
To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee] - eternalban
https://medium.com/@aliafshar/to-the-4-white-male-policemen-who-beat-me-for-checking-the-health-of-a-sick-black-man-in-their-8d77789fb24d#.f4129orat
======
rayiner
This shit has been happening to poor black and Hispanic people for a long
time. In a sick way, it's a good thing that it's happening to doctors now.
It's easy for comfortable suburbanites to vote pro-police, but now that the
cancer has spread and police are brazenly abusing everyone else, it won't be
so easy to ignore.

We need a system of collective punishment for such conduct. "Good" police
officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses
of "bad" ones. For example, lawyers are subject to professional discipline for
failing to rat out the misconduct of other lawyers. Liability also flows up to
supervisors from reports. It creates a healthy culture of paranoia. There is
no reason police should be held to a lesser standard.

~~~
pessimizer
> "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping
> cover up the abuses of "bad" ones.

Good police officers do fear losing their lives and their livelihoods for
_not_ looking the other way.

I'm a strong advocate for hotlines specifically for police officers to report
other officers, backed by civilian investigative authorities with no loyalties
or connections to the police force, but with the ability to investigate and a
primary mandate to protect the reporting officer. Plenty of police officers
are disgusted by a lot of the people they work with. I've met them.

I also think that policemen involved in cover-ups of police shootings should
generally be punished more than the shooters. For the shooter, this was a
usually spontaneous act spurred by fear and rage, and happened in an instant.
The same cannot be said for the cover-up. The cover-ups create an environment
of impunity that make future shootings more likely.

~~~
morgante
We really need to develop a parallel prosecutorial system which is _only_
directed towards the police. So the only way to advance within it is to find
and punish bad cops. The current incentives are all out of whack.

------
trhway
>“He is resisting arrest!”

>They were running this weird fake dialog in the background.

it seems to be a pattern how they run plausible deniability and can do
whatever they want - one policeman may "see" something, like a gun, and
announce it thus providing the other with full legal reason to act, i.e. shoot
in the case of gun. If that "seeing" by the first happens to be just a
mistake, such mistake can never be punished until proven that it was
intentional, i.e. never. Such pattern is even completely resistant to body
cameras.

~~~
skywhopper
Yes they are trained (whether explicitly or informally between each other) to
do this. It will continue so long as it works.

~~~
gravypod
I'd like to ask you for a hypothetical. Say you are a police officer and one
of your coworkers shouts "GUN" and you don't directly see one. You see your
coworker freaking out, you see them drawing, and you see the other suspect
moving.

What do you do? Do you draw your gun/taser? I'd do that just going off of what
my coworker has said. It's entirely reasonable to suspect there to be a gun.

Now I'd like to run through two things that can happen from this point. The
suspect either has a gun or does not. If I draw my gun, point it at the
suspect, and wait till I see a gun (what the officers of the law are trained
to do) is that not a reasonable reaction?

What happens if I say "Oh I don't see it so I'm going to stand here and
watch"? My partner and some innocent by-standards might very well get hurt
because now I have to wait for my senses to catch up with what's going on
before I react.

I don't think it's unreasonable for cops to be allowed to go off what other
cops are saying. If it can be proved that a cop has lied then that's another
story. They should be punished to the full extent of the law for lying. Sadly
though it's not illegal for them to lie to or about us, it's only illegal for
us to lie to them.

~~~
jaredklewis
Of course it isn't unreasonable to work together. But the officers in the
article were colluding to cover their asses for breaking the law, not
cooperating to ensure mutual safety. And indeed, this is a pattern I read and
hear about often, unfortunately.

~~~
gravypod
Oh cool, I didn't know you could read minds and see into the past! You should
do me next!

Honestly though, we will never objectively know what the officers are thinking
in that situation nor know exactly what happened. If they were colluding or if
they did think that the person was resisting arrest. Given all the information
I have, it's not unreasonable that the officers did what they did. Someone
walks up, tries to go towards a suspect, and is confrontational when asked for
ID. That is a bit of a hint that something is off.

------
trungonnews
Santa Clara city has some racist cops. I was pulled over, accused of DUI,
arrested, illegally searched my car, brought back to the station for a blood
test. Blood test came back with zero alcohol in my body. They treated me like
I was criminal, finger printed, mugshotted. After being held for two hours, I
had to pay $300 to retrieve my car from the impound. I guess we still have a
lot of bad cops in the Silicon Valley then we thought.

~~~
Meegul
How is it at all legal for the government to demand payment for something when
you are not convicted of a crime? It's effectively a 100% discriminatory,
corrupt, and unaccountable tax. Completely reprehensible.

~~~
duaneb
This isn't even the most absurd part about citizen/cop cash transactions:
under civil forfeiture, they can take up to (iirc) $10,000 of your cash no
justification or remediation path. Really, all they need is a traffic stop or
a (suspect) smell of cannabis in the air.

~~~
SwellJoe
There is no such limit, in most jurisdictions, as far as I know...and, if you
happen to be carrying a lot of cash, it is viewed as evidence of wrongdoing.

Hell, Oklahoma has begun using a device that allows them to take money from
debit cards, as well.

My position on police has evolved over the years to the point where I don't
even really believe in "good cops", anymore. The entire system seems built to
excise honest cops and reward bullies; I can't name a single whistle-blower
cop who has kept their job, while the crimes they documented have generally
gone entirely unpunished and the perpetrators often remain on the police
force.

The only reasonable path forward I see is tearing the whole damned system down
and starting over, with a focus on prevention, rehabilitation over punishment,
restitution when plausible, de-escalation rather than military style raids,
and overall a lot better training in psychology and community policing and
less training in how to kill and maim people.

------
dleslie
This is why I teach my children never to speak to police officers, to avoid
them as much as possible, and to leave the area should they become visibly
present.

And I live in Canada; when I travel to the USA on business I stay in the hotel
or the venue and restrict my traveling as much as possible. I don't fear the
citizens, I fear the police.

~~~
soneil
That's always made me sad. My ex was American - when we moved to Ireland, I
made a habit of routinely (once a week or so) asking random policemen for
directions to places, just to teach her that they're entirely approachable
here.

The closest thing we had to a bad experience, was one chap who took it upon
himself to walk with us until we could see our destination, just to make sure
we found it. I'd only wanted to waste a moment of their time, not a few
minutes.

~~~
berntb
Weird, it seems counterproductive. Why doesn't the US police in bigger cities
try to integrate with the citizens?

Is the violence risk so big or are there legal reasons?

~~~
tptacek
They should. The phenomenon of heavily-armed police spending most of their
working hours either in a squad car or actively handling a disturbance, rather
than walking a beat, is a modern one. It's something Peter Moskos laments in
Cop In The Hood, which is a pretty decent book on the practices of modern
police forces written by a sociologist who served for a year as an experiment.

Beat policing is not one of the most dangerous occupations in the US, and a
lot of the danger police face is self-generated: readiness to escalate
conflict alters the calculus of offenders as well.

The big issue we have with current police forces is cultural, and it probably
can't be fixed by fiat. We'll have to do it at the organization level, through
attrition. It's simple. For simplicity of discussion, rename all current
patrol officers "assault officers"; they're the heavily armed ones that spend
their day in cars or in confrontation. Now: stop hiring new assault officers.
Instead, for every assault officer headcount you'd hire, bring in 1.5-3 new
"compliance officers" who can walk beats, help people, de-escalate simple
criminal incidents, and very quickly summon assault officers.

(I also think that most police officers should simply be disarmed. They should
have ready access to long guns, perhaps in the trunk of their squad car, but
they shouldn't be 5 seconds from killing someone else at all times during
their work day.)

~~~
kasey_junk
"they're the heavily armed ones that spend their day in cars or in
confrontation"

This is simplifying quite a bit. Right now, most LEO are not in positions that
require being heavily armed or in confrontation. The vast majority of LEO
currently are in positions where being armed is not a benefit, if not a
outright detriment, but their training and regulation require them to carry
weapons unsafely (see for instance court security police who _must_ carry
weapons, except when they are in the courts where they actually work and where
they _must not_ carry weapons, leading to them all walking around with empty
holsters all day).

The other side of this is of course corrections officers, who have objectively
the most dangerous jobs in LEO but receive the least training, the least pay,
and the least equipment.

It turns out this is quite simply a cultural problem. The culture of law
enforcement in the United States right now is quite simply dangerous and
irrational. Without fixing that culture, renaming titles isn't going to go
very far.

~~~
tptacek
Renaming the titles isn't the point. The point is freezing new hires into that
culture, and creating a new culture to run in parallel to it.

~~~
kasey_junk
There _already_ exists a separate culture without weapons (corrections
officers). Its universally less paid, less equipped, less respected and more
dangerous.

~~~
tedunangst
So we create a _third_ culture, beat cops who aren't gun slingers.

------
13of40
I had a conversation a little like that when I was a teenager, without the
beating part:

ME: Am I being arrested?

COP: No, you're being detained. Get in the car.

ME: And if I don't?

COP: Then I'll arrest you.

ME: For what?

COP: For resisting.

ME: Resisting what?

COP: ?!?!? Just get in the damned car.

------
my_first_acct
From Felipe Hoffa's twitter feed [0]:

"Ali is a manager at Google. Ali is a doctor. Ali knows his rights. @aliafshar
was brutally attacked by the police."

Related tweets hint that the incident may have taken place in Santa Clara,
California..

[0]
[https://twitter.com/felipehoffa/status/776131486437081088?la...](https://twitter.com/felipehoffa/status/776131486437081088?lang=en)

~~~
exolymph
Article says El Camino, California (perhaps an update?)

~~~
gregatragenet3
El Camino is a street. It runs from San Jose nearly to San Francisco.

~~~
aetherson
Heh. It runs from San Diego to the North Bay.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_(California)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_\(California\))

------
WalterBright
Consider it from the cops' point of view. A random person shows up and wants
to "check the health" of their suspect. When asked for id, he wants to debate
"why". Does he seriously think they'll let some unknown person who refuses to
provide id interfere with their arrest? Would any cop in any country allow
this?

What he should have done is opened with "I am a licensed physician, here's my
license and id. May I check the person's health, he appears to be having a
seizure?"

It does appear the cops overreacted, but how could he expect anything but a
negative reaction from the way he approached it?

~~~
morgante
How is that at all relevant?

He could have shown up and started cussing at them and they wouldn't have
justification to beat him up and arrest him.

Cops are supposed to serve us, not the other way around. We shouldn't have to
be afraid of them or treat them like volatile, emotional dictators (though
that's exactly what they are).

~~~
generic_user
A crime scene and an arrest in progress are not an informal gathering of a
bunch of people you can happily join in.

By interfering for any reason with a crime scene in progress you are putting
the Officers lives in jeopardy and possibly your own if you you make the wrong
choices. They are fully sanctioned under the Law to take your life if they
feel threatened in the line of duty. Even something as simple as putting your
hand in you pocket could be a life threatening situation and you could be
shot.

~~~
morgante
This attitude is abhorrent. Asking questions is not justification for a cop to
do _anything_ to you, even at a "crime scene."

Cops are not dictators allowed to commit murder because they "feel
threatened." They are supposed to be trained professionals who asses actual
risks.

Cops are not judge and jury, or at least they're not supposed to be.

> They are fully sanctioned under the Law to take your life if they feel
> threatened in the line of duty.

That's a terrible attitude and is _not_ the law, though unfortunately law
enforcement protects its own and will never prosecute police.

I have a right to self-defense. Does that mean I have the right to shoot
police when I feel threatened by them driving behind me as I go on my morning
walk?

~~~
generic_user
"I have a right to self-defense."

No you do not have the right of self defense against a Police Officer. If you
try to assault an Officer you will more then likely be shot and killed. The
Officer will be completely within the bounds of the law.

~~~
foobarcrunch
It's not so black-and-white as you try to oversimplify a myriad of issues and
legalities. It depends. If the man stayed at a reasonable distance, presented
ID, approached calmly and slowly and said he needed to check the health of the
prisoner because he is both a doctor and required to render aid under Duty to
Rescue, and then waited for permission or made his intentions clear if denied,
things might've happened differently. Regardless, that jurisdiction is likely
to be out a few million to settle this matter and this guy will be slightly
richer.

“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting
officer's life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was
upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v.
U.S., 177 U.S. 529. The Court stated: “Where the officer is killed in the
course of the disorder which naturally accompanies an attempted arrest that is
resisted, the law looks with very different eyes upon the transaction, when
the officer had the right to make the arrest, from what it does if the officer
had no right. What may be murder in the first case might be nothing more than
manslaughter in the other, or the facts might show that no offense had been
committed.”

“An arrest made with a defective warrant, or one issued without affidavit, or
one that fails to allege a crime is within jurisdiction, and one who is being
arrested, may resist arrest and break away. lf the arresting officer is killed
by one who is so resisting, the killing will be no more than an involuntary
manslaughter.” Housh v. People, 75 111. 491; reaffirmed and quoted in State v.
Leach, 7 Conn. 452; State v. Gleason, 32 Kan. 245; Ballard v. State, 43 Ohio
349; State v Rousseau, 241 P. 2d 447; State v. Spaulding, 34 Minn. 3621.

“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be,
is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in
the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed,
he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.

“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest,
who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of
unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who
unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I;
Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.

~~~
generic_user
It's possible that if this persons behaviour was conducted in a professional
manner they would have let him into the crime scene but thats a very small
possibility. The Police can call in an Ambulance or Fire rescue on a whim if
they need it. Its more likely that they would not take the risk. At a minimum
they would have to ID you and search you first.

I doubt very highly this case will make it to court. Or see any sort if
compensation.

"Show me your ID"

"Why?"

"Show me your ID! You must obey an officer."

"I haven't done anything, I need to know he is OK, and I will be on my way"

Thats where any possibility of a civil ending to this story ends. He refused
to show his ID while trying to enter a crime scene while officers were
apprehending a suspect. At that point he becomes a danger to the Officers.
Possibly an accomplice to the person in custody. Who knows what the crime was,
how many suspects they were looking for etc.

On the self defence note, if anyone were to attempt to enter a crime scene and
refuse to show ID and manage to get into an altercation with an Officer which
lead to your death. There would be no chance that Officer would be on the
wrong side of the law.

------
williamgb
Interesting to see that "white" managed to lead the spate of pejoratives
toward the end of the article ("Each of 4 white, ignorant, racist asshole
police officers").

I've been the victim of interracial crime, at least once due to my race. I did
not consider the race of my assailants to be anywhere near the top of the list
of characteristics to which I should like to object.

~~~
AWildDHHAppears
Without any facts, I'm skeptical. He should either move on with his life, or
make a formal complaint and/or a lawsuit.

Taking the middle road with a story with few details on Medium doesn't help
anyone.

~~~
harry8
I didn't believe Bill Cosby's accusers. Neither did law enforcement. Seeing
the cover of the magazine with so many accusers, yeah maybe I and law
enforcement were both wrong and it needed a closer look. Didn't want to
believe it.

It could be the same with all of these stories of law enforcement behaving
very badly. It seems like a weird thing for so many disparate people to be
fabricating. Maybe there is a problem and reporting it isn't getting toward a
solution? If it happens to you, silence is almost certainly the wrong course
of action. I don't want to believe there is an endemic problem with law
enforcement either. What I want shouldn't matter at all.

------
mdadm
Why does "white"/"male" matter? I understand that this is potentially a very
contentious question, but I genuinely don't understand why those are listed in
the title, or why "white" was the first in a list of insulting words used at
the end of the article.

~~~
powertower
What really gets to me is the fact that white societies are the number #1
immigration destinations for non-whites, and are entirely responsible for this
person's opportunities and high standards of living.

Yet all he sees is white racism.

edit: since I can't reply anymore; to that one person...

You've missed the point entirely.

1\. You don't know that race had anything to do with what happened. All you
have is one side of a story that keeps dragging race into it. Which is very
racist in itself.

2\. If white societies where racist, they would not be the #1 immigration
destination or have the highest standards of living for non-whites (or even
let non-whites in).

~~~
oconnore
But he's probably right (and he's certainly the most qualified to comment on
this incident). I'm pretty sure if I had walked up and said, "Is everything
all right? I'm a medical doctor in case you need a hand with anything." the
situation would have gone _much_ differently.

Furthermore, even if he isn't right, there is plenty of evidence of a growing
white nationalism/racism in this country that the article wouldn't be any less
relevant if you could somehow prove that these four particular officers are
not racist.

~~~
anexprogrammer
But he didn't identify himself as a doctor. I can't help feel the encounter
may have gone differently if he had.

Not that the behaviour is any more acceptable if he was just a random passer
by.

------
gravypod
Had I read through this article years ago I'd feel very different about this
then I do now. My default position is, and always will be, to suspect the
government is at fault but that being said I still understand why police
officers do what they do.

I'd like to leave something that has helped me to understand the thought
process of most police officers. There is a youtube channel called "Think Like
A Cop - The Rest Of The Story" run by an..... interesting character. He's an
expolice officer who, by all accounts I've been able to find, was very good at
what he did.

He presents the "other side of the story", the side of the police that you
don't usually hear well developed. From watching many of his videos, I can
pretty safely assume that he doesn't trust the government, I'm fairly sure he
isn't racist, and I'm fairly sure he isn't sexist. What is more representative
of him is that he tries his hardest not to be politically correct. It is my
opinion that even if you don't respect him as a person, you can probably
respect his methods of thinking about problems and his experience as a police
officer. I'd hope some of the people here watch some of his stories about how
cops react to situations as he makes things that seem 100% unreasonable seem
much more sensible.

For instance his motto is "no people belong on the ground" which refer to to
people who want to be adversarial to the police. This policy is blanketed
across all people that cops deal with and after watching some of his police
shooting videos you can see why. When he shows videos of cops getting shot or
killed he mostly shows videos where the police don't follow this golden rule.
This rings true with all of the cop shooting videos I've seen.

I'm not saying he is right, I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying he
offers a very "interesting" perspective that I think many will enjoy.

~~~
shawndumas
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgkhimI0MthrMZo-F2zrTQ/fea...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgkhimI0MthrMZo-F2zrTQ/featured)

not an endorsement; just being helpful...

~~~
gravypod
Thanks, I'd have felt kind of strange linking directly to there. He is a very
interesting person, it's well worth watching him.

------
tzs
From the comments on the article:

aggieben:> Did you identity yourself as a doctor, or in any kind of way you
had a reason to be there?

author:> No I didn’t. That was my first error. Second was not immediately
showing my ID. I certainly could have done this all better.

------
mattnewton
This struck a nerve. He should contact the ACLU, and If this guy needs money
for lawyers I'd throw in to the pot to get some precedent.

------
koenigdavidmj
We need a few very large businesses to refuse to do business with police,
against their own financial interest, before they'll notice something is
wrong. More fines that taxpayers pay aren't fixing it. If Dunkin Donuts could
be convinced not to allow cops to enter their business except with a warrant,
or Glock refused to sell a department any more weapons, they might do
something.

(Of course, this is illegal in California. And I'm hesitant to encourage this
fully without a measurable standard of when sufficient change has occurred to
start working with them again.)

------
mavdi
Yeah ok, brave guy but he will eventually get shot for doing this. Call me a
coward, but I'd never do something like this. I have a kid to raise.

~~~
mping
Thats all fine and dandy, but if it was your kid being detained (or yourself),
wouldn't you like a passerby to check on you? It's not being coward, it's
being shortsighted.

------
650REDHAIR
At what point did you identify yourself as a doctor?

~~~
fake-name
At what point does _not_ immediately notifying people that you're a doctor
remotely justify beating the shit out of you?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It doesn't justify the _beating_. But if a random guy walks into the middle of
a police confrontation, that random guy is going to be presumed hostile until
proven otherwise, with some fairly good reason. He just made the situation
considerably less safe, even with the best of cops.

From there, the cops went completely out of control. But notifying them that
he was a doctor might have prevented them from starting down that path.

------
joesmo
I'm sorry that this happened to the author, but the author has no common sense
whatsoever. In addition to suing these officers and the police department, he
should probably consider getting some common sense and _never_ approaching a
police officer again. I mean, seriously, what did he expect would happen? That
they would let him check the suspect? That's so incredibly far-fetched and
ridiculous, I cannot even imagine it! Does this guy even know what country he
lives in? As was quoted in another piece today, "This is America."

~~~
wfo
"Common sense" is only common to the people who know it already.

There are plenty of people who think the vast majority of the police are
public servants trying to do their job, serve and protect. Maybe they're
right. Some are. I've had good interactions with police officers and bad ones.
The author was trying to do the right thing and maybe save someone's life. If
a woman screams for help in a dark alley, it isn't common sense to run in and
try to help her -- you're putting yourself in the line of fire. But it's brave
and we celebrate and worship the people who do it rightfully as heroes, we
don't berate them for "not having common sense" and putting themselves at
risk.

What he did took courage or naive ignorance (or both) and from the rest of the
article I'm fairly certain it's not ignorance -- he's well aware of rampant
police brutality.

~~~
powertower
He witnessed white cops and a handcuffed black male who he claims was possibly
muttering to himself.

No one was beating anyone, no one was bleeding out.

Common-sense is he interfered and made the situation worse.

~~~
wfo
He didn't interfere (he asked some questions as a certified medical
professional) and he didn't make the situation worse. The officers made the
situation worse, and he probably made things better for the guy in question --
would you want those particular violent abusive officers spending the next
little while with their full attention on YOU? Ideally they'd be in jail, but
if he distracted them for a while the guy's probably better off -- maybe the
author took a beating the guy would have received.

------
powertower
Wait for the evidence, and the other side of the story, before making a
judgment.

The last 9 out of 10 of these types of stories turned out to be completely
hoaxed on the part of the victim.

~~~
rjn945
Do you have a link to an example of hoax story? I haven't seen that.

~~~
powertower
Take any racial media story...

From the Duke-lacrosse rape case, to the shooting of Michael Brown, the "clock
boy", the black woman killed in jail, and everything in-between and beyond.

All proved to be false narratives.

The list is so large that I'm constantly surprised by the opinion that such a
thing does not exist.

------
generic_user
"As I pulled over to ask if the gentleman was OK, I was immediately threatened
with a ticket for blocking traffic. I re-parked my car legally and returned."

This person drove past the scene of a crime while Police Offices were in midst
of arresting someone. He stopped his car was told to move. He then proceeded
to park his car car and approach the suspect.

I'm sorry but if you pull your car over and interferer with a crime scene
where the police are in the midst of an arrest you will be arrested and
incapacitated to preserve the safety of the officers.

The 'Evil White Man' is sadly, predictable click bait to drive traffic. I'm
sure this person would be in court if he had a case. But any lawyer is going
to tell you if you interfere with police business you have no case.

------
davesque
While I basically agree with the argument of this article -- that it's not
okay for officers to be so aggressive, abusive, and dishonest -- I don't find
the tone to be very helpful for a couple of reasons.

1) The word "white" appeared in a sequence of insults toward the end of the
article. It's hard to deny that, while this kind of talk might be broadly
accepted, it's still basically racism. Fundamentally, the ethnicity of the
officers is irrelevant. The account of what happened didn't even mention the
officers calling out the author's race.

2) It's understandable that a person would feel extremely angry after an
experience like this. Even so, it seems the author hasn't let much of his
anger die down since the time of the event. The tone of the article is not
only angry, but quite frankly, a bit juvenile e.g. the talk about hiring a
"badass" lawyer.

Either way, I don't feel like much good will come as a result of this
incident. I'd feel differently if Mr. Afshar spent his time calmly talking
about how he took the officers to court, what kinds of evidence he cited
against them, and how others could do the same.

~~~
justin66
I'm white and I didn't view it as any sort of racist slur to identify the cops
as white. It indicates that the author viewed his treatment, and the treatment
of the handcuffed suspect, at the hands of police as probably being racially
motivated.

