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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 Ame

by 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?

by 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?