Sadly, I have many friends with similar stories from police departments in different places. I attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment. Add to this the types of personalities that are attracted to this line of work, and things start getting a bit more clear.
I am not trying to justify or even imply that it is correct behavior from the police or that "all police officers are [x] or [y]", but from direct and indirect experience this story doesn't fully surprise me ( I don't think it is right though).
I don't think the conclusions at the end of the blog post are correct though. Not calling 911 or even using lyft to go to the hospital seems like bad rules that are imposed to avoid interacting with the police. A better rule of thumb is to just minimize your dialogue with the police to the bare minimum and keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. All my friends that have experienced something like this is because they made a smart ass comment in an situation prior to them knowing how fast these things can go downhill.
> attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment
As I get older I wonder if there are certain jobs that everyone in society should cycle though, because they can be soul-crushing to do them long term.
I find it interesting that the Ancient Greeks thought that "decision-maker" was one of these jobs. Their lottery-based election system wasn't intended to be representative of the whims of the people, but rather to protect their decision-makers from the inevitable "moral fatigue" that comes with being made to choose with no clear best option, while being lobbied at by groups that are willing to pay you to say this or that option is best.
I wonder about this in the modern day: if everyone who ran a country was made to step down before their idealism was shattered--and if they didn't have to play politics to get there in the first place[1]--what kind of structures and rules would result?
Or: what would a software company be like if every "journeyman"-level team member took rotation as the team's manager, and knew that whatever pain they put on the shoulders of others, those others would inevitably get their turn to be in charge?
---
[1] I think the "not having to play politics to get there" bit might actually be what the neoreactionaries are talking about when they say monarchies work better that democracies: inheriting the throne by divine right means you don't have to lose your faith in humanity to get there. The Greek lottery system is basically the same thing, but with an artificial "line of succession" controlled by time rather than death.
I've wondered the same! But often in an organizational context. One thing I love is that at Method, Inc., everyone rotates through the receptionist position.
I feel like we're so focused on outsourcing "menial" tasks when doing them can teach us a lot about workplanning and efficiency (which some people could certainly use), and more importantly about ownership (the Millennial generation, myself included, tends to look for handouts. Enter apps to do everything for you).
Problem is, the advice to minimize interaction with the police, while sensible for the individual, exacerbates exactly the problem you are describing: that the police live in a bubble which distorts their perceptions.
Also the OP mentioned something about not being told his Miranda rights -- keep in mind the police only have to tell you your rights if you're being interrogated.
If they're trying to haul your friend off for something, the best thing you can do is say nothing about it, sadly. Otherwise you'll be brought in for obstruction of justice which will likely be deemed a misdemeanor (as opposed to an infraction, which is sorta bad news for you).
Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it. We should continued to do what we can to minimize it and should pay attention to stories like this one.
This story invokes emotion but even after he released all the documents it still doesn't ring true. Part of it is the language used and the overly cautious structure about his thoughts and actions. The following paragraph just didn't seem like a true representation of his thought process:
"Rich SOMA, poor SOMA. My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food. I live here, right on this block, in a loving home with 16 roommates. I love this community. I asked them where they lived. And they responded in unison: “Far away! We can’t afford to live here.”"
Yeah, this guy comes off as really smug and obnoxious in his own words. I have no doubt the police overreacted and acted unjustly, but I also think there's more to this story than we're getting.
Is there a lawsuit pending? What's the cops' account of these events?
The police report is now posted in the story (it wasn't there when this was posted a few weeks ago after the incident).
It sounds like the cops told him to leave (aka cross the street) and he didn't, so they pushed him down and cuffed him for refusing to leave. Sounds like excessive force to me, and wtf @ arresting him and putting him in jail for that.
But really, it sounds like the whole thing could have been avoided if he just walked a ways away from the scene and let everyone do their job. Why make a big deal out of being told to cross the street? That's the part that smells funny to me.
I see where you're coming from. Perhaps I should have said "seemingly nonsensical" (I'm sure the bystanders think they're being helpful). The point doesn't change in the slightest.
Correct response: "You've done good, but it's time to let the EMTs take things from here."
Incorrect response: "Move to the other side of the street. [Arrest for hesitation.]"
You labeled the responses wrong. The one you labeled "Correct" should have been labeled "Would be nice to see but totally unreasonable to expect"; the one you labeled "Incorrect" should have been labeled "Abrupt but to be expected from a cop who has more important things to think about than pandering to the ego of a bystander".
Nope, I labeled them correctly. Your expectations of what would happen (which align with my own) have no bearing on what is right or wrong.
Police officers have better things to do than "pandering to the ego of a bystander" (is that what they're calling politeness these days)? Then surely they have much better things to do than spending hours engaging in an egregious miscarriage of justice to flatter their own notions of self-importance (i.e. that they deserve unquestioning obedience even in non-urgent situations). Except that they clearly didn't. So what, exactly, are the "more important things" they have to think about?
Your expectations of what would happen (which align with my own) have no bearing on what is right or wrong.
I wasn't talking about expectations about what would actually happen. I was talking about your claims about what was right or wrong, with which I disagree. See below.
"pandering to the ego of a bystander" (is that what they're calling politeness these days)?
In the particular context under discussion (a cop who has more important things to think about in the particular situation under discussion), yes. A cop who arrives at an accident scene is under no obligation to say "good job" to a bystander who called 911. Just saying "Move" to the bystander if he wants him out of the way is not impoliteness; it's prudence in a situation that, to the cop, is not yet under control.
surely they have much better things to do than spending hours engaging in an egregious miscarriage of justice to flatter their own notions of self-importance
But you weren't talking about that. You were talking specifically about the cop just saying "Move" to the bystander. The bystander not complying immediately escalates his status, in the cop's mind, from "bystander" to "potential threat". That's why the bystander got arrested.
I certainly agree that the cops took things much too far after they arrested and cuffed the bystander. But again, you weren't talking about that; you were talking specifically about what happened before the arrest. Big difference.
(i.e. that they deserve unquestioning obedience even in non-urgent situations)
You were talking specifically about what happened at the accident scene. An accident scene is not a non-urgent situation.
> Just saying "Move" to the bystander if he wants him out of the way is not impoliteness; it's prudence in a situation that, to the cop, is not yet under control.
> [reordered to address two points at once] An accident scene is not a non-urgent situation.
There is a conceivable circumstance under which taking a second to explain/pander would be the less prudent road: the bystander is interfering so egregiously with the EMTs that the extra second poses a plausible risk to the patient. Of course, in this situation the correct response is a shove, followed by a placating explanation. Under no circumstance was a single order to "move" followed by an arrest the fastest or most probably successful method of addressing the situation.
There's a reason why most cops are polite, professional, and (comparatively) slow to escalate: it's the best way to encourage in-kind behavior. It's pragmatic.
> But you weren't talking about [the later arrest, you were talking about saying "Move"]
I didn't switch subjects. I used the officers' later jerk-off behavior to refute the excuse you were trying to make (they had more important things to think about). If they had more important things to think about, they wouldn't have gone and picked a fight.
> ... [if] the bystander is interfering so egregiously with the EMTs that the extra second poses a plausible risk to the patient
Dude, you need to take a CPR class or something. Emergency response is HARD. If you're the EMT, you don't know if the patient has a ruptured soft organ, low blood pressure, or clotting problems, ICP, arrhythmia, etc etc etc. In five seconds they can go from lucid to passed out and then what seemed like a routine stop gets deadly serious and you're in trouble.
You need to work fast but you need to work ultra smart. One missed sign or wrong move could ruin a patient's life.
The whole time you're working you're trying to keep tons small bits of information in your head (ask about allergies, ask about illness, ask about prescriptions, ask about family history, any Battle's sign, how was cap reflow? Any heart problems? is the patient losing orientation? more neck soreness, did I miss a C-spine hairline? I need to move her shoulders but it might cripple her. if I could just get some friggin ROOM here. Can I ignore the bruise on the thigh? Did I hear wheezing? ... etc ).
Now do this when you have drunk people milling about, talking back to the police right over you.
My point, because you don't seem to get it: every accident scene is an urgent situation until the patient has been transported. Every interference is egregious. Every. last. one.
You seem to think that cops and EMTs have superhuman abilities to diagnose patients, psychoanalyze bystanders, and predict the future, all while while chatting amiably and stroking egos. It's bizarre.
(I did ski patrol for a few years so I got a taste of what EMTs do every day. I am in awe.)
I need to move her shoulders but it might cripple her.
This brings up another point that struck me about the situation as described in the article. The author's friend was "supporting the back" of the injured woman: why? Why not just let her lie still, with something soft under her head, and something else under her feet to keep them elevated, until the EMTs got there? The fact that one bystander was holding the woman up might in itself have struck the cops (and the firemen) as unusual, not to mention a possible cause of damage to the patient.
Under no circumstance was a single order to "move" followed by an arrest the fastest or most probably successful method of addressing the situation.
What happened was more complicated than that. See below.
There's a reason why most cops are polite, professional, and (comparatively) slow to escalate: it's the best way to encourage in-kind behavior. It's pragmatic.
And there's a reason why prudent citizens are careful when dealing with cops, particularly cops that appear not to be aware of the pragmatic truth you have just stated: it's the best way to avoid having the cops decide that you're a target instead of a bystander. It should have been obvious after the first interaction with the aggressive cop, when she told him to leave immediately, that further interaction was wasted on her.
I didn't switch subjects...If they had more important things to think about, they wouldn't have gone and picked a fight
Yes, you are switching subjects. When the cop told the bystander to "Move", she wasn't picking a fight--that didn't happen until later. At that point the cop did nothing else but order the bystander to move. And that, the time of the first order, is when the cop had more important things to think about.
It was not until later, after the bystander had (a) not moved, (b) been told a second time to move and not moved, and (c) said that the other bystander, whom the cops had pulled away from the injured woman (I suspect because they weren't sure whether he was helping her or trying to do something else, like rob her--remember this all happened very quickly and chaotically), was his friend, that the cops actually arrested him. Then they picked a fight.
I find the sequence of events the author was subjected to is impossible to justify with any conceivable amount of being "smug and obnoxious". This is behavior that should be reserved for dangerous, combative criminals (and probably not even then), certainly not bystanders who are merely annoying.
Read the police report (linked in other commments). Author was buzzed and buzzing around, and creatively left a few important details out of his story.
(not saying the police report is 100% of the story either of course)
Police brutality will never go away unless the the police themselves hold officers accountable for such actions. Sadly, they just don't, or give them a slap on the wrist when they cross the line.
HN's dup detector is crude and simplistic. Suggestions over the years to help fix it have been ignored, and efforts to help cross-link items have been lauded by some, and vilified by others who somehow seem to see the repetition as a feature. I guess that since it's documented (many times over, again, discussions repeated ad nauseam) it's definitely a feature rather than a bug.
Largely, I've given up. Let the discussions repeat the same points over and over - most don't care, others don't even notice. An engineer at heart, I find it almost physically painful to see such inefficiencies and loss of opportunity.
Not all duplication is bad. If you live to be long enough, you'll typically spot a cycle of stories carried in the mainstream media: local media's recycling of "places to visit" and "quaint historical anecdotes" items (new to me in my youth, somewhat less so in my dotage), the very, very predictable seasonal trend, particularly in consumer business stories around holidays, election cycles, etc.
In the case of HN, there are submissions I've seen which have gone down with no appreciable comment which, one or two or four years later, may well deserve a re-hearing. At the same time, you'll get iterations on a specific theme (a recent instance being 2^11 stories) which, while different in source, are often largely similar in content and significance. HN penalizes the former while passing on the latter. I'd prefer that reversed.
I've grown increasingly impressed with reddit's "related" link giving access to other discussions on a particular URL or topic. Actually, I've been growing increasingly impressed with reddit in general.
In a way, though, news is a cyclical thing. It comes up again and again. Maybe it's a good thing in this case; seems to be an instance of police brutality and wrongful arrest, so the more exposure, the better.
This story also brings out a couple of bits of information that we didn't get last time around, more of the police point of view.
In addition, HN intentionally allows duplicates after a certain time period -- I think it's 30 days. The idea is that the same information can become interesting and relevant again, either because of new circumstances [0], or to a new audience, or to an audience for which it has fallen out of memory.
(I leave it to the reader to determine whether this article has passed the "interesting and relevant again" threshold.)
[0] the best example I can think of: some of the things aaronsw posted to HN prior to his suicide became front page HN submissions just after. New information changed our perspective on his writings.
> She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately.
"I then walked home." should have been the next line, and I'm fairly sure the author knows it.
That doesn't excuse what the officers did, but it's not "being a good Samaritan" that backfired. Being nosy is the part that didn't end well.
I'm not even sure the use of force wasn't justified - even in this immensely biased account, he mentions being told to back away by the officers. What are they supposed to do when you ignore them?
>"I then walked home." should have been the next line
Unless it's against some kind of law for someone to observe police, you should know better than that. And seeing the way these animals acted, I'd say being concerned for the welfare of the downed biker is a perfectly legitimate reaction.
>Being nosy is the part that didn't end well.
Not illegal, and certainly not worth violent treatment and solitary confinement.
>What are they supposed to do when you ignore them?
If they're breaking this minute of a law? I don't know, issue a fucking citation? If they're not breaking a law, leave them alone? You know.. sane, professional, calm behavior that police SHOULD aspire to?
By the way - I find it interesting that people are referring to the police report as if it were the gospel where the author's article is just some random nut's view. Do you really think a police force that has no problem with brutality and unjust imprisonment really has any moral issue with filing an untrue/misleading report that makes them look better?
>Unless it's against some kind of law for someone to observe police, you should know better than that.
What isn't against the law?
This probably doesn't apply exactly, but there are plenty of laws about "disobeying lawful orders of a peace officer".
Here's an example (it may not apply in these case, I dunno, IANAL):
> It is unlawful to willfully fail or refuse to comply with a lawful order, signal, or direction of a peace officer[...] in uniform [...] or to refuse to submit to a lawful inspection pursuant to this code.
While I'm not a lawyer, I would assume that "lawful order" has a specific legal definition and that "pursuant to this code" means that it's restricted to orders for enforcing the laws.
There are certainly laws against interfering with police, but the right to observe them if you're not in the way is pretty well established.
That's some random guy's Livejournal with no sources and amounts to "If the police tell you to hand over $20 because they want to order a pizza, the safest thing to do is comply and file a complaint later." Which is probably true, but I was talking about the legality of ignoring orders that the police don't have the authority to give. And I don't think I'm wrong.
Here's what the MD ACLU has to say [1]:
> The safest course of action is to obey the officer's directives. Not every order by a police officer is lawful, and police may not lawfully arrest you in Maryland for failing to obey an order unless the order is lawful, and aimed at averting some imminent illegal conduct. It is difficult to know at the scene whether the order is proper, and failing to obey may result in an arrest, even though the arrest may not be proper. You have the right to photograph and record police officers performing their job in public. Police may not order you to delete photographs or recordings on your camera or cell phone.
Assuming the system works properly, you could not be found guilty of refusing to give a police officer pizza money (to reuse my earlier example). It's not illegal. Photographing the police and observing a scene without interfering is in the same boat.
The ACLU just agreed with the link, in your quotation no less:
The safest course of action is to obey the officer's directives.
It is difficult to know at the scene whether the order is proper, and failing to obey may result in an arrest, even though the arrest may not be proper.
You can't be found guilty of refusing to give a police officer pizza money, but that's not what the question is: can you can be found guilty of refusing a lawful order? Worse yet, as the link points out, the dead do not make reports to Internal Affairs.
Of course, the ACLU link you give says much more. Here's a choice extract to remember:
Remember: police misconduct cannot be challenged on the street.
The point I was making is that "Give me money for pizza" is not a lawful order and you're within your rights to refuse it. You can not be found guilty of refusing a lawful order if you did not give him the money.
The same is true for things like photography. It's been established that on duty officers have no expectation of privacy, and you have the right to watch and record them. If a police officer demands that you erase photos from your camera, you are under absolutely no obligation to comply with that order.
The point when he was in handcuffs on the ground would have been where he should have waited the situation out kept quiet and not talk to officers "how he appreciates their service." or enquire if their actions where "standard protocol". That is just asking for trouble.
Yes, physically removed from the immediate situation which is treating an accident victim and the first responders don't want to figure out whether the dumb white kid who keeps sticking around is an off-duty EMT.
He absolutely should have been physically removed from that particular situation since he wasn't leaving on his own.
This doesn't mean he should have had his hands stepped on or been put in solitary to teach him a lesson.
You need to understand that doing anything an officer might class as "Disobeying a Lawful Order" can get you killed.
This bit, written by an individual with Aspergers, explaims the situation more clearly -- and why the awful nature of it isn't going anywhere.
http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/316176.html
If you don't feel like reading it, this line will substitute somewhat:
> "[...] If you don't think he should have given that order, you can file a complaint later, but you can't complain to Internal Affairs if you're dead."
(The reason why it is necessary -- and yes, this is arguable, but this is not new -- follows not long after that sentence.)
Neither did being obnoxious, I imagine: "I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food."
I don't condone the violence and abuse of authority, obviously. But imagine being a cop, and having to deal with this at 1 am after a long day at work.
And yet your reply condones the violence and abuse of authority. Why is that?
Here's the basic rule: as a police officer, you must be polite, fair, kind, and law-abiding, even if the public you deal with is rude, nasty, entitled, somewhat drunk, and otherwise unpleasant. Period. If you can't do that, you're in the wrong profession. And if the profession permits people who can't do that, the profession has systemic issues that need to be corrected.
If you walk in the street you might get hit by a car. I don't condone a driver hitting you, but reality is what it is.
Cops have to constantly deal with the worst elements of society doing the worst things imaginable. It'd be great if they didn't get hardened, but the reality is they often do. Expecting cops to be polite and kind to the drug addicted guy beating his wife because she isn't turning enough tricks to support his habit is probably an unreasonable expectation. Until we've fixed society, cops aren't going to change.
Hardened has nothing to do with being immune to BS. It means that they adopt the mindset needed to do a job that involves potentially getting killed, potentially dealing with murders, murderers, rapists, and similar things that require hardening psychologically to handle working with. That mindset doesn't make them immune to BS, it makes them able to do their job. It also makes them the kind of person you don't want to have interactions with professionally, so if they tell you to leave an area, you leave the area and don't linger and piss them off pointlessly. Hanging out and obstructing/distracting them from their work is the kind of BS they have no tolerance for, which is what the guy in this article was doing out of mind-bogglingly profound ignorance.
Then how about we call it "oversensitized" or "embrittled" instead of "hardened"? They are far more fitting terms for what you just described.
Not only is the "Colonel Jessup hypothesis" total baloney (note how the deputy at the end saw what happened as the mark of a rookie), but accepting it glorifies moral failure and belittles the efforts of officers who have managed to develop a thick hide along with the integrity to judiciously wield the authority they have been given.
"Hardened" was the first term that jumped to mind, though the more I thought about this, and after reading the police report, the more I understand the police's motives and generally agree with their response (it might be they were too harsh physically, but they had good reason to be physical, and the guy fully deserved to be arrested).
While I feel bad for the guy for getting himself into trouble, we had a situation where a guy called 911, the first responders showed up, and the guy had such a sense of entitlement that he acted like he was still in charge of the situation, and because of that misbehaved in a few serious ways. Probably the fact that he was drunk played into his foolishness, but by his own account and the account of the police report, the cops had a drunk guy and his friend interfering with the first responders' work, the police asked them to step back, they were belligerent to the police about it and refused to step back, when the police tried to move him he resisted physically, so the cop put a lock on him, cuffed him, and arrested him. When a drunk is interfering with first responders, disobeying lawful orders, and physically resisting efforts to move out of the scene what else are they going to do? They ordered him to leave, he was belligerent, they pulled him away, he resisted, so they pinned him, cuffed him, and off to jail he went. Maybe they were too forceful, but all we have are the memories of the angry drunk guy prone to fits of screaming by his own account - no medical records or corroboration, and the cops actually made sure there was surveillance of the incident preserved.
They treated him pretty harshly in the jail, but by his own account he was screaming and acting out. It's not a real shocker that the drunk screaming guy misbehaving in jail is going to suffer for it.
There are legitimate cases of serious police abuses. This is more a case of a drunk fool getting himself in trouble by acting like an entitled clown and not complying with the officers' requests to give the first responders space to work.
> and after reading the police report, the more I understand the police's motives and generally agree with their response
Wow. Are you and I reading the same report? I'm able to understand the police's motives, but that's the problem. It was reasonable for them to clear bystanders away from the EMTs, but it was unreasonable for them to resort to physical force so quickly after encountering hesitation that a) posed no threat to the EMTs and b) could have been easily addressed without violence. I don't think police SOP should be "1) make demand, 2) attack civilian that hesitates due to objections with demand." Some situations allow time for rational conversation, this was one of them, and the police rejected that possibility (which had a lower likelihood of resulting in bodies flying into the EMT's workspace) in favor of using force.
Sgt. Espinoza used Woosley's passive insistence on getting his phone back, which explicitly did not interfere with the wellbeing of the patient or the actions of the EMTs, as a justification for employing violent compliance techniques. If Sgt E doubted W's ability to get his phone back without interfering (not unreasonable), he should have volunteered to do it on W's behalf rather than violently subduing him for what to me looks like entirely reasonable hesitation (reasonable in the moral sense, not in the maximize-probability-of-avoiding-arrest sense).
Partensky's case is more difficult to assess without a video recording. It's conceivable that P's hesitation justified violent escalation (as opposed to a more rational but slower approach with higher P(success)) but I doubt it.
> This is more a case of a drunk fool getting himself in trouble by acting like an entitled clown and not complying with the officers' requests to give the first responders space to work.
It took two to tangle, and I believe the police were unambiguously in the wrong, whatever you think of W and P.
Woosley's behavior wasn't solely passive resistance according to the report. He was resistant until the cops tried to move him (reasonably), at which point he flipped. The cops put the drunk guy freaking out in an arm lock at that point. Could they have handled things more ideally? Probably, but they didn't do anything particularly wrong given what they were dealing with.
Parentsky was a drunk guy insisting he was a medic and pushing his way past the cops. He was told by the police and EMTs to get clear of the scene. The guy was buzzed and acting like a complete fool, trying to push his way through the cops when they blocked him. There was a scuffle, one of the cops got a minor injury from the scuffle, and Parentsky was cuffed. Then when he was in jail he acted like a drunk fool and started screaming.
If they were sober I'd probably look at it differently, but having dealt with enough drunk idiots, I recognize that they don't generally respond to reasoning. The cops were dealing with a couple drunk guys interfering with the EMTs doing their job. I think they handled the situation as best as they could given what they were dealing with.
Parentsky's bizarre self-justification sounds like a stringing of excuses and railing over narcissistic injury.
What you're saying about the pressures on police officers is true, but the conclusion you draw from it is not. It is not actually the case that police officers must be managed in such a way that their professionalism is degraded by contact with the worst parts of society. One can think of many kinds of management interventions that could mitigate this problem --- or, for that matter, read books about modern police patrolling and the day-to-day work life of police officers to see good ones already written down.
I liked Moskos "Cop In The Hood", as a quick easy read; a lot of the rest of what I've read are cop blog posts or policy papers.
Two good example of problematic management techniques:
* All-car patrols, where police officers are either locked into their squad cars or, if out of the car and not eating lunch, in some kind of scuffle, so that their only contact with the locals is bad.
* Triage coverage, where units from all around the city are swung to hotspot areas in the city (in Chicago, for instance, alternately the west side or the south side), so nobody puts down roots with the community.
There are others.
A theme to all the recommendations I've heard is that they cost money. It costs money to allocate patrols so that officers can take the time to be on foot and retain the same neighborhood coverage they had before. It costs a lot of money to allocate enough officers to simultaneously and permanently cover the hotspot neighborhoods.
Asserting that the reaction was predictable and in some sense understandable isn't the same as condoning it. This is the real world, and it's unavoidable that the sorts of people who are going to sign up to police the streets in the face of aggressive hobos and violent gang-bangers aren't going to be the most staid and self-controlled.
Because one of the key challenges of law enforcement is securing community cooperation. Law enforcement cannot be effective when hey are seen by the community as a hostile gang of thugs, and politeness is just a name for adherence to social standards than signal that you are part of the community and not a hostile outsider.
Sometimes, yes. Other times, such as when a robbery is in progress, or when an accident has just occurred and you've arrived on the scene, polite and kind aren't very important.
Fair and law-abiding become much more important in these situations. Once the danger has passed, kind and polite can be important again.
Yeah, I'm surprised and almost impressed by how much he manages to come across as a total wanker in his own account where he's presumably trying to cast himself in the best possible light.
I've witnessed two horrific wrecks and been a witness for the cops one of those times. There's a time and a place for projecting your importance as an individual, but assisting someone else in an accident is not one such time. Do what you can until the authorities arrive and be helpful and respectful, and for fuck's sake, follow directions.
Obviously the cops should have handled the situation better, but the mature response would be to walk away.
So, in effect the correct response for seeing someone you happen to know get hurt in the US is "don't give a toss". As if caring for someone was a crime in itself?
You're kidding, right? Obviously the correct response when you see someone get hurt (btw, the author of the article did not know either of the people who got hurt in the bicycle accident; he asked them what their names were) is to assist them and call 911 if necessary. Nobody is saying otherwise--unless you count the author of the article himself, who at the end says that calling 911 is often a bad idea (which I don't agree with).
Cops here are imperfect, corrupt and what not. That being said, I'm very happy I live in a place where I would not be arrested in these circumstances. It is kind of cool that I do not have choice between clearing the place immediately when cops come in and being arrested.
Cops here seem to be used that people stop on streets to watch what is going on. They also seem to be able to make people leave (when they jam the place) without arresting them for first slight tiny hint of possible disobedience.
Thank you for saying this. I don't think the author necessarily meant harm, but by constantly questioning and trying to take control of the situation ("Is that protocol", rolling over after being placed on his stomache, etc.) he was digging himself deeper and deeper in a hole.
It is also hard to take the article at face value. Literally every other sentence screams of hyperbole. Basically, he got arrested and had to spend the night in jail. He makes it sounds like he was locked in Guantanamo Bay. He didn't get sent to a "safety cell" (what he refers to as isolation) until he (by his own account) threw a temper tantrum demanding to see a doctor.
When Deputy Terry walked away muttering, “I have had enough of you,” I banged on the door repeatedly and screamed, “I want to see a doctor. I WANT TO SEE A DOCTOR.”
I don't even understand what the original accident really was. It looks like the girl fell off her bike and hit her foot on the ground. Was it really necessary to call 911 for this? I apologize if it was more serious then it appeared, but from the photo it does not look that bad.
So of course he should not have been treated that way, and he has my sympathy.
But nowhere in his account is any recognition that this happens to lots and lots of people all the time, it's not special.
The cops are surprised that he's expecting to be treated with dignity and respect, because they aren't used to treating people with dignity and respect, it's not what they do. It's just that usually this isn't directed at well-off white people.
So there are two ways your reaction can go, when you're a well off white person who gets caught in that crap. 1) _I_ don't deserve to be treated this way, because I'm different, and I demand justice. 2) _Nobody_ deserves to be treated this way, and those people who normally get treated this way are _no different_ than me and don't deserve to be either, and I'm going to use what I've got to try and make it so.
The OP is full of me, me, I, I, and what makes him such a person that didn't deserve to be treated like this. Nope, he didn't, neither does _anyone else ever_, and _most_ people who are treated like that are not like him, and it's not a one-time thing either, and frequently has worse consequences than a night in jail. You think the officer would have agreed that he "never should have been there" if he had looked like most of the other people in those cells?
The HN lens has certainly been showing the US police force in a bad light over the last year or so. What are the origins of this strange behaviour? Why is force regularly used against people that verbally query the police? Even the army is trained to use dialogue where possible. It does sound like cameras will help but surely good and regular training programs should encourage good engagement with citizens.
It's not strange behavior. It's just that wealthy, white people are discovering what poor people and minorities have known for a long time: the police are not their friend, are not accountable to them, and are prone to violent overreaction.
That's not true of every country though, it's certainly not the case in the UK. Here the police do act as your friends, they make a lot of effort to talk to the general public, both on the beat and at events. Certainly every encounter I've had with the police has been positive, even when I've been in the wrong (speeding or whatever). Police can be your friend, they can be accountable and they certainly don't need to be prone to violent outbursts.
Stephen Lawrence would probably disagree with you.
The basic upshot of this story is to keep your contact with the Police brief, friendly and say no more than you need to.
The Police have been doing this to black people, gay people and other minorities for years, it's actually quite ironic that the Stonewall riots happened in San Fran too.
All that's happened this time is a well off, straight, white chap has realised just how hard life gets when you're treated as a minority.
I hope he gets his day in court and if the story is true they will sort the copper out and pay some compensation to him.
It would seem that training programs may help. After all, people respond better to meaningful requests than to arbitrary orders.
Something like "Sir, I'm going to need you to move to the other side of the street while we ascertain the situation." may work better than "Move to the other side of the street.".
But some of it is unavoidable. Americans seem to live with a siege mentality that I found uncommon in other developed nations (except the UK to a lesser degree). The police reflect this mentality with a constant fear that the people they're talking to will resort to violence. Of course, it is somewhat justified in their case because of the relative lack of safety in American cities in comparison to other developed nations (a homicide rate comparable to India, for instance).
There's police corruption, etc. But there's also the fact that American cities are war zones. The homicide rate in San Francisco, a relatively safe city, is 8 times higher than the homicide rate in London. It's 31 times higher in Oakland. Police in the U.S. are surrounded by violence.
Police in the U.S. are in no sense surrounded by violence. The United States in 2014 is one of the safest, least dangerous societies the universe has ever known.
Only certain parts of certain cities[0]. It's almost entirely a result of the War On Drugs. In areas where drugs and gangs are a problem, the homicide rate is very high. In wealthy/safe parts of town, violent crime is not dramatically higher than the rest of the developed world.
Does San Francisco have a particularly large amount of "war on drugs" related gang violence? It's still 8x the homicide rate of London. And whether it's caused by the war on drugs or not, the fact remains police still have to deal with it.
> American cities are the most dangerous in the developed world, by a large margin.
Um, can you give a source on that? I rather doubt it's true, but probably depends on what you mean by "most dangerous". (And also perhaps "developed").
> For England and Wales, we added together three crime categories: "violence against the person, with injury," "most serious sexual crime," and "robbery." This produced a rate of 775 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
> For the United States, we used the FBI’s four standard categories for violent crime that Bier cited. We came up with a rate of 383 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
Sure, there's some overlap between assault, rape, and robbery. But the underlying point is sound. What makes a city dangerous includes one's overall chance of being victimized, not just the chance of being murdered. And if you look at those other categories you'll find the US is not leading the pack.
Cameras seem like a good idea, but training won't change anything.
Good engagement with citizens? The power is the draw to the position, not the responsibility that comes with it. Take away the power from the job, and see how many superheroes exist in the world.
Interestingly, the same kind of stuff lead to a few scandals in China, where injured people where ignored by a host of bystander, apparently by fear of legal pursuits (which is something that had happened earlier to some people helping traffic victims).
This is obnoxious. Dude did not need to be put in solitary, but he also didn't need to stay 15 feet from an accident scene that involved police and EMTs, how is he helping anything? He hurt his elbow recently so he had to stay involved at 1 AM?
And for real, what do you expect riding on handlebars in the city at 12:30? Sounds like a great, sober idea!
repost, but looks like the article was fleshed out some more since I last saw it on HN. Included recording of 911 call, which I'm curious how he obtained.
They're recorded and they're covered by the California Public Records Act. You just have to ask for it; they can withhold for privacy reasons. In this case (and as with many others), no such withholding was made. Just ask.
There is some bad advice at the end of this: recommending Lyft as an alternative to calling 911.
First of all, Lyft doesn't exist in most places; not everybody lives in San Francisco.
Second, moving people who have had an accident without proper medical knowledge and procedures and equipment can often make their condition worse. The author does say there are exceptions to his "don't call 911" rule, but he says "they are fewer than you think". Is he claiming that this particular situation was, or wasn't, one of the exceptions? If it was, then how does this situation support the rule? If it wasn't, he's taking on a lot more responsibility; sure, maybe calling Lyft "worked fine" for him when he broke his elbow, but was that because he showed good judgment or because he got lucky? Would it have "worked fine" for the people who got hurt in this scenario?
Clearly in this case for him calling 911 was a mistake, because it made him more likely to be mildly beaten up, arrested, and thrown in jail. The outcome of this particular situation revealed that calling 911 has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered; it's a public service to share that information.
Calling lyft, uber, or any other cab-type service probably would have worked fine in this scenario too. Because cops have a known tendency to be violent idiots who make situations worse by their presence, the fact that calling 911 automatically brings cops along with EMTs is a problem.
Perhaps what we need is to find or set up some sort of emergency number that just brings EMTs but doesn't also bring cops, and program that number into our phones. You might still want to call 911 for a freeway accident where cops are needed to redirect traffic, but not for something like this.
it made him more likely to be mildly beaten up, arrested, and thrown in jail.
What caused that wasn't his calling 911, it was his failing to go away when the cop told him to.
calling 911 has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered
No, continuing to pester cops when they've told you to go away has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered. By blaming it all on his calling 911, he's not only giving bad advice to others, he's failing to properly adjust his own behavior.
Calling lyft, uber, or any other cab-type service probably would have worked fine in this scenario too.
And if that was the option the injured person had chosen, that would be fine. But she asked him to call 911. If he had called Lyft instead, that would have been a huge mistake.
Perhaps what we need is to find or set up some sort of emergency number that just brings EMTs but doesn't also bring cops
That would be nice, but I suspect it would end up being misused enough (EMTs being called to a scene that should have had cops summoned as well) that it would end up working the same as the 911 we have now.
No. Trying to use his "How to Make Friends and Influence People" social engineering talents on the cops was his mistake. Calling them was the right thing to do.
EMTs often need cops in urban situations because douchenozzle bystanders (not just this guy) want to get involved in the situation. It's bizarre.
I really hope that, if anyone is ever injured in your presence, especially if they lose consciousness AT ALL, you'll call 911 and not Lyft. WTF.
I had a law professor who told our class, "If a police officer throws me on the ground and tells me to eat dirt. I get on the ground and eat dirt." Point being that it doesn't matter if the law is on your side at that moment or not, that is not the time to argue. Take it up in court later.
this dude. by his own admission he,
1. had been drinking, was potentially drunk
2. disobeyed police officers at scene of accident
3. provoked the guards of the holding cell
police can be thug-ish but this guy is not exactly a posterchild for innocent bystander. I find his thinly veiled sense of entitlement ('I can't have done anything wrong... I work for a non-profit!') pretty obnoxious. There are many victims of police or prosecutorial misconduct out there far more deserving of attention or sympathy. sadly they don't blog.
One thing to remember: do what they say, and complain later.
This helps give police departments something they can use against rogue officers. It keeps you safer - you are not as likely to get shot or crushed to death by police after writing a letter than after complaining about what they're telling you.
Yes, you shouldn't have to do this and no, police shouldn't feel that they can do what they like. But "don't talk to the police" applies strongly in the OP story.
When cop 1 says to cop 2 "I think he's going to be a problem" cop 2 probably says "oh yeah, he's going to be a problem" regardless of what the suspect says.
If a cop says that about you and you are able to walk away without issues. That should be the moment you shut up and go home. Or at least cross the street down a block away from them...
From the perspective of the officer that had put him in that situation, ignoring the question she just asked and instead addressing the other officer made that implication.
Officer Kaur, should you read this: thank you for doing your job, for regularly exposing yourself to great risk in the line of duty, and for carrying on in spite of interactions you must endure with all manner of bozos (including, as we are now aware, over-privileged, self-righteous, know-it-alls).
TLDR: Guy calls 911 to report someone else's bicycle accident. When the cops turned up they decide to rough him up and stick him in solitary confinement over night. He reports doing nothing that could reasonably justify this.
He reports doing plenty that would unreasonably "justify" the response he received. The causal void that you object to (which would shed doubt on his story) simply doesn't exist.
Well, the guy definitely doesn't deserve all the followup treatment that he's rightly complaining about, but about that particular single episode it is quite clear - if you're given a lawful order to not hang around i.e., cross the street; for whatever technically valid reason (and not disturbing 911 ops == not hanging around == not only a technicaly valid, but a very very valid reason) - then there are two options:
a) you comply voluntarily;
b) you get made to comply;
c) there is no option c. (a) and (b) are both reasonable options, allowing to not comply is not a reasonable option.
Except when the order is not lawful because the person is not "interfering" in any meaningful way, that is. Police absolutely do not have carte blanche to dictate what someone must or must not do outside of specific, limited circumstances.
Not that it matters, because the behavior demonstrated here and the current climate of the justice system (i.e. he-said-she-said vs a cop, you always lose) means that those limitations are mostly invalid. Police can order you to do whatever and if you decline, knowing that they have no right to say such a thing, you'll just get hassled and imprisoned anyways.
If the police order you to do something (that doesn't harm you) that you believe they shouldn't order you - then you shouldn't decline - come on, you should comply anyway and then dispute the supposed rights violation afterwards to find out which of you actually was right, given the details of law and the particular circumstances.
They probably take things safe as a matter of policy. Imagine that the bystander was actually a murderer who got interrupted. If they let him hang around and he managed to finish the job there would be lawsuits to kingdom come and the cops would be vilified. There is just no way to tell in a situation under pressure, so the prudent thing is to do the safe thing and remove the unknowns.
I think there's a good point here. The police don't know what happened, only what some complete stranger told them. For all they know, Partensky is the one who knocked the bike down, and then terrorized the victims into keeping quiet about it.
I don't condone the behavior of the police in this situation; what looked like a bike accident in all likelihood was simply a bike accident.
The fact that Partensky did not comply with the order to move away from the scene is disturbing and I don't remember it being part of the previous, heavily HN-commented version of the story.
However, as others say, he probably didn't merit arrest, solitary confinement, strip to underwear, and all that lunacy. Surely the police have more important things to do than go after some goofy slightly inebriated nerd who calls in an accident.
Actually I'm more likely to believe that they were anti-gay. He apparently is gay, and came out of a "gay leather bar". You'd think in SF of all places this wouldn't ever happen, but who knows; perhaps there's some bad blood between the SFPD and the gay community that I'm not aware of.
He admits to hesitating to follow an order, talking back, etc. These do not logically, morally, or legally justify his treatment but they certainly explain why it happened.
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. It was a fairly long article without any kind of TLDR. It could either be babble or really interesting and some kind of summary would help me know if I should invest the time or not. Apparently it hurts asking but thanks for the responses anyway.
I am not trying to justify or even imply that it is correct behavior from the police or that "all police officers are [x] or [y]", but from direct and indirect experience this story doesn't fully surprise me ( I don't think it is right though).
I don't think the conclusions at the end of the blog post are correct though. Not calling 911 or even using lyft to go to the hospital seems like bad rules that are imposed to avoid interacting with the police. A better rule of thumb is to just minimize your dialogue with the police to the bare minimum and keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. All my friends that have experienced something like this is because they made a smart ass comment in an situation prior to them knowing how fast these things can go downhill.