
My family saw a police car hit a kid, then I learned how NYPD impunity works - danso
https://www.propublica.org/article/my-family-saw-a-police-car-hit-a-kid-on-halloween-then-i-learned-how-nypd-impunity-works
======
pjc50
> “I blame myself,” she kept saying. “I never let him out on Halloween. A
> bunch of Black boys together. I shouldn’t have let him out. But he begged
> me.”

Notice that while average white parents might worry about criminals before
letting their kids out on the street, the black parents worry (with good
reason) about the police.

(Just to spell it out: this is why so many BLM activists feel comfortable
saying "abolish the police" or "defund the police", because from their point
of view the police are the people most likely to assault or kill them or their
children on the street, more so than random criminals)

> “Young teens or pre-teens of color were handcuffed, arrested, or held at
> gunpoint while participating in age-appropriate activities such as running,
> playing with friends, high-fiving, sitting on a stoop, or carrying a
> backpack.”

This is child abuse.

~~~
air7
I just don't get it.

The number of unarmed black men shot by police across the entire US in 2019
was 14. [0] How does such a small number spark this level of fear and protest?

Also, do people actually think the police generally and on average does more
harm than good as to request abolishing it?

[0]
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-
shootings-2019/)

~~~
trowawee
To address your first point, there're a constellation of relevant answers.

1\. Most people who dislike or distrust the police don't actually trust those
numbers. There are decades worth of documented evidence of police lying about
people carrying weapons, and sometimes even carrying weapons to plant on
people they kill. So from the start, a lot of us think that number is an
undercount, possibly by a dramatic degree.

2\. Even among the people who are armed who are shot by police, there are
people who weren't doing anything wrong who were still shot. The most recent
high profile version of this was Philando Castile. Technically, he was armed
when he was shot, but when he was killed, he had already informed the police
about his licensed, legal firearm and was moving slowly towards the glove
compartment, _as instructed by an officer_ , to retrieve his registration. So
it's not just shootings of unarmed people.

3\. Police don't just shoot people to death. George Floyd was not shot; Derek
Chauvin kneeled on his neck for just under nine minutes. Eric Garner was not
shot; Daniel Panteleo choked him to death with an illegal chokehold. Adam
Trammell was not shot; he was hit with a Taser, 18 times, while in the shower
and experiencing mental issues, and it caused his heart to stop. Sandra Bland
was not shot; she supposedly hung herself with a plastic grocery bag in her
cell after being arrested as a result of a pretextual traffic stop. This list
could go much, much longer. Only looking at shooting deaths artificially
constrains the number of people police kill in a very deceptive way.

4\. There are so very many other ways that police can make your life
absolutely miserable without shooting or killing you. I am not Black, and so I
have been spared many of these experiences, but of my Black friends and
family, I can tell you this: every single one of them has had police harass
them for absurdly minor issues, or sometimes no issue at all. A number of them
have had a police officer point a gun at them. Almost all of them have been at
some point unofficially detained for some length of time. Some of them have
been arrested and then eventually released without charges. All of them who
drive get pulled over at least a few times per year, without fail. These are
mostly middle- or upper-middle-class professionals. They live all over the
United States, in cities and towns, in places with large Black populations and
small Black populations, and yet their experiences all share a commonality
that is terrifying when you pull back even a little bit and look at them as a
pattern.

5\. But maybe this should have been #1...what do you think is a reasonable
number of shootings of unarmed people? Personally, I think that number is
zero, so even "just 14" is absolutely grounds for extreme anger, even if you
want to ignore my first four points. I don't think the police, people who are
given special dispensation and training to use violence in the name of the
state, should ever shoot and kill an unarmed person. I actually think any
number of deaths caused by police is too many deaths. In every situation, they
are the people with the most training. They are (ultimately) the best-armed. I
recognize that, in a country with as many guns as the US, maybe the police
will have to kill some small number of people per year, but I think every time
they do, that shooting should be heavily scrutinized. We give them these
weapons and powers so they can protect people, even people who commit crimes,
and if they have to kill someone, they have failed to protect that person.

I hope those points answer your first question, and start to explain the
answer to your second question. In response to that, though, I would first ask
what you've read about police abolition so far.

~~~
air7
> what do you think is a reasonable number of shootings of unarmed people?
> Personally, I think that number is zero

I humbly suggest that if you give this some thought, you'll see that isn't a
very good answer. Any complex system, especially one that involves humans,
will have errors. There's no way around that. So the only way to eliminate
errors completely is to eliminate the system entirely. This understanding is
perhaps what fuels the call for police abolition: No amount of reform and
training will get the error rate to zero, so the only way to get zero police
accidents is to not have any police.

To illustrate my point further, consider medical malpractice. How many deaths
caused by doctor error is acceptable? If the answer is zero, one needs to
abolish medicine. How many automobile accidents are acceptable? If zero, we
must abolish all motorized transport. I think for the most part people accept
the unfortunate fact that accidents are an inevitable part of any system, and
should be accepted if we consider the system to do more good than harm.

~~~
trowawee
For starters, I'm a little disappointed that that's the only thing you decided
to engage with. That said: this isn't actually terribly complicated. This
isn't medical malpractice, where some degree of risk is an inevitable side
effect of any medical intervention. Police in the United Kingdom shot one (1)
person to death in 2018. He was carrying an airsoft rifle that looked like a
real gun. I still think that's terrible! He should be alive. But still: one
person, in the whole year. There are countries where the police don't kill
anyone. This is the healthcare conversation all over again; Americans
insisting that some goals are impossible while other countries that have
already achieved those "impossible" goals look at us with a mix of pity and
disdain.

------
bane
When I was younger I lived in a fairly rural area. I was driving home late
from work one day on a remote highway and came across one of the most horrific
accidents I've ever seen. A driver was pulling onto the highway and was hit by
a police cruiser at an almost impossibly high speed. The highway was marked at
55mph, and under normal conditions, the driver of the other car would have had
plenty of time to pull out, speed up and join the road at speed. On this road,
at this time of night, there were virtually no other cars on the road.

The cruiser was going at least 130mph, without lights or siren on, struck the
car at the b pillar and literally _sheared_ the car in half right behind the
driver. It was unreal, the two pieces of the car looked like they had been cut
in two by a giant table saw. The front end of the cruiser was smashed in
pretty well.

Incredibly, when I pulled my car off the road to help, I found both drivers
up, relatively unhurt, ambulatory and in a daze from shock. A few minutes
later another cruiser pulled up, called a tow and drove the civilian driver
home. It became a local news story as the police officer was not only not
arrested, but not disciplined in any way. Insurance covered the cars and the
officer was back on the beat in a new car within the week. His rush? He wanted
to make it home in time to watch a college ball game after his shift was over.

~~~
eyerony
Once saw a police car in a smallish town whip a u-turn for no clear reason, no
lights, nothing, nearly hit a car that was pulling out of a bank parking lot
and the driver of which had clearly already looked that way and seen no-one
coming, then the cop freaked out, u-turned _again_ (lights this time) and
pulled over the car they nearly hit. Guess whatever they were breaking traffic
laws and driving very dangerously to get to wasn't so important after all.
What a shitty day for that person. At least it was probably just a totally
unjustified ticket and an unpleasant lies-filled conversation with an upset
and fragile-ego'd cop, and not death or injury, I suppose.

[EDIT] this and other dangerous-driving observations lead me to treat cop cars
on the road like someone I've seen through the window drinking a 40 while
talking on the phone. They're far and away the most likely category of vehicle
to do something batshit crazy with no warning.

~~~
FireBeyond
Absolutely. I'm a firefighter. I was the designated driver for two friends. We
leave a bar, and I pull up to the intersection. I have a flashing red traffic
light, and the cross traffic has a flashing yellow. There is a police car
sitting at his flashing yellow, windows down, watching (it's closing time, and
there are several people milling about on the street, the usual). I wait. He
doesn't move. I wait for approximately 10 seconds before turning, with my
signal, left.

I'm immediately lit up. "Failure to yield". In addition I get an FST after
"failing" the vertical nystagmus test (bear in mind at this point, my one and
only pint of beer is coming up on five hours old). Cop is insistent I'm drunk,
says he can go the DUI route, because my "behavior" in "failing to yield"
shows I'm impaired, regardless of actual numbers. I'm lucid, but frustrated.
Debates merits of blood draw, etc. Tickets me, "Get out of downtown and get
home, I think we both know you're getting off lucky".

~~~
eyerony
Hahaha, yeah, same smallish town's cops love to hassle people with late or
early shifts playing "20 questions" fishing for drunks or I-don't-even-know-
what ("5:30's awfully early to be going to work" look, asshole, take it up
with the hour-fifteen of highway I have to cover, how many drunks are you
nabbing at this hour on a Tuesday anyway?), usually just obviously fabricating
some reason that they stopped you in the first place, without even trying to
hide that it's BS (good luck questioning it, though). That's white folks, too,
I can't imagine how bad it is there if you've got too much melanin in your
skin. Incredibly annoying. Often it just seems like they're super bored and
looking for anything at all to do.

~~~
stronglikedan
> I can't imagine how bad it is there if you've got too much melanin in your
> skin.

It's the same. That narrative you're pushing is hindering genuine discussion
and potential solutions to the very real problems of abusive police and
injustices within the legal system. It's them versus us - all of us - not some
of us more than others.

------
kleiba
It's crazy but from a European perspective, stories like this sound more like
what I imagine police forces to behave like in dictatorships, not in a
democracy.

After living in Europe for six years now, my wife is still puzzled sometimes
by the differences between Europe and North-America when it comes to the
police: how they are experienced by the population and how they see and
present themselves and which role they think they're playing in society. Big
difference. I'm certainly over-generalizing but here, we see cops as
approachable and helpful in general (with exceptions) while in North-America,
at least my wife's impression is that of cops being mostly intimidating
(again, with exceptions).

Of course, this is all complex and different social and societal aspects play
a big role, such as e.g., the odds for a cop of running into an armed person.
But when I read how the police handled the situation with the group of black
trick-or-treaters, it seems so foreign to me now from a more European
perspective.

I suppose accountability is always going to be an issue - who watches the
watchmen? But it should not be - in a democracy especially, there should be
functioning mechanism to prevent abuse of power, and that of course applies to
police actions, too.

~~~
hef19898
Usually police in dictatorships, at least the more successful ones, tend to be
much more professional, polite and non-brutal. Until they are very
professional, very cruel and very brutal. The latter usually against very well
defined groups, in very well defined ways.

Simple reason being, that random police violence just results, ultimately, in
the kind of uproar and civil unrest the US experience now. Basically the last
thing dictatorships want.

~~~
chillacy
I actually found that most of the police in China are not particularly scary.
I'm sure they can mess up your day if they wanted to, but the day to day
officers are unarmed, not particularly physically imposing (lots of normal
looking men and women). They wear a sort of light blue office collared shirt.

Outside of big cities it gets even more lax. You just see police officers
hanging out like regular people. I once saw an old guy get into an argument
with the cops that looked like an argument between two people, not between
"officer and civilian". In the US that wouldn't happen, the officer would feel
slighted and probably arrest that guy, or the guy would never dare to talk
back to a police officer in the first place.

But to your point I suspect the military police is very brutal.

------
zw123456
I had an incident happen to me where I was stuck in traffic in the left most
lane on the freeway next to the diamond (HOV) lane. So the HOV was on my left
and was wide open and all the other lanes were completely stopped, or stop and
go. A state police officer had people pulled over just ahead of me for HOV
violations. A car that was exactly the same model and color as mine was flying
down the HOV and pulled in two cars behind me when he saw the cop. When I got
up to where the cop was, he was confused and thought it was me. He was
pointing at me and pointing at the side of the road and yelling something. At
first I didn't understand what was going on, it was not until later that it
all made sense. I didn't know a car similar to mine had pulled in a couple of
cars behind me. I could not understand what was going on, if he was pointing
at me or what. I rolled down my window and he was screaming at me, I had the
radio on and had not noticed any of this until he was hopping mad. Then he put
his hand on his gun and I could hear him yelling at me to pull over right
there right then. So I did, because I was scared as hell. Of course a car came
flying down the open HOV lane right then and T-Boned my car. I blacked out for
a bit and came to and the air bags had all gone off saving my life I am sure
and I was unharmed but my car was totaled. The two young men who were driving
the car that T-Boned me both were rushed to the hospital. The cop gave me
ticket for improper lane change and HOV violation. I had the wits to take
pictures of license plates of the stopped cars and got witnesses from that. I
hired a lawyer and he said it was very unlikely to beat the ticket and there
was nothing we could do, could not sue the police, they have immunity.

Funny, I actually beat the HOV violation in court, witnesses all corroborated
my story. The whole thing was super scary and frustrating.

I can only imagine how frustrating it is for black people who deal with things
10 times worse than that but it gave me a bit of empathy and understanding how
a crazed a-hole cop can wreak havoc and there is nothing you can do about it.
I mean all that for a dumb HOV violation for cripes sake.

~~~
bluntfang
imagine wanting to kill someone because they didn't listen to you when you
told them to pull their car over for an HOV lane violation.

~~~
zw123456
right, those are the types of people who should not be police officers.

~~~
bluntfang
They are literally training officers to do this. There is a systemic problem
that needs to be addressed by a complete defund and reorganization of the
criminal justice system.

------
ixtli
I've lived here a long time and come to the realization through observation
that the NYPD operates like a private security force for capital. Their
primary concern is to defend private property, the people themselves come
second. The "community outreach" they do is just enough to keep us from
getting accusatory.

~~~
Pfhreak
Historically, this is what police were in the Northeast US. (In the South,
police trace their heritage to slave patrols. I'm sure they would argue that
these patrols were also just defending property. Gross.)

Landowners and merchants hired private police to watch over their holdings.
Over time, they convinced locals that it would be in the public good if the
guards they hired were paid for by everyone.

In the 1850s, in Boston, they formalized this arrangement into the first
police department in the country. (There's an interesting history here around
the oppression and then incorporation of Boston's Irish population by the
police force.)

Edit: Curious about the downvotes -- this is a review of US history.

~~~
corebit
It's become popular to regurgitate that bit about police and slave patrols but
it has no real basis in reality. That isn't to say that there isn't _some_
example of a slave patrol that was pressed into service as police, but Police
are a concept that all of America inherited from the English roots of our
governments.

~~~
Pfhreak
You are incorrect. Not all police departments started as slave patrols, in
fact many of them did not. But to deny that it was a widespread event is
counterfactual.

The first American police dept was founded in the 1850s, well after the split
from England. The first police department in England was founded in the 1830s.

Prior to that, our communities either took collective action to regulate
themselves and the 'spirit of the community', insisted on night watch duty as
a rotating responsibility, paid a constable or sheriff (a word whose roots are
'shire reeve', meaning 'shire official'), or hired private guards to protect
property.

In the 1850s, around the time of the first police departments in the US, the
Fugitive Slave Act was enforced as law -- requiring officials to hunt and
'return' runaway slaves. This was adopted to a greater or lesser degree
depending on the area, but it absolutely was a role of law enforcement across
much of the US, and it's without a doubt a part of the roots of many police
departments in the US.

~~~
corebit
I'm not denying slave patrols existed, I'm denying this rumor of them being
the root of modern police because it's straight up not true.

The very simple historical trend that brought us the police we have today
started with the King enforcing the peace, was delegated to sheriffs who
enforced the peace among other things, was inherited in the colonies where the
sheriff took on a primarily peace officer role in early states, and as the
population grew and cities got bigger were augmented with more specialized and
local peace officers. Slave patrols being the root of police is just
propaganda.

~~~
Pfhreak
It's absolutely not just propaganda. The KKK was formed in the 1860s and there
are many accounts of reconstruction era patrols being perpetrated by or with
the aid of police at the time.

Enforcing the law required acting as slave patrols for well over a hundred
years in the US. In 1757 Georgia, for instance, the colonial assembly required
white landowners to be slave patrollers, and this continued well past the
civil war.

There is over a hundred years of law enforcement, particularly in the South,
acting as slave patrols. It's absolutely reasonable to trace the roots from
modern departments back through the nation's unique history.

Not all police followed that path, like I mentioned above, police in the North
were formed more out of an interest of protecting property and landowners.
Places like Boston founded their police to try and prevent crime, rather than
simply exact justice post-facto. That's a different historical root of
American policing, and it did not involve slave patrols.

------
psychometry
This is why we need civilian oversight of every police department. Cops are
generally too corrupt and/or too incompetent to investigate their own. They've
proven their inability to hold themselves accountable for their actions, so
it's up to the rest of us to do it.

~~~
austincheney
Is there evidence that indicates police are more corrupt than anybody else?

~~~
Pfhreak
Even if they were equally corrupt to everyone else, they have much, much more
authority to use violence and be shielded from the consequences. We should
demand that they are significantly _less_ corrupt than everyone else.

~~~
austincheney
I completely agree, but the point still stands that insinuating corruption is
a straw man when it’s not based on anything.

------
elliotpo
Even if you chose to argue statistical frames, as I'm seeing so much in this
thread, you're not factoring the ripple effects that must surely be caused by
the knowledge that official agents of power view you and your family as
inherently, or very potentially inherently, dangerous. It doesn't take a
critical mass of groundless violence (even if that mass does indeed exist)--
but just some of it, left unaccounted (or even defended) by those same
official agents. Such a message is bound to resonate broadly and cause what
should be a comprehensible outcry from, for example, the mother quoted in this
article. I'm saying that you might consider the nonchalant (at best) response
to such violent incidents.

------
danharaj
The NYPD has a budget for spying on people in other countries. State power is
weird.

~~~
ciarannolan
For those curious who didn't know about this (like me):

>With offices in 11 foreign capitals and an unpublished budget, the ILP’s far-
flung counterterrorism cops operate outside the authority of top U.S.
officials abroad, including the American ambassador and the CIA station chief,
who is the nominal head of U.S. intelligence in foreign countries.

>The ILP is supported by private donors through the New York Police
Foundation, which won't say how much it has given the NYPD, beyond a sentence
on its Web page that it sought to raise $1.5 million for the program in 2010.
The NYPD itself won't say whether any of its annual $178 million budget for
intelligence and counterterrorism goes to posting detectives in Paris, London,
Madrid or other posh capitals.

[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-
talk/2010/11/nypds_fore...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-
talk/2010/11/nypds_foreign_cops_play_outsid.html)

~~~
stefan_
_keep having to preface everything lately with "not a joke," but no joke the
NYPD's International Liaison Program, which has a secret budget and operates
in 13 foreign countries with no oversight, just showed up in an official NYPD
cruiser for a pro-police demonstration in Paris_

[https://mobile.twitter.com/newyorkyearzero/status/1273754924...](https://mobile.twitter.com/newyorkyearzero/status/1273754924250288128)

------
mac01021
There are basically two things that the police do:

1> Patrol public spaces to deter illegal behavior in those places, direct
traffic, punish traffic offenders, offer directions to tourists, etc

2> Respond to calls from citizens, investigate the crimes that those calls are
about, locate and apprehend the associated criminals.

I've only lived in places sparsely populated enough that <1> is mostly
impractical except along highways and around major construction sites.

The VAST majority of the value provided to people by the police clearly comes
from <2> \- it's the reason that no sane person would mug me (or kill me) for
$40 cash on an unpatrolled country road, or invade my home and take up
residence there against my will. 99.9% of citizens benefit from <2>, as it's
the main deterrent to any antisocial person coming and taking whatever they
have of value.

It seems to me (though I don't have data) that most (nearly all?) the
mistreatment of (maybe mainly black) citizens by police that has been
garnering media attention over the past decade or so, happens during the
course of <1>.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Only 60% of _murders_ are solved.
[https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17896034/murder-crime-
clearanc...](https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17896034/murder-crime-clearance-
fbi-report)

~~~
mac01021
Are you suggesting that, because of this, the existence of the police is not
the main deterrent to crime?

~~~
aaronblohowiak
a few years ago, I getting a beer after work with a colleague. we had become
friends and talked about quite a bit outside of work. As the topic of religion
had come up in the past, it was not unusual for us to discuss. He was a devout
Christian (some kind of protestant) and I am a self-described "athiest
Catholic". At a certain lull in the conversation after a couple beers, he
leaned in to me and asked in a hushed tone: "so, if you don't believe in hell,
why be a good person?" I put my drink down and looked him in the eye and said
"that's the scariest thing I've ever heard."

Plainly, I don't believe in deterrence as effective or a substantial reason
why most people don't engage in bad behavior.

~~~
mac01021
It's not _most people_ that I'd. worry about, though.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
with 60% of _murders_ going unsolved, do you think the 'deterrent effect' is
really preventing the remainder from engaging in antisocial behavior?

~~~
mac01021
Probably not, but those who are already willing to be criminals in situations
where they won't be caught would now be able to act with wild abandon, or
execute much grander schemes with relative impunity.

60% of murders go unsolved because a sane murderer does not commit a murder
that would be easy to solve. I'm sure many tempting, high-reward murders do
not happen because they can't be committed without an ensuing police
investigation.

Suppose 1% of people are currently criminals (I don't know the real number).
Without an authority investigating and punishing crimes, that number might
increase to 1.1% or even 2%. But a small fraction of those would likely
increase their criminal behavior by an order of magnitude.

------
kerkeslager
I keep seeing this narrative where people say, "We need law enforcement to
prevent crimes, we can't defund the police." And I 100% agree, we need law
enforcement. But _the police aren 't law enforcement if they refuse to enforce
the laws_.

~~~
buzzerbetrayed
> But the police aren't law enforcement if they refuse to enforce the laws.

Sure. That's obviously true. However, not very helpful to the discussion as
you don't state what percent of police officers "refuse to enforce the laws"

Do 100% of police officers refuse to enforce laws? 50%? 5%. Surely that's more
beneficial to talk about than simply saying "the sky isn't blue if it isn't
blue".

~~~
kerkeslager
While Derek Chauvin was murdering George Floyd, 100% of the officers present
did not enforce the law.

While Daniel Pantaleo was murdering Erik Garner, 100% of the officers present
did not enforce the law, and at least a significant percentage of the court
system which did not convict Pantaleo did not enforce the law.

When Philip Brailsford murdered Daniel Shaver, 100% of the officers present
did not enforce the law by arresting him. A significant percentage of the
court system which did not convict him of any crime didn't enforce the law.
The police department which reinstated him and then let him medically retire
due to PTSD _from the murder he committed_ and pays him $2,500/month pension
didn't enforce the law.

Since three police officers murdered Breonna Taylor, 100% of the police in
Louisville Metro Police Department has not enforced the law.

When ex-cops murdered Ahmaud Arbery, 100% of Glynn County Police Department
did not enforce the law until months later after massive outcry, and more than
one DA refused to enforce the law.

When a homeless man in a wheelchair was shot in the face with a rubber bullet
by LAPD, 100% of the LAPD did not enforce the law. When Buffalo PD officers
assaulted a 75 year old man, 100% of the officers present did not enforce the
law, and 100% of the 57 SWAT members resigned from the SWAT team when other
police _did_ enforce the law. When Denver PD shot tear at a pregnant woman and
her husband who were uninvolved in protests, 100% of Denver PD did not enforce
the law. When a Philly PD officer knelt on a man while he said, "I can't
breathe" and the officer responded, "Shut up asshole. Are you fucking stupid?
That shit don't work here" 100% of Philly PD did not enforce the law.

With the exception of Breonna Taylor, these are just _some of_ the incidents
that were caught on video. There are many, many more on video, and we can only
guess how many incidents _weren 't_ caught on video.

Obviously I'm not going to be able to give you an exact percentage number of
how many police officers refuse to enforce laws when cops commit crimes, but
how many examples do you need to see before you will admit it's too much for
the current system to be salvageable?

------
fallingfrog
My wife was in Indianapolis for a couple days and she saw the same thing: a
cop crossed over to the wrong side of the road and up onto the sidewalk to
strike an unarmed black man on a bicycle head on. They claimed later that the
man on the bike had struck the car while it was sitting still (hard enough to
put him in the hospital with a fractured skull). No investigation was made. I
think they do this because running people over or choking them to death
produces less paperwork than shooting them.

~~~
renewiltord
In San Francisco, I've seen so many occasions where police and fire (not the
fire truck, the little cars) do the "lights and full speed" for really no
reason. Or screaming high speed U turns just for the heck of it.

Honestly, I'm somewhat sure that this is just considered a perk of the job
since it lets them ignore road rules.

~~~
distant_hat
I had a cop friend who told me he lived for high speed chases. Interestingly
he died of an illicitly procured opioid overdose at 46.

------
fallingfrog
The protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder are currently tapering off,
but I don’t see any evidence at all that substantive changes have been made,
which means that this is all going to happen again, and soon, and the protests
will be bigger, the police response more violent. The black lives matter
organization in my city presented a list of demands to the city council and
every one of them was ignored, instead the council promised sensitivity
training. This is nowhere close to over.

~~~
danso
In terms of sweeping reforms, no – especially re: qualified immunity with
SCOTUS recently declining to reexamine it [0]. But I would venture to claim
that the Overton window on what police can be held accountable has certainly
changed. That all 4 police in the George Floyd case were arrested and charged
was unexpected, given the lack of consequences in the Eric Garner case. The
arrests and assault charges for officers who attacked protesters in Atlanta
[1] and Buffalo [2] is the kind of thing I never thought we'd see, and signals
an opportunity (albeit unguaranteed) for the balance to change. The change in
public perception is quite striking – including a doubling of white Americans
since 2015 who think police brutality is a "very serious problem [3]. And this
shift is happening under a presidential administration that is one of the
least likely to take federal action against or even just criticize law
enforcement.

[0] [https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-qualified-
immunity-p...](https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-qualified-immunity-
police-accountability-law-2020-6)

[1] [https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/atlanta-police-booked-
felo...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/us/atlanta-police-booked-felony-
charges-protest/index.html)

[2] [https://abcnews.go.com/US/buffalo-police-officers-
arrested-s...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/buffalo-police-officers-arrested-
shoving-75-year-protester/story?id=71106787)

[3]
[https://apnews.com/728b414b8742129329081f7092179d1f](https://apnews.com/728b414b8742129329081f7092179d1f)

~~~
tartoran
It changes because of overwhelming evidence, public outcry and protests. We
shouldn’t need to have to protest for that!! Maybe ubiquitous incident footage
will make the window shift. Maybe we’ll end up self surveilling any encounter
we may have with police but also with crime.

Imagine we’re all streaming to a personal blackbox in the could that gets
overwritten say every month or every hour or however we set it up.

------
circlefavshape
FWIW my wife used to know a guy who was a magistrate (a kind of volunteer low
level judge) in England. He told her many stories about police telling obvious
lies in court in order to justify minor violent behaviour towards suspects.

------
snug
> The boys were driven to our local precinct, the 76th. I eventually made my
> way there, too. The families of all the boys were there. The police are
> required to notify families when a minor is arrested. But the families told
> me that hadn’t happened. They’d learned about the boys’ arrests from
> friends. (The police later said the families showed up so quickly they
> didn’t have time to make notifications.)

Wow this is really scary to read. There's a miniseries on Netflix I would urge
everyone to watch "When they see us" about "The Central Park 5" kids that were
coerced into confessing they raped a white woman in the park. They were
interrogated for hours and promised to go home if they confessed.

------
ed25519FUUU
Ending qualified immunity and civil forfeiture are ideas whose time has
arrived.

Even with bipartisan support for stopping these unconstitutional practices
they have enjoyed surprising staying power through different administrations.

~~~
edraferi
Qualified Immunity is fascinating. Nobody ever passed a law for it, it just
evolved. Really weird. Need new laws to remove it.

~~~
jmalicki
Especially when there is statute that on the surface contradicts it! 42 U.S.C.
§1983

------
anonymousDan
The part about all the school kids having instructions on the back of their
student IDs for what to do when stopped by the police is just nuts!

------
joshuaheard
Why is "Black" capitalized, but "white" is not?

~~~
jibcage
“For many people, Black reflects a shared sense of identity and community.
White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this
context risks following the lead of white supremacists.”

[https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-
styleguide.php](https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php)

~~~
antishatter
Kafkaesque

~~~
aspaceman
Not really. You wouldn’t be criticized if you got it wrong, but it’s the kinda
thing that would make an English style guide.

You do it the other way and watch absolutely no one care.

~~~
nailer
> You do it the other way and watch absolutely no one care.

I have never seen a style guide make a distinction between skin colors, and I
disagree that nobody would care if they capitalised 'white' but not 'black'.

~~~
aspaceman
You’re quoting to a reply that replies to a link with a style guide that does
exactly that. Open it and your whole world will change apparently.

Reading comprehension must be so hard.

~~~
nailer
My comment: "I disagree that nobody would care if they capitalised 'white' but
not 'black'."

The style guide in question: "why we capitalize ‘Black’ (and not ‘white’)"

Your comment: "You’re quoting to a reply that replies to a link with a style
guide that does exactly that. Reading comprehension must be so hard."

Yes, it must.

------
drdec
We need the police to take care of their own house and stop the us against
them mentality. Until they do we won't be able to truly address the events
that have led to BLM and the current protests.

The problem isn't a few bad apples, it's a culture that allows a few bad
apples to expect impunity and protection from the consequences of their
actions.

~~~
uoaei
The training regimen for officers sounds like expert-level cult
indoctrination.

First they inflate your ego by telling you you're joining a high and noble
cause.

Then they tell you that others don't appreciate the noble work you do and they
hate you for reasons out of your control. And you just want to do right in the
world so that's not fair!

Then they show you every documented instance of when an officer was ambushed
and/or killed. This forces you to mentally ostracize yourself from the broader
community by instilling a persecution complex.

Then they teach you that only your buddies in the department have your back
and everyone else is out to get you.

Then they train you literally to shoot first and ask questions later. This
training consists of variations of the game "slaps" except you're drawing a
gun and shooting it at the other player instead of slapping the other player's
hands.

And at that point you've been shown (1) that you have a huge target on your
back, (2) how to pre-empt a perceived attack, and (3) how to justify the use
of force or defend your fellow officer for doing so.

------
bmmayer1
This says everything: "Instructions on what to do when stopped by the police
are on the back of student IDs at Summit Academy in Red Hook, Brooklyn."

------
mensetmanusman
Unions protect bad apples, that shouldn’t be the purpose of unions. It should
be illegal.

~~~
Pfhreak
Police unions are almost all terrible. Seattle kicked their police union out
of the local labor council, and it would be great to see more cities do the
same.

~~~
DenisM
Any additional information on how Seattle police union is terrible?

~~~
Pfhreak
They've consistently pushed back on reforms from both the community and the
federal consent decree. They insist they are 'tough on crime' and the city is
holding them back, going so far as to demand people vote out the city council.

They've described the concerns about policing as "the flavor of the week",
they fought against body cams, they've defended police in well documented
cases of retaliatory and unbecoming behavior.

~~~
DenisM
It would be nice to have links. "defended police in well documented cases of
retaliatory and unbecoming behavior" is bit too vague to follow up upon.

~~~
Pfhreak
Sure, here's a handful:

[https://komonews.com/news/local/police-union-president-
defen...](https://komonews.com/news/local/police-union-president-defends-
officers-in-mondays-fatal-shooting)

[https://mynorthwest.com/70234/police-union-head-
vehemently-d...](https://mynorthwest.com/70234/police-union-head-vehemently-
defends-department-in-wake-of-cop-stomp-acquittal/)

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-
now/2016/07/13/se...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-
now/2016/07/13/seattle-police-union-chief-resigns/87030666/)

[https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/memo-
seattle...](https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/memo-seattle-
police-union-official-called-sergeants-public-retaliation-against-citizen-
minor-misconduct/)

[http://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2015%20...](http://www.courts.wa.gov/content/publicupload/eclips/2015%2006%2026%20Court%20First%20Amendment%20protects%20profanity%20against%20police.pdf)

[https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article64596437.ht...](https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article64596437.html)

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seattle-cop-punches-teen-in-
fac...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seattle-cop-punches-teen-in-face-seen-on-
video/)

~~~
DenisM
Clicked the last link from your list, see this: _The two were already
struggling when Levias ' friend, a 17-year-old, pushed the officer, and he
responded by punching the friend in the face._

Is this the sort of thing you consider outrageous?

~~~
Pfhreak
Outrageous is your word. Have you seen the video? The cop full on decks a
woman who gives his arm a _light_ push. It's definitely out of line, he's not
trying to defuse the situation, he's grappling another woman and is clearly
out of control of the situation.

This continues a pattern of excessive force from the dept. From the Justice
Department's findings on the SPD:

> Our investigation finds repeated uses of excessive force for charges related
> to minor offenses, including pedestrian interference, obstruction, open
> container violations, jaywalking, and shoplifting. In a number of incidents,
> failure to use tactics designed to de-escalate a situation, led to increased
> and unnecessary force.

[https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/...](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/12/16/spd_findletter_12-16-11.pdf)

~~~
DenisM
The video doesn’t show on my phone. From your description it sounds somewhat
excessive, but not outlandishly so.

Also I find it odd that decade-old events are being brought up. Yes, it’s
pretty much a recorded fact that excessive force was used back then. DOJ
forced the the SPD through a reform program, the result of that program should
be judged to decide what if anything needs to be done at SPD. Otherwise it’s
like this:

    
    
      SPD did bad things in 2010, they must reform!
      Ok. SPD Does reforms 2010-2020
      SPD did bad things in 2010, defund!
    

Every time a story predating consent decree comes up I interpret it as lack of
newer stories, hence I conclude the reforms worked well.

~~~
Pfhreak
Footage from the protests shows pretty extreme violence, and SPD shot and
killed a black man in lower Queen Anne in May of this year after charging him
with a dog. Yes, the suspect had a knife and was very loud, and may have been
suffering from mental health or a crisis, but SPD definitely could have
handled this differently.

[https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-police-
investigating...](https://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-police-
investigating-shooting-in-queen-anne)

~~~
DenisM
I clicked on the link you provided and I couldn't locate anything
incriminating. Can you provide the video and exact location of what you found
objectionable?

------
johnflan
>The commissioner can also let the case go before an internal NYPD judge
(whose boss is the commissioner). If the judge decides punishment is merited,
the commissioner can overturn or downgrade that, too.

The NYPD have their own Judges?!? eh?

------
fortran77
A car crashed into my Sunnyvale, California home while it was being chased by
the Police.

The Sunnyvale Police told me to stop taking pictures of the accident while I
was standing on my own property. They refused to release the police report of
the accident to me (I needed it for insurance claims) because they claimed I
was "not a victim and had no right to see it." (The car ended up on my lawn,
smashed into my house.)

The only official way to file a complaint against the Police force in
Sunnyvale California is to fill out a form and the Police investigate it
themselves. Anything else, you have to go to court. There's no independent
overseer.

All police forces are rotten to the core, and will do anything and everything
to protect themselves.

------
sitkack
Police shouldn't have access to their own body camera footage. And it should
require multiparty keys to decrypt. Those decryption events should go on a
ledger along with the authorization order. PriorArt

~~~
x86_64Ubuntu
And that's common IT management right there. The group that is being audited
for bad behavior gets no say over the audit process, and no say over giving or
rescinding access to the audit trail. But when it comes to police, we put
cameras on them to shut up the peasants, but we ensure nothing will change by
making sure the department has control over the incriminating data.

------
jennyyang
The only solution is to incentivize good behavior, not bad ones. Any time a
police officer is caught doing something wrong, the money should be taken out
of the local police pension fund. If one cop is bad, then ALL COPS SUFFER.
This is the right incentive system, so that bad cops get weeded out.

First offence, depending on the severity, gets nothing. Second and subsequent
get exponentially worse cuts to the pension fund. Good cops will weed out bad
cops pretty quickly if they realize all their efforts are being lost because
of bad behavior.

------
zerealshadowban
I've seen police abuse innocent people, multiple times, which should be lesson
enough. More importantly, I've been falsely accused of assault by a Federal
officer, and had to spend all my savings on a lawyer to fight it (one year of
fear and hell, until they finally produced the video showing I had done
nothing but sit in my car while answering his questions).

I don't want to live in anarchy, but I don't want to live in fear. Help.

------
Hnrobert42
It’s articles like this that make me happy that I donate to ProPublica
monthly.

------
gatvol
This is pretty much SOP (Delay, frustrate, cover) to a greater or lesser
degree, for every police force that I have ever encountered. Occasionally an
overtly 'bad' apple is sacrificed, unwillingly.

------
mancerayder
Why are certain political hit-pieces getting flagged, and others, like this
one, are somehow immune?

~~~
mancerayder
Here's an example. If I were to post an article that shows data that NYC
shootings are up 30% since activist-pushed disbanding of cops took place, it
would get downvoted to oblivion, flagged repeatedly and such. It's an
interesting discussion point, and there are some very calm and rational pro
and cons to different approaches. Instead, an article like this one from
Propublica gets upvoted to the stratosphere.

As long as we admit there's some sort of double-standard at play, I'm fine
with it. Or we're consistent.

------
rendered_fat
Why is black capitalized in this article but white is not?

------
tartoran
We need more self surveillance tools we’re in control of.

------
dghughes
In the article white is written with a lowercase w but black is written with a
capital B.

Seems odd.

~~~
klyrs
Similar to how deaf and Deaf have different meanings, and you don't read
stories about Hearing people. If you're intellectually curious, read up on
that.

~~~
dghughes
I think I get what you mean. My mother had diabetes but detests being called a
Diabetic she says, "I am a person".

Thanks for the heads up. Others just down voted my comment out of contempt for
me I guess.

