4 ms·

Wow. That's one hell of a story (long one, but it was worth it). Glad to see you turned out okay, and was fortunate enough to have the financial capabilities to

by mkhalil 11y ago

Wow. That's one hell of a story (long one, but it was worth it). Glad to see you turned out okay, and was fortunate enough to have the financial capabilities to fight it off. Most people don't. Especially the whole appear-20-times-in-court, a lot of people (especially lower class working people), would probably get fired. When people see prosecutors rack up huge bogus charges that can get you sentenced to years if not life in prison, they fold. I agree completely on the body cam issue. I think constant monitoring of public servants is the best way to move us from them from "escalation of force to compliance" stage to the "protect and serve".

ddingus 11y ago
It was expensive. I had to call all my notes and favors in. One thing that did help was that document I made the morning after. That was just brain dump, good, bad, ugly. When qualifying attorneys, I asked if I did anything wrong. If I did, my thought was to take the hit and do the community court to limit my obligations. The attorney I selected said I needed a trial, and she was pissed. The discussions we had were worth every penny, and she basically said this whole mess was going to be "civics 101" and was right. I learned a ton and I got well informed, "school of hard knocks" style. We are currently, in most places, nowhere near a policing doctrine we can believe in. Social norms, our petty "blame those other people" polutics, and money lie at the roots of this problem. Thuggery is cheap. Actual policing is more expensive, until externalities are considered. In addition to the monitoring, we really do need to find ways for people to understand the external costs and risks. Most interestingly, people appear to be driven by their own safety. Makes sense. Who isn't? However, the reality is counterintuitive, in that thuggery replacing real policing actually raises our cost and risk exposure, both if which drive more petty crimes, and can contribute to real crime too. This problem hurts everyone, including the thugs, who are often capable of policing, despite their lower overall education and background.

by mkhalil 11y ago

ddingus 11y ago

It was expensive. I had to call all my notes and favors in. One thing that did help was that document I made the morning after. That was just brain dump, good, bad, ugly. When qualifying attorneys, I asked if I did anything wrong. If I did, my thought was to take the hit and do the community court to limit my obligations. The attorney I selected said I needed a trial, and she was pissed. The discussions we had were worth every penny, and she basically said this whole mess was going to be "civics 101" and was right. I learned a ton and I got well informed, "school of hard knocks" style. We are currently, in most places, nowhere near a policing doctrine we can believe in. Social norms, our petty "blame those other people" polutics, and money lie at the roots of this problem. Thuggery is cheap. Actual policing is more expensive, until externalities are considered. In addition to the monitoring, we really do need to find ways for people to understand the external costs and risks. Most interestingly, people appear to be driven by their own safety. Makes sense. Who isn't? However, the reality is counterintuitive, in that thuggery replacing real policing actually raises our cost and risk exposure, both if which drive more petty crimes, and can contribute to real crime too. This problem hurts everyone, including the thugs, who are often capable of policing, despite their lower overall education and background.