8 ms·

Stop messing with people, and this won't happen. I don't feel bad for the police.

steve76 6y ago
I live in a rather hard hit area. It won't show up on any blighted or opportunity zones because attorneys or land owners connected to politicians can't make money off it. Here are some highlights: A good month is one without gun shots. I've been mugged coming out my front door by kids with knives. An elderly woman was tortured to death during a home invasion. A fight breaks out, police break it up and leave without arresting anyone, only for the fight to occur again 10 minutes later this time with gunshots. Police show up the next morning and pick up casings and then leave. Little kids were right in the middle of that 30 person brawl too. Non-stop fireworks to cover up gun shots. Mom moves into her new boyfriend's place, then break up and leave the kid. So you have kids growing up in a home with zero parents. Garbage everywhere. The attitude of always wanting to fight even when they mess up big time. Hitting a car, going through the garbage. Good things stay hidden. Vulgar violent things stare you down because they like getting grounded up. When something really bad happens, like a home fire, they turn into panicked cowards. All that thug life goes right away on the slightest adversity. Attorneys and corporate leaders have abandoned the people who got them here just to win at all costs. A vet who fought so they don't have to kills themselves every day. That's not going to last. WTC going down in a fireball should have taught them all something. Can't escape it, no matter how rich you are. The leaders really are out of touch. They see the violence as like how mechanical bolts preload. People are killing each other. I don't feel it. That's good! It means I'm that far removed. How can you help people when they don't help themselves. Police just keep a cap on it all so it doesn't take us all down.
- relaxing 6y ago
  How do you point out (quite accurately!) all the systemic problems and external bad actors at work, then end up at the conclusion that those people need to “help themselves”?
  - thatlongthrow1 6y ago
    "Yea that kid I said got abandoned, totes needs to help themselves."
  - aerostable_slug 6y ago
    Perhaps they are pointing out the cultural changes that need to occur to change the patterns of behavior. No amount of police funding can fix a broken home. Not even social workers can make a parent stay if they don't want to, nor stop many types of abuse, nor get a kid to stop looking up to a performer who crows about their criminal history and start looking up to some real role models. Those are really hard things to tackle, and even talk about. So most people don't.
  - dx87 6y ago
    If you've ever seen a black kid in school get ridiculed and told to "stop acting white" because they were studying and trying to keep out of trouble, you'd know what they're talking about. There are cultural issues that need to be addressed, in addition to systemic racism.
    - genoapol 6y ago
      I've inquired about this and there are some layers at work that may be oversimplified when kids restate this idea as "acting white". I understand there is an issue in internalizing the 2 main versions (Southern spin vs Northern spin) of 'whitewashed history' in the US. An objective viewer would consider them very sanitized, misleading, and often propagandized versions of history that are somewhat benign to people of European descent but toxic to non-white people that mainline it. It leads to a misunderstanding of how the world really works, came to be, and minimizes the role criminality played in the whole exercise, especially due its exclusion of unbiased economic history. I think certain populations in the US have the unfortunate experience of being miseducated about who they are and why they are where they are, then spend the rest of their lives (if curious) unlearning/re-educating themselves about how the world really works and filling the gaps that were conveniently excluded from our prevailing historical narratives. The mistrust of the information in some areas of study is based on intuition that isn't completely wrong. "Miseducation of the Negro" touches on some of these topics though it is not an exhaustive exploration. We've learned a lot more about the layers of misinformation since 1933 (publish date), it would be interesting to read an updated version. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mis-Education_of_the_Negro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mis-Education_of_the_Neg...
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  Sounds like the problem is lack of resources, not lack of police. Why don't you team up with your neighbors instead of trash-talking them? by your own avowal police aren't doing anything useful for your community either; what percentage of the local budget do they get, and why isn't any of that going into your community?
  - monksy 6y ago
    What good will teaming up with his neighbors do for that? It sounds like the local population has given up. Also for the police there are a few other things that could be of concern: 1. It's not a priority area to be fixed. (Police aren't doing much to address the crimes that have been commited) 2. The police aren't getting a lot of cooperation from witnesses ("don't snitch" which benefits gangs and gang retailiation.. again supporting the cycle of crime) 3. Is it the police are being held back from the region (that would be a corruption issue) --- Anyways, police can fix the problem behavior instantly. Murders don't view their behavior as concerning. They tend not to have a lot of things stopping them on lessor crimes either. Programs take years to be fully affective. (If not decades)
- kazagistar 6y ago
  The focus on defunding is also supposed to be about diverting funds and refunding institutions that can help ppeople. Very few conflicts and problems require a gun.
  - pdonis 6y ago
    > Very few conflicts and problems require a gun. The people reading your post here are not the ones you need to tell this to. You need to tell it to the criminals in many areas of the US who do indeed think that all their conflicts and problems can be resolved with violence. And then get them to believe it. Good luck.
    - thomaslord 6y ago
      You seem to be putting in a lot of effort to miss the point here.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Sounds like the police are useless if this is the situation they're supposed to be preventing. True, your neighbors don't "help themselves" -- but do they have the resources to do so? Say you're the kid left at mom's boyfriend's place. Who's gonna take you in and be your role model? The kid with a knife, who will teach you to mug people on their doorsteps. Alternatively, we could take funding from the admittedly ineffective police, and put those resources into service work. Fund support structures, and provide better role models to the neighborhoods that need them so badly. They're probably there already, but they keep their heads down and act tough when needed, because that's a survival tactic. It's not that people want to live a life of crime, but when it's all you've ever known, it's nigh impossible to break that cycle on their own.
- genoapol 6y ago
  >How can you help people when they don't help themselves. Police just keep a cap on it all so it doesn't take us all down. This whole comment seems to ignore how ghettoization of a population can be purposely done by the state through regular economic attacks amongst other things. There is plenty US history that explains why that environment you are describing ended up the way it did but it is quite painful to see what % of the voting population is ignorant of it.
DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
I don't know what makes a comment "[dead]" in HN, but I think the sibling comment by steve76 should remain part of the conversation. It's difficult to address persons' concerns if you refuse to hear them out.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  If people downvoted it, they heard it. Complaining about it is against the rules.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post like this. If you see a [dead] post that shouldn't be dead, you should vouch for it by clicking on its timestamp, then clicking 'vouch' at the top of its page. There's a small karma threshold (> 30) before vouch links appear. Cases like this are precisely why the vouch feature exists, and other users have applied it to the comment, so now yours is false as well as off topic. In particularly significant cases, you can email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll take care of it.
  - DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
    Thanks. I wasn't aware of vouching.
banads 6y ago
I too dislike hyper aggressive militarized police who act above the law. But anyone who makes facile generalizations about entire groups of people is merely mirroring the problem, not helping it. Edit: "populations" -> "groups of people"
- marricks 6y ago
  When I read their comment I first thought it was ever present defense of police "if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear!" Pretty sure their glibness is just poking fun at that.
- enraged_camel 6y ago
  Normally I agree, but this is one of those situations where the problem goes far beyond "a few bad apples". The entire police culture in the United States is built on the "good" cops not reporting, fiercely defending, or even lying to provide cover for the bad ones. And at that point, every person who tolerates the bad behaviors ends up enabling them, and therefore become complicit in them.
  - banads 6y ago
    >not reporting, fiercely defending, or even lying to provide cover for the bad ones. And at that point, every person who tolerates the bad behaviors ends up enabling them, and therefore become complicit in them. Precisely the same mentality is present in many of the most crime ridden neighborhoods in the US.[1] Are you able to think objectively for a moment, and see how your reaction to police doing that, is similar the police's reaction to criminals doing that? [1]https://youtu.be/nFhWpTKvD8E https://youtu.be/nFhWpTKvD8E
    - teddyh 6y ago
      Classic whataboutism. EDIT: The commented post was edited after I wrote my original above comment. Now it’s more like victim-blaming.
      - 6y ago
geephroh 6y ago
Problem is, while Netsential and the cops who use their services may feel embarrassed, the ones really hurt by the leak are going to be the victims and suspects whose personal information (addresses, ssns, employers, banking info) are now exposed. Now they get to suffer even more because of their interaction with the police.

I live in a rather hard hit area. It won't show up on any blighted or opportunity zones because attorneys or land owners connected to politicians can't make money off it. Here are some highlights: A good month is one without gun shots. I've been mugged coming out my front door by kids with knives. An elderly woman was tortured to death during a home invasion. A fight breaks out, police break it up and leave without arresting anyone, only for the fight to occur again 10 minutes later this time with gunshots. Police show up the next morning and pick up casings and then leave. Little kids were right in the middle of that 30 person brawl too. Non-stop fireworks to cover up gun shots. Mom moves into her new boyfriend's place, then break up and leave the kid. So you have kids growing up in a home with zero parents. Garbage everywhere. The attitude of always wanting to fight even when they mess up big time. Hitting a car, going through the garbage. Good things stay hidden. Vulgar violent things stare you down because they like getting grounded up. When something really bad happens, like a home fire, they turn into panicked cowards. All that thug life goes right away on the slightest adversity. Attorneys and corporate leaders have abandoned the people who got them here just to win at all costs. A vet who fought so they don't have to kills themselves every day. That's not going to last. WTC going down in a fireball should have taught them all something. Can't escape it, no matter how rich you are. The leaders really are out of touch. They see the violence as like how mechanical bolts preload. People are killing each other. I don't feel it. That's good! It means I'm that far removed. How can you help people when they don't help themselves. Police just keep a cap on it all so it doesn't take us all down.

relaxing 6y ago
How do you point out (quite accurately!) all the systemic problems and external bad actors at work, then end up at the conclusion that those people need to “help themselves”?
- thatlongthrow1 6y ago
  "Yea that kid I said got abandoned, totes needs to help themselves."
- aerostable_slug 6y ago
  Perhaps they are pointing out the cultural changes that need to occur to change the patterns of behavior. No amount of police funding can fix a broken home. Not even social workers can make a parent stay if they don't want to, nor stop many types of abuse, nor get a kid to stop looking up to a performer who crows about their criminal history and start looking up to some real role models. Those are really hard things to tackle, and even talk about. So most people don't.
- dx87 6y ago
  If you've ever seen a black kid in school get ridiculed and told to "stop acting white" because they were studying and trying to keep out of trouble, you'd know what they're talking about. There are cultural issues that need to be addressed, in addition to systemic racism.
  - genoapol 6y ago
    I've inquired about this and there are some layers at work that may be oversimplified when kids restate this idea as "acting white". I understand there is an issue in internalizing the 2 main versions (Southern spin vs Northern spin) of 'whitewashed history' in the US. An objective viewer would consider them very sanitized, misleading, and often propagandized versions of history that are somewhat benign to people of European descent but toxic to non-white people that mainline it. It leads to a misunderstanding of how the world really works, came to be, and minimizes the role criminality played in the whole exercise, especially due its exclusion of unbiased economic history. I think certain populations in the US have the unfortunate experience of being miseducated about who they are and why they are where they are, then spend the rest of their lives (if curious) unlearning/re-educating themselves about how the world really works and filling the gaps that were conveniently excluded from our prevailing historical narratives. The mistrust of the information in some areas of study is based on intuition that isn't completely wrong. "Miseducation of the Negro" touches on some of these topics though it is not an exhaustive exploration. We've learned a lot more about the layers of misinformation since 1933 (publish date), it would be interesting to read an updated version. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mis-Education_of_the_Negro https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mis-Education_of_the_Neg...
anigbrowl 6y ago
Sounds like the problem is lack of resources, not lack of police. Why don't you team up with your neighbors instead of trash-talking them? by your own avowal police aren't doing anything useful for your community either; what percentage of the local budget do they get, and why isn't any of that going into your community?
- monksy 6y ago
  What good will teaming up with his neighbors do for that? It sounds like the local population has given up. Also for the police there are a few other things that could be of concern: 1. It's not a priority area to be fixed. (Police aren't doing much to address the crimes that have been commited) 2. The police aren't getting a lot of cooperation from witnesses ("don't snitch" which benefits gangs and gang retailiation.. again supporting the cycle of crime) 3. Is it the police are being held back from the region (that would be a corruption issue) --- Anyways, police can fix the problem behavior instantly. Murders don't view their behavior as concerning. They tend not to have a lot of things stopping them on lessor crimes either. Programs take years to be fully affective. (If not decades)
kazagistar 6y ago
The focus on defunding is also supposed to be about diverting funds and refunding institutions that can help ppeople. Very few conflicts and problems require a gun.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Very few conflicts and problems require a gun. The people reading your post here are not the ones you need to tell this to. You need to tell it to the criminals in many areas of the US who do indeed think that all their conflicts and problems can be resolved with violence. And then get them to believe it. Good luck.
  - thomaslord 6y ago
    You seem to be putting in a lot of effort to miss the point here.
klyrs 6y ago
Sounds like the police are useless if this is the situation they're supposed to be preventing. True, your neighbors don't "help themselves" -- but do they have the resources to do so? Say you're the kid left at mom's boyfriend's place. Who's gonna take you in and be your role model? The kid with a knife, who will teach you to mug people on their doorsteps. Alternatively, we could take funding from the admittedly ineffective police, and put those resources into service work. Fund support structures, and provide better role models to the neighborhoods that need them so badly. They're probably there already, but they keep their heads down and act tough when needed, because that's a survival tactic. It's not that people want to live a life of crime, but when it's all you've ever known, it's nigh impossible to break that cycle on their own.
genoapol 6y ago
>How can you help people when they don't help themselves. Police just keep a cap on it all so it doesn't take us all down. This whole comment seems to ignore how ghettoization of a population can be purposely done by the state through regular economic attacks amongst other things. There is plenty US history that explains why that environment you are describing ended up the way it did but it is quite painful to see what % of the voting population is ignorant of it.

DoofusOfDeath 6y ago

I don't know what makes a comment "[dead]" in HN, but I think the sibling comment by steve76 should remain part of the conversation. It's difficult to address persons' concerns if you refuse to hear them out.

guerrilla 6y ago
If people downvoted it, they heard it. Complaining about it is against the rules.
dang 6y ago
Please don't post like this. If you see a [dead] post that shouldn't be dead, you should vouch for it by clicking on its timestamp, then clicking 'vouch' at the top of its page. There's a small karma threshold (> 30) before vouch links appear. Cases like this are precisely why the vouch feature exists, and other users have applied it to the comment, so now yours is false as well as off topic. In particularly significant cases, you can email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll take care of it.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y ago
  Thanks. I wasn't aware of vouching.

banads 6y ago

I too dislike hyper aggressive militarized police who act above the law. But anyone who makes facile generalizations about entire groups of people is merely mirroring the problem, not helping it. Edit: "populations" -> "groups of people"

marricks 6y ago
When I read their comment I first thought it was ever present defense of police "if you're doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear!" Pretty sure their glibness is just poking fun at that.
enraged_camel 6y ago
Normally I agree, but this is one of those situations where the problem goes far beyond "a few bad apples". The entire police culture in the United States is built on the "good" cops not reporting, fiercely defending, or even lying to provide cover for the bad ones. And at that point, every person who tolerates the bad behaviors ends up enabling them, and therefore become complicit in them.
- banads 6y ago
  >not reporting, fiercely defending, or even lying to provide cover for the bad ones. And at that point, every person who tolerates the bad behaviors ends up enabling them, and therefore become complicit in them. Precisely the same mentality is present in many of the most crime ridden neighborhoods in the US.[1] Are you able to think objectively for a moment, and see how your reaction to police doing that, is similar the police's reaction to criminals doing that? [1]https://youtu.be/nFhWpTKvD8E https://youtu.be/nFhWpTKvD8E
  - teddyh 6y ago
    Classic whataboutism. EDIT: The commented post was edited after I wrote my original above comment. Now it’s more like victim-blaming.
    - 6y ago

geephroh 6y ago

Problem is, while Netsential and the cops who use their services may feel embarrassed, the ones really hurt by the leak are going to be the victims and suspects whose personal information (addresses, ssns, employers, banking info) are now exposed. Now they get to suffer even more because of their interaction with the police.