10 ms·

To the 4 white male policemen who beat me for checking the health of [detainee]

163 points by eternalban 10y ago

13of40 10y ago
I had a conversation a little like that when I was a teenager, without the beating part: ME: Am I being arrested? COP: No, you're being detained. Get in the car. ME: And if I don't? COP: Then I'll arrest you. ME: For what? COP: For resisting. ME: Resisting what? COP: ?!?!? Just get in the damned car.
my_first_acct 10y ago
From Felipe Hoffa's twitter feed [0]: "Ali is a manager at Google. Ali is a doctor. Ali knows his rights. @aliafshar was brutally attacked by the police." Related tweets hint that the incident may have taken place in Santa Clara, California.. [0] https://twitter.com/felipehoffa/status/776131486437081088?lang=en https://twitter.com/felipehoffa/status/776131486437081088?la...
- exolymph 10y ago
  Article says El Camino, California (perhaps an update?)
  - gregatragenet3 10y ago
    El Camino is a street. It runs from San Jose nearly to San Francisco.
    - aetherson 10y ago
      Heh. It runs from San Diego to the North Bay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_(California) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_(California)
dleslie 10y ago
This is why I teach my children never to speak to police officers, to avoid them as much as possible, and to leave the area should they become visibly present. And I live in Canada; when I travel to the USA on business I stay in the hotel or the venue and restrict my traveling as much as possible. I don't fear the citizens, I fear the police.
- pmalynin 10y ago
  Thats interesting, I'm not sure which part of Canada you are from, but here in Edmonton the police are very friendly and as far as I know that is the majority opinion. Personally, and even amongst my friends (which ranges from Tim Horton's Employees to CS Professors) the opinion is the same. In general, especially in parts of downtown, I feel safer with the police around. I don't, however, have the same feeling in the States.
  - dleslie 10y ago
    AFAICT it really depends on which Canadian city you're in, the VPD and TPS are not the RCMP after all, and whether or not you appear to be native, black, or a prostitute. Still, you don't want to catch the attention of an officer; they are an agent of state force capable of incredible violence. But I agree that, in general, Canadian police forces are nowhere near as bad as major metropolitan forces in the USA.
  - fnbr 10y ago
    Not trying to nit pick here, as my experiences with Edmonton police have been similar, but my fiancee, who's black, has had different experiences with Edmonton police. Nothing as negative as this, but experiences that left her disheartened (police saying: well what should do you expect us to do? when she was jumped by a number of gang members at WEM). I also suspect that if you were to speak to Aboriginal Edmontonians, they'd have different opinions. Consider the way that the RCMP has treated indigenous individuals in the past.
    - refurb 10y ago
      I remember a long time ago, I think it was in Saskatchewan, where the RCMP would pick up drunk indians, drive them way out of the city and drop them off. In the middle of winter. Keep in mind this is Saskatchewan where it's typically -30C at night in the winter. Several of them froze to death.
mattnewton 10y ago
This struck a nerve. He should contact the ACLU, and If this guy needs money for lawyers I'd throw in to the pot to get some precedent.
trhway 10y ago
>“He is resisting arrest!” >They were running this weird fake dialog in the background. it seems to be a pattern how they run plausible deniability and can do whatever they want - one policeman may "see" something, like a gun, and announce it thus providing the other with full legal reason to act, i.e. shoot in the case of gun. If that "seeing" by the first happens to be just a mistake, such mistake can never be punished until proven that it was intentional, i.e. never. Such pattern is even completely resistant to body cameras.
- skywhopper 10y ago
  Yes they are trained (whether explicitly or informally between each other) to do this. It will continue so long as it works.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - gravypod 10y ago
    I'd like to ask you for a hypothetical. Say you are a police officer and one of your coworkers shouts "GUN" and you don't directly see one. You see your coworker freaking out, you see them drawing, and you see the other suspect moving. What do you do? Do you draw your gun/taser? I'd do that just going off of what my coworker has said. It's entirely reasonable to suspect there to be a gun. Now I'd like to run through two things that can happen from this point. The suspect either has a gun or does not. If I draw my gun, point it at the suspect, and wait till I see a gun (what the officers of the law are trained to do) is that not a reasonable reaction? What happens if I say "Oh I don't see it so I'm going to stand here and watch"? My partner and some innocent by-standards might very well get hurt because now I have to wait for my senses to catch up with what's going on before I react. I don't think it's unreasonable for cops to be allowed to go off what other cops are saying. If it can be proved that a cop has lied then that's another story. They should be punished to the full extent of the law for lying. Sadly though it's not illegal for them to lie to or about us, it's only illegal for us to lie to them.
    - 10y ago
trungonnews 10y ago
Santa Clara city has some racist cops. I was pulled over, accused of DUI, arrested, illegally searched my car, brought back to the station for a blood test. Blood test came back with zero alcohol in my body. They treated me like I was criminal, finger printed, mugshotted. After being held for two hours, I had to pay $300 to retrieve my car from the impound. I guess we still have a lot of bad cops in the Silicon Valley then we thought.
- roflchoppa 10y ago
  when i had to pay a ticket at the santa clara court house the cops there are a bunch of smart asses. Except for that black cop who was at the door, he was very helpful.
  - trungonnews 10y ago
    Agree, officers of color are usually nicer. The Asian cop who helped me retrieve the impound release paperwork was nice to me. Even waived the $100 paper work fee. But I'm still pissed about the whole situation. Wasted three hours and $300 because of some cop decided to arrest a sober person to kill time rather than patrolling the street and catching the real criminals. Edit: had to change colored to officers of color to be more PC.
    - roflchoppa 10y ago
      What a complete waste of time, impound lots are even worse, i assume they did not give you an opportunity to call someone to get your car. No breathalyzer on spot?
    - otterley 10y ago
      I'm sure you didn't intend any offense, but for future reference, "colored" is considered archaic and borderline racial-epithet in the U.S. (I realize it's quite normal and non-offensive elsewhere.)
      - trungonnews 10y ago
williamgb 10y ago
Interesting to see that "white" managed to lead the spate of pejoratives toward the end of the article ("Each of 4 white, ignorant, racist asshole police officers"). I've been the victim of interracial crime, at least once due to my race. I did not consider the race of my assailants to be anywhere near the top of the list of characteristics to which I should like to object.
- AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
  Without any facts, I'm skeptical. He should either move on with his life, or make a formal complaint and/or a lawsuit. Taking the middle road with a story with few details on Medium doesn't help anyone.
  - harry8 10y ago
    I didn't believe Bill Cosby's accusers. Neither did law enforcement. Seeing the cover of the magazine with so many accusers, yeah maybe I and law enforcement were both wrong and it needed a closer look. Didn't want to believe it. It could be the same with all of these stories of law enforcement behaving very badly. It seems like a weird thing for so many disparate people to be fabricating. Maybe there is a problem and reporting it isn't getting toward a solution? If it happens to you, silence is almost certainly the wrong course of action. I don't want to believe there is an endemic problem with law enforcement either. What I want shouldn't matter at all.
joesmo 10y ago
I'm sorry that this happened to the author, but the author has no common sense whatsoever. In addition to suing these officers and the police department, he should probably consider getting some common sense and never approaching a police officer again. I mean, seriously, what did he expect would happen? That they would let him check the suspect? That's so incredibly far-fetched and ridiculous, I cannot even imagine it! Does this guy even know what country he lives in? As was quoted in another piece today, "This is America."
- powertower 10y ago
  It is unfortunate that your comment is getting downvoted instead of upvoted. In our politically correct world, commonsense is no longer desirable.
- wfo 10y ago
  "Common sense" is only common to the people who know it already. There are plenty of people who think the vast majority of the police are public servants trying to do their job, serve and protect. Maybe they're right. Some are. I've had good interactions with police officers and bad ones. The author was trying to do the right thing and maybe save someone's life. If a woman screams for help in a dark alley, it isn't common sense to run in and try to help her -- you're putting yourself in the line of fire. But it's brave and we celebrate and worship the people who do it rightfully as heroes, we don't berate them for "not having common sense" and putting themselves at risk. What he did took courage or naive ignorance (or both) and from the rest of the article I'm fairly certain it's not ignorance -- he's well aware of rampant police brutality.
  - powertower 10y ago
    He witnessed white cops and a handcuffed black male who he claims was possibly muttering to himself. No one was beating anyone, no one was bleeding out. Common-sense is he interfered and made the situation worse.
    - wfo 10y ago
powertower 10y ago
Wait for the evidence, and the other side of the story, before making a judgment. The last 9 out of 10 of these types of stories turned out to be completely hoaxed on the part of the victim.
- koenigdavidmj 10y ago
  I can write the other side for you right now, the same as the last few dozen times this type of thing happened: "We investigated ourselves, and found ourselves free of fault. The man in question was acting suspiciously and interfering with us protecting you. Our officers have to make snap judgments about circumstances like whether a suspicious person's ID is fake; they shouldn't be tried with perfect hindsight."
- rjn945 10y ago
  Do you have a link to an example of hoax story? I haven't seen that.
  - powertower 10y ago
    Take any racial media story... From the Duke-lacrosse rape case, to the shooting of Michael Brown, the "clock boy", the black woman killed in jail, and everything in-between and beyond. All proved to be false narratives. The list is so large that I'm constantly surprised by the opinion that such a thing does not exist.
mdadm 10y ago
Why does "white"/"male" matter? I understand that this is potentially a very contentious question, but I genuinely don't understand why those are listed in the title, or why "white" was the first in a list of insulting words used at the end of the article.
- powertower 10y ago
  What really gets to me is the fact that white societies are the number #1 immigration destinations for non-whites, and are entirely responsible for this person's opportunities and high standards of living. Yet all he sees is white racism. edit: since I can't reply anymore; to that one person... You've missed the point entirely. 1. You don't know that race had anything to do with what happened. All you have is one side of a story that keeps dragging race into it. Which is very racist in itself. 2. If white societies where racist, they would not be the #1 immigration destination or have the highest standards of living for non-whites (or even let non-whites in).
  - oconnore 10y ago
    But he's probably right (and he's certainly the most qualified to comment on this incident). I'm pretty sure if I had walked up and said, "Is everything all right? I'm a medical doctor in case you need a hand with anything." the situation would have gone much differently. Furthermore, even if he isn't right, there is plenty of evidence of a growing white nationalism/racism in this country that the article wouldn't be any less relevant if you could somehow prove that these four particular officers are not racist.
    - anexprogrammer 10y ago
      But he didn't identify himself as a doctor. I can't help feel the encounter may have gone differently if he had. Not that the behaviour is any more acceptable if he was just a random passer by.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
rayiner 10y ago
This shit has been happening to poor black and Hispanic people for a long time. In a sick way, it's a good thing that it's happening to doctors now. It's easy for comfortable suburbanites to vote pro-police, but now that the cancer has spread and police are brazenly abusing everyone else, it won't be so easy to ignore. We need a system of collective punishment for such conduct. "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. For example, lawyers are subject to professional discipline for failing to rat out the misconduct of other lawyers. Liability also flows up to supervisors from reports. It creates a healthy culture of paranoia. There is no reason police should be held to a lesser standard.
- eternalban 10y ago
  > "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/baltimore-joe-crystal_n_7582374.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/baltimore-joe-cryst... There are good cops out there, no doubt about it.
  - fake-name 10y ago
    Maybe, but the few "bad apples" have spoilt the bunch.
    - eternalban 10y ago
      I wouldn't know if it is "few" or "most" or whatever. The implied point of citing officer Crystal's ordeals -- and he was basically given a mild form of the Mafia treatment by his "fraternal" brethren -- was that the society-at-large should step up and go to bat for the "good" cops. I'm not sure if we are doing that.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  > "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. Good police officers do fear losing their lives and their livelihoods for not looking the other way. I'm a strong advocate for hotlines specifically for police officers to report other officers, backed by civilian investigative authorities with no loyalties or connections to the police force, but with the ability to investigate and a primary mandate to protect the reporting officer. Plenty of police officers are disgusted by a lot of the people they work with. I've met them. I also think that policemen involved in cover-ups of police shootings should generally be punished more than the shooters. For the shooter, this was a usually spontaneous act spurred by fear and rage, and happened in an instant. The same cannot be said for the cover-up. The cover-ups create an environment of impunity that make future shootings more likely.
koenigdavidmj 10y ago
We need a few very large businesses to refuse to do business with police, against their own financial interest, before they'll notice something is wrong. More fines that taxpayers pay aren't fixing it. If Dunkin Donuts could be convinced not to allow cops to enter their business except with a warrant, or Glock refused to sell a department any more weapons, they might do something. (Of course, this is illegal in California. And I'm hesitant to encourage this fully without a measurable standard of when sufficient change has occurred to start working with them again.)
650REDHAIR 10y ago
At what point did you identify yourself as a doctor?
- fake-name 10y ago
  At what point does not immediately notifying people that you're a doctor remotely justify beating the shit out of you?
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    It doesn't justify the beating. But if a random guy walks into the middle of a police confrontation, that random guy is going to be presumed hostile until proven otherwise, with some fairly good reason. He just made the situation considerably less safe, even with the best of cops. From there, the cops went completely out of control. But notifying them that he was a doctor might have prevented them from starting down that path.
    - johnnyn2o 10y ago
      Out of control according to the guy who confronted police, claimed to be a MD, then refused to show his ID and call the police names.
mavdi 10y ago
Yeah ok, brave guy but he will eventually get shot for doing this. Call me a coward, but I'd never do something like this. I have a kid to raise.
- mping 10y ago
  Thats all fine and dandy, but if it was your kid being detained (or yourself), wouldn't you like a passerby to check on you? It's not being coward, it's being shortsighted.
WalterBright 10y ago
Consider it from the cops' point of view. A random person shows up and wants to "check the health" of their suspect. When asked for id, he wants to debate "why". Does he seriously think they'll let some unknown person who refuses to provide id interfere with their arrest? Would any cop in any country allow this? What he should have done is opened with "I am a licensed physician, here's my license and id. May I check the person's health, he appears to be having a seizure?" It does appear the cops overreacted, but how could he expect anything but a negative reaction from the way he approached it?
- lambdasquirrel 10y ago
  Maybe. Are we also breaking people's fingers for a bit of a harried response when they see that someone may be having a fit or a seizure?
- morgante 10y ago
  How is that at all relevant? He could have shown up and started cussing at them and they wouldn't have justification to beat him up and arrest him. Cops are supposed to serve us, not the other way around. We shouldn't have to be afraid of them or treat them like volatile, emotional dictators (though that's exactly what they are).
  - generic_user 10y ago
    A crime scene and an arrest in progress are not an informal gathering of a bunch of people you can happily join in. By interfering for any reason with a crime scene in progress you are putting the Officers lives in jeopardy and possibly your own if you you make the wrong choices. They are fully sanctioned under the Law to take your life if they feel threatened in the line of duty. Even something as simple as putting your hand in you pocket could be a life threatening situation and you could be shot.
    - morgante 10y ago
      This attitude is abhorrent. Asking questions is not justification for a cop to do anything to you, even at a "crime scene." Cops are not dictators allowed to commit murder because they "feel threatened." They are supposed to be trained professionals who asses actual risks. Cops are not judge and jury, or at least they're not supposed to be. > They are fully sanctioned under the Law to take your life if they feel threatened in the line of duty. That's a terrible attitude and is not the law, though unfortunately law enforcement protects its own and will never prosecute police. I have a right to self-defense. Does that mean I have the right to shoot police when I feel threatened by them driving behind me as I go on my morning walk?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
asdffderty 10y ago
> white male stopped reading right there.
gravypod 10y ago
Had I read through this article years ago I'd feel very different about this then I do now. My default position is, and always will be, to suspect the government is at fault but that being said I still understand why police officers do what they do. I'd like to leave something that has helped me to understand the thought process of most police officers. There is a youtube channel called "Think Like A Cop - The Rest Of The Story" run by an..... interesting character. He's an expolice officer who, by all accounts I've been able to find, was very good at what he did. He presents the "other side of the story", the side of the police that you don't usually hear well developed. From watching many of his videos, I can pretty safely assume that he doesn't trust the government, I'm fairly sure he isn't racist, and I'm fairly sure he isn't sexist. What is more representative of him is that he tries his hardest not to be politically correct. It is my opinion that even if you don't respect him as a person, you can probably respect his methods of thinking about problems and his experience as a police officer. I'd hope some of the people here watch some of his stories about how cops react to situations as he makes things that seem 100% unreasonable seem much more sensible. For instance his motto is "no people belong on the ground" which refer to to people who want to be adversarial to the police. This policy is blanketed across all people that cops deal with and after watching some of his police shooting videos you can see why. When he shows videos of cops getting shot or killed he mostly shows videos where the police don't follow this golden rule. This rings true with all of the cop shooting videos I've seen. I'm not saying he is right, I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying he offers a very "interesting" perspective that I think many will enjoy.
- shawndumas 10y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgkhimI0MthrMZo-F2zrTQ/featured https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgkhimI0MthrMZo-F2zrTQ/fea... not an endorsement; just being helpful...
  - gravypod 10y ago
    Thanks, I'd have felt kind of strange linking directly to there. He is a very interesting person, it's well worth watching him.
davesque 10y ago
While I basically agree with the argument of this article -- that it's not okay for officers to be so aggressive, abusive, and dishonest -- I don't find the tone to be very helpful for a couple of reasons. 1) The word "white" appeared in a sequence of insults toward the end of the article. It's hard to deny that, while this kind of talk might be broadly accepted, it's still basically racism. Fundamentally, the ethnicity of the officers is irrelevant. The account of what happened didn't even mention the officers calling out the author's race. 2) It's understandable that a person would feel extremely angry after an experience like this. Even so, it seems the author hasn't let much of his anger die down since the time of the event. The tone of the article is not only angry, but quite frankly, a bit juvenile e.g. the talk about hiring a "badass" lawyer. Either way, I don't feel like much good will come as a result of this incident. I'd feel differently if Mr. Afshar spent his time calmly talking about how he took the officers to court, what kinds of evidence he cited against them, and how others could do the same.
- zbyte64 10y ago
  The ethnicity is relevant in that these 4 white officers give a bad reputation for other white officers. Even Jesus acted out of anger, and it was righteous.
- justin66 10y ago
  I'm white and I didn't view it as any sort of racist slur to identify the cops as white. It indicates that the author viewed his treatment, and the treatment of the handcuffed suspect, at the hands of police as probably being racially motivated.
generic_user 10y ago
"As I pulled over to ask if the gentleman was OK, I was immediately threatened with a ticket for blocking traffic. I re-parked my car legally and returned." This person drove past the scene of a crime while Police Offices were in midst of arresting someone. He stopped his car was told to move. He then proceeded to park his car car and approach the suspect. I'm sorry but if you pull your car over and interferer with a crime scene where the police are in the midst of an arrest you will be arrested and incapacitated to preserve the safety of the officers. The 'Evil White Man' is sadly, predictable click bait to drive traffic. I'm sure this person would be in court if he had a case. But any lawyer is going to tell you if you interfere with police business you have no case.
johnnyn2o 10y ago
Racist jerk rolls up on police like a cowboy and gets rolled. Next time do what the police tell you.
johnnyn2o 10y ago
Racist jerk rolls up on police like a cowboy and gets rolled. Next time do what the police tell you.
johnnyn2o 10y ago
1) Rolls up, parks car blocking traffic 2) Tells police he's a doctor and makes demands. Police ask for ID, fuck you racist pigs. 3) Goes back to move his car that is blocking traffic 4) Returns to harass the police 5) Goes to jail, lies about being beat up. 6) Liberals applaud him like a hero. Fuck those racist white male cops. No chance this guy got beat up. He wouldn't have gone to jail if he had interacted respectfully and complied with police orders.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sctb 10y ago
  We've banned this account which was created to post uncivilly in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
tzs 10y ago
From the comments on the article: aggieben:> Did you identity yourself as a doctor, or in any kind of way you had a reason to be there? author:> No I didn’t. That was my first error. Second was not immediately showing my ID. I certainly could have done this all better.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Zilroy 10y ago
There is a bit of a culture clash at play here. Most Americans are conditioned to defer to cops and cower when interacting with cops. This is the part of idolatry of uniformed men (aka 'thugs with guns') in the USA. For them 'common sense' means kneeling whenever a cop lays an eye on you. In much of the rest of the world cops are treated as government employees, paid to risk their lives in confrontational situations (as they don't have many other skills, that is the main reason they are paid for in the first place.) It is not uncommon for a citizen to confront a policeman and request him/her to be civil. You don't get beaten or shot for that.

163 points by eternalban 10y ago

I had a conversation a little like that when I was a teenager, without the beating part: ME: Am I being arrested? COP: No, you're being detained. Get in the car. ME: And if I don't? COP: Then I'll arrest you. ME: For what? COP: For resisting. ME: Resisting what? COP: ?!?!? Just get in the damned car.

my_first_acct 10y ago

From Felipe Hoffa's twitter feed [0]: "Ali is a manager at Google. Ali is a doctor. Ali knows his rights. @aliafshar was brutally attacked by the police." Related tweets hint that the incident may have taken place in Santa Clara, California.. [0] https://twitter.com/felipehoffa/status/776131486437081088?lang=en https://twitter.com/felipehoffa/status/776131486437081088?la...

exolymph 10y ago
Article says El Camino, California (perhaps an update?)
- gregatragenet3 10y ago
  El Camino is a street. It runs from San Jose nearly to San Francisco.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    Heh. It runs from San Diego to the North Bay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_(California) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_(California)

dleslie 10y ago

This is why I teach my children never to speak to police officers, to avoid them as much as possible, and to leave the area should they become visibly present. And I live in Canada; when I travel to the USA on business I stay in the hotel or the venue and restrict my traveling as much as possible. I don't fear the citizens, I fear the police.

pmalynin 10y ago
Thats interesting, I'm not sure which part of Canada you are from, but here in Edmonton the police are very friendly and as far as I know that is the majority opinion. Personally, and even amongst my friends (which ranges from Tim Horton's Employees to CS Professors) the opinion is the same. In general, especially in parts of downtown, I feel safer with the police around. I don't, however, have the same feeling in the States.
- dleslie 10y ago
  AFAICT it really depends on which Canadian city you're in, the VPD and TPS are not the RCMP after all, and whether or not you appear to be native, black, or a prostitute. Still, you don't want to catch the attention of an officer; they are an agent of state force capable of incredible violence. But I agree that, in general, Canadian police forces are nowhere near as bad as major metropolitan forces in the USA.
- fnbr 10y ago
  Not trying to nit pick here, as my experiences with Edmonton police have been similar, but my fiancee, who's black, has had different experiences with Edmonton police. Nothing as negative as this, but experiences that left her disheartened (police saying: well what should do you expect us to do? when she was jumped by a number of gang members at WEM). I also suspect that if you were to speak to Aboriginal Edmontonians, they'd have different opinions. Consider the way that the RCMP has treated indigenous individuals in the past.
  - refurb 10y ago
    I remember a long time ago, I think it was in Saskatchewan, where the RCMP would pick up drunk indians, drive them way out of the city and drop them off. In the middle of winter. Keep in mind this is Saskatchewan where it's typically -30C at night in the winter. Several of them froze to death.

mattnewton 10y ago

This struck a nerve. He should contact the ACLU, and If this guy needs money for lawyers I'd throw in to the pot to get some precedent.

trhway 10y ago

>“He is resisting arrest!” >They were running this weird fake dialog in the background. it seems to be a pattern how they run plausible deniability and can do whatever they want - one policeman may "see" something, like a gun, and announce it thus providing the other with full legal reason to act, i.e. shoot in the case of gun. If that "seeing" by the first happens to be just a mistake, such mistake can never be punished until proven that it was intentional, i.e. never. Such pattern is even completely resistant to body cameras.

skywhopper 10y ago
Yes they are trained (whether explicitly or informally between each other) to do this. It will continue so long as it works.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- gravypod 10y ago
  I'd like to ask you for a hypothetical. Say you are a police officer and one of your coworkers shouts "GUN" and you don't directly see one. You see your coworker freaking out, you see them drawing, and you see the other suspect moving. What do you do? Do you draw your gun/taser? I'd do that just going off of what my coworker has said. It's entirely reasonable to suspect there to be a gun. Now I'd like to run through two things that can happen from this point. The suspect either has a gun or does not. If I draw my gun, point it at the suspect, and wait till I see a gun (what the officers of the law are trained to do) is that not a reasonable reaction? What happens if I say "Oh I don't see it so I'm going to stand here and watch"? My partner and some innocent by-standards might very well get hurt because now I have to wait for my senses to catch up with what's going on before I react. I don't think it's unreasonable for cops to be allowed to go off what other cops are saying. If it can be proved that a cop has lied then that's another story. They should be punished to the full extent of the law for lying. Sadly though it's not illegal for them to lie to or about us, it's only illegal for us to lie to them.
  - 10y ago

trungonnews 10y ago

Santa Clara city has some racist cops. I was pulled over, accused of DUI, arrested, illegally searched my car, brought back to the station for a blood test. Blood test came back with zero alcohol in my body. They treated me like I was criminal, finger printed, mugshotted. After being held for two hours, I had to pay $300 to retrieve my car from the impound. I guess we still have a lot of bad cops in the Silicon Valley then we thought.

roflchoppa 10y ago
when i had to pay a ticket at the santa clara court house the cops there are a bunch of smart asses. Except for that black cop who was at the door, he was very helpful.
- trungonnews 10y ago
  Agree, officers of color are usually nicer. The Asian cop who helped me retrieve the impound release paperwork was nice to me. Even waived the $100 paper work fee. But I'm still pissed about the whole situation. Wasted three hours and $300 because of some cop decided to arrest a sober person to kill time rather than patrolling the street and catching the real criminals. Edit: had to change colored to officers of color to be more PC.
  - roflchoppa 10y ago
    What a complete waste of time, impound lots are even worse, i assume they did not give you an opportunity to call someone to get your car. No breathalyzer on spot?
  - otterley 10y ago
    I'm sure you didn't intend any offense, but for future reference, "colored" is considered archaic and borderline racial-epithet in the U.S. (I realize it's quite normal and non-offensive elsewhere.)
    - trungonnews 10y ago

williamgb 10y ago

Interesting to see that "white" managed to lead the spate of pejoratives toward the end of the article ("Each of 4 white, ignorant, racist asshole police officers"). I've been the victim of interracial crime, at least once due to my race. I did not consider the race of my assailants to be anywhere near the top of the list of characteristics to which I should like to object.

AWildDHHAppears 10y ago
Without any facts, I'm skeptical. He should either move on with his life, or make a formal complaint and/or a lawsuit. Taking the middle road with a story with few details on Medium doesn't help anyone.
- harry8 10y ago
  I didn't believe Bill Cosby's accusers. Neither did law enforcement. Seeing the cover of the magazine with so many accusers, yeah maybe I and law enforcement were both wrong and it needed a closer look. Didn't want to believe it. It could be the same with all of these stories of law enforcement behaving very badly. It seems like a weird thing for so many disparate people to be fabricating. Maybe there is a problem and reporting it isn't getting toward a solution? If it happens to you, silence is almost certainly the wrong course of action. I don't want to believe there is an endemic problem with law enforcement either. What I want shouldn't matter at all.

joesmo 10y ago

I'm sorry that this happened to the author, but the author has no common sense whatsoever. In addition to suing these officers and the police department, he should probably consider getting some common sense and never approaching a police officer again. I mean, seriously, what did he expect would happen? That they would let him check the suspect? That's so incredibly far-fetched and ridiculous, I cannot even imagine it! Does this guy even know what country he lives in? As was quoted in another piece today, "This is America."

powertower 10y ago
It is unfortunate that your comment is getting downvoted instead of upvoted. In our politically correct world, commonsense is no longer desirable.
wfo 10y ago
"Common sense" is only common to the people who know it already. There are plenty of people who think the vast majority of the police are public servants trying to do their job, serve and protect. Maybe they're right. Some are. I've had good interactions with police officers and bad ones. The author was trying to do the right thing and maybe save someone's life. If a woman screams for help in a dark alley, it isn't common sense to run in and try to help her -- you're putting yourself in the line of fire. But it's brave and we celebrate and worship the people who do it rightfully as heroes, we don't berate them for "not having common sense" and putting themselves at risk. What he did took courage or naive ignorance (or both) and from the rest of the article I'm fairly certain it's not ignorance -- he's well aware of rampant police brutality.
- powertower 10y ago
  He witnessed white cops and a handcuffed black male who he claims was possibly muttering to himself. No one was beating anyone, no one was bleeding out. Common-sense is he interfered and made the situation worse.
  - wfo 10y ago

powertower 10y ago

Wait for the evidence, and the other side of the story, before making a judgment. The last 9 out of 10 of these types of stories turned out to be completely hoaxed on the part of the victim.

koenigdavidmj 10y ago
I can write the other side for you right now, the same as the last few dozen times this type of thing happened: "We investigated ourselves, and found ourselves free of fault. The man in question was acting suspiciously and interfering with us protecting you. Our officers have to make snap judgments about circumstances like whether a suspicious person's ID is fake; they shouldn't be tried with perfect hindsight."
rjn945 10y ago
Do you have a link to an example of hoax story? I haven't seen that.
- powertower 10y ago
  Take any racial media story... From the Duke-lacrosse rape case, to the shooting of Michael Brown, the "clock boy", the black woman killed in jail, and everything in-between and beyond. All proved to be false narratives. The list is so large that I'm constantly surprised by the opinion that such a thing does not exist.

mdadm 10y ago

Why does "white"/"male" matter? I understand that this is potentially a very contentious question, but I genuinely don't understand why those are listed in the title, or why "white" was the first in a list of insulting words used at the end of the article.

powertower 10y ago
What really gets to me is the fact that white societies are the number #1 immigration destinations for non-whites, and are entirely responsible for this person's opportunities and high standards of living. Yet all he sees is white racism. edit: since I can't reply anymore; to that one person... You've missed the point entirely. 1. You don't know that race had anything to do with what happened. All you have is one side of a story that keeps dragging race into it. Which is very racist in itself. 2. If white societies where racist, they would not be the #1 immigration destination or have the highest standards of living for non-whites (or even let non-whites in).
- oconnore 10y ago
  But he's probably right (and he's certainly the most qualified to comment on this incident). I'm pretty sure if I had walked up and said, "Is everything all right? I'm a medical doctor in case you need a hand with anything." the situation would have gone much differently. Furthermore, even if he isn't right, there is plenty of evidence of a growing white nationalism/racism in this country that the article wouldn't be any less relevant if you could somehow prove that these four particular officers are not racist.
  - anexprogrammer 10y ago
    But he didn't identify himself as a doctor. I can't help feel the encounter may have gone differently if he had. Not that the behaviour is any more acceptable if he was just a random passer by.
    - deleted 10y ago
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rayiner 10y ago

This shit has been happening to poor black and Hispanic people for a long time. In a sick way, it's a good thing that it's happening to doctors now. It's easy for comfortable suburbanites to vote pro-police, but now that the cancer has spread and police are brazenly abusing everyone else, it won't be so easy to ignore. We need a system of collective punishment for such conduct. "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. For example, lawyers are subject to professional discipline for failing to rat out the misconduct of other lawyers. Liability also flows up to supervisors from reports. It creates a healthy culture of paranoia. There is no reason police should be held to a lesser standard.

eternalban 10y ago
> "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/baltimore-joe-crystal_n_7582374.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/baltimore-joe-cryst... There are good cops out there, no doubt about it.
- fake-name 10y ago
  Maybe, but the few "bad apples" have spoilt the bunch.
  - eternalban 10y ago
    I wouldn't know if it is "few" or "most" or whatever. The implied point of citing officer Crystal's ordeals -- and he was basically given a mild form of the Mafia treatment by his "fraternal" brethren -- was that the society-at-large should step up and go to bat for the "good" cops. I'm not sure if we are doing that.
pessimizer 10y ago
> "Good" police officers should fear losing their livelihoods for helping cover up the abuses of "bad" ones. Good police officers do fear losing their lives and their livelihoods for not looking the other way. I'm a strong advocate for hotlines specifically for police officers to report other officers, backed by civilian investigative authorities with no loyalties or connections to the police force, but with the ability to investigate and a primary mandate to protect the reporting officer. Plenty of police officers are disgusted by a lot of the people they work with. I've met them. I also think that policemen involved in cover-ups of police shootings should generally be punished more than the shooters. For the shooter, this was a usually spontaneous act spurred by fear and rage, and happened in an instant. The same cannot be said for the cover-up. The cover-ups create an environment of impunity that make future shootings more likely.

koenigdavidmj 10y ago

We need a few very large businesses to refuse to do business with police, against their own financial interest, before they'll notice something is wrong. More fines that taxpayers pay aren't fixing it. If Dunkin Donuts could be convinced not to allow cops to enter their business except with a warrant, or Glock refused to sell a department any more weapons, they might do something. (Of course, this is illegal in California. And I'm hesitant to encourage this fully without a measurable standard of when sufficient change has occurred to start working with them again.)

650REDHAIR 10y ago

At what point did you identify yourself as a doctor?

fake-name 10y ago
At what point does not immediately notifying people that you're a doctor remotely justify beating the shit out of you?
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  It doesn't justify the beating. But if a random guy walks into the middle of a police confrontation, that random guy is going to be presumed hostile until proven otherwise, with some fairly good reason. He just made the situation considerably less safe, even with the best of cops. From there, the cops went completely out of control. But notifying them that he was a doctor might have prevented them from starting down that path.
  - johnnyn2o 10y ago
    Out of control according to the guy who confronted police, claimed to be a MD, then refused to show his ID and call the police names.

mavdi 10y ago

Yeah ok, brave guy but he will eventually get shot for doing this. Call me a coward, but I'd never do something like this. I have a kid to raise.

mping 10y ago
Thats all fine and dandy, but if it was your kid being detained (or yourself), wouldn't you like a passerby to check on you? It's not being coward, it's being shortsighted.

WalterBright 10y ago

Consider it from the cops' point of view. A random person shows up and wants to "check the health" of their suspect. When asked for id, he wants to debate "why". Does he seriously think they'll let some unknown person who refuses to provide id interfere with their arrest? Would any cop in any country allow this? What he should have done is opened with "I am a licensed physician, here's my license and id. May I check the person's health, he appears to be having a seizure?" It does appear the cops overreacted, but how could he expect anything but a negative reaction from the way he approached it?

lambdasquirrel 10y ago
Maybe. Are we also breaking people's fingers for a bit of a harried response when they see that someone may be having a fit or a seizure?
morgante 10y ago
How is that at all relevant? He could have shown up and started cussing at them and they wouldn't have justification to beat him up and arrest him. Cops are supposed to serve us, not the other way around. We shouldn't have to be afraid of them or treat them like volatile, emotional dictators (though that's exactly what they are).
- generic_user 10y ago
  A crime scene and an arrest in progress are not an informal gathering of a bunch of people you can happily join in. By interfering for any reason with a crime scene in progress you are putting the Officers lives in jeopardy and possibly your own if you you make the wrong choices. They are fully sanctioned under the Law to take your life if they feel threatened in the line of duty. Even something as simple as putting your hand in you pocket could be a life threatening situation and you could be shot.
  - morgante 10y ago
    This attitude is abhorrent. Asking questions is not justification for a cop to do anything to you, even at a "crime scene." Cops are not dictators allowed to commit murder because they "feel threatened." They are supposed to be trained professionals who asses actual risks. Cops are not judge and jury, or at least they're not supposed to be. > They are fully sanctioned under the Law to take your life if they feel threatened in the line of duty. That's a terrible attitude and is not the law, though unfortunately law enforcement protects its own and will never prosecute police. I have a right to self-defense. Does that mean I have the right to shoot police when I feel threatened by them driving behind me as I go on my morning walk?

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asdffderty 10y ago

> white male stopped reading right there.

gravypod 10y ago

Had I read through this article years ago I'd feel very different about this then I do now. My default position is, and always will be, to suspect the government is at fault but that being said I still understand why police officers do what they do. I'd like to leave something that has helped me to understand the thought process of most police officers. There is a youtube channel called "Think Like A Cop - The Rest Of The Story" run by an..... interesting character. He's an expolice officer who, by all accounts I've been able to find, was very good at what he did. He presents the "other side of the story", the side of the police that you don't usually hear well developed. From watching many of his videos, I can pretty safely assume that he doesn't trust the government, I'm fairly sure he isn't racist, and I'm fairly sure he isn't sexist. What is more representative of him is that he tries his hardest not to be politically correct. It is my opinion that even if you don't respect him as a person, you can probably respect his methods of thinking about problems and his experience as a police officer. I'd hope some of the people here watch some of his stories about how cops react to situations as he makes things that seem 100% unreasonable seem much more sensible. For instance his motto is "no people belong on the ground" which refer to to people who want to be adversarial to the police. This policy is blanketed across all people that cops deal with and after watching some of his police shooting videos you can see why. When he shows videos of cops getting shot or killed he mostly shows videos where the police don't follow this golden rule. This rings true with all of the cop shooting videos I've seen. I'm not saying he is right, I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just saying he offers a very "interesting" perspective that I think many will enjoy.

shawndumas 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgkhimI0MthrMZo-F2zrTQ/featured https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsgkhimI0MthrMZo-F2zrTQ/fea... not an endorsement; just being helpful...
- gravypod 10y ago
  Thanks, I'd have felt kind of strange linking directly to there. He is a very interesting person, it's well worth watching him.

davesque 10y ago

While I basically agree with the argument of this article -- that it's not okay for officers to be so aggressive, abusive, and dishonest -- I don't find the tone to be very helpful for a couple of reasons. 1) The word "white" appeared in a sequence of insults toward the end of the article. It's hard to deny that, while this kind of talk might be broadly accepted, it's still basically racism. Fundamentally, the ethnicity of the officers is irrelevant. The account of what happened didn't even mention the officers calling out the author's race. 2) It's understandable that a person would feel extremely angry after an experience like this. Even so, it seems the author hasn't let much of his anger die down since the time of the event. The tone of the article is not only angry, but quite frankly, a bit juvenile e.g. the talk about hiring a "badass" lawyer. Either way, I don't feel like much good will come as a result of this incident. I'd feel differently if Mr. Afshar spent his time calmly talking about how he took the officers to court, what kinds of evidence he cited against them, and how others could do the same.

zbyte64 10y ago
The ethnicity is relevant in that these 4 white officers give a bad reputation for other white officers. Even Jesus acted out of anger, and it was righteous.
justin66 10y ago
I'm white and I didn't view it as any sort of racist slur to identify the cops as white. It indicates that the author viewed his treatment, and the treatment of the handcuffed suspect, at the hands of police as probably being racially motivated.

generic_user 10y ago

"As I pulled over to ask if the gentleman was OK, I was immediately threatened with a ticket for blocking traffic. I re-parked my car legally and returned." This person drove past the scene of a crime while Police Offices were in midst of arresting someone. He stopped his car was told to move. He then proceeded to park his car car and approach the suspect. I'm sorry but if you pull your car over and interferer with a crime scene where the police are in the midst of an arrest you will be arrested and incapacitated to preserve the safety of the officers. The 'Evil White Man' is sadly, predictable click bait to drive traffic. I'm sure this person would be in court if he had a case. But any lawyer is going to tell you if you interfere with police business you have no case.

johnnyn2o 10y ago

Racist jerk rolls up on police like a cowboy and gets rolled. Next time do what the police tell you.

johnnyn2o 10y ago

Racist jerk rolls up on police like a cowboy and gets rolled. Next time do what the police tell you.

johnnyn2o 10y ago

1) Rolls up, parks car blocking traffic 2) Tells police he's a doctor and makes demands. Police ask for ID, fuck you racist pigs. 3) Goes back to move his car that is blocking traffic 4) Returns to harass the police 5) Goes to jail, lies about being beat up. 6) Liberals applaud him like a hero. Fuck those racist white male cops. No chance this guy got beat up. He wouldn't have gone to jail if he had interacted respectfully and complied with police orders.

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sctb 10y ago
We've banned this account which was created to post uncivilly in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tzs 10y ago

From the comments on the article: aggieben:> Did you identity yourself as a doctor, or in any kind of way you had a reason to be there? author:> No I didn’t. That was my first error. Second was not immediately showing my ID. I certainly could have done this all better.

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Zilroy 10y ago

There is a bit of a culture clash at play here. Most Americans are conditioned to defer to cops and cower when interacting with cops. This is the part of idolatry of uniformed men (aka 'thugs with guns') in the USA. For them 'common sense' means kneeling whenever a cop lays an eye on you. In much of the rest of the world cops are treated as government employees, paid to risk their lives in confrontational situations (as they don't have many other skills, that is the main reason they are paid for in the first place.) It is not uncommon for a citizen to confront a policeman and request him/her to be civil. You don't get beaten or shot for that.