10 ms·

I fit the description…

171 points by subdane 11y ago

rjeli 11y ago
How should the officers have handled this? More to the point, is this protesting the inappropriate way he was detained, or the atmosphere of fear for black Americans?
- cinquemb 11y ago
  In my experience its closer to "or the atmosphere of fear for black Americans" + distrust + likely hood of the application of the use of asymmetric force from hear say. Extending the conversation a bit to the intersection of technology, sur|sousveillance[0]: ">[...]creepy stalker[...] Which are attributes usually assigned to human beings, no? Or do you enjoy being trailed by officers/staff when you shop because of the color of your skin, or do you not have to face nor think about such things when you shop or in other interactions in your life? Because I don't particularly enjoy that either, and I'm doing what I can to address it among other issues assuming that if others could leverage information that is already out there about me, maybe, just maybe I won't have to be treated as subhuman by some on initial interactions, or at least while I patronize a store on occasion. What are you doing to address the problems you have surrounding the use of technology in such ways beyond vocalizing your displeasure? Do you still use social networking, webmail, play apps via smartphone, purchase via credit cards online/offline, etc…? If so, your behaviors are telling others otherwise. I'm just stating that's the direction things are going in now, and for anyone to avoid such realities means that they shall continue to be suspended in a state of cognitive dissonance. Hardly just my "scheme", I'm just a piece in the puzzle that was already being built before I was even born." [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496897
- whafro 11y ago
  I think a piece of the issue is that, in Boston in December, you can expect about half the folks on the street to be wearing a knit hat and puffy coat. You might as well say "wearing winter clothes." Black man? That's about one in four. 160 pounds ("but you're a little more than that")? Not eliminating too many folks there. At that point, you might as well just admit that it's an excuse to stop-and-frisk anyone you like, fishing for anything you can find. I'd hope (but not expect) police to be looking for something a bit firmer, and maybe follow him, but as soon as you're effectively being detained in a public place, you're really messing with folks.
  - golergka 11y ago
    > 5′ 11″, black male, 160 pounds Is it really a "stop-and-frisk anyone you like"?
    - beat 11y ago
      If not that, then something else. My daughter's ex-boyfriend, who is Ojibwe and a pretty big guy (6'1" and muscular) got stop-and-frisked all the time, for all sorts of petty made-up crap. This is a kid that I expect will wind up with a PhD on interfacing nervous systems with computers, a kid in college on a Gates Millenium scholarship. They just see a big brown guy and start harassing.
    - whafro 11y ago
      Tough to be unbiased here – I walk through that neighborhood every day during my commute, and feel that a description like that is hardly a useful constraint. Especially in the few blocks around the art school (which leads toward two other undergraduate colleges), you can't tell which folks are professors, which are students, and which are leeching off the zillion hospitals within three blocks. To some, that may mean it seems appropriate to just stop and question everyone. But, in reality, being questioned by the police appears to passers-by to be an indication of guilt, and that's not something you want colleagues and students seeing. So, again, if you see a guy matching a vague description, see if there's another reason why you'd suspect him. Have a rock-solid, specific description? Maybe that's a different story. But I'd like to err on the side of caution and respect – there are consequences even if you don't charge the guy.
    - esrauch 11y ago
      > Is it really a "stop-and-frisk anyone you like"? Given some lady saw the person through a window on the screet, do you think that description at all rules out someone who is 5'9" and 145 lbs from being frisked? Or 6'1" and 180 pounds? That description becomes "stop and frisk the majority of black males". Once you can frisk a group of 3+ people based on the description of one matching then you will statistically have carte blanche.
    - fisherjeff 11y ago
- facepalm 11y ago
  What comes to my mind: if they receive an valid ID, they could just note down the address and let the person go. They could expect to be able to get hold of them if the suspicions become more substantiated.
  - delinka 11y ago
    But then, if it IS the actual criminal, he's aware that the police are onto him and he's gone. If I knew for certain that A) I'd committed a crime and B) the police were indeed looking for me, I wouldn't be at my home address. Nor any other address they might be aware of my presence.
    - raziel2p 11y ago
      The crime in question was a common house burglary. Your comment makes it sound like it was a million dollar bank robbery.
      - delinka 11y ago
        How so? "Not being caught" sounds like a good reason to me to avoid the police, regardless of the scale of the crime.
    - facepalm 11y ago
      So you would give up your home in exchange for the proceeds from a small burglary? I would just expect some Bayesian reasoning, and "has a home at a reasonably expensive address" and "has a car" and "has MIT ID" would presumably rank quite highly as factors? Unless "is black" ranks so high that it dwarfs all other factors.
      - delinka 11y ago
        How are we defining "home" here? Does the typical small-time burglar own a house? Does he care about skipping out on a lease? Does he even HAVE a lease or is has he been sleeping on the couches of 'friends?' If I'm committing a small burglary, I doubt I'm very attached to my current address. Back to this story: you have to check out whomever matches the description and is nearby. The only thing that the police needed to do in this situation was to not make it a situation. Reaching for that gun was The Wrong Thing To Do because this guy was cooperating.
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  The officers should have treated him the same way they'd treat a successful white person. Would they have asked a successful white person to get in their cruiser and transported to the victim for identification? Hell no. Would they have asked a successful white person to sit and wait for an hour while the victim is brought to them? Hell no. If the description matched that of a successful white person the cops would have stopped the man, spoken to him for 2 minutes, recorded his identification, and moved on. If he was in fact the culprit then great. They have his ID. That's the important part. Once you know who a bad guy is you can always catch them later.
  - golergka 11y ago
    > Would they have asked a successful white person to get in their cruiser and transported to the victim for identification? Hell no. > Would they have asked a successful white person to sit and wait for an hour while the victim is brought to them? Hell no. I have no experience with US police, but as a successful white person, this is exactly what I would expect police officers to do to me. Why the hell wouldn't US police do it?
    - platz 11y ago
      It's easy for you to say that, because as a successful white person, you don't have any expectation of being accused of a crime you didn't commit. > "I was not going to let them take me anywhere because if they did, the chance I was going to be accused of something I did not do rose exponentially." Would you feel the same way if you were being stopped by the police in, say, Sudan, where the race of those running the system is not the same as your own?
  - hockeybias 11y ago
    "Once you know who a bad guy is you can always catch them later"? No.
- whistlerbrk 11y ago
  The 'round up all the black guys' who don't even fit the vague description (which is inappropriate) is what creates the atmosphere of fear and persecution.
- ianstallings 11y ago
  I think he was explaining the thought process behind resistance, if you will. I don't think he is expecting anything except for us to empathize.
  - shadowfox 11y ago
    > I don't think he is expecting anything except for us to empathize And this thread seems to have defied his expectations on that as well
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Let's put it like this... 1. He wasn't wearing a puffy jacket. 2. His build wasn't a close match for the person they were looking for (the police admitted this themselves). 3. It sounds like he was driving towards the scene of the crime. Bearing all these things in mind, why would they investigate him?
  - gorbachev 11y ago
    "Bearing all these things in mind, why would they investigate him?" They all look alike?
dswalter 11y ago
That is a heart-wrenching encounter. I admire the author's cool head under pressure and emotional honesty and awareness.
kornish 11y ago
I'm getting a 503 Service Unavailable, so here's a mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20151205162353/http://artandeverythingafter.com/i-fit-the-description/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151205162353/http://artandever...
- plug 11y ago
  Thanks, looks like it's back up now. Google didn't appear to have a cached copy; it kept giving me a 503.
  - paulpauper 11y ago
    A top link on HN must send an enormous amount of traffic...has anyone ran a study as to how many hits it generates? I'm guessing a couple hundred thousand if it stays on the front page for a day.
    - dangrossman 11y ago
      Your estimate's an order of magnitude too high in my experience. More like 10-30,000 visits if you stay on the front page most of the day. Many submissions don't stay highly ranked that long either.
paulpauper 11y ago
His mistake was answering the officer's initial questions. You are under no obligation to talk to the police if questioned. If the officer has sufficient reason to believe you're guilty (such as witnessing a crime), he will simply arrest you on the spot and talking won't do any good. Second, I see a subtle racial angle to this, and as a white person I too have been stopped by the police several times. White police are not singling out black people. getting barraged by dovecotes but will not remove the post because I think it is still helpful, or at least encourage discussion about the matter
- tibbon 11y ago
  You have the privilege of being a dick to a cop when you're white. The moment they claim they were intimidated/frightened, then time and time again we've seen that any use of force becomes justified by police somehow. Just being black means they'll claim that feeling should things go wrong. Dead right or dead wrong... is still dead.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    >You have the privilege of being a dick to a cop when you're white. Not really. Cops escalate against whites too and are often on a hair trigger. We just have to accept that the type of people our police forces attract as officers, with present combination of required qualifications and incentives, are most likely not going to be the most even-headed or rational members of society. If we really care about improving policing, we want to increase the incentives so that the job attracts the best and brightest instead of the washed-up football players that can't hack it at junior college. I'm white and probably 40% of my interactions with police have been unpleasant just because those policemen felt like feeling important that day. You just have to grin and bear it, because doing otherwise risks escalation. Submission is the component most victims of escalation neglect. The "racial divide" is less of a thing than it's made out to be; race is just one signal among many. One thing is for sure though, and that's that the media is very interested in provoking racial tension, rioting, and other "exciting" news events.
- discardorama 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
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- ugexe 11y ago
  "Just doing your job" isn't an excuse for any type of behavior
  - madez 11y ago
    Sadly, for many people it is. Conscious people and lived ideals, people putting their money where their mouths are, are a rarity. People want a comfortable life, not a just one.
sp332 11y ago
If you are wondering why people don’t go with the police, I hope this explains it for you. Nope, I still don't get it. Thanks for the perspective though.
- Practicality 11y ago
  I think the author was aware of his standing in the community and was considering purposely becoming a martyr. While I disagree with his decision (like you do), based on his perception it may have felt like the best thing (for the planet, not for himself) to do in his circumstance.
hartator 11y ago
Source down. Other source: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33894-i-fit-the-description http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33894-i-fit-t...
deleted 11y ago
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delinka 11y ago
I understand the reason for fear in the current law enforcement climate in the US. But this quote really misses something: "...they didn’t believe that I wasn’t a criminal. They had to find out. My word was not enough for them. My ID was not enough for them." Well ... no. If you are indeed close to the given description of a criminal complaint, they're going to check. The have to check. If they'd come across the actual criminal and he'd behaved similarly (and lying by producing plausible ID, acceptable home address, etc) and then let the actual criminal go, that'd be terrible. Now, the situation could indeed have been improved by the cops: the 'suspect' made no threatening moves, NO need to reach for a gun; simply act like a reasonable human being having a conversation; call for another officer with the same (similar?) ethnicity...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - res0nat0r 11y ago
    Why is that?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Indeed. The only thing in this story that really disturbed me is that the officer apparently went for his gun immediately. This whole situation could, and should, go in a friendly manner, "like a reasonable human being having a conversation". The US really needs to work on reducing the amount of fear in the society - among both general population and law enforcement officers.
  - cmiles74 11y ago
    I feel that this is a pretty important part of the story. Here's someone that clearly has real anxiety around exactly this situation and this very agressive move is made almost immediately. In my opinion, not only is it made to intimidate, but also puts his life in danger. What if he reached for his wallet without warning the police (something I could easily see myself doing)? He may very well catch a bullet before the officer realizes what he's really trying to do.
mwill 11y ago
I see some comments here along the lines of 'this is standard, nothing to do with race' Even if that is true (And I don't know that it is), doesn't it speak to some greater cultural problem that this man was so scared for his life, being a black man questioned by police? It's all well and good to say "I've had this happen to me, no problems", but thats dismissing the fact that this man, and many others, fear for their life whenever they interact with the police. (I should note that I am not American, so maybe theres things I'm missing as an outsider looking in / maybe I'm way off base)
- golergka 11y ago
  It's a problem that he's so scared, yes. But this particular incidents paints his fear as baseless paranoia.
  - cinquemb 11y ago
    If someone is afraid for their life, regardless if there are objective measures for it being grounded or not, certainly casting it as baseless paranoia serves to dissuade such fears.
    - golergka 11y ago
      > certainly casting it as baseless paranoia But that's exactly what this blog post does. It's like this is actually propaganda which was created to paint the author as paranoid. He doesn't tell any real reasons for being afraid, he doesn't seem reasonable and rational at all. He comes to the encounter with preconceived notions and doesn't even try to doubt. Police brutality and racism are awful issues, and posts like that do real harm because they paint them as paranoid delusions.
      - brenschluss 11y ago
        > He comes to the encounter with preconceived notions This is the whole point, don't you understand? Consider that your desire to see each encounter as a blank slate, disconnected to each other, is your privilege. If you're black and encountering with the police, your encounter is full of decades and centuries of "preconceived notions" -- of abuses of power.
golergka 11y ago
WTF? Can someone point me to what exactly did police officers do wrong in this story? > Barbara Sullivan made a knit cap for me. She knitted it in pinks and browns and blues and oranges and lime green. No one has a hat like this. Yeah, dude — I'm looking at your photo right now and it definitely looks like a generic knit cap. It's completely reasonable that when someone hears a detail "knit cap" and then sees you, it clicks. > If you are wondering why people don’t go with the police, I hope this explains it for you. No. It doesn't, at all. Nothing in behaviour of this police officers even hinted of a wrong attitude. The "white woman" wouldn't "decide" if you're a criminal or not: she would give testimony. This attitude of "resisting arrest" would seem paranoid on it's own; it seems even more paranoid and insane in context of this story. By the way, did any officer actually tell him that a victim was white? Or is it just what he automatically thought? If I would go through something like that, I would be glad that police is doing it's job.
- res0nat0r 11y ago
  > Can someone point me to what exactly did police officers do wrong in this story? This sounds like a perfectly fine interaction to me in this case, and like most other cases that you never hear about every single day.
  - incongruity 11y ago
    So here we get to the crux of the issue – the author very clearly didn't see it as a fine interaction. You see it as a fine interaction. That means one of two things – 1)The Author is completely off base or 2)You don't understand why it's legitimate for the author to feel that it wasn't an okay interaction. (Or, I guess, 3 - Some middle ground between the two) It's easy to say the other side is just wrong when you don't agree with it. It's more of a challenge to say they're not completely off base and that we don't understand their experience, and then try to find understanding, try to make sense of what might not make sense at first. The thing is, if you take the first path, it doesn't do anything constructive. You've got your side, they've got theirs and the conflict will go on. If, instead, you try to understand where they're coming from, it might make it easier to bridge gaps and find common ground. Worst case, you decide you were right to begin with... but, in my experience, there's often something to be learned from every person... unless you out and out think they're lying.
hunterjrj 11y ago
I have no political axe to grind, no agenda to push and no particular opinion one way or another. I simply have a question: Is it important to his recounting of the story to emphasize that a "white woman" carried his fate? Would the story have the same impact if he simply said "victim"? [Edit: grammar]
- qopp 11y ago
  The cops wouldn't have revealed the witness's race. The author likely didn't actually know who actually gave the cops the description that matched his.
- lostPixels 11y ago
  No of course not. In fact, him doing so only serves to alienate readers.
fiatmoney 11y ago
I guess the problem is that when he identified himself as a college professor, the cops didn't immediately genuflect? "I was hoping that someone I knew would walk down the street or come out of one of the shops or get off the 39 bus or come out of JP Licks and say to these cops, “That’s Steve Locke. What the FUCK are you detaining him for?”" IOW, "do you know who I am?" There are legitimate abuses of police authority and unaccountability, and this is not one.
- pkinsky 11y ago
  > My handmade one-of-a-kind knit hat was an object of suspicion. My Ralph Lauren quilted blazer was only a “puffy coat.” "They did not realize that I am an individual of high socioeconomic status, one whom should not be treated like a prole." There are many clear cut examples of police racism and abuse of power. This does not seem to be one of them.
- maldusiecle 11y ago
  I dunno, it doesn't seem like a huge leap to stop investigating someone as a burglar once you notice they're a college prof. Especially if you've stopped them for nothing more specific than wearing a knit hat and "puffy coat," and they're not wearing a puffy coat (did you not look at the picture? or read the article, for that matter, he mentions that he was wearing a blazer).
  - DrScump 11y ago
    did you not look at the picture? That's a bio pic, not surveillance. He writes in his own words that he was wearing a quilted blazer.
- sosuke 11y ago
  Thanks for the new five dollar word. Genuflect was one that gave me no clues, nothing, even in context. I should have taken Latin it would have lasted longer than my other foreign language choices. Latin genu knee + flectere to bend to bend the knee to touch the knee to the floor or ground especially in worship
facepalm 11y ago
Not to take away from his experience, but being surrounded by cops is always scary. I was never under suspicion for anything serious, but got stopped for running traffic lights or cycling on the wrong way of the street. That was not that scary (no guns), but it is always clear that you are completely at the mercy of the cops. Sometimes stories like this seem to escalate when people talk back. Don't talk back to cops! That is my mantra anyway. Don't argue, don't try to use logic. Just apologize meekly and try to be as nice and compliant as possible. A (white) friend of mine used to wear the wrong kind of jacket, associated with left youth, and the cops would also sometimes search him, and even do anal probing for hidden pot. (All this is for Germany, mind you). Also the stories about calling SWAT teams to innocent people's houses, or the unreliability of forensics, are really scary. I think "unfairly detained or killed by cops" has to be accepted as another modern risk, like being run over by a car or getting cancer. And unfortunately the risk is probably higher for people with dark skin.
roneesh 11y ago
I really feel for the person in this story. Given the heightened media lately, it's hard to feel totally secure in any interaction with the police. I don't feel completely secure talking to them or interacting with them when I see them. I however, do think the police did just an ok job handling this situation. It clearly could have gone worse, but they could have de-escalated this even further. Why isn't it possible to simply say clear statements like "We intend to respect your rights." or "We have no intention of escalating this situation". When it comes to the officer seeming to reach for his firearm at the beginning what's wrong with saying "That's something we do for our protection, and is not an intent to use?" I'm sure people in law enforcement have answers for all these questions, and I'm sure they make sense. However, something in me will probably always wonder why we as a society find it easier to blog about police encounters, or make police wear body cameras, when it might just be easier for two people to talk more openly.
mbarrett 11y ago
I found myself in a similar situation, sharing the same name, not profiling. I was asked to come in to 'help with a case'. It was really an interrogation of my involvement. I had the same feeling of uncertainty and the thought I could do nothing to argue my case, based on the continued, escalating questions. It was assumed that I needed to prove my innocence rather than they prove my guilt. Luckily I happened to be across the country on that day so it was easily dropped. I was denied to see the police report after multiple requests, which I thought I was entitled to. This one experience greatly changed the way I view police and their tactics. I can empathize
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > It was assumed that I needed to prove my innocence rather than they prove my guilt. This was not a trial. How do you propose to eliminate suspects, if convincing yourself that they are innocent is not permitted?
howeyc 11y ago
It seems to me that the cops did everything right here, aside from perhaps drawing a gun (which it seems he may not have, only undoing a snap perhaps?) too early. They can't just take his word for it, they need to verify the eye-witness ID. This should be obvious. His paranoia is a likely a result of his previous encounters with other police officers and hearsay from other encounters. This particular encounter sounds right. They thanked him repeatedly for cooperation, apologized for messing with his lunch break, etc. This is their job, what could they do better? Not investigate since he said "it's not me, honest"?!?
eggbrain 11y ago
About a year ago, the same thing happened to me. That night, my girlfriend had suddenly gotten sick and was walking home from a friends place a few miles away, and I wanted to make sure she got home ok, so I ran out to meet her. I was dressed in a long wool jacket with a nice shirt on, and got stop by the police. Apparently, it was suspicious that someone would be jogging in that type of attire, and there had been a hit-and-run a bit away from there, and I fit the description of the person that ran. It was a bit surreal -- an officer started immediately asking me questions, including identification, what was in my pockets, etc. After telling him just a glove was in my jacket pocket, he came up to me and quickly felt himself. Satisfied that I had answered honestly, he asked me to wait as a second police car drove up. The first officer looked back to the second police car and asked if this was the guy -- the second police officer took one look at me, looked back at the guy angrily, and shook his head slowly no in one of the largest looks of contempt I had seen. After that, I was back on my way. This story brings me back to that moment, but to be honest I have not thought about it since, and now I wonder if I should have done something differently. Should I have resisted? Should I have proclaimed my rights and had them try to arrest me? Was I too meek in allowing them to frisk me briefly? Was there some sort of prejudicial motivation for what happened? Was I wrong to simply forget that moment afterwards, and not attribute to malice? I have no doubt police target people, due to prejudice of some kind, in many different cities. And I also do not want to in any way dismiss or diminish someone's fear, someones worries, or someone's feeling like they were targeted directly because of their race or ethnicity, their gender, or their beliefs. But is there a lesson to be learned from this story? Is it a story of a man who felt enormous fear when approached by the police, and how that still reflects the worry many minorities feel in society with regards to the police? Is it a story about how a man was targeted unfairly due to his race, due to prejudice still present in law enforcement? I'm not sure the takeaway from this -- only that a man was stopped on the street, and that he felt pain from that experience. Do I share this pain having gone through something similar? Do I rewrite my own experience and feel pain? Or do I continue as I have -- not attributing to malice until proven otherwise? It's not clear, and I'm not sure how to take this and use it for the better.
awalton 11y ago
The saddest part is that this is not a unique story. Some number of weeks ago, I "fit the description" of a latino male exiting Safeway after having caused some kind of spat in Mountain View. They "identified" the male as having on black shorts and wearing sandals, and some kind of sleeve tattoo if my memory serves. I am a fairer-skinned black male, I did have on black shorts and Birkinstocks, so close enough I guess. I was over a block away from Safeway, but the cop still felt the need to creep up on me, then bleep his siren, turn around, get out of his SUV and question me. The cop felt the need to know if - simple Silicon Valley yuppie me, carrying a Starbucks cup from earlier in the day and a fresh bag of Thai food with a receipt dated no more than nine minutes prior - I had gang tattoos and/or affiliations, asked me to roll up my sleeves. He needed to know why my out-of-state drivers license didn't have my current California address (no, I'm dead serious, I guess he couldn't figure it out.) Of course, I grew up in the deep south so I'm more than used to this, and know how to keep my head on when dealing with a police officer who is holier than thou and is packing the hardware to prove it to you at a twitch's notice. My upbringing taught me that, as a black person, this is what we have to expect from officials, be it police, school officials, any petty tyrant's office job. This is why you don't talk to the cops and you keep your head down when walking - your skin still says enough about you. However, even after climbing the broken ladder, fighting my way out of abject poverty through stacks of student loans, it was truly disheartening to see it's still true, even here in the land of million dollar homes and self driving cars. I've felt this man's fear.
- DrScump 11y ago
  "He needed to know why my out-of-state drivers license didn't have my current California address" Actually, that's the law, if you've been in CA more than 20 days or accepted a job here. Otherwise, you are technically not licensed to drive here.
aklemm 11y ago
To be interrogated or detained (the pre-arrest stuff) is not benign. It is full of risk because police are sanctioned to use force on citizens. It is especially risky for non-whites, especially if they try to exercise their rights. This story is about what it's like to experience these phenomena in real life. Did I make that easy enough for you all that are struggling to see the value in this piece?
justifier 11y ago
I saw the woman in red. “Thank you,” I said to her. “Thank you for staying.” if you see the police talking to someone: whoever they are, however they are acting, and whatever they look like; and you have a minute to spare, please.. please, stick around and make it known you are watching if you have a phone, record it, or just hold your phone as if you were recording it people can feel the gaze of others and you will alter the behaviour of the officers for the better just yesterday i was walking by an irate homeless person yelling at three officers, refusing to move two officers were directing foot traffic to keep a distance and the third was prodding the homeless man with his toe asking him identifying questions and telling him he needed to get up and move by my just standing there i could sense the officers sensing my presence, every so often they were send me a quick sideways glance the officer using his foot to interact with the homeless man turned his head to see what his fellow officers kept looking at and saw me, standing there drinking a coffee, staring at him he jerked his gaze back at the man lying on the ground and knelt down and just placed his hand on the homeless man's shoulder and talked to him calmly the officer managed to get the man to sit up and answer his questions, eventually he got up and walked away and the officers gave me a look like, 'you happy?!' and got in their cars and drove off i was happy with how the interaction turned out, the whole thing lasted less than a minute i would like to think that my presence had little to do with it

171 points by subdane 11y ago

rjeli 11y ago

How should the officers have handled this? More to the point, is this protesting the inappropriate way he was detained, or the atmosphere of fear for black Americans?

cinquemb 11y ago
In my experience its closer to "or the atmosphere of fear for black Americans" + distrust + likely hood of the application of the use of asymmetric force from hear say. Extending the conversation a bit to the intersection of technology, sur|sousveillance[0]: ">[...]creepy stalker[...] Which are attributes usually assigned to human beings, no? Or do you enjoy being trailed by officers/staff when you shop because of the color of your skin, or do you not have to face nor think about such things when you shop or in other interactions in your life? Because I don't particularly enjoy that either, and I'm doing what I can to address it among other issues assuming that if others could leverage information that is already out there about me, maybe, just maybe I won't have to be treated as subhuman by some on initial interactions, or at least while I patronize a store on occasion. What are you doing to address the problems you have surrounding the use of technology in such ways beyond vocalizing your displeasure? Do you still use social networking, webmail, play apps via smartphone, purchase via credit cards online/offline, etc…? If so, your behaviors are telling others otherwise. I'm just stating that's the direction things are going in now, and for anyone to avoid such realities means that they shall continue to be suspended in a state of cognitive dissonance. Hardly just my "scheme", I'm just a piece in the puzzle that was already being built before I was even born." [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496897
whafro 11y ago
I think a piece of the issue is that, in Boston in December, you can expect about half the folks on the street to be wearing a knit hat and puffy coat. You might as well say "wearing winter clothes." Black man? That's about one in four. 160 pounds ("but you're a little more than that")? Not eliminating too many folks there. At that point, you might as well just admit that it's an excuse to stop-and-frisk anyone you like, fishing for anything you can find. I'd hope (but not expect) police to be looking for something a bit firmer, and maybe follow him, but as soon as you're effectively being detained in a public place, you're really messing with folks.
- golergka 11y ago
  > 5′ 11″, black male, 160 pounds Is it really a "stop-and-frisk anyone you like"?
  - beat 11y ago
    If not that, then something else. My daughter's ex-boyfriend, who is Ojibwe and a pretty big guy (6'1" and muscular) got stop-and-frisked all the time, for all sorts of petty made-up crap. This is a kid that I expect will wind up with a PhD on interfacing nervous systems with computers, a kid in college on a Gates Millenium scholarship. They just see a big brown guy and start harassing.
  - whafro 11y ago
    Tough to be unbiased here – I walk through that neighborhood every day during my commute, and feel that a description like that is hardly a useful constraint. Especially in the few blocks around the art school (which leads toward two other undergraduate colleges), you can't tell which folks are professors, which are students, and which are leeching off the zillion hospitals within three blocks. To some, that may mean it seems appropriate to just stop and question everyone. But, in reality, being questioned by the police appears to passers-by to be an indication of guilt, and that's not something you want colleagues and students seeing. So, again, if you see a guy matching a vague description, see if there's another reason why you'd suspect him. Have a rock-solid, specific description? Maybe that's a different story. But I'd like to err on the side of caution and respect – there are consequences even if you don't charge the guy.
  - esrauch 11y ago
    > Is it really a "stop-and-frisk anyone you like"? Given some lady saw the person through a window on the screet, do you think that description at all rules out someone who is 5'9" and 145 lbs from being frisked? Or 6'1" and 180 pounds? That description becomes "stop and frisk the majority of black males". Once you can frisk a group of 3+ people based on the description of one matching then you will statistically have carte blanche.
  - fisherjeff 11y ago
facepalm 11y ago
What comes to my mind: if they receive an valid ID, they could just note down the address and let the person go. They could expect to be able to get hold of them if the suspicions become more substantiated.
- delinka 11y ago
  But then, if it IS the actual criminal, he's aware that the police are onto him and he's gone. If I knew for certain that A) I'd committed a crime and B) the police were indeed looking for me, I wouldn't be at my home address. Nor any other address they might be aware of my presence.
  - raziel2p 11y ago
    The crime in question was a common house burglary. Your comment makes it sound like it was a million dollar bank robbery.
    - delinka 11y ago
      How so? "Not being caught" sounds like a good reason to me to avoid the police, regardless of the scale of the crime.
  - facepalm 11y ago
    So you would give up your home in exchange for the proceeds from a small burglary? I would just expect some Bayesian reasoning, and "has a home at a reasonably expensive address" and "has a car" and "has MIT ID" would presumably rank quite highly as factors? Unless "is black" ranks so high that it dwarfs all other factors.
    - delinka 11y ago
      How are we defining "home" here? Does the typical small-time burglar own a house? Does he care about skipping out on a lease? Does he even HAVE a lease or is has he been sleeping on the couches of 'friends?' If I'm committing a small burglary, I doubt I'm very attached to my current address. Back to this story: you have to check out whomever matches the description and is nearby. The only thing that the police needed to do in this situation was to not make it a situation. Reaching for that gun was The Wrong Thing To Do because this guy was cooperating.
forrestthewoods 11y ago
The officers should have treated him the same way they'd treat a successful white person. Would they have asked a successful white person to get in their cruiser and transported to the victim for identification? Hell no. Would they have asked a successful white person to sit and wait for an hour while the victim is brought to them? Hell no. If the description matched that of a successful white person the cops would have stopped the man, spoken to him for 2 minutes, recorded his identification, and moved on. If he was in fact the culprit then great. They have his ID. That's the important part. Once you know who a bad guy is you can always catch them later.
- golergka 11y ago
  > Would they have asked a successful white person to get in their cruiser and transported to the victim for identification? Hell no. > Would they have asked a successful white person to sit and wait for an hour while the victim is brought to them? Hell no. I have no experience with US police, but as a successful white person, this is exactly what I would expect police officers to do to me. Why the hell wouldn't US police do it?
  - platz 11y ago
    It's easy for you to say that, because as a successful white person, you don't have any expectation of being accused of a crime you didn't commit. > "I was not going to let them take me anywhere because if they did, the chance I was going to be accused of something I did not do rose exponentially." Would you feel the same way if you were being stopped by the police in, say, Sudan, where the race of those running the system is not the same as your own?
- hockeybias 11y ago
  "Once you know who a bad guy is you can always catch them later"? No.
whistlerbrk 11y ago
The 'round up all the black guys' who don't even fit the vague description (which is inappropriate) is what creates the atmosphere of fear and persecution.
ianstallings 11y ago
I think he was explaining the thought process behind resistance, if you will. I don't think he is expecting anything except for us to empathize.
- shadowfox 11y ago
  > I don't think he is expecting anything except for us to empathize And this thread seems to have defied his expectations on that as well
ZenoArrow 11y ago
Let's put it like this... 1. He wasn't wearing a puffy jacket. 2. His build wasn't a close match for the person they were looking for (the police admitted this themselves). 3. It sounds like he was driving towards the scene of the crime. Bearing all these things in mind, why would they investigate him?
- gorbachev 11y ago
  "Bearing all these things in mind, why would they investigate him?" They all look alike?

dswalter 11y ago

That is a heart-wrenching encounter. I admire the author's cool head under pressure and emotional honesty and awareness.

kornish 11y ago

I'm getting a 503 Service Unavailable, so here's a mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20151205162353/http://artandeverythingafter.com/i-fit-the-description/ https://web.archive.org/web/20151205162353/http://artandever...

plug 11y ago
Thanks, looks like it's back up now. Google didn't appear to have a cached copy; it kept giving me a 503.
- paulpauper 11y ago
  A top link on HN must send an enormous amount of traffic...has anyone ran a study as to how many hits it generates? I'm guessing a couple hundred thousand if it stays on the front page for a day.
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    Your estimate's an order of magnitude too high in my experience. More like 10-30,000 visits if you stay on the front page most of the day. Many submissions don't stay highly ranked that long either.

paulpauper 11y ago

His mistake was answering the officer's initial questions. You are under no obligation to talk to the police if questioned. If the officer has sufficient reason to believe you're guilty (such as witnessing a crime), he will simply arrest you on the spot and talking won't do any good. Second, I see a subtle racial angle to this, and as a white person I too have been stopped by the police several times. White police are not singling out black people. getting barraged by dovecotes but will not remove the post because I think it is still helpful, or at least encourage discussion about the matter

tibbon 11y ago
You have the privilege of being a dick to a cop when you're white. The moment they claim they were intimidated/frightened, then time and time again we've seen that any use of force becomes justified by police somehow. Just being black means they'll claim that feeling should things go wrong. Dead right or dead wrong... is still dead.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  >You have the privilege of being a dick to a cop when you're white. Not really. Cops escalate against whites too and are often on a hair trigger. We just have to accept that the type of people our police forces attract as officers, with present combination of required qualifications and incentives, are most likely not going to be the most even-headed or rational members of society. If we really care about improving policing, we want to increase the incentives so that the job attracts the best and brightest instead of the washed-up football players that can't hack it at junior college. I'm white and probably 40% of my interactions with police have been unpleasant just because those policemen felt like feeling important that day. You just have to grin and bear it, because doing otherwise risks escalation. Submission is the component most victims of escalation neglect. The "racial divide" is less of a thing than it's made out to be; race is just one signal among many. One thing is for sure though, and that's that the media is very interested in provoking racial tension, rioting, and other "exciting" news events.
discardorama 11y ago

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ugexe 11y ago
"Just doing your job" isn't an excuse for any type of behavior
- madez 11y ago
  Sadly, for many people it is. Conscious people and lived ideals, people putting their money where their mouths are, are a rarity. People want a comfortable life, not a just one.

sp332 11y ago

If you are wondering why people don’t go with the police, I hope this explains it for you. Nope, I still don't get it. Thanks for the perspective though.

Practicality 11y ago
I think the author was aware of his standing in the community and was considering purposely becoming a martyr. While I disagree with his decision (like you do), based on his perception it may have felt like the best thing (for the planet, not for himself) to do in his circumstance.

hartator 11y ago

Source down. Other source: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33894-i-fit-the-description http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33894-i-fit-t...

deleted 11y ago

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delinka 11y ago

I understand the reason for fear in the current law enforcement climate in the US. But this quote really misses something: "...they didn’t believe that I wasn’t a criminal. They had to find out. My word was not enough for them. My ID was not enough for them." Well ... no. If you are indeed close to the given description of a criminal complaint, they're going to check. The have to check. If they'd come across the actual criminal and he'd behaved similarly (and lying by producing plausible ID, acceptable home address, etc) and then let the actual criminal go, that'd be terrible. Now, the situation could indeed have been improved by the cops: the 'suspect' made no threatening moves, NO need to reach for a gun; simply act like a reasonable human being having a conversation; call for another officer with the same (similar?) ethnicity...

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- res0nat0r 11y ago
  Why is that?
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Indeed. The only thing in this story that really disturbed me is that the officer apparently went for his gun immediately. This whole situation could, and should, go in a friendly manner, "like a reasonable human being having a conversation". The US really needs to work on reducing the amount of fear in the society - among both general population and law enforcement officers.
- cmiles74 11y ago
  I feel that this is a pretty important part of the story. Here's someone that clearly has real anxiety around exactly this situation and this very agressive move is made almost immediately. In my opinion, not only is it made to intimidate, but also puts his life in danger. What if he reached for his wallet without warning the police (something I could easily see myself doing)? He may very well catch a bullet before the officer realizes what he's really trying to do.

mwill 11y ago

I see some comments here along the lines of 'this is standard, nothing to do with race' Even if that is true (And I don't know that it is), doesn't it speak to some greater cultural problem that this man was so scared for his life, being a black man questioned by police? It's all well and good to say "I've had this happen to me, no problems", but thats dismissing the fact that this man, and many others, fear for their life whenever they interact with the police. (I should note that I am not American, so maybe theres things I'm missing as an outsider looking in / maybe I'm way off base)

golergka 11y ago
It's a problem that he's so scared, yes. But this particular incidents paints his fear as baseless paranoia.
- cinquemb 11y ago
  If someone is afraid for their life, regardless if there are objective measures for it being grounded or not, certainly casting it as baseless paranoia serves to dissuade such fears.
  - golergka 11y ago
    > certainly casting it as baseless paranoia But that's exactly what this blog post does. It's like this is actually propaganda which was created to paint the author as paranoid. He doesn't tell any real reasons for being afraid, he doesn't seem reasonable and rational at all. He comes to the encounter with preconceived notions and doesn't even try to doubt. Police brutality and racism are awful issues, and posts like that do real harm because they paint them as paranoid delusions.
    - brenschluss 11y ago
      > He comes to the encounter with preconceived notions This is the whole point, don't you understand? Consider that your desire to see each encounter as a blank slate, disconnected to each other, is your privilege. If you're black and encountering with the police, your encounter is full of decades and centuries of "preconceived notions" -- of abuses of power.

golergka 11y ago

WTF? Can someone point me to what exactly did police officers do wrong in this story? > Barbara Sullivan made a knit cap for me. She knitted it in pinks and browns and blues and oranges and lime green. No one has a hat like this. Yeah, dude — I'm looking at your photo right now and it definitely looks like a generic knit cap. It's completely reasonable that when someone hears a detail "knit cap" and then sees you, it clicks. > If you are wondering why people don’t go with the police, I hope this explains it for you. No. It doesn't, at all. Nothing in behaviour of this police officers even hinted of a wrong attitude. The "white woman" wouldn't "decide" if you're a criminal or not: she would give testimony. This attitude of "resisting arrest" would seem paranoid on it's own; it seems even more paranoid and insane in context of this story. By the way, did any officer actually tell him that a victim was white? Or is it just what he automatically thought? If I would go through something like that, I would be glad that police is doing it's job.

res0nat0r 11y ago
> Can someone point me to what exactly did police officers do wrong in this story? This sounds like a perfectly fine interaction to me in this case, and like most other cases that you never hear about every single day.
- incongruity 11y ago
  So here we get to the crux of the issue – the author very clearly didn't see it as a fine interaction. You see it as a fine interaction. That means one of two things – 1)The Author is completely off base or 2)You don't understand why it's legitimate for the author to feel that it wasn't an okay interaction. (Or, I guess, 3 - Some middle ground between the two) It's easy to say the other side is just wrong when you don't agree with it. It's more of a challenge to say they're not completely off base and that we don't understand their experience, and then try to find understanding, try to make sense of what might not make sense at first. The thing is, if you take the first path, it doesn't do anything constructive. You've got your side, they've got theirs and the conflict will go on. If, instead, you try to understand where they're coming from, it might make it easier to bridge gaps and find common ground. Worst case, you decide you were right to begin with... but, in my experience, there's often something to be learned from every person... unless you out and out think they're lying.

hunterjrj 11y ago

I have no political axe to grind, no agenda to push and no particular opinion one way or another. I simply have a question: Is it important to his recounting of the story to emphasize that a "white woman" carried his fate? Would the story have the same impact if he simply said "victim"? [Edit: grammar]

qopp 11y ago
The cops wouldn't have revealed the witness's race. The author likely didn't actually know who actually gave the cops the description that matched his.
lostPixels 11y ago
No of course not. In fact, him doing so only serves to alienate readers.

fiatmoney 11y ago

I guess the problem is that when he identified himself as a college professor, the cops didn't immediately genuflect? "I was hoping that someone I knew would walk down the street or come out of one of the shops or get off the 39 bus or come out of JP Licks and say to these cops, “That’s Steve Locke. What the FUCK are you detaining him for?”" IOW, "do you know who I am?" There are legitimate abuses of police authority and unaccountability, and this is not one.

pkinsky 11y ago
> My handmade one-of-a-kind knit hat was an object of suspicion. My Ralph Lauren quilted blazer was only a “puffy coat.” "They did not realize that I am an individual of high socioeconomic status, one whom should not be treated like a prole." There are many clear cut examples of police racism and abuse of power. This does not seem to be one of them.
maldusiecle 11y ago
I dunno, it doesn't seem like a huge leap to stop investigating someone as a burglar once you notice they're a college prof. Especially if you've stopped them for nothing more specific than wearing a knit hat and "puffy coat," and they're not wearing a puffy coat (did you not look at the picture? or read the article, for that matter, he mentions that he was wearing a blazer).
- DrScump 11y ago
  did you not look at the picture? That's a bio pic, not surveillance. He writes in his own words that he was wearing a quilted blazer.
sosuke 11y ago
Thanks for the new five dollar word. Genuflect was one that gave me no clues, nothing, even in context. I should have taken Latin it would have lasted longer than my other foreign language choices. Latin genu knee + flectere to bend to bend the knee to touch the knee to the floor or ground especially in worship

facepalm 11y ago

Not to take away from his experience, but being surrounded by cops is always scary. I was never under suspicion for anything serious, but got stopped for running traffic lights or cycling on the wrong way of the street. That was not that scary (no guns), but it is always clear that you are completely at the mercy of the cops. Sometimes stories like this seem to escalate when people talk back. Don't talk back to cops! That is my mantra anyway. Don't argue, don't try to use logic. Just apologize meekly and try to be as nice and compliant as possible. A (white) friend of mine used to wear the wrong kind of jacket, associated with left youth, and the cops would also sometimes search him, and even do anal probing for hidden pot. (All this is for Germany, mind you). Also the stories about calling SWAT teams to innocent people's houses, or the unreliability of forensics, are really scary. I think "unfairly detained or killed by cops" has to be accepted as another modern risk, like being run over by a car or getting cancer. And unfortunately the risk is probably higher for people with dark skin.

roneesh 11y ago

I really feel for the person in this story. Given the heightened media lately, it's hard to feel totally secure in any interaction with the police. I don't feel completely secure talking to them or interacting with them when I see them. I however, do think the police did just an ok job handling this situation. It clearly could have gone worse, but they could have de-escalated this even further. Why isn't it possible to simply say clear statements like "We intend to respect your rights." or "We have no intention of escalating this situation". When it comes to the officer seeming to reach for his firearm at the beginning what's wrong with saying "That's something we do for our protection, and is not an intent to use?" I'm sure people in law enforcement have answers for all these questions, and I'm sure they make sense. However, something in me will probably always wonder why we as a society find it easier to blog about police encounters, or make police wear body cameras, when it might just be easier for two people to talk more openly.

mbarrett 11y ago

I found myself in a similar situation, sharing the same name, not profiling. I was asked to come in to 'help with a case'. It was really an interrogation of my involvement. I had the same feeling of uncertainty and the thought I could do nothing to argue my case, based on the continued, escalating questions. It was assumed that I needed to prove my innocence rather than they prove my guilt. Luckily I happened to be across the country on that day so it was easily dropped. I was denied to see the police report after multiple requests, which I thought I was entitled to. This one experience greatly changed the way I view police and their tactics. I can empathize

jdmichal 11y ago
> It was assumed that I needed to prove my innocence rather than they prove my guilt. This was not a trial. How do you propose to eliminate suspects, if convincing yourself that they are innocent is not permitted?

howeyc 11y ago

It seems to me that the cops did everything right here, aside from perhaps drawing a gun (which it seems he may not have, only undoing a snap perhaps?) too early. They can't just take his word for it, they need to verify the eye-witness ID. This should be obvious. His paranoia is a likely a result of his previous encounters with other police officers and hearsay from other encounters. This particular encounter sounds right. They thanked him repeatedly for cooperation, apologized for messing with his lunch break, etc. This is their job, what could they do better? Not investigate since he said "it's not me, honest"?!?

eggbrain 11y ago

About a year ago, the same thing happened to me. That night, my girlfriend had suddenly gotten sick and was walking home from a friends place a few miles away, and I wanted to make sure she got home ok, so I ran out to meet her. I was dressed in a long wool jacket with a nice shirt on, and got stop by the police. Apparently, it was suspicious that someone would be jogging in that type of attire, and there had been a hit-and-run a bit away from there, and I fit the description of the person that ran. It was a bit surreal -- an officer started immediately asking me questions, including identification, what was in my pockets, etc. After telling him just a glove was in my jacket pocket, he came up to me and quickly felt himself. Satisfied that I had answered honestly, he asked me to wait as a second police car drove up. The first officer looked back to the second police car and asked if this was the guy -- the second police officer took one look at me, looked back at the guy angrily, and shook his head slowly no in one of the largest looks of contempt I had seen. After that, I was back on my way. This story brings me back to that moment, but to be honest I have not thought about it since, and now I wonder if I should have done something differently. Should I have resisted? Should I have proclaimed my rights and had them try to arrest me? Was I too meek in allowing them to frisk me briefly? Was there some sort of prejudicial motivation for what happened? Was I wrong to simply forget that moment afterwards, and not attribute to malice? I have no doubt police target people, due to prejudice of some kind, in many different cities. And I also do not want to in any way dismiss or diminish someone's fear, someones worries, or someone's feeling like they were targeted directly because of their race or ethnicity, their gender, or their beliefs. But is there a lesson to be learned from this story? Is it a story of a man who felt enormous fear when approached by the police, and how that still reflects the worry many minorities feel in society with regards to the police? Is it a story about how a man was targeted unfairly due to his race, due to prejudice still present in law enforcement? I'm not sure the takeaway from this -- only that a man was stopped on the street, and that he felt pain from that experience. Do I share this pain having gone through something similar? Do I rewrite my own experience and feel pain? Or do I continue as I have -- not attributing to malice until proven otherwise? It's not clear, and I'm not sure how to take this and use it for the better.

awalton 11y ago

The saddest part is that this is not a unique story. Some number of weeks ago, I "fit the description" of a latino male exiting Safeway after having caused some kind of spat in Mountain View. They "identified" the male as having on black shorts and wearing sandals, and some kind of sleeve tattoo if my memory serves. I am a fairer-skinned black male, I did have on black shorts and Birkinstocks, so close enough I guess. I was over a block away from Safeway, but the cop still felt the need to creep up on me, then bleep his siren, turn around, get out of his SUV and question me. The cop felt the need to know if - simple Silicon Valley yuppie me, carrying a Starbucks cup from earlier in the day and a fresh bag of Thai food with a receipt dated no more than nine minutes prior - I had gang tattoos and/or affiliations, asked me to roll up my sleeves. He needed to know why my out-of-state drivers license didn't have my current California address (no, I'm dead serious, I guess he couldn't figure it out.) Of course, I grew up in the deep south so I'm more than used to this, and know how to keep my head on when dealing with a police officer who is holier than thou and is packing the hardware to prove it to you at a twitch's notice. My upbringing taught me that, as a black person, this is what we have to expect from officials, be it police, school officials, any petty tyrant's office job. This is why you don't talk to the cops and you keep your head down when walking - your skin still says enough about you. However, even after climbing the broken ladder, fighting my way out of abject poverty through stacks of student loans, it was truly disheartening to see it's still true, even here in the land of million dollar homes and self driving cars. I've felt this man's fear.

DrScump 11y ago
"He needed to know why my out-of-state drivers license didn't have my current California address" Actually, that's the law, if you've been in CA more than 20 days or accepted a job here. Otherwise, you are technically not licensed to drive here.

aklemm 11y ago

To be interrogated or detained (the pre-arrest stuff) is not benign. It is full of risk because police are sanctioned to use force on citizens. It is especially risky for non-whites, especially if they try to exercise their rights. This story is about what it's like to experience these phenomena in real life. Did I make that easy enough for you all that are struggling to see the value in this piece?

justifier 11y ago

I saw the woman in red. “Thank you,” I said to her. “Thank you for staying.” if you see the police talking to someone: whoever they are, however they are acting, and whatever they look like; and you have a minute to spare, please.. please, stick around and make it known you are watching if you have a phone, record it, or just hold your phone as if you were recording it people can feel the gaze of others and you will alter the behaviour of the officers for the better just yesterday i was walking by an irate homeless person yelling at three officers, refusing to move two officers were directing foot traffic to keep a distance and the third was prodding the homeless man with his toe asking him identifying questions and telling him he needed to get up and move by my just standing there i could sense the officers sensing my presence, every so often they were send me a quick sideways glance the officer using his foot to interact with the homeless man turned his head to see what his fellow officers kept looking at and saw me, standing there drinking a coffee, staring at him he jerked his gaze back at the man lying on the ground and knelt down and just placed his hand on the homeless man's shoulder and talked to him calmly the officer managed to get the man to sit up and answer his questions, eventually he got up and walked away and the officers gave me a look like, 'you happy?!' and got in their cars and drove off i was happy with how the interaction turned out, the whole thing lasted less than a minute i would like to think that my presence had little to do with it