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>>Hard to believe actions like that were taking place in the U.S. Is it? I'm a Canadian and everything I hear about the US police terrifies me - SWATing leadin
by patmcc 9y ago
>>Hard to believe actions like that were taking place in the U.S.
Is it? I'm a Canadian and everything I hear about the US police terrifies me - SWATing leading to innocent people being killed, unarmed black men being shot, no-knock warrants, civil forfeiture, the impossibility of convicting police for just about anything. If the worst thing they were doing was selling drugs that'd be an improvement as far as I can tell.
- leesalminen 9y agoHas anyone been charged with the false report of the scissors hijab attack?
- schwap 9y agoNo. What possible reason would they have for charging a child?
- astebbin 9y agoTo play devil’s advocate for a moment: children are often coached by parents in cases like this. Remember “balloon boy,” who hid in the garage per his dad’s instruction so the family could get their 15 minutes of fame? That said, kids like to make things up too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what happened here.
- cgag 9y agoWas it a hoax though? https://youtu.be/QWhUvm8SunY https://youtu.be/QWhUvm8SunY
- always_good 9y agoWow, great vid. The follow up from Heene himself is pretty convincing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axgyj7g5XZY
- leesalminen 9y agoI thought laws still applied to minors, though the sentences are different. At least that’s how it is in the US.
- smnrchrds 9y agoIf you want to charge children for lying, everyone would have a thick binder full of criminal records by the age of 12. Maybe, of we want to blame anyone, it should be the media for but doing their due diligence before publishing a price of news.
- leesalminen 9y agoI think there’s a difference between lying to your mom about cleaning your room and filing a false police report.
- smnrchrds 9y agoI imagine it was a small lie that got out of hand. She did not mastermind a media storm. She told a lie to her school or her parents, they went to police, police talked to media, media interviewed the family, etc. At some point, if she were an adult, she would have understood that the lie had gotten out of hand and would have put an end to it. She was probably so afraid of "getting in trouble" that she didn't dare admit she lied in the first place. When I was in kindergarten, I once lied about seeing a snake in the schoolyard. I don't remember why or how, I just told a stupid lie like every stupid kid (which is the same thing as every kid) does all the time. Now, no one believed me and I don't think that anyone else in the world remembers what I said, but imagine if they did. Imagine the grown-ups had taken it seriously and called 911 (well, 125 realistically , it wasn't in North America). The city would have started a large investigation to find the missing killer snake, the media would have printed article after article reporting on how people should be scared of sending their kids to school when there are dangerous animals on the loose and no one does anything about it, recess would have been cancelled, ... Imagine a shark scare, but on a larger scale. Every now and then, some grown-up would have asked me if I was sure I saw a snake, and due to the aforementioned stupidity, plus the fact that I was afraid of getting in trouble, I would have nodded yes. It would have been The News until something else distracted people from it. None of this happened because no one believed me in the first place. But if it had happened, should I have been held criminally responsible for all the trouble? That's my point. Kids lie all the time for all sorts of reasons. If you want to start holding them responsible through criminal justice system, you would have to send every one of them to jail.
- PhasmaFelis 9y agoNot sure. Why do you bring it up in this context?
- ronilan 9y agoI’m a Canadian too. The 49th is just a line in the sand. Here’s a reminder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dziekański_Taser_incident https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dziekański_Taser_inci...
- 0xddd 9y agoIs it really as widespread in Canada? The list linked to from that wiki article seems comparatively bare [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_police_excessive_use_of_force_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_police_ex...
- ronilan 9y agoA group of people standing around watching a person who is clearly confused and in distress but do nothing. Uniformed armed officers arrive to take charge of the situation, use little judgment and follow what they think is procedure, when it is not, and/or clearly should not be. A tragic outcome. A government apology. Do Loop. Is it really widespread in Canada? Yah. Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/1CR_k-dTnDU https://youtu.be/1CR_k-dTnDU
- slededit 9y agoHaving lived in both places there is a notable difference in how authority behaves in each country.
- adrianratnapala 9y agoIn most "oh things are terrible in America" matters, I believe other countries are about as bad, but have a tamer media. But police misconduct really does seem to be worse in America. For reasons I don't fully understand. One part of it is probably guns: even in states with strong gun control, there are plenty of them in the hands of hoodlums, so voters appreciate the Dirty Harry approach to dealing with them. But to me that doesn't quite explain why cops seems to have such semi-formal impunity (see for example http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/get-jail-free-cards.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/get..., http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/police-union-privileges.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/pol... and http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/police-union-privileges-officer-misconduct-systems-thinking.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/01/pol...). Of course we can guess various reasons, voters like police, cops stick together etc, prosecutors and police work together etc. But those things are true in other countries too.
- frandroid 9y agoHey, it happens in Canada too. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/06/29/saga_of_a_toronto_police_drug_squad.html https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/06/29/saga_of_a_toront...
- ams6110 9y agoDon't judge all the the US by its corrupt big cities. I recognize nothing in this story in my town's local police (we're about 65,000 population, and the cops are quite relaxed and civil as a default).
- jrs95 9y agoWhich of it's big cities aren't corrupt, though? This isn't just a localized problem, these people often end up in federal positions. Plus, there's a huge percentage of the population that lives in large cities. It's too big of a problem to avoid judging the U.S. as a whole by it.
- alsetmusic 9y ago> Don't judge all the the US by its corrupt big cities. > I recognize nothing in this story in my town's local police (we're about 65,000 population, and the cops are quite relaxed and civil as a default). I was stopped without explanation in Andover, KS (population < 12000 as of 2010). Officers harassed me and threatened to arrest me when I would not allow them to search my vehicle. They claimed that they smelled pot in the car. I Was not a pot smoker and was borrowing the vehicle from an anti drug family member while mine was in the shop. The claim was bogus and they were clearly trying to intimidate me. In a neighboring city (Wichita), police responding to a 911 call that I placed after being robbed at gunpoint played good-cop-bad-cop with me. They suspected that my roommate and I were selling pot (we weren’t) and refused to press charges on the assailant because they assumed we were withholding information. I tried to call them on it, but I was unsuccessful. They didn’t give a shit about us because of the assumptions they made coming into the situation. FWIW, I have two friends who are cops. I do not think all cops are bad people. Your dismissal of the issue is problematic.
- Spooky23 9y agoPolice need to deal with every walk of life. I just served on a jury where the police were made to sound like a bunch of idiots by the defense because a person who appeared to be a witness wasn’t interrogated like you were.
- jrs95 9y agoYou're mostly right, although the killing is typically overblown and taken out of context in many circumstances. But when it does happen, you're right that it's damn near impossible to get a conviction of a police officer. And civil forfeiture is probably even worse than what media coverage would lead you to believe. Ironically Loretta Lynch, the second Attorney General under Obama, did this extensively in her career in NY. It's sad when the people who are allegedly representing the interests of the underprivileged have done so much to exploit them. (And don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to be partisan or suggest that the GOP is better or anything like that. It's just disappointing how much of this crap runs through all layers of our government.)
- meri_dian 9y agoIt's funny how normally reasonable people forget that what manages to reach our awareness are very rare and shocking events that are not at all representative of the vast majority of day to day activity, whether police related or otherwise. You are allowing yourself to be misguided if you focus on what gets put on the front page of CNN.
- antod 9y agoI don't know about others, I want my police force judged by their worst interactions rather than the majority of their interactions. I want the standards set high enough that all those bad things practically never happen rather than some small regular percentage of ongoing interactions.
- mjfl 9y agoYou want to know what the problem is? No sane person would want to risk their life on a daily basis, wrestle people into their cars against their will on a daily basis, and be subject to the scrutiny you describe in your post, the hatred that is described in other posts, all for a policeman's salary. Literally no sane person would take that deal. Are you about to sign up to be a cop? Hell fucking no.
- JamesBarney 9y agoI think the OP was arguing the police should spend less time wrestling people into their cars against their will.