17 ms·

Death by gentrification: the killing that shamed San Francisco

174 points by wallflower 11y ago

puppetmaster3 11y ago
Why is gentrification bad?
- eitally 11y ago
  Because in order for cities to function properly, it's important that blue collar workers are able to afford to inhabit them. Un-governed gentrification and unreasonably low levels of low income housing result in situations like exist in the SFBA now, where many middle class households are either forced into extraordinarily long commutes (leads to higher stress, worse health and increased mortality) or cramped living in shared multi-family apartments/houses.
  - Nutmog 11y ago
    What force makes people stay living in the same rented house no matter how bad it makes their life? Somehow people all across America are managing to survive despite not living in gentrified areas. Is SFBA the only place those middle class people can find a job? That sounds kind of unbelievable. Are they unmotivated to move because it's too much hard work? Afraid of losing friends and being unable to make new ones? I know these are costs but they really too high to bear? Personally, I live in a relatively small city and my income is far higher than my expenses. I once lived in London and the two were almost equal. Life was less comfortable then but I certainly didn't blame the rich bankers for pushing up my rent and bus fares.
    - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
      "Is SFBA the only place those middle class people can find a job" Do you know how expensive it is to move? I mean, move across the country from the Bay Area? Should people be forced to move into the Central Valley, a 2+ hour train/public transit commute into the SFBA? What kind of crap quality of life is that?
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      >Somehow people all across America are managing to survive despite not living in gentrified areas. No, they're not. Employment, especially mid-to-high-wage employment, is geographically concentrated. Most of the land-area of the USA, so to speak, is poor, and getting poorer. Also, remember, 80% of the population actually lives in large metro-areas, not in the countryside.
    - eitally 11y ago
      The thing is, it partly depends on how you feel about societal well-being in general. If you believe these folks are valuable contributors to society, then you should naturally also believe it's important to help them continue doing so in ways that are not hazardous to their health, demeaning, or cause societal breakdowns (homelessness, drug abuse, child endangerment, etc). If you don't believe they're valuable contributors, I challenge you to describe how any high-CoL metro would successfully function without blue collar service workers.
    - cauterized 11y ago
      It's not just about the same house. It's also about moving away from friends, family and support structures that make life better no matter who you are and can make poverty more survivable. And it's about a city's inability to function without people who can pay the rent somewhere close enough to their low-wage jobs (in retail, bartending, waiting tables, etc - at the businesses which make the city desirable to live in in the first place) to make sense for them to work in the city instead of in another community.
    - lbebber 11y ago
      > I once lived in London and the two were almost equal. Life was less comfortable then but I certainly didn't blame the rich bankers for pushing up my rent and bus fares. I don't know your particular situation, but moving in a place you already know is expensive is an entirely different case than being priced out of a place you've already been living. (Plus it's hard to blame individual bankers or techies or whatever for it, it's more of a matter of public policy).
- thearn4 11y ago
  I think it is generally seen as a process that ends up pricing out and displacing the people who used to rent within an area (or even own, if property taxes end up spiking), thus dissolving the original community.
- yomly 11y ago
  It's a double edged sword: it generates wealth and regenerates an area. On the other hand people who may have lived there for 20+ years can get priced out of their own neighbourhood. Arguably, people have a right to continue living where theyve always lived, and should be able to live close to work. This is at least believed in the UK, in theory. Unfortunately, what normally happens is that house prices in the area grows exponentially fast and serves to only make the rich richer. Rental prices are usually pegged to housing prices and thus, the original inhabitants are pushed out.
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  Decreased quality of life for those who rent and can no longer afford to live in the gentrified neighborhood. Increased property taxes for those who already own can force even long-time residents to move, regardless of whether they actually want to, simply because their home has suddenly and unexpectedly increased in value. You could argue that this is a windfall - but being forcibly displaced by increased cost of living isn't fun, even if you do get a bunch of money for your house (that you didn't want to sell in the first place). Also, change is scary.
  - koolba 11y ago
    > Increased property taxes for those who already own can force even long-time residents to move, regardless of whether they actually want to, simply because their home has suddenly and unexpectedly increased in value. That's not really an issue in California as property tax growth is fixed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1... Cash poor home owners get "stuck" in their homes because if they sold and bought a new house, they'd have significantly greater property taxes. Theyre better off keeping the home and either living there or renting it out.
  - uiri 11y ago
    In California, real property is only reassessed at market value when it is sold or transferred. So property taxes won't increase on long-time residents who don't move. Rent control is, I believe, intended to provide the same effect for long-time residents who rent instead of own. I agree that increases in other components of the cost of living of an area can have the same effect though.
    - sulam 11y ago
      It's also reassessed if you improve it in any substantial way. My property taxes doubled after a remodel. Some of that was the remodel, but roughly half was due to prices in the neighborhood going up since my wife and I originally bought the house. In my case we can afford these extra taxes, but I can easily imagine that in other circumstances this would be difficult. The alternative is doing work without permits, which comes with other risks.
- a_humean 11y ago
  Basic reason is that it displaces the existing population through increasing prices in housing and services and alienates the existing population socially and culturally. The only people that experience the benefits of gentrification are wealthy newcomers, whereas existing populations suffer varying degrees of harm with the gradual destruction of their communities.
- true_religion 11y ago
  Because changing environment unintentionally pressures previous long-standing residents into leaving the area, and causes discomfort as two divergent groups meet in the same location and one feels the other is destroying, ruining, or usurping their culture. It's not "bad" as a moral stance, but certainly some claim it is bad from their perspective if they end up on the losing end of gentrification. To give an example that more people might empathize with. Parts of central London used to be affordable by the mid to upper classes, but these scenic locations are now 100% owned by others who only buy them for use as vacation homes. It's an odd case of gentrification pushing relatively wealthy people out of an area so that extremely wealthy people can live there instead.
- Joe8Bit 11y ago
  It goes hand in hand with an increased cost of living (e.g. the nicer things get the more expensive it is to live there) which in turn causes a displacement of people and communities who lived there before the gentrification happened. In many western countries there is also a strong correlation between the above displacement and it overly effecting minorities, who due to economic/political/social disenfranchisement have congregated communities in low cost areas. If you are a member of the more affluent population who moves into a gentrified area, it's great, but if you're a part of the community who has lived there for a long time and you suddenly can't afford to any more, it's really not great at all (to it mildly). So in a narrow sense 'gentrification' isn't a bad thing, however put in the wider context it can have very significant negative effects on poorer communities. Especially when combined with a lack of social/affordable housing.
- gilgoomesh 11y ago
  Gentrification is fundamentally a dramatic increase in local prices. The change isn't usually driven by locals earning more but by new people moving in and pricing the former residents out of the market. It's great for the new residents. It is terrible for the old – particularly old residents who don't own their own home or are otherwise unable to capitalize on the price shift.
  - lr4444lr 11y ago
    That sounds like a net zero, not a net "bad", which is what the OP was asking.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Why is outsourcing bad? Change is all good and fancy, until you are the one left behind/on the receiving end. The West right now - especially US and UK have a bad track record of redistributing the gains.
- Noughmad 11y ago
  Because not many people own homes in the US. So if local prices go up, renters have to move elsewhere. If you own a house, chances are you still have to move because other services become too expensive for you, but at least you made a nice profit on the house. If you rent, it's a lose-lose situation.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Because it means that society is rationing resources at a level of scarcity well above the actual level of scarcity. It means that some of the potential utility of just building more housing is being left on the table so that an artificial class conflict can be created between new and existing citizens.
- mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
  It often screws over the residents who worked hard to make an area desirable. A typical pattern goes like this: 1. An area is cheap because it is considered undesirable and all the rich folk move away. 2. Poor folks move there - artists, minorities, families. 3. These folk work for years to make the area safer, nicer to live in, more interesting. 4. Now that poor folk have improved the neighborhood, rich folk flood back in and buy up property or just drive up rents, pricing the original residents out. 5. Lower class folk forced to move to the next crappy neighborhood, and repeat the process.
- mcguire 11y ago
  In this case, the newcomers regard the residents generally as undesirable and specifically as criminals. In general, things which disrupt a community are not readily welcomed by the community.
- puppetmaster3 11y ago
  THANK you for comments, I honestly did not know that someone would be against it. I assume this is from a left POV, I see it as plus that a local business succeeds, or a new local hosting gets built, at worst more tax revenue = more services. I wonder to self if higher education is also viewed as bad, as it has same effect - higher local prices. So the outcome to anti-gentrification is the abandoned neighborhoods that investors would not want to develop. Not something we can solve, just a warning to business to not grow in the anti-gentrification areas.
dmschulman 11y ago
This police-assisted murder is a shame but I don't understand why we expect neighborhoods to remain frozen in time forever, never changing their racial or socioeconomic makeup for as long as the area exists. It's a given that neighborhoods, especially in the city, will change over time. The real issue isn't whether people who don't look like the lifelong residents will move in, it's if those new neighbors will treat the area and neighbors with the same reverence and respect that those before them did. I don't think people resent a changing neighborhood so much as they resent people with different values settling down and expecting the neighborhood to bend to their preference. This is clearly what's at stake in the death of Alex Nieto.
- Joe8Bit 11y ago
  I don't think many people would argue with the evolutionary nature of cities. I think what people would say, however, is that when cities change those with the least economic muscle tend to be the most adversely effected (e.g they lose their homes/tenancies when they can't afford to pay inflated rents). Again, that in itself might not be a problem if there were other places to move that poor communities could afford and wouldn't detrimentally affect their lives. I can speak from experience in London, poor communities have NO WHERE to move if an area is gentrified and they are forced out. Prices are city wide too high, gentrification has left no where 'cheap'. What that means is moving further from central London, which means moving further away from the main source of work and increasing expense of travel. Which all in turn means an even greater slip into poverty.
  - cbeach 11y ago
    Those doing low-paid work in London are obviously important to the city, but I'd argue that those doing high-paid work make more sense to live in the city because theirs is the work that benefits most from the agglomeration that big cities provide. If low-paid workers have to travel further, then their wages will be forced upwards as a result. Employers are forced to pay prevailing market rates to get the staff they need.
    - UVB-76 11y ago
raldi 11y ago
This is the taser Alex Nieto pointed at the police and refused to drop (if the police are telling the truth): http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/taser.jpg http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03...
- dangerlibrary 11y ago
  allegedly pointed The four police officer's stories contradict one another as well as some of the physical evidence.
  - justaman 11y ago
    If the taser was found anywhere but holstered it means that he _likely_ drew it. Any motion to draw a weapon(lethal or otherwise) is seen as a threat. Given that it is gun-shaped, it was a really stupid move if he did draw it.
    - dangerlibrary 11y ago
      Given that he studied criminal justice and had no criminal record whatsoever, I'm sure he knew how stupid that would be. Nobody has provided a reasonable explanation for why he would've done something so stupid.
      - raldi 11y ago
        He was suffering from schizophrenia and earlier that month shot his friend three times with the taser, according to the friend's testimony at a restraining-order hearing.
- bonaldi 11y ago
  Er, the taser some officers claim was pointed at them, and the one that was lying on the ground beside his collapsed body as it was still being shot by officers
- true_religion 11y ago
ashray 11y ago
Is there no rent control in SF or other US cities? How do people get priced out?
- raldi 11y ago
  San Francisco has very strong rent control laws that limit rent increases to below the rate of inflation, that ensure well-behaved tenants generally can hold onto an apartment for their entire life if they want, and keep paying an ever-discounted rate, and they even apply when the tenant is wealthy. But when poor tenants voluntarily move out, they're usually replaced by someone willing to pay a lot more. Also, in any given year, a very small fraction of landlords (less than 1/10th of one percent) decide they don't want to be landlords anymore, and an extremely controversial California law called the Ellis Act allows them to decline to renew the lease and stop being landlords.
  - pc86 11y ago
    Why the opposition to the Ellis Act? If I own a home and want to sell it, I shouldn't be limited to selling it to someone who wants to be a landlord (a very small minority of people). And if I buy a home, I shouldn't be forced to rent it to someone. If you rent a home you do not own it and you should not have any claim to what happens to it beyond the end of your current lease.
    - raldi 11y ago
      By the Copenhagen Theory of Ethics (https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...), once you rent an apartment to someone for a particular price, you have a moral obligation to continue doing that forever.
      - pc86 11y ago
        I don't see the word "rent" anywhere in your linked article but maybe a synonym is there somewhere. Regardless, if you agree to rent $PROPERTY to $TENANT and I you want to sell me $PROPERTY, I don't see why I should be bound at all to any agreement with $TENANT outside of letting their current lease expire. I don't buy that there is any moral obligation in the first place but to extend that to third parties seems a bit silly.
tinco 11y ago
This article seems to miss some crucial details. How does a jury go from the given description of a man armed with only a Taser being not only shot to disable but absolutely destroyed and vote unanimously in the police's favor? Was the question asked to the jury more specific, did the Guardian leave something out or was the jury really racist as the Guardian implies (by listing their races)?
- jemfinch 11y ago
  > being not only shot to disable but absolutely destroyed There is no such thing as "shoot to disable" with firearms. Firearms are lethal weapons. They should only be used when deadly force is justified, and cannot reliably be used to "disable" someone apart from killing them.
  - Retric 11y ago
    You can "shoot to disable" though it can often result in death. Which can be useful if your trying to keep someone alive to interrogate. However, US police are flat out trained to kill. Note: Disable does not mean they are unarmed / unconscious, it generally means they can't move quickly and even if they could still be quite dangerous.
    - pygy_ 11y ago
      Case in point, Salah Abdelslam, the Paris terror 'suspect' who was arrested last week in Brussels, was shot in the leg as he was charging the police, then arrested.
    - hughperkins 11y ago
      Its because compensation for killing someone is on average less than for disabling someone.
- RodericDay 11y ago
  The article provides some key details you don't mention here: > It was a civil trial, so the standard was not “beyond a reasonable doubt”, just the “preponderance of evidence”. No one was facing prison, but if the city and officers were found liable, there could be a large financial settlement and it could affect the careers of the policemen. The trial was covered by several local media outlets. On Thursday 10 March, after an afternoon and morning of deliberations, the eight jurors – five white, one Asian woman and two Asian men – unanimously ruled in favour of the police on all counts. Namely: - It was a civil trial, - preponderance of evidence was required, - the penalty would come back to hurt the tax-base, - the jurors were insulated from the racial component.
LoSboccacc 11y ago
This is a very sad occurence but I'd wish an article to read more as facts than as a sob story
- foldr 11y ago
  Aaron Swartz commits suicide after being prosecuted for a crime that he did commit, and he's a martyr. A working class latino guy in San Francisco gets shot by the police because some white dudes didn't like the look of him, and it's basically his fault. Hacker news values.
  - ousta 11y ago
    yes. he obviously got killed because some white dude didnt like the look of him. the gun he was pointing at the cops is not related to his death.
    - foldr 11y ago
      He got killed largely because some white dude called 911 for no good reason. (I mean, we're talking about someone who's so clueless about what a city is that he thinks that anyone who's brown is likely to be "foreign".) We have no evidence that Nieto pointed the taser at the cops who shot him.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - zahmahkibo 11y ago
      1. Please prove he pointed a gun at them. 2. People literally called the cops TO his location in the first place because he was sitting on a park bench eating. What is wrong with this picture? 3. He was shot 40 times. What is wrong with this picture? 4. The cop immediately called his union rep before an ambulance. What is wrong with this picture?
      - 11y ago
TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
Why would a person ever point a taser with a laser sight at uniformed police in this country? Yes this is a tragedy, but how are police supposed to react to a gun-like object pointed at them, in the heat of the moment? Cops get shot also. They are nervous on the job. As we would be, in their position. Are they supposed to react to a pointed gun with understanding and open arms? I just don't think that's practical.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- zahmahkibo 11y ago
  Please provide evidence he pointed the taser at them.
- eli 11y ago
  Witness Testifies Alex Nieto Never Drew Weapon http://missionlocal.org/2016/03/witness-testified-alex-nieto-never-drew-weapon/ http://missionlocal.org/2016/03/witness-testified-alex-nieto...
  - raldi 11y ago
    And multiple other witnesses, including non-policemen, testify that he did.
- foldr 11y ago
  Cops always say that they feared for their life when they end up shooting an innocent person. If we just take their word for it, we're effectively saying that there are no circumstances under which we can legitimately criticize the police for killing someone (because the officers involved will always say that they perceived their lives to be in danger).
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    Yes, but then the situation is evaluated One of the reasons for body cameras
Fiahil 11y ago
So. Four policemen put 40 bullets in somebody, and that's supposed to be "normal". What the hell?
- hutzlibu 11y ago
  It can be, if the somebody is armed and going berserk. But that was apparently not the case here.
- czechdeveloper 11y ago
  People don't fall dead after single bullet like in movies. In real scenarios 40 bullets are quite usual.
  - justaman 11y ago
    This means each officer probably fired 10 rounds. This can be done in less than 5 seconds with a standard issue glock.
    - 33W 11y ago
      According to the article at least (which has been pointed out to be one-sided), at least one of the officers empties the first magazine and reloads. This would be 15-17 for the first officer, and the article also notes that the second car arrived after the shooting begun. I don't know everything that happened, and haven't developed an opinion overall, but it isn't as simple as rounds fired / number of officers.
  - mtalantikite 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure the OP was trying to state that shooting to kill shouldn't be the normal thing police do.
    - BillinghamJ 11y ago
      There is no such thing as shooting to not kill. Officers are (correctly) trained that if they are in a situation which warrants them shooting, they should use all of the bullets currently loaded into their gun. The issue is that in the US, officers seem to come to the conclusion that killing the person is warranted way too quickly.
the-dude 11y ago
From a European perspective this is more 'Death by police state' than anything else.
- raldi 11y ago
  What happens in Europe when someone is seen in a public park waving around something that looks like this? http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/taser.jpg http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03...
  - tinco 11y ago
    He'll be asked to put his weapon down. And will subsequently be charged with possession of a firearm or of something that looks like a firearm, and in addition probably with some kind of charge for endandering people and if he pointed it a police officer there'd be a charge for that as well. If the police felt especially threatened he might be shot in the leg or tasered (depending on what the police in that country is equipped with). All the charges together would probably result in a hefty fine, something like a few thousand euros and probably some jail time (a few months tops). p.s.: I'm talking about northern european countries here, southern/eastern countries are significantly less easy going.
    - whatok 11y ago
      Do police in these countries somehow have enhanced marksmanship and reaction times vs US police? I am not going to blame anyone for taking someone pointing a gun at them seriously and protecting their lives. Aiming for someone's leg (or let's try some movie techniques and shoot them in the hand) is only going to slow down reaction time and possibly end up with a worse situation.
      - scotty79 11y ago
        I think in Europe police doesn't assume that something that could be mistaken for a gun is a gun because presence of actual gun on any given random event is minsicule. If some gun was fired or if they are pursuing known serious criminals they use guns. In europe use of a gun is a planned action, not instincive response to feeling somewhat threatened.
advaits 11y ago
It is true that this case has the signs of unnecessary, racially-biased police brutality written all over it. It is also true that gentrification in SF is causing serious problems and culture clashes. But I think it's unfair and quite a stretch to take this example and say that 'gentrification' is directly responsible for this killing. The underlying problems here are racism and police brutality, which in this case are correlated to, but an entirely separate issue from, the sudden influx of wealth.
- rayiner 11y ago
  The death wasn't caused by racism and police brutality in the abstract. It was caused by the confluence of the two that manifests in the context of gentrification. Cities have a huge incentive to police these neighborhoods in a way that makes the gentrifiers "feel safe." That causes an atypically unstable situation.
raverbashing 11y ago
This is exactly like (minus the human tragedy) the bars that start getting noise complaints after more residential building move into their area And somehow people moving into a certain area think that what was there before should cater to all of their demands Really
- zeveb 11y ago
  I know of a place where there's been a gun club since the 40s. There's a road called Gun Club Road. There's a housing development called Gun Club Estates or somesuch. And people who move there complain about the noise of the … gun club. People are stupid.
deleted 11y ago
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laurencerowe 11y ago
There's a lot left out in Solnit's article, see: http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/alex-nieto-was-not-killed-gentrification-its-worse http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/alex-nieto-w...
- RodericDay 11y ago
  > Nieto was clearly a man having a crisis, and his purported reaction when approached by police was not that of a rational person. Told to show his hands, Nieto allegedly demanded that the cops show theirs. He then reportedly drew his taser and fired three times. And so he was shot—and shot and shot—by officers who claim they did not realize Nieto was carrying a less-than-lethal device. This is the stuff she should have included into her article? This platitude about mental health, > Our jails are full of men and women whose crime is being mentally ill. Is not a more compelling analysis of the event than Solnit's take.
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    Normally I'm pretty damn critical of the police, but drawing a gunlike weapon that's actually a weapon and not a plastic toy, while also being clearly out of your right mind... Well, he shouldn't have been shot, but wow.
    - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
      The police, or at least two of them, claim that he drew the taser. That doesn't mean he actually drew it, but merely that the police did what police often have done in the past--embellish or exaggerate the details to exonerate themselves. For this reason, and of course also to protect police from dishonest civilian witnesses, body cams should be standard issue equipment. In fact, I'm surprised SFPD hasn't long since required them.
      - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
        Good points.
deleted 11y ago
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navait 11y ago
> Evan Snow, a thirtysomething “user experience design professional”..., who had moved to the neighbourhood about six months earlier (and who has since departed for a more suburban environment) > Snow never seemed to recognise that his out-of-control dog was the aggressor: “So Luna was, I think, looking to move around the benches or behind me to run up happily to get a chip from Mr Nieto. Mr Nieto became further – what’s the right word? – distressed, moving very quickly and rapidly left to right, trying to keep his chips away from Luna. He ran down to these benches and jumped up on the benches, my dog following. She was at that point vocalising, barking, or kind of howling.” >– in his deposition for the case, under oath, his exact words were that he was distracted by a female “jogger’s butt”. “I can imagine that somebody would – could assume the dog was being aggressive at that point,” Snow said. The dog did not come when he called, but kept barking. Nieto, Snow says, then pulled back his jacket and took his Taser out, briefly pointing at the distant dog-owner before he pointed it at the dog baying at his feet. The two men yelled at each other, and Snow apparently used a racial slur, but would not later give the precise word. As he left the park, he texted a friend about the incident. His text, according to his testimony, said, “in another state like Florida, I would have been justified in shooting Mr Nieto that night” Is this guy real? This is the sort of person I'd expect to see on Silicon Valley not in the real world, he fits the techbro stereotype exactly. After each sentence I read, I thought this guy couldn't get even more stereotypical, but he managed to lower the bar further.
- tptacek 11y ago
  This is a person Rebecca Solnit chose to single out, carefully juxtaposing reports of his (incredibly obnoxious) behavior against Nieto's shooting, to which, even by Solnit's account (read carefully), he was not a party. I don't want to get drinks with this character in Solnit's story, either. But I'm not sure we should applaud the tactic of summoning up and focusing outrage on people like this.
  - robterrell 11y ago
    Her implication is that this guy's dog is why the taser was visible, and the taser was reported as a handgun, and the police responded to that. I'd say he's a party -- his self-reported distraction started the whole series of events.
known 11y ago
One more vote for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Meaning_of_.22well_regulated_militia.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...
KKKKkkkk1 11y ago
The word 'xenophobia' literally means fear of strangers. But apparently it applies only if those strangers are Syrian illegals and not when they're white techies. It's unfortunate that the media is stoking this phenomenon. Strangely enough, here a British newspaper is concerned about the supposed invasion of a city half a world across from Britain.
jijoy 11y ago
Face it . If you are not white in US , you stand to loose your life with white trash with loose guns.
EvanMiller 11y ago
Hey guys! I know I'm a little late to the conversation, and while tragedies like this are totally sad and tragic, they're not unpreventable. Here at BurritoTech, we've developed a few apps that perhaps could have averted the unnecessary death of little Nieto: * NiceButt(tm) -- See a female jogger butt that strikes your fancy? With a press of a button we'll use your location and a proprietary algorithm to figure out to whom the lovely butt belongs -- and let you instantly browse pictures of that butt from multiple angles in multiple urban settings with varied jogging attire. No more distracted, in-person butt-staring while your unleashed dog intimidates a local minority. * DogWhistle(tm) -- Is a large, unleashed dog barking and howling at you while its owner is staring at a female jogger butt? Record an audio sample of the bark sound, and our machine-learning, digital-signal-processing algorithm will tell you instantly whether it's a friendly, doggie-needs-a-tummy rub yap, or else the howling harbinger of your death. * GangColors(tm) -- Is a nearby minority wearing a colorful jacket? Simply upload a picture of the jacket from any angle, and a team of on-call experts will tell you whether the jacket signifies affiliation with organized crime or with an NFL team -- or both! * GunMeBro(tm) -- Think "Uber for loaded handguns". Do you know that feeling when you want to "stand your ground" -- but you left your hand cannon back at the office? With GunMeBro, press a button and an independent contractor will personally deliver a gun into the palm of your hand -- this way, you can keep staring into the eyes of your interlocutor and wincing menacingly until you have the means to perform an execution-style killing without legal repercussion. (Service only available in Florida.) * NoYouCall(tm) -- Are you scared of a nearby minority -- but even more scared of having a social interaction with the 911 dispatcher? If your romantic partner refuses to call the police because he thinks it's a bad idea, you can now take matters into your own hands with NoYouCall. Simply take a short video of the suspicious person, and let our experts do the rest! Our on-call team will make a best-guess identification of the person's race, height, and visa status, imbue various possible nefarious motives to their physical movements, and describe the situation to the emergency-dispatch operator in the most harrowing, blood-curdling manner possible. If the cops don't arrive within five minutes -- with weapons drawn and a police helicopter on the horizon -- we'll even refund you 100% of your money! ($0.99 in the App Store and on Google Play) Sadly, unnecessary death is a growing market -- but tragedy breeds opportunity, and we're planning to expand our offerings in the near future (including PerfectAlibi, a tool to help police departments get their story straight after gunning down unarmed minorities). Here at BurritoTech we're always "on the lookout" for communications directors, email marketing managers, and ninja-star user experience design professionals -- so if your skills are "in that category of people I would not mess around with", please drop us a line! Send resumes to rememberingnieto [at] burrito [dot] io. Our office is in downtown SF but most of us work remotely from Marin County and more suburban environments.
polotics 11y ago
What about the "UnProvoker": free floating handcuffs that at the press of an easily accessible button will clamp on your hands and fingers, so if the incoming cop team shoots you, they won't be able to claim you acted menacing? Also the cops then have to come untie you, maybe time enough to start a conversation about racial profiling?
1812Overture 11y ago
Some other articles have mentioned that he was previously on some pretty powerful psych meds and there weren't any found in his system by the coroner. Quitting those medications cold turkey can make someone with previously minor mental health problems go full "point a taser at the cops" crazy.

174 points by wallflower 11y ago

puppetmaster3 11y ago

Why is gentrification bad?

eitally 11y ago
Because in order for cities to function properly, it's important that blue collar workers are able to afford to inhabit them. Un-governed gentrification and unreasonably low levels of low income housing result in situations like exist in the SFBA now, where many middle class households are either forced into extraordinarily long commutes (leads to higher stress, worse health and increased mortality) or cramped living in shared multi-family apartments/houses.
- Nutmog 11y ago
  What force makes people stay living in the same rented house no matter how bad it makes their life? Somehow people all across America are managing to survive despite not living in gentrified areas. Is SFBA the only place those middle class people can find a job? That sounds kind of unbelievable. Are they unmotivated to move because it's too much hard work? Afraid of losing friends and being unable to make new ones? I know these are costs but they really too high to bear? Personally, I live in a relatively small city and my income is far higher than my expenses. I once lived in London and the two were almost equal. Life was less comfortable then but I certainly didn't blame the rich bankers for pushing up my rent and bus fares.
  - ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
    "Is SFBA the only place those middle class people can find a job" Do you know how expensive it is to move? I mean, move across the country from the Bay Area? Should people be forced to move into the Central Valley, a 2+ hour train/public transit commute into the SFBA? What kind of crap quality of life is that?
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    >Somehow people all across America are managing to survive despite not living in gentrified areas. No, they're not. Employment, especially mid-to-high-wage employment, is geographically concentrated. Most of the land-area of the USA, so to speak, is poor, and getting poorer. Also, remember, 80% of the population actually lives in large metro-areas, not in the countryside.
  - eitally 11y ago
    The thing is, it partly depends on how you feel about societal well-being in general. If you believe these folks are valuable contributors to society, then you should naturally also believe it's important to help them continue doing so in ways that are not hazardous to their health, demeaning, or cause societal breakdowns (homelessness, drug abuse, child endangerment, etc). If you don't believe they're valuable contributors, I challenge you to describe how any high-CoL metro would successfully function without blue collar service workers.
  - cauterized 11y ago
    It's not just about the same house. It's also about moving away from friends, family and support structures that make life better no matter who you are and can make poverty more survivable. And it's about a city's inability to function without people who can pay the rent somewhere close enough to their low-wage jobs (in retail, bartending, waiting tables, etc - at the businesses which make the city desirable to live in in the first place) to make sense for them to work in the city instead of in another community.
  - lbebber 11y ago
    > I once lived in London and the two were almost equal. Life was less comfortable then but I certainly didn't blame the rich bankers for pushing up my rent and bus fares. I don't know your particular situation, but moving in a place you already know is expensive is an entirely different case than being priced out of a place you've already been living. (Plus it's hard to blame individual bankers or techies or whatever for it, it's more of a matter of public policy).
thearn4 11y ago
I think it is generally seen as a process that ends up pricing out and displacing the people who used to rent within an area (or even own, if property taxes end up spiking), thus dissolving the original community.
yomly 11y ago
It's a double edged sword: it generates wealth and regenerates an area. On the other hand people who may have lived there for 20+ years can get priced out of their own neighbourhood. Arguably, people have a right to continue living where theyve always lived, and should be able to live close to work. This is at least believed in the UK, in theory. Unfortunately, what normally happens is that house prices in the area grows exponentially fast and serves to only make the rich richer. Rental prices are usually pegged to housing prices and thus, the original inhabitants are pushed out.
dangerlibrary 11y ago
Decreased quality of life for those who rent and can no longer afford to live in the gentrified neighborhood. Increased property taxes for those who already own can force even long-time residents to move, regardless of whether they actually want to, simply because their home has suddenly and unexpectedly increased in value. You could argue that this is a windfall - but being forcibly displaced by increased cost of living isn't fun, even if you do get a bunch of money for your house (that you didn't want to sell in the first place). Also, change is scary.
- koolba 11y ago
  > Increased property taxes for those who already own can force even long-time residents to move, regardless of whether they actually want to, simply because their home has suddenly and unexpectedly increased in value. That's not really an issue in California as property tax growth is fixed: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1... Cash poor home owners get "stuck" in their homes because if they sold and bought a new house, they'd have significantly greater property taxes. Theyre better off keeping the home and either living there or renting it out.
- uiri 11y ago
  In California, real property is only reassessed at market value when it is sold or transferred. So property taxes won't increase on long-time residents who don't move. Rent control is, I believe, intended to provide the same effect for long-time residents who rent instead of own. I agree that increases in other components of the cost of living of an area can have the same effect though.
  - sulam 11y ago
    It's also reassessed if you improve it in any substantial way. My property taxes doubled after a remodel. Some of that was the remodel, but roughly half was due to prices in the neighborhood going up since my wife and I originally bought the house. In my case we can afford these extra taxes, but I can easily imagine that in other circumstances this would be difficult. The alternative is doing work without permits, which comes with other risks.
a_humean 11y ago
Basic reason is that it displaces the existing population through increasing prices in housing and services and alienates the existing population socially and culturally. The only people that experience the benefits of gentrification are wealthy newcomers, whereas existing populations suffer varying degrees of harm with the gradual destruction of their communities.
true_religion 11y ago
Because changing environment unintentionally pressures previous long-standing residents into leaving the area, and causes discomfort as two divergent groups meet in the same location and one feels the other is destroying, ruining, or usurping their culture. It's not "bad" as a moral stance, but certainly some claim it is bad from their perspective if they end up on the losing end of gentrification. To give an example that more people might empathize with. Parts of central London used to be affordable by the mid to upper classes, but these scenic locations are now 100% owned by others who only buy them for use as vacation homes. It's an odd case of gentrification pushing relatively wealthy people out of an area so that extremely wealthy people can live there instead.
Joe8Bit 11y ago
It goes hand in hand with an increased cost of living (e.g. the nicer things get the more expensive it is to live there) which in turn causes a displacement of people and communities who lived there before the gentrification happened. In many western countries there is also a strong correlation between the above displacement and it overly effecting minorities, who due to economic/political/social disenfranchisement have congregated communities in low cost areas. If you are a member of the more affluent population who moves into a gentrified area, it's great, but if you're a part of the community who has lived there for a long time and you suddenly can't afford to any more, it's really not great at all (to it mildly). So in a narrow sense 'gentrification' isn't a bad thing, however put in the wider context it can have very significant negative effects on poorer communities. Especially when combined with a lack of social/affordable housing.
gilgoomesh 11y ago
Gentrification is fundamentally a dramatic increase in local prices. The change isn't usually driven by locals earning more but by new people moving in and pricing the former residents out of the market. It's great for the new residents. It is terrible for the old – particularly old residents who don't own their own home or are otherwise unable to capitalize on the price shift.
- lr4444lr 11y ago
  That sounds like a net zero, not a net "bad", which is what the OP was asking.
venomsnake 11y ago
Why is outsourcing bad? Change is all good and fancy, until you are the one left behind/on the receiving end. The West right now - especially US and UK have a bad track record of redistributing the gains.
Noughmad 11y ago
Because not many people own homes in the US. So if local prices go up, renters have to move elsewhere. If you own a house, chances are you still have to move because other services become too expensive for you, but at least you made a nice profit on the house. If you rent, it's a lose-lose situation.
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
Because it means that society is rationing resources at a level of scarcity well above the actual level of scarcity. It means that some of the potential utility of just building more housing is being left on the table so that an artificial class conflict can be created between new and existing citizens.
mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
It often screws over the residents who worked hard to make an area desirable. A typical pattern goes like this: 1. An area is cheap because it is considered undesirable and all the rich folk move away. 2. Poor folks move there - artists, minorities, families. 3. These folk work for years to make the area safer, nicer to live in, more interesting. 4. Now that poor folk have improved the neighborhood, rich folk flood back in and buy up property or just drive up rents, pricing the original residents out. 5. Lower class folk forced to move to the next crappy neighborhood, and repeat the process.
mcguire 11y ago
In this case, the newcomers regard the residents generally as undesirable and specifically as criminals. In general, things which disrupt a community are not readily welcomed by the community.
puppetmaster3 11y ago
THANK you for comments, I honestly did not know that someone would be against it. I assume this is from a left POV, I see it as plus that a local business succeeds, or a new local hosting gets built, at worst more tax revenue = more services. I wonder to self if higher education is also viewed as bad, as it has same effect - higher local prices. So the outcome to anti-gentrification is the abandoned neighborhoods that investors would not want to develop. Not something we can solve, just a warning to business to not grow in the anti-gentrification areas.

dmschulman 11y ago

This police-assisted murder is a shame but I don't understand why we expect neighborhoods to remain frozen in time forever, never changing their racial or socioeconomic makeup for as long as the area exists. It's a given that neighborhoods, especially in the city, will change over time. The real issue isn't whether people who don't look like the lifelong residents will move in, it's if those new neighbors will treat the area and neighbors with the same reverence and respect that those before them did. I don't think people resent a changing neighborhood so much as they resent people with different values settling down and expecting the neighborhood to bend to their preference. This is clearly what's at stake in the death of Alex Nieto.

Joe8Bit 11y ago
I don't think many people would argue with the evolutionary nature of cities. I think what people would say, however, is that when cities change those with the least economic muscle tend to be the most adversely effected (e.g they lose their homes/tenancies when they can't afford to pay inflated rents). Again, that in itself might not be a problem if there were other places to move that poor communities could afford and wouldn't detrimentally affect their lives. I can speak from experience in London, poor communities have NO WHERE to move if an area is gentrified and they are forced out. Prices are city wide too high, gentrification has left no where 'cheap'. What that means is moving further from central London, which means moving further away from the main source of work and increasing expense of travel. Which all in turn means an even greater slip into poverty.
- cbeach 11y ago
  Those doing low-paid work in London are obviously important to the city, but I'd argue that those doing high-paid work make more sense to live in the city because theirs is the work that benefits most from the agglomeration that big cities provide. If low-paid workers have to travel further, then their wages will be forced upwards as a result. Employers are forced to pay prevailing market rates to get the staff they need.
  - UVB-76 11y ago

raldi 11y ago

This is the taser Alex Nieto pointed at the police and refused to drop (if the police are telling the truth): http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/taser.jpg http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03...

dangerlibrary 11y ago
allegedly pointed The four police officer's stories contradict one another as well as some of the physical evidence.
- justaman 11y ago
  If the taser was found anywhere but holstered it means that he _likely_ drew it. Any motion to draw a weapon(lethal or otherwise) is seen as a threat. Given that it is gun-shaped, it was a really stupid move if he did draw it.
  - dangerlibrary 11y ago
    Given that he studied criminal justice and had no criminal record whatsoever, I'm sure he knew how stupid that would be. Nobody has provided a reasonable explanation for why he would've done something so stupid.
    - raldi 11y ago
      He was suffering from schizophrenia and earlier that month shot his friend three times with the taser, according to the friend's testimony at a restraining-order hearing.
bonaldi 11y ago
Er, the taser some officers claim was pointed at them, and the one that was lying on the ground beside his collapsed body as it was still being shot by officers
true_religion 11y ago

ashray 11y ago

Is there no rent control in SF or other US cities? How do people get priced out?

raldi 11y ago
San Francisco has very strong rent control laws that limit rent increases to below the rate of inflation, that ensure well-behaved tenants generally can hold onto an apartment for their entire life if they want, and keep paying an ever-discounted rate, and they even apply when the tenant is wealthy. But when poor tenants voluntarily move out, they're usually replaced by someone willing to pay a lot more. Also, in any given year, a very small fraction of landlords (less than 1/10th of one percent) decide they don't want to be landlords anymore, and an extremely controversial California law called the Ellis Act allows them to decline to renew the lease and stop being landlords.
- pc86 11y ago
  Why the opposition to the Ellis Act? If I own a home and want to sell it, I shouldn't be limited to selling it to someone who wants to be a landlord (a very small minority of people). And if I buy a home, I shouldn't be forced to rent it to someone. If you rent a home you do not own it and you should not have any claim to what happens to it beyond the end of your current lease.
  - raldi 11y ago
    By the Copenhagen Theory of Ethics (https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...), once you rent an apartment to someone for a particular price, you have a moral obligation to continue doing that forever.
    - pc86 11y ago
      I don't see the word "rent" anywhere in your linked article but maybe a synonym is there somewhere. Regardless, if you agree to rent $PROPERTY to $TENANT and I you want to sell me $PROPERTY, I don't see why I should be bound at all to any agreement with $TENANT outside of letting their current lease expire. I don't buy that there is any moral obligation in the first place but to extend that to third parties seems a bit silly.

tinco 11y ago

This article seems to miss some crucial details. How does a jury go from the given description of a man armed with only a Taser being not only shot to disable but absolutely destroyed and vote unanimously in the police's favor? Was the question asked to the jury more specific, did the Guardian leave something out or was the jury really racist as the Guardian implies (by listing their races)?

jemfinch 11y ago
> being not only shot to disable but absolutely destroyed There is no such thing as "shoot to disable" with firearms. Firearms are lethal weapons. They should only be used when deadly force is justified, and cannot reliably be used to "disable" someone apart from killing them.
- Retric 11y ago
  You can "shoot to disable" though it can often result in death. Which can be useful if your trying to keep someone alive to interrogate. However, US police are flat out trained to kill. Note: Disable does not mean they are unarmed / unconscious, it generally means they can't move quickly and even if they could still be quite dangerous.
  - pygy_ 11y ago
    Case in point, Salah Abdelslam, the Paris terror 'suspect' who was arrested last week in Brussels, was shot in the leg as he was charging the police, then arrested.
  - hughperkins 11y ago
    Its because compensation for killing someone is on average less than for disabling someone.
RodericDay 11y ago
The article provides some key details you don't mention here: > It was a civil trial, so the standard was not “beyond a reasonable doubt”, just the “preponderance of evidence”. No one was facing prison, but if the city and officers were found liable, there could be a large financial settlement and it could affect the careers of the policemen. The trial was covered by several local media outlets. On Thursday 10 March, after an afternoon and morning of deliberations, the eight jurors – five white, one Asian woman and two Asian men – unanimously ruled in favour of the police on all counts. Namely: - It was a civil trial, - preponderance of evidence was required, - the penalty would come back to hurt the tax-base, - the jurors were insulated from the racial component.

LoSboccacc 11y ago

This is a very sad occurence but I'd wish an article to read more as facts than as a sob story

foldr 11y ago
Aaron Swartz commits suicide after being prosecuted for a crime that he did commit, and he's a martyr. A working class latino guy in San Francisco gets shot by the police because some white dudes didn't like the look of him, and it's basically his fault. Hacker news values.
- ousta 11y ago
  yes. he obviously got killed because some white dude didnt like the look of him. the gun he was pointing at the cops is not related to his death.
  - foldr 11y ago
    He got killed largely because some white dude called 911 for no good reason. (I mean, we're talking about someone who's so clueless about what a city is that he thinks that anyone who's brown is likely to be "foreign".) We have no evidence that Nieto pointed the taser at the cops who shot him.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - zahmahkibo 11y ago
    1. Please prove he pointed a gun at them. 2. People literally called the cops TO his location in the first place because he was sitting on a park bench eating. What is wrong with this picture? 3. He was shot 40 times. What is wrong with this picture? 4. The cop immediately called his union rep before an ambulance. What is wrong with this picture?
    - 11y ago

TheMagicHorsey 11y ago

Why would a person ever point a taser with a laser sight at uniformed police in this country? Yes this is a tragedy, but how are police supposed to react to a gun-like object pointed at them, in the heat of the moment? Cops get shot also. They are nervous on the job. As we would be, in their position. Are they supposed to react to a pointed gun with understanding and open arms? I just don't think that's practical.

deleted 11y ago
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zahmahkibo 11y ago
Please provide evidence he pointed the taser at them.
eli 11y ago
Witness Testifies Alex Nieto Never Drew Weapon http://missionlocal.org/2016/03/witness-testified-alex-nieto-never-drew-weapon/ http://missionlocal.org/2016/03/witness-testified-alex-nieto...
- raldi 11y ago
  And multiple other witnesses, including non-policemen, testify that he did.
foldr 11y ago
Cops always say that they feared for their life when they end up shooting an innocent person. If we just take their word for it, we're effectively saying that there are no circumstances under which we can legitimately criticize the police for killing someone (because the officers involved will always say that they perceived their lives to be in danger).
- raverbashing 11y ago
  Yes, but then the situation is evaluated One of the reasons for body cameras

Fiahil 11y ago

So. Four policemen put 40 bullets in somebody, and that's supposed to be "normal". What the hell?

hutzlibu 11y ago
It can be, if the somebody is armed and going berserk. But that was apparently not the case here.
czechdeveloper 11y ago
People don't fall dead after single bullet like in movies. In real scenarios 40 bullets are quite usual.
- justaman 11y ago
  This means each officer probably fired 10 rounds. This can be done in less than 5 seconds with a standard issue glock.
  - 33W 11y ago
    According to the article at least (which has been pointed out to be one-sided), at least one of the officers empties the first magazine and reloads. This would be 15-17 for the first officer, and the article also notes that the second car arrived after the shooting begun. I don't know everything that happened, and haven't developed an opinion overall, but it isn't as simple as rounds fired / number of officers.
- mtalantikite 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure the OP was trying to state that shooting to kill shouldn't be the normal thing police do.
  - BillinghamJ 11y ago
    There is no such thing as shooting to not kill. Officers are (correctly) trained that if they are in a situation which warrants them shooting, they should use all of the bullets currently loaded into their gun. The issue is that in the US, officers seem to come to the conclusion that killing the person is warranted way too quickly.

the-dude 11y ago

From a European perspective this is more 'Death by police state' than anything else.

raldi 11y ago
What happens in Europe when someone is seen in a public park waving around something that looks like this? http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/taser.jpg http://i2.wp.com/missionlocal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03...
- tinco 11y ago
  He'll be asked to put his weapon down. And will subsequently be charged with possession of a firearm or of something that looks like a firearm, and in addition probably with some kind of charge for endandering people and if he pointed it a police officer there'd be a charge for that as well. If the police felt especially threatened he might be shot in the leg or tasered (depending on what the police in that country is equipped with). All the charges together would probably result in a hefty fine, something like a few thousand euros and probably some jail time (a few months tops). p.s.: I'm talking about northern european countries here, southern/eastern countries are significantly less easy going.
  - whatok 11y ago
    Do police in these countries somehow have enhanced marksmanship and reaction times vs US police? I am not going to blame anyone for taking someone pointing a gun at them seriously and protecting their lives. Aiming for someone's leg (or let's try some movie techniques and shoot them in the hand) is only going to slow down reaction time and possibly end up with a worse situation.
    - scotty79 11y ago
      I think in Europe police doesn't assume that something that could be mistaken for a gun is a gun because presence of actual gun on any given random event is minsicule. If some gun was fired or if they are pursuing known serious criminals they use guns. In europe use of a gun is a planned action, not instincive response to feeling somewhat threatened.

advaits 11y ago

It is true that this case has the signs of unnecessary, racially-biased police brutality written all over it. It is also true that gentrification in SF is causing serious problems and culture clashes. But I think it's unfair and quite a stretch to take this example and say that 'gentrification' is directly responsible for this killing. The underlying problems here are racism and police brutality, which in this case are correlated to, but an entirely separate issue from, the sudden influx of wealth.

rayiner 11y ago
The death wasn't caused by racism and police brutality in the abstract. It was caused by the confluence of the two that manifests in the context of gentrification. Cities have a huge incentive to police these neighborhoods in a way that makes the gentrifiers "feel safe." That causes an atypically unstable situation.

raverbashing 11y ago

This is exactly like (minus the human tragedy) the bars that start getting noise complaints after more residential building move into their area And somehow people moving into a certain area think that what was there before should cater to all of their demands Really

zeveb 11y ago
I know of a place where there's been a gun club since the 40s. There's a road called Gun Club Road. There's a housing development called Gun Club Estates or somesuch. And people who move there complain about the noise of the … gun club. People are stupid.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

laurencerowe 11y ago

There's a lot left out in Solnit's article, see: http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/alex-nieto-was-not-killed-gentrification-its-worse http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/alex-nieto-w...

RodericDay 11y ago
> Nieto was clearly a man having a crisis, and his purported reaction when approached by police was not that of a rational person. Told to show his hands, Nieto allegedly demanded that the cops show theirs. He then reportedly drew his taser and fired three times. And so he was shot—and shot and shot—by officers who claim they did not realize Nieto was carrying a less-than-lethal device. This is the stuff she should have included into her article? This platitude about mental health, > Our jails are full of men and women whose crime is being mentally ill. Is not a more compelling analysis of the event than Solnit's take.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  Normally I'm pretty damn critical of the police, but drawing a gunlike weapon that's actually a weapon and not a plastic toy, while also being clearly out of your right mind... Well, he shouldn't have been shot, but wow.
  - blisterpeanuts 11y ago
    The police, or at least two of them, claim that he drew the taser. That doesn't mean he actually drew it, but merely that the police did what police often have done in the past--embellish or exaggerate the details to exonerate themselves. For this reason, and of course also to protect police from dishonest civilian witnesses, body cams should be standard issue equipment. In fact, I'm surprised SFPD hasn't long since required them.
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      Good points.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

navait 11y ago

> Evan Snow, a thirtysomething “user experience design professional”..., who had moved to the neighbourhood about six months earlier (and who has since departed for a more suburban environment) > Snow never seemed to recognise that his out-of-control dog was the aggressor: “So Luna was, I think, looking to move around the benches or behind me to run up happily to get a chip from Mr Nieto. Mr Nieto became further – what’s the right word? – distressed, moving very quickly and rapidly left to right, trying to keep his chips away from Luna. He ran down to these benches and jumped up on the benches, my dog following. She was at that point vocalising, barking, or kind of howling.” >– in his deposition for the case, under oath, his exact words were that he was distracted by a female “jogger’s butt”. “I can imagine that somebody would – could assume the dog was being aggressive at that point,” Snow said. The dog did not come when he called, but kept barking. Nieto, Snow says, then pulled back his jacket and took his Taser out, briefly pointing at the distant dog-owner before he pointed it at the dog baying at his feet. The two men yelled at each other, and Snow apparently used a racial slur, but would not later give the precise word. As he left the park, he texted a friend about the incident. His text, according to his testimony, said, “in another state like Florida, I would have been justified in shooting Mr Nieto that night” Is this guy real? This is the sort of person I'd expect to see on Silicon Valley not in the real world, he fits the techbro stereotype exactly. After each sentence I read, I thought this guy couldn't get even more stereotypical, but he managed to lower the bar further.

tptacek 11y ago
This is a person Rebecca Solnit chose to single out, carefully juxtaposing reports of his (incredibly obnoxious) behavior against Nieto's shooting, to which, even by Solnit's account (read carefully), he was not a party. I don't want to get drinks with this character in Solnit's story, either. But I'm not sure we should applaud the tactic of summoning up and focusing outrage on people like this.
- robterrell 11y ago
  Her implication is that this guy's dog is why the taser was visible, and the taser was reported as a handgun, and the police responded to that. I'd say he's a party -- his self-reported distraction started the whole series of events.

known 11y ago

One more vote for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Meaning_of_.22well_regulated_militia.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...

KKKKkkkk1 11y ago

The word 'xenophobia' literally means fear of strangers. But apparently it applies only if those strangers are Syrian illegals and not when they're white techies. It's unfortunate that the media is stoking this phenomenon. Strangely enough, here a British newspaper is concerned about the supposed invasion of a city half a world across from Britain.

jijoy 11y ago

Face it . If you are not white in US , you stand to loose your life with white trash with loose guns.

EvanMiller 11y ago

Hey guys! I know I'm a little late to the conversation, and while tragedies like this are totally sad and tragic, they're not unpreventable. Here at BurritoTech, we've developed a few apps that perhaps could have averted the unnecessary death of little Nieto: * NiceButt(tm) -- See a female jogger butt that strikes your fancy? With a press of a button we'll use your location and a proprietary algorithm to figure out to whom the lovely butt belongs -- and let you instantly browse pictures of that butt from multiple angles in multiple urban settings with varied jogging attire. No more distracted, in-person butt-staring while your unleashed dog intimidates a local minority. * DogWhistle(tm) -- Is a large, unleashed dog barking and howling at you while its owner is staring at a female jogger butt? Record an audio sample of the bark sound, and our machine-learning, digital-signal-processing algorithm will tell you instantly whether it's a friendly, doggie-needs-a-tummy rub yap, or else the howling harbinger of your death. * GangColors(tm) -- Is a nearby minority wearing a colorful jacket? Simply upload a picture of the jacket from any angle, and a team of on-call experts will tell you whether the jacket signifies affiliation with organized crime or with an NFL team -- or both! * GunMeBro(tm) -- Think "Uber for loaded handguns". Do you know that feeling when you want to "stand your ground" -- but you left your hand cannon back at the office? With GunMeBro, press a button and an independent contractor will personally deliver a gun into the palm of your hand -- this way, you can keep staring into the eyes of your interlocutor and wincing menacingly until you have the means to perform an execution-style killing without legal repercussion. (Service only available in Florida.) * NoYouCall(tm) -- Are you scared of a nearby minority -- but even more scared of having a social interaction with the 911 dispatcher? If your romantic partner refuses to call the police because he thinks it's a bad idea, you can now take matters into your own hands with NoYouCall. Simply take a short video of the suspicious person, and let our experts do the rest! Our on-call team will make a best-guess identification of the person's race, height, and visa status, imbue various possible nefarious motives to their physical movements, and describe the situation to the emergency-dispatch operator in the most harrowing, blood-curdling manner possible. If the cops don't arrive within five minutes -- with weapons drawn and a police helicopter on the horizon -- we'll even refund you 100% of your money! ($0.99 in the App Store and on Google Play) Sadly, unnecessary death is a growing market -- but tragedy breeds opportunity, and we're planning to expand our offerings in the near future (including PerfectAlibi, a tool to help police departments get their story straight after gunning down unarmed minorities). Here at BurritoTech we're always "on the lookout" for communications directors, email marketing managers, and ninja-star user experience design professionals -- so if your skills are "in that category of people I would not mess around with", please drop us a line! Send resumes to rememberingnieto [at] burrito [dot] io. Our office is in downtown SF but most of us work remotely from Marin County and more suburban environments.

polotics 11y ago

What about the "UnProvoker": free floating handcuffs that at the press of an easily accessible button will clamp on your hands and fingers, so if the incoming cop team shoots you, they won't be able to claim you acted menacing? Also the cops then have to come untie you, maybe time enough to start a conversation about racial profiling?

1812Overture 11y ago

Some other articles have mentioned that he was previously on some pretty powerful psych meds and there weren't any found in his system by the coroner. Quitting those medications cold turkey can make someone with previously minor mental health problems go full "point a taser at the cops" crazy.