

Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for U.Va. student - harold
http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/bottled-water-purchase-leads-to-night-in-jail-for-u/article_45498018-e019-11e2-b98a-001a4bcf6878.html

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cpursley
Expect to see more of this with the systematic destruction of the 4th
amendment.

The U.S. domestic policing agencies have become militarized in both tactics
and weaponry. There is no middle ground anymore. Either they are in full
battle-rattle complete with assault vehicles, automatic weapons and drones or
undercover in plainclothes. Any reasonable person in her situation would be
confused and scared beyond their wits, not even considering the imprisonment
aspect.

It's pretty GD scary - how are we supposed to identify the good guys?

~~~
ukoto
>It's pretty GD scary - how are we supposed to identify the good guys?

The bad guys are the ones initiating aggression - it doesn't matter what
uniform they wear (or non-uniform).

The 4th amendment is being destroyed because other amendments are also being
weakened that would normally protect it. The 1st and 2nd amendment could
easily protect this shocking situation from occurring. The 1st allows us the
free speech to inform the public of what's happening. In terms of the 2nd
amendment - if this woman had been carrying a pistol in her purse (which is
common in the South) to protect her from being overpowered, she would have a
chance to defend herself. Just one incident of a citizen defending themselves
would see the immediate halting of these kinds of thuggish tactics.

~~~
hga
" _Just one incident of a citizen defending themselves would see the immediate
halting of these kinds of thuggish tactics._ "

That turns out not to be the case with our modern "the most important thing is
to get home safe" law enforcement officers who replaced old fashioned peace
officers, and the prosecutors and judges who support them, for there are a lot
of incidents where this has happened. Here are two particularly heinous ones
where Southerners defended themselves in no-knock raids, first got killed and
had drugs planted to make it look good, the other was sentenced to death, and
eventually plead to manslaughter (making him a felon), the 10 year sentence
was less than time served:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston_shooting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Johnston_shooting)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Maye)

This is one of the greatest fears of the armed citizen; this case in Arizona
is a typical example with the normal outcome, dead citizen (his rifle on safe,
he hadn't even made the shoot/no shoot decision or had decided the latter),
nothing happens to the cops:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Guerena_shooting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Guerena_shooting)

(Well, I suppose the most common example is puppycide, tangible in a way that
most raids aren't, but that's not what you're talking about.)

------
nekopa
I know this has been beaten to death here, but I am starting to see a
disturbing trend coming out of US policing/justice system. That trend is the
laying on of multiple charges when someone pisses off the authorities.

It's one thing when the federal prosecutors do it (Swartz, Brown et al) and
now even low level enforcers are doing it.

Is this what I have to look forward to if I ever return to the country of my
birth? I cross the road at the wrong time, the arresting officer takes a
dislike to me and adds 3 extra charges to the jaywalking charge which ends up
with me spending 3 years in prison because I was running late for an
appointment?

I've tried to stay out of these HN NSA and other political stories, but there
is one thing I've noticed as a business consultant: the attitude and beliefs
of top management always end up filtering down to the rank and file employees.

Is this what is happening to the US justice system? Will you one day walk into
the local DMV get into an argument and end up with 15 (technically correct)
charges against you, bankrupt and in prison?

~~~
hga
15 is an exaggeration, but yes.

For more details, including a good thesis on what drives this, an explanation
for why you can have a dramatic drop in national crime rates without layoffs
in what I've taken to calling the police-judicial complex, read this book,
_Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get
Arrested, How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life, and What to Do If the
Police Get in Your Face_ ([http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-
Reveals-A...](http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals-
Arrested/dp/1556526377/)), and decide if you want to return to this sort of
environment.

This was reified for me when I retired to the SW Missouri town I was born and
raised in and an officer played a game of chicken with his vehicle and my
body. From my time on the East Coast I was an experienced enough pedestrian to
see that he would barely miss me and stared him down, but I'm pretty sure this
was designed to get the average local to run, "crazy cop trying to kill me!",
which would generate a fleeing an officer arrest statistic for him per the
book.

------
DanBC
Why do you pull a gun on an underage person buying beer? (Especially when
she's not even buying beer?)

~~~
samsolomon
ABC agents are mainly a police force to stop college kids from drinking. They
are armed like police officers, but their primary mission is a lost cause.

Good use of taxpayer dollars.

Edit: redundancy

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kghose
This is just wrong. No public apology? There should be a lawsuit. And the
damages should come out of the paychecks and pensions of the "agents" not
public funds.

------
netcraft
how would they have known she was underage, yet not known that it was bottled
water not alcohol? Why would it be appropriate in any situation to pull a
weapon for a possible underage drinking charge? There is too much about this
that doesn't add up - there should be an investigation.

~~~
revelation
The obvious question being - who gave these morons a gun instead of a
flashlight?

~~~
GhotiFish
The question we would ask after that is who gave those morons a flashlight
instead of a nothing.

------
stevoski
I liked Hacker News better when it was a place for sharing and discussing
start-up based news.

Not to say that these other types of articles are not worthy of reading and
sharing. But I can get them elsewhere.

~~~
Buttons840
Since "Hackers" have often have an attitude of disobedience, it's not
surprising that articles related to law and abuse of power are considered news
worthy.

This isn't "Startup News".

~~~
h4pless
I think you misunderstand the meaning of the term "Hacker" in the context of
this site. From Google:

Hacker: 1\. An enthusiastic and skillful computer programmer or user. 2\. A
person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to data.

It sounds to me like you are confusing the second definition with the first.
This is a site for people to find the the most relevant news regarding
technology and anything else that people with such interest would find
intellectually stimulating. The article has nothing to do with technology but
does fit into the intellectually stimulating category if people here are
interested in it but do not confuse that with this being a place to discuss
"disobedience" as you put it.

You can think of this site as being "Technology Enthusiast News" with startups
being one of the primary focuses of discussion.

~~~
Buttons840
I used the definition of "hacker" the creator of this site gives:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html)

------
tomasien
Tommy from cityswig.com here - been dealing with Virginia ABC for about 2
years now, and their uncooperative behavior and insane bureaucracy essentially
killed any chance we had to survive as a company. Not only that - but stories
like this are the norm in Virginia. They're in constant over-reach mode.

------
JangoSteve
I wish we had "https" for real life, a way to know someone really is who they
say they are. Not so much personally, but more an immediately verifiable
organizational identification for a person.

I always thought badges were a weird way for police to self-identify,
considering a thug could make something that passes as a badge, especially in
a dark in-your-face encounter like this. And you're supposed to do exactly
what they say without regard to protecting yourself or fleeing, for fear of
being charged with felonies (or worse). That just seems like a system that
wasn't well thought out.

The article said these women called 911 to verify these guys really were cops;
that to me is an extremely smart move given the amount of terror they must
have been going through.

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cstavish
Bunch of fucking amateurs. You have six plainclothes officers "on patrol" for
minors in possession of alcohol. That's absurd. I go to college in a city
where the cops understand that underage drinking is a thing and won't hassle
you unless you're asking for it.

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vinceguidry
Would a retaliatory lawsuit be out of the question here? Much as I dislike the
idea of suing police officers for doing their jobs, she should at least be
able to sue the state.

------
totallymike
I wonder what this has to do with technology or start-ups. It's a valuable
read, but it belongs elsewhere.

------
soundgecko
I thought it was yet another of those articles with an inflammatory but
ultimately misleading headline designed to get on Buzzfeed and Reddit. Boy,
was I wrong. The story was actually worse than the headline.

------
joewallin
Police our out of control.

------
Natsu
At least they dropped the charges. Whatever misgivings I have about how the
whole thing went down, at least they dropped the charges once things were
straightened out.

She probably was, technically, guilty of eluding police and such, but I'm glad
they did not go through with that. I'm sure she's not happy about spending a
night in jail, but just as I give her credit for mistakes in the heat of the
moment, I'll give the police the same.

~~~
cujo
I imagine it's pretty easy to be "technically, guilty of eluding police and
such" when you haven't done anything wrong and half dozen people in street
clothes come barreling at you screaming and jumping on the hood of your car.

Frankly, if half a dozen trained officers are so afraid to rationally approach
a sorority girl who might have beer on her, then maybe these fuck-ups need to
be fired. Paint the picture for me, where what they did would have provoked a
rational response from the girl.

Did I mention they did this because they thought a sorority girl might have
beer? Beer! Context is everything, and these people don't have it.

~~~
Natsu
> I imagine it's pretty easy to be "technically, guilty of eluding police and
> such" when you haven't done anything wrong and half dozen people in street
> clothes come barreling at you screaming and jumping on the hood of your car.

Yes, but in other cases, they've turned this technical guilt into actual guilt
by charging them. That's why I'm glad they didn't do that this time.

