
A collection of videos of police brutality - h3cate
https://thishastostopnow.com
======
arkadiyt
Site seems to be down so I can't check if these are already submitted, but
here are some:

[https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320](https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1266917228752056320)

[https://twitter.com/mollypshe/status/1266934680273727491](https://twitter.com/mollypshe/status/1266934680273727491)

[https://twitter.com/chalametvol6/status/1267059474591879171](https://twitter.com/chalametvol6/status/1267059474591879171)

[https://twitter.com/mollycrabapple/status/126694270336910540...](https://twitter.com/mollycrabapple/status/1266942703369105409)

[https://twitter.com/zellieimani/status/1267057207172050944](https://twitter.com/zellieimani/status/1267057207172050944)

[https://twitter.com/stephenjadler/status/1267153715674349568](https://twitter.com/stephenjadler/status/1267153715674349568)

[https://twitter.com/rsdaza/status/1267200011659554824](https://twitter.com/rsdaza/status/1267200011659554824)

~~~
nullc
>
> [https://twitter.com/mollypshe/status/1266934680273727491](https://twitter.com/mollypshe/status/1266934680273727491)

I clicked this. It contains a apparently completely baseless claim that a
masked looter is an "undercover cop". The claim also has been denied by the
St. Paul police department.

Is it your intention to discredit claims of police brutality by repeating
apparently false ones?

~~~
arkadiyt
> I clicked this. It contains a apparently completely baseless claim that a
> masked looter is an "undercover cop". The claim also has been denied by the
> St. Paul police department.

That is only one of the reports in that lengthy tweet thread. And it's not
baseless, here is the evidence for it:
[https://twitter.com/dyllyp/status/1266166402521522176](https://twitter.com/dyllyp/status/1266166402521522176)

Here's the tweet where the St. Paul police department denied it:
[https://twitter.com/sppdmn/status/1266202225677910022](https://twitter.com/sppdmn/status/1266202225677910022)

Posted 2.5 hours after the original claim - fast investigation for the police
to clear themselves of all wrongdoing.

> Is it your intention to discredit claims of police brutality by repeating
> apparently false ones?

Lol.

~~~
nullc
> And it's not baseless, here is the evidence for it

Thanks-- I didn't find that from the original link. But I don't really think
it supports your argument.

It's pretty hard to identify a person from just the eyes, but to the extent
that shows anything it seems to contradict the claim to me: the face on the
left appears to me to have a much more prominent brow ridge compared to the
face on the right-- like a shelf above his eyes on the left, while the right
dips in near the nose.

As far as the officer's ex-wife saying 'that's my mask' \-- the thread shows a
bunch of other pictures of protesters with the same mask.

This also explains how they could investigate the claim quickly-- they only
needed to identify the location of a single officer.

------
quietthrow
This post was number one on HN. Now it’s nowhere to be found on HN’s pages
unless you search for it. I happen to remember the posters handle and was able
to dig up the post. The post is not even flagged back so am curious why did it
disappear?

~~~
pbourke
It's been flagged to oblivion so as not to pierce HN's tender bubble.

Should have mentioned which JS framework was used to build the site so the
post would stay on the front page.

~~~
h3cate
Haha sadly, there's no JS. I would load vue though if that meant they wouldn't
bury the thread..

------
alfiedotwtf
Remember a few years ago it came out that Apple filed a patent to disable
cameras in a localised area. Speculation was so that law enforcement could
disable cameras during protests and riots. In the next few days/weeks, watch
if people start saying that they're in these hot zones and their camera phones
stop working

~~~
Lariscus
Imagine being asked by your boss to implement such a thing and actually doing
it. How spineless and unethical would you have to be to even consider
following such an order.

~~~
3wolf
They'd probably take the Volkswagen strategy:

Team A builds a feature that detects when the device is in a localized area.
(This already exists)

Team B builds a feature that disables the camera. (I could see this being a
parental control)

Both features are reasonable by themselves. It's when they are combined that
they become an issue. The trick is that Teams A and B don't know of each
other's existence.

~~~
enitihas
Someone would have to add their integrations though. The features won't be
joined magically together.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
There are enough qualified amoral mercenary devs out there who would be
willing to do it - and keep quiet about it.

------
libraryofn
If you're actually trying to fix a problem, there are better ways to go about
it.

Why not try to build evidence to determine the reality of the situation? There
is nothing honest or good about building a one-sided repository that serves
only to confirm political dogma.

What if a fair judgement of the evidence shows that black police officers
treat black people no better than white police officers? What if white police
officers treat black people better than black police officers on average?

Of course, I'm sure someone biased enough can invent an explanation for any
contrary evidence. But the of the situation might be very different from the
current propaganda.

Regardless of the policing data, the root cause is unarguably a fundamentally
economic problem.

Poverty is synonymous with violence. Policing is synonymous with violence.

By turning a class problem (rich people stealing/rigging the system) into a
racial issue (white people are bad and should feel bad) you're doing the
bidding of the rich people that want to prevent revolutionary economic reform.

 _Edit: Flagged in 60 seconds. There is no way this comment violates the HN
guidelines. If you disagree, just downvote, don 't abuse the flagging system._

~~~
h3cate
Thanks for your feedback. With the help from some people here the site has
been updated with more info about each case including what has/hasn't been
done in each situation.

Going forward, no video will be uploaded without first gathering this
information and verifying the context of the video. Please say if you feel
there is still information that needs to be added that can help.

~~~
yetanotherjosh
Aren't you trying to act as a courtroom, though? The main issue I have with
your site is that your fundamental premise involves a presumption of guilt.
You declare this behavior "brutality" (which implies a forgone conclusion of
injustice and the misuse of force) _before_ a fair system of investigation,
testimony, factual analysis, and so on, can be performed.

I'm not saying these videos aren't showing an injustice and a misuse of force,
I'm saying that making a fair conclusion is complicated and should be done by
a complex process that you can't hope to do yourself. And if you simply
aggregate videos of police using force and label them all as brutality,
frankly you are abandoning the ideal of justice in the pursuit of it.

Your site should present these videos as acts that warrant investigation, not
as a wall of shame for (assumed) guilty/bad cops (even though many of them are
guilty/bad).

There is deep, systemic injustice in our society, and there are murders and
brutalities taking place all too often, and this does demand action and
attention. I applaud action to that effect and I honor that you are motivated
by the pursuit of justice. But you need to recognize that it is a challenging
task that requires a measure of elevated ethical discipline in order not to
backfire or undermine itself. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty"
is a core precept of a good justice system, but not one that your approach
seems to embrace.

------
ciarannolan
Here's a pretty good list I've been seeing passed around Reddit with ~20
incidents of police brutalizing peaceful protestors in the last couple days:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/poli...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/police_shoots_protestor_for_no_reason/fsg94zy/)

The list is growing by the hour.

Cops in America need to learn very quickly that their power comes only from
the consent of the people they police, or they will be made to understand that
fact.

~~~
h3cate
That's the part I personally cannot wrap my head around with all of this.
These people are the people they are paid to protect. The people who live in
their own communities. Yet they are carrying out these acts like they're in a
foreign country.

~~~
bosie
> Yet they are carrying out these acts like they're in a foreign country.

Which would make this better how exactly?

~~~
bradgessler
It’s not better.

Foreign operations are carried out by a military, who define an enemy and set
objectives to destroy them.

Policing is different. It’s a domestic affair where the objectives are to
protect citizens and improve public safety.

It gets very dangerous when police begin operating like the military, define
the citizens they’re suppose to protect as “the enemy”, and then set
objectives to destroy them.

~~~
h3cate
Thank you, you took the words in my head

------
pstuart
Tangentially related: anybody have links for good op-sec guides for creating a
site that might make dangerous people pissed off?

~~~
h3cate
Depends on the dangerous people you're talking about I suppose

~~~
CameronNemo
Exactly. IIRC alphabet agencies operate many tor exit nodes.

~~~
pstuart
Among a plethora of other tricks. To be able to evade state-level actors would
be the ultimate goal. That may likely be impossible but it would be nice to
explore if it could be done.

I have no intention of becoming an "enemy of the state", but I also never
imagined I'd be living in this dystopian timeline.

------
drdeadringer
I've shared this before and do so here:

I recently found out about an app from the ACLU specifically for
recording//reporting (abusive) police activities.

The app itself, at least the California version, has a section regarding one's
rights and safety whilst filming police.

[https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-
po...](https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po..).

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

------
djaque
I have found an excellent resource [1] for data-driven policy that has been
shown to reduce racism and abuse in police departments. I have written all of
my local leaders who are up for election where they stand on each one of their
ten points.

All of the requests on their website seem reasonable and it was really
illuminating doing research on my local police force and seeing how few of
them they've enacted.

[1] [https://www.joincampaignzero.org/](https://www.joincampaignzero.org/)

------
_bxg1
Here are some more to add:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23371048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23371048)

~~~
bitcharmer
Have some more

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/comm...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu3s6j/comment/fsg94zy)

~~~
h3cate
Thank you, I will go through them later tonight.

------
rolae
To document with videos is valuable, but I think the site should provide as
much context as possible, what I would wish for, show:

    
    
      * Date of incident
      * Short description of context
      * Primary source, or at least, where the video was found
      * Media coverage of incident
      * Updates on convictions/official investigations into the incident
      * Official statements / responses
      * linked videos (videos of the same incident, but with other view-angle)
    

Otherwise it will just be a collection of outrage, if you don't give real data
to put things into context.

edit: formatting

~~~
h3cate
Brilliant, thank you for this. I will work on getting all of these added to
the site ASAP.

------
fulldecent2
This site is terrible. It is a zero-effort collection of videos around one
theme. And by turning these videos into copy-pasta without promoting the
original sources of the video they are obscuring the and making it more
difficult to fix police brutality.

A much better website would have contact information on it. And it would cite
the original people that took the videos. And they could have asked those
original people basic facts, such as the exact location and time of the
recording.

~~~
fulldecent2
Found it.

Here is what quality reporting looks like

[https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/31/21276044/police-
violence-...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/31/21276044/police-violence-
protest-george-floyd)

Yes, people. Sometimes reporting takes effort, and professionals can do a
better job than inexperienced people.

------
Animats
This has been tried. See [http://copwatch.com/](http://copwatch.com/)

------
theklub
It would be cool to have a top ten worst police jurisdictions for brutality

~~~
h3cate
I like to think that this isn't a whole jurisdiction problem and more an
individual one.

~~~
scarface74
Statistics about racial profiling and systemic problems with hiding police
misconduct shows something different.

------
codethief
I wish the site contained more than just the video recordings and presented
further information like time & date / location / background story / names /
official police report / related news reports etc.

Right now I could simply dress up as police officer and stage such a video.
I'm not at all saying this is happening, I'm just saying it'd be possible to
do that. With fake news as well claims of things being fake news being very
common these days, we should all be a bit more careful and thorough.

~~~
emerged
The site relies on that lack of contrasting data and authentication (at least,
objectively it can be argued).

~~~
h3cate
Hi, I certainly don't want this to be the case and as such the site has been
updated with a lot more information about each video. Still this may not be
enough so if you think there is anything else that can be added please say and
I will ensure that the website is updated.

------
chrisco255
I know this is hard for some people to accept, but the police deal with the
worst dregs of society every day so you don't have to. They get pissed on,
stabbed, punched in the face, shot, and killed working for less than 1/4 of
the pay of many software developers do. We bitch about JavaScript vs Golang
while they have to wonder if the next person they pull over for a speeding
ticket is going to pull a gun on them. They have no binary way of knowing who
means them harm and who doesn't. It's an extremely delicate judgment call made
in split seconds that often means the difference between life and death. In
the meantime, how many murdered people's family members have you had to
console in the past few weeks? How many rape victims have you had to listen
from? How many dead bodies have you scraped off the pavement? How many
suicides have you investigated? Nobody is in favor of excess force being
applied to people, but I cannot support the over-the-top rhetoric about the by
and large good people that work in the police force either.

~~~
FDSGSG
> It's an extremely delicate judgment call made in split seconds that often
> means the difference between life and death

How come cops in many other countries are so much better at making these
judgement calls than in the US?

~~~
austincheney
Are they? I prefer to ignore value comparisons not based on numbers.

~~~
augustt
German cops fired 85 bullets _total_ in 2011. Florida cops shot almost 200
bullets into a UPS truck, killing a hostage and bystander in 2019.

~~~
tal8d
There were 2174 incidents of murder/manslaughter in Germany that year... given
that context, "85 bullets _total_" sounds like a massive orgy of violence on
the part of German LEOs. There were 6 times that many murders in the US that
same year, manslaughter not included.

------
loceng
I think also compiling a list of video and photos of the good police who are
joining, supporting police - or protestors who are keeping police safe in
certain circumstances - to counterbalance the abuse by reminding people of the
humanity.

Edit to add for examples:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu5pqj/a_veteran_prot...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu5pqj/a_veteran_protesting_his_government_after/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtx9am/the_police_tak...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtx9am/the_police_taking_a_knee_with_protesters_in_miami/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtzxn3/were_stronger_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtzxn3/were_stronger_together/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtu8tp/a_protester_an...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtu8tp/a_protester_and_a_police_officer_today_in_fargo/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gttacf/its_not_white_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gttacf/its_not_white_vs_black_rich_vs_poor_police_vs/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtq55f/at_a_peaceful_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtq55f/at_a_peaceful_protest_in_fargo_nd/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu6rdi/police_support...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu6rdi/police_supporting_reform_what_the_media_doesnt/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtr8un/a_conversation...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtr8un/a_conversation_between_protester_police_chief_and/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu5lrf/its_not_black_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu5lrf/its_not_black_vs_white_people_it_is_everyone_vs/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu6dsz/police_kneelin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu6dsz/police_kneeling_with_peaceful_protesters_in_coral/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu4ptc/we_need_more_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu4ptc/we_need_more_of_this_taken_yesterday_in_buffalo_ny/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtlla0/a_californian_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtlla0/a_californian_police_chief_taking_a_knee_during_a/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtynyd/genesee_county...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtynyd/genesee_county_sheriff_high_fives_a_woman_as_he/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtxiq5/found_this_pic...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtxiq5/found_this_pic_on_twitter_not_all_cops_or/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu60jr/protestors_and...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu60jr/protestors_and_police_come_together_in_flint_mi/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/gtrjby/genes...](https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/comments/gtrjby/genesee_county_sheriff_takes_off_his_helmet_sets/)

[https://twitter.com/ZachandMattShow/status/12672081705749381...](https://twitter.com/ZachandMattShow/status/1267208170574938120)

And some abuse..

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtsbs8/like_a_boss/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtsbs8/like_a_boss/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtqpre/new_york_state...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gtqpre/new_york_state_senator_zellnor_myrie_was/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu1qgy/cop_in_full_ri...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu1qgy/cop_in_full_riot_gear_pepper_sprays_shirtless/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu02su/a_child_after_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu02su/a_child_after_being_maced_by_a_police_officer/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/gu10qz/law_enforcemen...](https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/gu10qz/law_enforcement_fires_paint_projectile_at/)

Compilation video -
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/gtvcup/share_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/gtvcup/share_widely_this_is_a_police_state/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu5yru/us_s...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu5yru/us_security_forces_hunt_down_journalists_covering/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/gtvet8/rubber_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/gtvet8/rubber_bullet_hit/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu2hdi/innocent_shopp...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/gu2hdi/innocent_shopper_shot_with_rubber_bullet/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu629x/nurs...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/gu629x/nurse_working_at_the_medical_tent_treating_people/)

[https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1267033010295042048](https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1267033010295042048)

.... and on and on and on... There will be 1000s to 10,000s of events to
catalogue.

~~~
spookybones
Yeah, though you could also make a list of how long "good" police remained
silent on brutality from their brothers in blue

~~~
greggyb
Perfect, meet good. The two of you shouldn't be enemies.

------
kul
The Guardian tried this with “The Counted”: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/series/counted-us-police...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/series/counted-us-police-killings)

~~~
brent_noorda
The Counted is not necessarily police brutality as much as listing everyone
killed by police in the US, along with a brief description. The Counted
totally fascinates me. I like to close my eyes and pick some square at random
and read the story there, which is always a brief tragedy, but not necessarily
what I would call police brutality. Many surprises there, including a
surprising number of cases involving machetes.

------
pstuart
Ha. I have a similar type of domain name in my shopping cart...

I have another angle for this, which is we have to clearly identify a path
where _legitimate_ policing can occur, but aims to end police misconduct
systematically.

~~~
h3cate
I'm interested to hear more of your ideas around this

~~~
pstuart

      * Require police to be self-insured, backed by their pension plan
      * Refactor qualified immunity for police work (no more carte blanche)
      * Legalize all drugs (tax and regulate, treat abuse as a medical issue)
      * Legalize and (and regulate the hell out of it) sex work
      * National LEO database to prevent bad cops from moving one county over
      * National guidelines and certification of police behavior
        (a Geneva convention of sorts). No excuses of ignorance of the law
    

That's a quick brain dump on it. Just doing the pension thing would be a game
changer and is not an insurmountable goal.

~~~
h3cate
Personally I agree with all of those points however I know there is a lot of
passion on both sides of the argument for most of those points. Hopefully one
day soon we will start to see meaningful change

~~~
pstuart
Gotta start somewhere :-).

The goal would be to properly frame it and promote it.

------
supernintendo
Thank you for this! Your site might be a good place to signal-boost potential
solutions to the problem of police brutality as well. I stumbled across a
Twitter thread earlier which has some interesting ideas:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/samswey/status/118065570127173222...](https://mobile.twitter.com/samswey/status/1180655701271732224)

~~~
h3cate
Thank you for that. I will read through this at some point tonight.

------
exdsq
The websites not loading, I assume because it’s #1 on HN right now. If you
want help with server costs maybe setup a fund me/patron?

~~~
h3cate
There are people I would much rather that money go to than me. I will upgrade
the server now though

~~~
zeendo
For sure. If there's any other kind of help you need, though, you should
mention it. I'm sure there are a lot that would be happy to help. I think a
lot of us are looking for an outlet for our (highly overlapping but not super
widely available) skillset to contribute how we can.

~~~
h3cate
Just created a discord here:
[https://discord.gg/5w2nz8](https://discord.gg/5w2nz8). Happy to get peoples
help and expertise on there

------
berbec
"Police are by in large good people. The vast majority of them know not to
kill black people."

"United Airlines pilots are by in large good people. The vast majority of them
know not to crash the plane."

~~~
h3cate
The vast majority also do not drag people off their planes for not being
white...

------
known
Police (1%) can never succeed without the support of Civilians (99%)
[https://archive.vn/D3mWZ](https://archive.vn/D3mWZ)

------
peanut_is_yum
The brutality in those videos goes beyond what I thought possible. Driving
through crowds, beating little girls, trampling on a protester with your
horse... speechless.

I thank the internet for making me aware of this.

~~~
h3cate
It's really harrowing to see these things happening. I know that they go on
around the world but it's always been easier to ignore but I feel like as
citizens of a now connected world we can't let this brutality continue.

------
irrational
The site seems to be down. Will it do historical abuse as well?

~~~
h3cate
I think traffic might of killed it. I will upgrade the server it's running on
tonight. In answer to your question, all videos on there will stay there for
the rest of time. We cannot let this happen now but we certainly can't let it
be forgotten either.

~~~
dvtrn
DevOps SRE, how can I help?

~~~
h3cate
Please join this discord:
[https://discord.gg/9nA34c](https://discord.gg/9nA34c)

------
pojzon
How does the validation of the stories work ? I hope it will not end up as the
next place to fuel unnecessary violence like in Toronto.

~~~
h3cate
Currently, I'm having to watch the videos and verify them personally. Not the
way I want to spend my evenings but sadly something I feel I have to do.

~~~
egonschiele
You are a hero.

~~~
egonschiele
FWIW I'm happy to donate to you, or if you find a way to pay someone to do the
sorting I'm happy to chip in for that as well.

~~~
ykevinator
Me too

------
exdsq
Why was this post flagged? @Dang?

Edit: earlier this post linked to a data visualisation project, not a
collection of videos.

------
downerending
As always, you have to ask, _compared to what_? Are the majority of police
actions brutality, or only a miniscule fraction? This is _the_ crucial
question, and a site like this provides no insight at all. (or so I imagine,
since site is down)

If you want to fan the flames, though, add a section for protesters savagely
kicking unconscious victims in the head.

~~~
wonderwonder
Just so I understand, how are the 2 related? You seem to suggest that the
"protesters savagely kicking unconscious victims in the head" are criminals. I
agree, they likely are. By those terms then all of the police officers kicking
downed protesters are criminals as well. Why are their fellow officers not
arresting them on the spot?

There is a very large difference between random protesters committing violent
acts and government sanctioned organizations with the legal right to shoot and
kill implementing a wide spread program of violence and brutality. If you
cannot see the difference, then you are not looking. If an officer observes
another officer committing a crime and does not intervene then that officer is
corrupt. At each of these police brutality incidents there are often a number
of officers observing and not intervening.

When the system designed to enforce the law routinely breaks it without
punishment then the system is broken and needs to be rebuilt.

~~~
downerending
For starters, the rioters are already breaking the law at the point of police
contact, and they know that they are. Secondly, the officers are typically in
a dangerous situation, and have more pressing concerns.

If you find yourself in a riot, leave. Common sense and common decency, no?

~~~
wonderwonder
So because the rioters are breaking the law it gives the police carte blanche
to do the same? Amazing how cops in other western countries are able to
enforce the law without killing thousands of citizens every year but ours
cant.

Sorry the cops have more pressing concerns than obeying the law? Then they
should not be police officers. A whole lot of cops seem to have a whole lot of
other pressing concerns standing around watching George Floyd get murdered. A
whole lot of cops seem to have a whole lot of other pressing concerns standing
around watching Rodney King get beaten. There are hundreds of incidents of
whole lot of cops seem to have a whole lot of other pressing concerns standing
around watching their fellow officers assault prone or unresisting civilians.

Just so I understand, if you spent your whole life getting treated as a second
class citizen and peaceful protest did not work, and voting did not work, and
nothing changed, could you not see yourself getting a little tired of living a
lesser life? Now imagine having kids and having to watch them live the same
lesser life.

~~~
downerending
No, it does not. A policeman acting like one of these rioters--kicking an
unconscious person in the head--should be charged with attempted murder. And
in my opinion, never breathe free air again.

> if you spent your whole life getting treated as a second class citizen and
> peaceful protest did not work, and voting did not work, and nothing changed,
> could you not see yourself getting a little tired of living a lesser life?

That describes me pretty well. Nonetheless, I obey the law. And I certainly
don't beat people, especially when they're unconscious.

~~~
chillwaves
Except that never happens. The accountability part. Police act up over and
over and face no meaningful consequences, hence the rioting.

There's no question in the ability of the police to abuse the civilian
population, we see it every day. Punch a police and see what happens, and then
if they punch you again watch what happens.

------
randtrain34
May I suggest that the site be on a CDN like Cloudflare for better
availability? @h3cate

~~~
h3cate
I'll look into it and get it done, thanks.

------
aiscapehumanity
Cocksec rascists must have flagged this

~~~
h3cate
People just have different views on different matters which is okay. Flagging
a post you do not agree with is fine. Shooting a man pinned to the floor is
not fine.

------
pluc
Y'all killed it

~~~
h3cate
Should be back up now!

------
ykevinator
the defense of police comments remind me of the defense of priests people.

~~~
h3cate
Did anybody really protect the priests?

I don't want to discuss that topic here as I am less able to rationally think
when it comes to not only Christianity but religion as a whole.

------
xmly
What does This refer to, The website or police brutality?

------
PhaedrusV
Instead of signal-boosting rotten cops, can we signal-boost the ones who
arrest bad cops?

~~~
h3cate
A new page will be added to the site highlighting the good that police
officers do on a daily basis.

------
zabeltech
not saying there is no value in this initiative, just a reminder, that a
camera always hides more than it shows - unknown unnowns etc...

~~~
zabeltech
I dont know why this gets downvoted so much. Let me elaborate:

i have witnessed Police brutality first hand. Even here where we dont go
through much of the authoritarian training americans are used to, i.e
christian churches with heavy influence - here religion is merely a nostalgic
thing.

I know also that even here victims of Police brutality basically have No
Chance of retaliation.

That beeing said, a video that looks ugly does not necessarily mean the Police
acted wrong.

Ok i bite, Link a Video and i will come up with a story that atleast explains
the police behaviour, If not justifies it.

~~~
PhaedrusV
Here you go. Video of cop shooting a guy in the back as he ran away, then
planting a gun on him. The officer didn't know the event was filmed, and filed
a wholly false police report on the subject.

[https://youtu.be/XKQqgVlk0NQ](https://youtu.be/XKQqgVlk0NQ)

~~~
zabeltech
My apologies, the USA seem to be more rotten than i thought they would be...my
original statement was also to broad, i cannoz defend that video similarilly
to how i cannot defend every Police Action in russia or china.

------
jorblumesea
Is the issue with police brutality a lack of evidence?

Not trolling, legitimately asking this. It feels like every year some viral
video comes out where police do something horrible, it feels like little
progress has been made on the issue. Is it simply a visibility problem?

~~~
h3cate
The way I see it, a viral video pops up and there's outrage then two weeks
later we're onto the next outrage. I am guilty of this myself and this is why
I think it is important to collect this so it isn't forgotten.

~~~
Hamuko
> _I am guilty of this myself_

Aren't you the wrong person to catalogue this stuff then?

~~~
h3cate
Maybe, I never said that I was the right person and this is certainly
something I don't see myself doing for the rest of my life. I would however
like to give the tools to those who are the right people.

------
emerged
This would be objectively valuable if it was paired with a collection of
brutality against police (curated by equally well motivated people). There are
a massive number of both citizens and police in this country. Large numbers
yield a significant artifact of outliers.

Holding police to a higher standard makes sense. But with very large numbers,
a high standard still requires expectation of a significant amount of
outliers.

~~~
h3cate
I would be more than happy to send you the code for the site if you wish to
set this up. Personally I feel like police generally do a good job of handling
cases of brutality against them.

------
mmm_grayons
Something very similar to the Floyd case that wasn't too widely reported;
probably a good one to add (assuming it's not already there; I'm having
trouble accessing the site):
[https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2019/07/31/yo...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2019/07/31/you-
re-gonna-kill-me-dallas-police-body-cam-footage-reveals-the-final-minutes-of-
tony-timpa-s-life/)

Edit: Why was this down-voted? And why was the post itself flagged?

~~~
h3cate
Thank you, I will take a look and add it

------
jmspring
The sad thing is, there are good jurisdictions (they may have their issues,
but generally fair) around, yet local activists will use issue X in city Y as
an excuse to blame their own local PD for some unrelated issue.

This is happening in Santa Cruz right now where local homeless “advocates”
(more about themselves) are attempting to co-opt a protest to blaming SCPD on
perceived slights regarding homeless issues. This is a normal tactic for this
group.

~~~
javajosh
It would be useful to put together a taxonomy of error modes that a social
issue can have when it becomes famous. For example, accusing the victim of
faking it ("crisis actors"), accusing protestors of overreacting ("thugs"),
claiming that protestors have foreign elements making things worse ("auslander
thugs"), and of course claiming that nothing happened to begin with, or the
evidence for the claim was faked. No doubt this is a very long list, limited
only by human rhetorical ingenuity.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Some claims _are_ fake, though. Your strategy for distinguishing between true
and false claims can't just be "oh I've identified that as an error mode".

~~~
jmspring
Here is a photo. Food Not Bombs is a broader organization, but Keith McHenry,
a founder of FNB, will do everything to promote his agenda atop of what is
popular -

[https://scontent-
lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65...](https://scontent-
lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/101659755_10222370868330582_9004543148180897792_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_sid=ca434c&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_ohc=QhBaGiPGmeQAX8IMg1T&_nc_ht=scontent-
lax3-1.xx&_nc_tp=14&oh=8fec22aadfacc4068839fa5f5e417421&oe=5EF8F30C)

------
mawise
Police brutality is a Bad Thing. There is also much lower hanging fruit in
terms of saving lives and improving the world. About 1,000 people die in the
US each year through encounters with the police. Over 400,000 people die in
Africa each year from Malaria and we have very effective tools for combating
it[1]. Police brutality is a big issue but the current media attention doesn't
make "boring" causes less important or deadly.

[1]: [https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-
charities](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities)

~~~
komali2
Otherwise known as the "but kids are starving in Africa" rhetorical fallacy.

~~~
pnako
Well, if you want to focus on police abuse, journalists and opposition leaders
are routinely tortured and killed by security forces in Africa. No one gives a
shit.

You might say, well, that particular case happened in <whatever city where
that particular case happened>, so people there are concerned. Of course, and
that's fine. I'm sure there are things they can reform in that police
department. But how does that explain the support protests around the world?

It's a big political manipulation.

~~~
komali2
> It's a big political manipulation.

Lemme guess, Soros?

~~~
pnako
I don't know, do you have any information on this?

I'm particularly interested in who funded and organized the media operations
in countries like Germany or the UK.

We do know that Soros does that, but he's not the only one, so we can't
possibly blame him for every single occurrence.

~~~
komali2
I don't really care. I sat down with protesters myself in Oakland, and while
we were sitting, cops fired into the crowd.

I don't think you can blame Soros or Murdoch for that. That crime is in
someone in the cop's chain of command - as well as each officer that decided
not to call in sick yesterday.

------
corrupt_measure
Genuine unprovoked and unnecessary police brutality incidents are incredibly
rare (relative to all police interactions) and hardly an epidemic. When
someone is breaking the law and resisting arrest the police have no choice but
to be violent with the resistor. Unfortunately these incidents often get
categorized as "police brutality" when they're really just a necessary use of
force.

More broadly, the entire narrative of police brutality and killings of
minorities is basically nonsense. When controlling for violent encounters with
police and crimes committed, blacks (armed and unarmed) are actually less
likely to be killed by police than whites.

Sites like this and an irresponsible media simply exaggerate the issue and
needlessly inflame tensions without providing proper and necessary context.

~~~
chillwaves
"Don't believe your lying eyes."

[https://lawandcrime.com/crazy/video-shows-officer-kicking-
wo...](https://lawandcrime.com/crazy/video-shows-officer-kicking-woman-who-
was-sitting-on-ground-and-covering-her-face/)

~~~
corrupt_measure
That video is a 5 second long anecdote. Regardless, the woman was probably
told to move and was refusing. When you disobey riot police in a riot
situation that's what happens and I absolutely side with the police.

Data literally supports what I'm saying. A distorting narrative is what's
driving all the recent calls to action and solidarity. People are being lied
to and misled, either that or they are just using the narrative to push their
own agendas.

~~~
whatever1
The outrage started not because of the video that was undisputable evidence of
police violence, it started because the police did not immediately arrest the
officers who committed and helped with the murder of a person.

Had Minneapolis have to burn to the ground, so that they finally arrest the
murderer policeman?

