5 ms·

I think the most damning quote from the article is "He also ruled that the police were under no obligation to know that drug testing field kits are inaccurate".

by eric_h 11y ago

I think the most damning quote from the article is "He also ruled that the police were under no obligation to know that drug testing field kits are inaccurate". Police are under no obligation to know that a tool they use is inaccurate? Would the same rules apply for the acquisition of, say, firearms - i.e. would the police be under no obligation to know that the glocks they're purchasing for their officers have a tendency to fire even when the safety is on? Edit: per comments below please s/when the safety is on/without pulling the trigger/ when reading this comment

eric_h 11y ago
Further - who is obligated to know that the testing field kits are inaccurate? Can police purchase marijuana dowsing rods and legally use those as probable cause for a search/SWAT raid? It seems to me that the rate of false positives would be roughly equivalent given the numbers stated in the article.
- sitkack 11y ago
  > marijuana dowsing rods this is a great idea.
  - eric_h 11y ago
    Sounds like a great public benefit corp. Sell LEOs marijuana dowsing rods, donate all proceeds to something like the ACLU, then submit the names of all purchasers to review for dismissal/defunding.
    - DiabloD3 11y ago
      Pretty sure that's fraud AND entrapment.
      - emp_zealoth 11y ago
        So standard police practice, isnt it?
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - capnrefsmmat 11y ago
    Such a device already exists, and has been sold to many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651 > The device has been sold to 20 countries in the Middle East and Far East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, for as much as US$60,000 each. The Iraqi government is said to have spent £52 million on the devices. > Investigations by the BBC and other organisations found that the device is little more than a "glorified dowsing rod" with no ability to perform its claimed functions. In January 2010, export of the device was banned by the British government and the managing director of ATSC was arrested on suspicion of fraud, and in June 2010, several other companies were raided by British police. ATSC was dissolved on 5 March 2013. On 23 April 2013, the founder of ATSC, Jim McCormick, was convicted of three counts of fraud at the Old Bailey in London, and was subsequently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.
    - trhway 11y ago
      man, thank you, it is pure gold, you just can't make it up : >According to Husam Muhammad, an Iraqi police officer and user of the ADE 651, using the device properly is more of an art than a science: "If we are tense, the device doesn't work correctly. I start slow, and relax my body, and I try to clear my mind."[10] The cards were supposedly "programmed" or "activated" by being placed in a jar for a week along with a sample of the target substance to absorb the substance's "vapours". Initially, McCormick reportedly used his own blood to "program" the cards for detecting human tissue, but eventually gave up even the pretense of "programming" them when demand for the devices was at its peak.[11] ... >The ADE 651 is a descendant of the Quadro Tracker Positive Molecular Locator produced in the 1990s by Wade Quattlebaum, a South Carolina car dealer, commercial diver, and treasure hunter.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  "marijuana dowsing rods" are effectively the drug dogs often used to get "probable cause" to search someone's car without a warrant or any actual probable cause. They're effectively trained to give a positive return on whatever car the police point them at, to get around whichever amendment it is that law-enforcement in the US basically like to use to wipe their ass on.
jMyles 11y ago
You are absolutely spot on. However, to pick a quick nit: > the glocks they're purchasing for their officers have a tendency to fire even when the safety is on? Glocks don't have a safety that goes "on" and prevents them from firing. If you pull the trigger (which has a little mini trigger in it which must also be pulled - the only actual safety), it will fire. Even cops who don't carry glocks rarely carry weapons that have a safety that works in the way you suggest; instead, most LEO duty weapons simply have a heavy trigger pull.
- eric_h 11y ago
  Thanks for picking that nit, I wasn't aware of that. I can count the number of handguns I've fired in my life on one finger (and it was a PPK). I believe the analogy on the whole is still roughly valid, just s/when the safety is on/without pulling the trigger/
- moron4hire 11y ago
  Yeah, double-action-only should be the default for all handguns short of crazy .22LR target pistols.
  - beachstartup 11y ago
    a glock isn't double action. if the striker isn't in firing position (done by racking the slide when you first insert the magazine), it won't fire no matter how many times you pull the trigger. the slide locks back after firing the last round, so that it only readies the striker when you insert a new magazine and release the slide.
    - moron4hire 11y ago
      Yes, I know how a Glock works, and I think it's a bad design.
      - Grishnakh 11y ago
        Only someone who knows nothing about shooting pistols would think that. How on earth is it a bad design? A normal Glock with its single-action mechanism is pretty close to the best handgun design there is now. A double-action-only (DAO) design suffers from heavy trigger pulls, which cause terrible shot accuracy. Look at the NYPD and how many innocent bystanders they shoot because of their 12-lb trigger pulls. DA/SA are even worse because the first shot is double-action, so it's inconsistent. Both these designs should be banned from law enforcement use because of public safety. The only thing wrong with Glocks is they only have the trigger safety, and no external safety (like the grip safety on Springfield XD pistols), so they misfire if you're clumsy when reholstering and something gets into the trigger guard, and this has caused a bunch of cops to shoot themselves in the foot or leg.
grecy 11y ago
The same thing has come to light about tasers since the famous case where a man was killed from being tased while handcuffed [1] It turns out that Police had done zero testing and had no idea if tasers are "safe" - it just happened that some company started making and selling them, so Police started buying and using them. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_i...

by eric_h 11y ago

eric_h 11y ago

Further - who is obligated to know that the testing field kits are inaccurate? Can police purchase marijuana dowsing rods and legally use those as probable cause for a search/SWAT raid? It seems to me that the rate of false positives would be roughly equivalent given the numbers stated in the article.

sitkack 11y ago
> marijuana dowsing rods this is a great idea.
- eric_h 11y ago
  Sounds like a great public benefit corp. Sell LEOs marijuana dowsing rods, donate all proceeds to something like the ACLU, then submit the names of all purchasers to review for dismissal/defunding.
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    Pretty sure that's fraud AND entrapment.
    - emp_zealoth 11y ago
      So standard police practice, isnt it?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- capnrefsmmat 11y ago
  Such a device already exists, and has been sold to many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADE_651 > The device has been sold to 20 countries in the Middle East and Far East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, for as much as US$60,000 each. The Iraqi government is said to have spent £52 million on the devices. > Investigations by the BBC and other organisations found that the device is little more than a "glorified dowsing rod" with no ability to perform its claimed functions. In January 2010, export of the device was banned by the British government and the managing director of ATSC was arrested on suspicion of fraud, and in June 2010, several other companies were raided by British police. ATSC was dissolved on 5 March 2013. On 23 April 2013, the founder of ATSC, Jim McCormick, was convicted of three counts of fraud at the Old Bailey in London, and was subsequently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.
  - trhway 11y ago
    man, thank you, it is pure gold, you just can't make it up : >According to Husam Muhammad, an Iraqi police officer and user of the ADE 651, using the device properly is more of an art than a science: "If we are tense, the device doesn't work correctly. I start slow, and relax my body, and I try to clear my mind."[10] The cards were supposedly "programmed" or "activated" by being placed in a jar for a week along with a sample of the target substance to absorb the substance's "vapours". Initially, McCormick reportedly used his own blood to "program" the cards for detecting human tissue, but eventually gave up even the pretense of "programming" them when demand for the devices was at its peak.[11] ... >The ADE 651 is a descendant of the Quadro Tracker Positive Molecular Locator produced in the 1990s by Wade Quattlebaum, a South Carolina car dealer, commercial diver, and treasure hunter.
EliRivers 11y ago
"marijuana dowsing rods" are effectively the drug dogs often used to get "probable cause" to search someone's car without a warrant or any actual probable cause. They're effectively trained to give a positive return on whatever car the police point them at, to get around whichever amendment it is that law-enforcement in the US basically like to use to wipe their ass on.

jMyles 11y ago

You are absolutely spot on. However, to pick a quick nit: > the glocks they're purchasing for their officers have a tendency to fire even when the safety is on? Glocks don't have a safety that goes "on" and prevents them from firing. If you pull the trigger (which has a little mini trigger in it which must also be pulled - the only actual safety), it will fire. Even cops who don't carry glocks rarely carry weapons that have a safety that works in the way you suggest; instead, most LEO duty weapons simply have a heavy trigger pull.

eric_h 11y ago
Thanks for picking that nit, I wasn't aware of that. I can count the number of handguns I've fired in my life on one finger (and it was a PPK). I believe the analogy on the whole is still roughly valid, just s/when the safety is on/without pulling the trigger/
moron4hire 11y ago
Yeah, double-action-only should be the default for all handguns short of crazy .22LR target pistols.
- beachstartup 11y ago
  a glock isn't double action. if the striker isn't in firing position (done by racking the slide when you first insert the magazine), it won't fire no matter how many times you pull the trigger. the slide locks back after firing the last round, so that it only readies the striker when you insert a new magazine and release the slide.
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    Yes, I know how a Glock works, and I think it's a bad design.
    - Grishnakh 11y ago
      Only someone who knows nothing about shooting pistols would think that. How on earth is it a bad design? A normal Glock with its single-action mechanism is pretty close to the best handgun design there is now. A double-action-only (DAO) design suffers from heavy trigger pulls, which cause terrible shot accuracy. Look at the NYPD and how many innocent bystanders they shoot because of their 12-lb trigger pulls. DA/SA are even worse because the first shot is double-action, so it's inconsistent. Both these designs should be banned from law enforcement use because of public safety. The only thing wrong with Glocks is they only have the trigger safety, and no external safety (like the grip safety on Springfield XD pistols), so they misfire if you're clumsy when reholstering and something gets into the trigger guard, and this has caused a bunch of cops to shoot themselves in the foot or leg.

grecy 11y ago

The same thing has come to light about tasers since the famous case where a man was killed from being tased while handcuffed [1] It turns out that Police had done zero testing and had no idea if tasers are "safe" - it just happened that some company started making and selling them, so Police started buying and using them. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dzieka%C5%84ski_Taser_i...