
2010. Awtry was hosting a poker tournament in his Greenville, South Carolina,
home when police began breaking down the door with a battering ram. Awtry had
begun carrying a gun after being robbed. Thinking he was about to be robbed
again, he fired through the door, wounding Deputy Matthew May in both arms.
The other officers opened fire into the building. Miraculously, only Awtry was
hit. As he fell back into a hallway, other players reporting him asking, “Why
didn’t you tell me it was the cops?” The raid team claimed they knocked and
announced several times before putting ram to door, but other players said
they heard no knock or announcement. When Awtry recovered, he was charged with
attempted murder. As part of an agreement, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced
to five years in prison. Police had broken up Awtry’s games in the past. But
on those occasions, they had knocked and waited, he had let them in
peacefully, and he’d been given a $100 fine.

Summary: people who are committing minor crimes don't want to trade up to
major crimes. Be reasonable and most people will be reasonable in return. The
police _increase the risk to themselves_ and to the citizens they are supposed
to be protected by using unreasonable force.

~~~
kdeberk
> "Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door"

Yeah, that appears to be a pretty foolish thing to do. What if it were
firefighters who noticed a fire through his upstairs window? I don't think
that they would just ring the bell and wait for an answer. I know that this a
hypothetical situation, but it just seems a really stupid thing to just
blindly fire at whatever is behind the door.

The only people who claim that the police did not first knock on the door are
the friends and associates of the victim. One of the two groups is lying, and
both can be lying to cover their asses. I have too little information to know
whether this is an actual case of police brutality, sorry.

Edit: As a correction, the victim and his friends don't need to be lying.
Perhaps the doorbell was broken, perhaps they didn't hear the police officers
pounding at their door. I don't know, why should I jump to conclusions?

~~~
ndesaulniers
>> "Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door"

>Yeah, that appears to be a pretty foolish thing to do.

Definitely. Reminded me of the part in Major Payne when the little boy is
scared because he thinks there's a monster in his closet. The first time I saw
this, I figured it was one of the other boys in the movie playing a prank on
him and hiding in the closet. Major Payne draws his pistol and unloads it into
the closet door, exclaiming "if he's still in there, he ain't happy." At this
point, I was like OMG he probably killed a kid (there's no one actually in the
closet). Point being, if you fire a gun through a door knowing someone is on
the other side, you should be held as accountable had you aimed the gun
directly at them and fired.

------
madao
It is actually kind of sad, coming from Australia, Police are usually seen as
a force of good. Granted we do not have as much corruption in this sense as
America does but sadly these sorts of positions are built on power and
violence (eg non compliance) I think the question you have is if the police
stop protecting their own people when they are trying to do their jobs how
will they attract new police? as a profession where you will have someone that
will be in that sort of job for 10-20 years+ getting sacked does not really
mean you will be able to get into another police force (quite the contrary)
you will most likely end up in a very low end security position.

This is not really a justification of all the shit they do rather an attempt
to explain the insanity.

------
adnam
It's becoming a frequent occurrence that the top post on r/conspiracy is the
top post ok HN

------
jmadsen
I think the real problem behind this is quite simple - studies have shown what
we probably know from personal experience, that when you wear a "mask" \-
whether one of anonymity, or a "Robo Cop"-like getup, it makes you behave more
aggressively.

The reasons behind why every PD has all of this paramilitary gear is well-
studied but best left for another thread; the fact is they have it, and when
they wear it they are more likely to behave like any other human being who
finds himself suddenly hiding behind full body armor.

It's not the police that's the problem, it's the gear, and departments who
ignore the mental impact of having it & don't adjust their training to match.

------
mrt0mat0
I know this doesn't necessarily belong in THIS article, but it's a general
response to a lot of these governmental articles. Where are the debates at in
the government? I never see debates taking place in Congress. I hear speeches
and "thank yous" and even opinions, but no true debate. I know that I tune in
to watch the presidential debates because even though they aren't always held
accountable for what they say, there is the opportunity to be. I wish we had
more debates like i see in these comments.

------
morgante
Given that the police have decided to, essentially, wage war on the people why
don't we try fighting back? The majority might not care, but "Never doubt that
a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world."
(Margaret Mead)

Dump money into personal lawsuits against officers committing negligent
attacks such that they are financially ruined. Attend town meetings and demand
sever cutbacks in the budgets of police departments acting this way. Put
lobbying dollars to work and get change from the top down.

~~~
MattyRad
While that would probably work to some extent, it doesn't really solve the
mentality of violence or outright ignoring Constitutional rights. (Assuming
people have money to dump, which is not usually the case)

------
dclowd9901
> A columnist at the Fayetteville Observer remarked, “They were there to play
> cards, not to foment rebellion. . .

What the hell do you think they're training for?

------
balsam
Has anybody had a difficult relationship with her parents? This, essentially,
is what the dynamic is. Except the government is not actually parents and thus
the guilt of hurting their children under the rationale of protecting them,
though it exists, doesn't last very long. But the good thing is, their
children will eventually forgive them too.

~~~
gohrt
No one forgives them. But ultimately, destroying the lives of 10% of Americans
is an epic tragedy, but leaves the vast majority unaffected.

------
mathattack
"In January 2011, the Culosi family accepted a $2 million settlement offer
from Fairfax County. That same year, Virginia’s government spent $20 million
promoting the state lottery."

Lotteries like this are a tax on people bad at math. How is this morally
superior to an office pool?

Though I do think viewing this as a "hit" enters the realm of tinfoil hats,

~~~
throwit1979
_Lotteries like this are a tax on people bad at math_

Most of the time, yes. Some lottery games with fixed odds and variable payouts
have rare moments when the expected value of a ticket turns positive. I'm
fairly good at math and I always play powerball every one or two years when
this is the case.

~~~
gohrt
Powerball shares winnings, right? So you better hope the play-rate is
levelling off, and not increasing exponentially until jackpot.

------
axuaq
The problem is that many Americans don't see anything wrong with their
government depriving people of their human rights. And if you are an American
that doesn't agree with this, you might just be detained or killed. And, of
course, the first group sees nothing wrong with this.

------
pstuart
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (stuck cd player?), the
foundation of this abuse is the War on Drugs.

If you want these abuses to stop then you should be actively supporting the
end of this war. By actively supporting, I mean be willing to discuss it with
anybody who is willing to listen.

------
idoescomputers
Was he reading Dreaming in Code? For everyone unfamiliar with this book, the
co-founder of Salon.com, Scott Rosenberg, wrote a book called "Dreaming in
Code" that's basically about why writing software is so hard.

------
briefthrowaway
It startles me that law enforcement can go over the top like this in their
efforts. I've been trying to get a (bad) drug dealer arrested for over a year
and the Seattle Police won't even return my communication.

------
yaix
This is not about out of control police. This is the fight between rational
people against irrational insanity. We started the fight for ratio hundreds of
years ago, called it Enlightenment, and its not over yet.

------
ferdo
We get the government we deserve. If we haven't been doing our jobs and
keeping the State in check by asserting our rights whenever the State tries to
impose upon them, then this is what we get.

And we'll deserve it.

------
fmstephe
Is there a place where we can get this fact checked. I ask because this is
cementing my opinion about, and fear of, the United States and I would love to
know how true this all is.

~~~
vacri
Search for the names on the internet and find credible corroborating sources.

------
flaktrak
America the land of the brave. The land of the free.

------
xmodem
USA you are a police state, and as long as this state of affairs continues I
will never come near your country.

------
Angostura
Why is this on the front page of HN? I just don't get it? Fantastic Reddit
fodder? Yes. But here?

~~~
babby
Perhaps it feeds to a so called hackers lust for anarchy, rebellion etc. I
don't know, maybe it is le reddit cancer.

------
barking
In my country hardly anyone has a gun but you can gamble all you want, no one
gives a shit about that.

------
digitalpacman
Can't even believe this happened. We need to raise the IQ score of our police
force.

------
mratzloff
Are the police as para-militarized in other first-world countries? Canada? UK?
Japan?

~~~
maurits
Define "para-militarized" but France has the Gendarmerie, which is an army
branch that does policing in small communities as well as over arching
national task such as anti-terror and mountain rescue. The Italians have the
Carabinieri.

------
john_w_t_b
Could this be related to the heavily armed citizenry?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country)

Cops in UK don't carry guns.

------
wheaties
It could be a good story but after 3 pop up ads which were almost impossible
to close on this device I gave up. What was the story, anyways? The first two
paragraphs sounded interesting. I just couldn't get to the rest of the story
to read it.

~~~
sbornia
Yes I'm sure it takes more effort to close those ads than commenting here
expecting someone will tell you all about the article...

------
steeve
Foreign America, coming to Homeland America.

------
moondowner
We have a saying in my country, smoking weed gets you killed - if the police
caches you.

------
squozzer
We're being hunted down by our own government. Time to repay the favor.

------
ndesaulniers
Restore the Fourth!

------
joewallin
This is a good argument to repeal most criminal law.

------
loginalready
Just a side note: certain countries in Europe have much more military style
uniformed police force, including police living in barracks. None of them have
the track record of armed violence the police in the US have.

I'm just saying, the militarization is at most a symptom (one of many), not
the root cause for the US "war against the people".

~~~
JabavuAdams
Are you sure? Another possibility is that you're just not hearing about it, if
they're disproportionately targeting groups that you aren't a member of.

The U.S. is a weird case, because there are these very clear abuses, and yet
there's a culture of uncovering these abuses even when they're not happening
to one's own group.

------
PavlovsCat
"Botched Paramilitary Police Raids":
[http://www.cato.org/raidmap](http://www.cato.org/raidmap)

~~~
TeMPOraL
From the description of one of such "botched raids":

"With an accidental weapon discharge, police fatally shot the 68-year-old
retiree, who was not the target of the warrant. Police instructed Mr. Stamps
to lie on the floor, and Mr. Stamps complied. One officer moved towards Mr.
Stamps to check for weapons. The officer's tactical equipment made his
movement awkward, and he lost his balance and fell. As he did so, his weapon
discharged. Mr. Stamps died from the single bullet wound to his upper chest."

Seriously? This is sick.

~~~
jeltz
The "I tripped" explanation is used in many of the stories. Including when
multiple bullets were fired. Either it is a lie or they are very careless.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes. Sort of like a dialogue from a random comic strip I heard about long ago:

\- Why did you shoot the suspect?

\- My finger twitched.

\- Eight times?

On the more serious note, I still can't imagine that report in any other way
that the person was either accidentally shot or executed. I mean, what kind of
tripping you'd have to do to shoot a person on the ground in the chest?
Geometry doesn't add up.

------
mnglkhn2
when your police department's funding depends on what you catch, coupled with
a low crime level, you start SWATing things harder

~~~
a3n
Yeah, it's no so much mission creep as mission search.

------
mtgx
Thanks to the new immigration bill, the whole border with Mexico will become
militarized, and will employ more people than the whole FBI, and will be under
DHS. This is what the "war on terror" post-9/11 culture has created.

