4 ms·

I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US.

by swiley 6y ago

olliej 6y ago
She didn't do anything except embarrass the government, so they've now invented a claim she hacked into their emergency system. She's the scientist that was fired because her reporting included actual numbers rather than the ones invented by the governor.
greatpatton 6y ago
Yes American cops don't miss an opportunity to amaze the world... (and make people believe that USA is the less secure place in the world to behave like this).
- yholio 6y ago
  American gun culture has little to do with this case. Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down. In 99% of the cases there isn't, but if you do 100 of these raids without taking risks, it becomes more likely than not that your own children will become orphans. It's hypocritical to attack the cops that (literally) fight to stay alive without saying anything about the root cause.
  - rootlocus 6y ago
    > Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down. > American gun culture has little to do with this case. non sequitur.
  - GordonS 6y ago
    I'm wondering if this is meant to be satire, but I'll assume not. The cops were sent to the house of a middle-aged scientist who was reporting on COVID data. The idea that you need to charge in with guns is far beyond ludicrous.
    - XorNot 6y ago
      The best part is how, if we accept literally all the unjustified precepts of why they went in guns drawn, you then can look at the reasoning and question why, if it's that dangerous, did they go to the house at all? What, this was so time-sensitive that we couldn't pick her up with a traffic stop when she was out of the house? At every conceivable junction, the police create dangerous situations and then use the danger to justify escalating them to violence.
      - yholio 6y ago
        > What, this was so time-sensitive that we couldn't pick her up with a traffic stop when she was out of the house? It is standard operating procedure to catch online criminals in the act, with the computers booted, terminals unlocked and drives unencrypted. In general, your premise that police should avoid confrontations with (allegedly) very dangerous individuals, and leave them wiggle room to destroy evidence, is untenable. Clearly, this case is an outlier, but the fault lays with whomever ordered the raid without reason, not with police officers themselves, that performed the raid as any raid should be done in a trigger happy country.
        XorNot 6y ago
        That's garbage: almost no crime is so time-sensitive and so unique that this is a problem. Heck look at the take down of Silk Road for example of doing it right: they clearly took their time (despite the impact being obviously greater), and no one had to pull any weapons because the situation was executed in a known safe environment. Police deserve no leeway for this: the evidence points to repeatedly creating a dangerous situation (by them) and then shooting the person they've decided is dangerous (because they created a situation they thought was dangerous). If there is not immediate danger to other citizen's lives, it can wait. And most of the time, it should wait because amongst other thing that lets you actually make a plan. The only difference in this case is "could be dangerous" is being used as pathetically thin cover for ensuring the lives of a political opponent and their family were threatened.
        6y ago
  - kristjankalm 6y ago
    > American gun culture has little to do with this case. Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down i'm struggling to understand this -- are you saying there is no link between 'American gun culture' and the probability of 'there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down'? in what other 1st world country would the said probability be even close?
  - andyjohnson0 6y ago
    Policing in the US is undoubtedly risky - but thats not the issue here. It is very likely that they were sent to intimidate and terrify a scientist who has done nothing except cause embarrassment to a politician. It is legitimate to criticise the police for allowing themselves to be used in this way.
    - studius 6y ago
      Do you know this for a fact, or is it what you read or were told? I don't know anything about this incident other than what I'm reading here, which puts me at a disadvantage to discuss it, as I'm sure is the case for most if not all others here.
  - DeusExMachina 6y ago
    That could apply if they were raiding the house of some violent gang member, not a scientist from which they only wanted some electronics.
  - pietrovismara 6y ago
    You just said american gun culture has little to do with this and then you contradict yourself the next sentence. In Europe the risk of having someone greet you with an assault rifle is non-existent, because people just can't buy them. It's also weird that you speak as if being a cop is the most dangerous job when it's not even in the first 10 most dangerous jobs[0]. I never see people that worry about cops lives worry about logging workers' safety, yet they risk much more than a cop. - [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-according-to-bls-data.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-i...
    - forest_dweller 6y ago
      > In Europe the risk of having someone greet you with an assault rifle is non-existent, because people just can't buy them. Are you stupid enough to actually believe this? My uncle was put in prison for over a decade for robbing banks in the UK. He slept with a shotgun under his pillow (the police found it there when they arrested him). Believe it or not criminals do have guns in the UK (police confiscate guns all the time), as well as as other weapons which are illegal (swords, machetes, nun-jucks). Recently police raided a warehouse (near where I live) where they were making firearms. Also I am pretty sure guns were illegal in Northern Ireland as well and plenty of terrorists and criminals had them at the time. It really annoys me when people try to claim the opposite (or gaslight me) by saying "well they banned all the guns that means that there isn't any" because I know it isn't true.
      - Veen 6y ago
        In the last three years four police officers were killed in the line of duty in the UK. Two by motor vehicles, one by stabbing, and one by gunshot (inside a police station). The gunshot death was the first in eight years and one of seven in the last 20 years. It happens, but it is rare. In contrast, 44 police officers were shot and killed in 2019 in the US. (Also, including phrases like "are you stupid" in comments just makes you look foolish)
        forest_dweller 6y ago
  - XorNot 6y ago
    List of professions more dangerous then being a police officer in 2018 [1]: supervisor of mechanics or repairers, construction, agricultural work, grounds maintenance, electrical line-workers, landscaping supervisors, construction supervisors, steel workers, agricultural managers, sales workers, truck drivers, garbage man, roofers, aircraft pilot, fisherman, logging. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-dangerous-is-police-work https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-da... And straight BS on the whole "going into dangerous situations" thing - plenty of professions get required to do that (paramedics, firemen) and manage to be both unarmed and not shoot people all the time.
    - yholio 6y ago
      > "going into dangerous situations" thing - plenty of professions get required to do that (paramedics, firemen) and manage to be both unarmed and not shoot people all the time. Firemen, in fact, take every precaution they can before going into a blaze, such as flame retardant suits and breathing masks. A gun does not stop fire and fire does not shoot back at you, nor has any intelligence to work around predictable defenses. A human has that intelligence, so the only way to safely handle an armed man that does not want to cooperate is with extreme, overpowering violence.
j4yav 6y ago
> I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US. If you asked me this is exactly how I would assume this sort of thing is handled in the US
zdragnar 6y ago
I dont think I disagree, but isn't this standard practice when there is suspicion that evidence might be destroyed had they just knocked at the door. They did the same thing to General Flynn, IIRC.
studius 6y ago
I'm sure if it were to happen to me, I'd feel similar to the citizen posting this on Twitter, especially if they felt it was unjust and weren't expecting it. However, from a police procedural point-of-view: When the subject(s) perceive a threat, it only takes a small amount of time for the adrenaline rush that could make them more dangerous than they typically would be. Subject(s) that would never usually be a threat can act in ways they don't even expect when they are confronted by something they perceive as a threat. Even if the first subject is calm, one of the others in the house might react poorly and use whatever is at their disposal to resist or harm the perceived threat. Let's say instead that a single plain-clothes officer calls or emails asking someone to come downtown, or maybe even comes to a house unexpectedly because they couldn't get in-touch with the person, then asks them to come downtown at their convenience. The subject may shortly after throw the kids in the car and speed off so quickly they run into traffic and kill themselves and another driver. So, when police control the situation, they cause a little more temporary stress in the short-term, but may avoid harm for the individual citizen and the rest of the citizens. The alternative is a society within which each person acts responsibly on their own, but there are bad actors, and using science to treat or evolve bad actors is: 1. imagined as evil, such as in the fictional works: Brave New World - example of dual-society, half utilitarian scientist gangbangers and the other half free natives; the reader understands the "evolved" culture as disgusting, scary, and harmful. A Clockwork Orange - attempt to rehabilitate the psychopath, sex-addict subject, but due to the music choice, the psychopath becomes hurt when they play the music, leaving them where they started- with a psychopath. 2. actually evil in real life, for example: psychological and Eugenics experiments, as well as genocides and holocaust. In social media bubbles, psychotic elements in the bubble tend to be hushed or hidden; they seem not to exist. In real-life, about 1 in 10 people are not sufficiently altruistic to be trusted to act on societal best interests under duress and about 1 in 100 people are psychopathic to the point of being a greater risk to others on any day of the year. Even for a fully libertarian society to function, some part of the 90% would have to cover for the 10% and some portion of the 99% would have to cover for that 1% to make things run smoothly. So, we have police. And, if you add wild animals and wide open spaces without assistance into the mix, you understand why the U.S. has the 2nd amendment, and that applies to everywhere because it's meant to cover all cases and likely futures (if disaster happens and infrastructure collapses, we may need to hunt to survive, given the amount of space in the U.S.). But, I don't want gun violence, and I don't want citizens to be unjustly apprehended.
noxer 6y ago
There are rumors that she did not open the door for a long time and hang up on them when they called. Obviously we dont know if that is true but if it is the cops had to assume well prepared people inside the house. It would be gross negligence to just walk in and please everyone to come out regardless of what the people did that caused the raid.

I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US.

by swiley 6y ago

I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US.

olliej 6y ago

She didn't do anything except embarrass the government, so they've now invented a claim she hacked into their emergency system. She's the scientist that was fired because her reporting included actual numbers rather than the ones invented by the governor.

greatpatton 6y ago

Yes American cops don't miss an opportunity to amaze the world... (and make people believe that USA is the less secure place in the world to behave like this).

yholio 6y ago
American gun culture has little to do with this case. Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down. In 99% of the cases there isn't, but if you do 100 of these raids without taking risks, it becomes more likely than not that your own children will become orphans. It's hypocritical to attack the cops that (literally) fight to stay alive without saying anything about the root cause.
- rootlocus 6y ago
  > Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down. > American gun culture has little to do with this case. non sequitur.
- GordonS 6y ago
  I'm wondering if this is meant to be satire, but I'll assume not. The cops were sent to the house of a middle-aged scientist who was reporting on COVID data. The idea that you need to charge in with guns is far beyond ludicrous.
  - XorNot 6y ago
    The best part is how, if we accept literally all the unjustified precepts of why they went in guns drawn, you then can look at the reasoning and question why, if it's that dangerous, did they go to the house at all? What, this was so time-sensitive that we couldn't pick her up with a traffic stop when she was out of the house? At every conceivable junction, the police create dangerous situations and then use the danger to justify escalating them to violence.
    - yholio 6y ago
      > What, this was so time-sensitive that we couldn't pick her up with a traffic stop when she was out of the house? It is standard operating procedure to catch online criminals in the act, with the computers booted, terminals unlocked and drives unencrypted. In general, your premise that police should avoid confrontations with (allegedly) very dangerous individuals, and leave them wiggle room to destroy evidence, is untenable. Clearly, this case is an outlier, but the fault lays with whomever ordered the raid without reason, not with police officers themselves, that performed the raid as any raid should be done in a trigger happy country.
      - XorNot 6y ago
        That's garbage: almost no crime is so time-sensitive and so unique that this is a problem. Heck look at the take down of Silk Road for example of doing it right: they clearly took their time (despite the impact being obviously greater), and no one had to pull any weapons because the situation was executed in a known safe environment. Police deserve no leeway for this: the evidence points to repeatedly creating a dangerous situation (by them) and then shooting the person they've decided is dangerous (because they created a situation they thought was dangerous). If there is not immediate danger to other citizen's lives, it can wait. And most of the time, it should wait because amongst other thing that lets you actually make a plan. The only difference in this case is "could be dangerous" is being used as pathetically thin cover for ensuring the lives of a political opponent and their family were threatened.
        6y ago
- kristjankalm 6y ago
  > American gun culture has little to do with this case. Cops behave like this because behind door number one there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down i'm struggling to understand this -- are you saying there is no link between 'American gun culture' and the probability of 'there could be a guy with an assault rifle ready to take them down'? in what other 1st world country would the said probability be even close?
- andyjohnson0 6y ago
  Policing in the US is undoubtedly risky - but thats not the issue here. It is very likely that they were sent to intimidate and terrify a scientist who has done nothing except cause embarrassment to a politician. It is legitimate to criticise the police for allowing themselves to be used in this way.
  - studius 6y ago
    Do you know this for a fact, or is it what you read or were told? I don't know anything about this incident other than what I'm reading here, which puts me at a disadvantage to discuss it, as I'm sure is the case for most if not all others here.
- DeusExMachina 6y ago
  That could apply if they were raiding the house of some violent gang member, not a scientist from which they only wanted some electronics.
- pietrovismara 6y ago
  You just said american gun culture has little to do with this and then you contradict yourself the next sentence. In Europe the risk of having someone greet you with an assault rifle is non-existent, because people just can't buy them. It's also weird that you speak as if being a cop is the most dangerous job when it's not even in the first 10 most dangerous jobs[0]. I never see people that worry about cops lives worry about logging workers' safety, yet they risk much more than a cop. - [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america-according-to-bls-data.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/27/the-10-most-dangerous-jobs-i...
  - forest_dweller 6y ago
    > In Europe the risk of having someone greet you with an assault rifle is non-existent, because people just can't buy them. Are you stupid enough to actually believe this? My uncle was put in prison for over a decade for robbing banks in the UK. He slept with a shotgun under his pillow (the police found it there when they arrested him). Believe it or not criminals do have guns in the UK (police confiscate guns all the time), as well as as other weapons which are illegal (swords, machetes, nun-jucks). Recently police raided a warehouse (near where I live) where they were making firearms. Also I am pretty sure guns were illegal in Northern Ireland as well and plenty of terrorists and criminals had them at the time. It really annoys me when people try to claim the opposite (or gaslight me) by saying "well they banned all the guns that means that there isn't any" because I know it isn't true.
    - Veen 6y ago
      In the last three years four police officers were killed in the line of duty in the UK. Two by motor vehicles, one by stabbing, and one by gunshot (inside a police station). The gunshot death was the first in eight years and one of seven in the last 20 years. It happens, but it is rare. In contrast, 44 police officers were shot and killed in 2019 in the US. (Also, including phrases like "are you stupid" in comments just makes you look foolish)
      - forest_dweller 6y ago
- XorNot 6y ago
  List of professions more dangerous then being a police officer in 2018 [1]: supervisor of mechanics or repairers, construction, agricultural work, grounds maintenance, electrical line-workers, landscaping supervisors, construction supervisors, steel workers, agricultural managers, sales workers, truck drivers, garbage man, roofers, aircraft pilot, fisherman, logging. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-dangerous-is-police-work https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-da... And straight BS on the whole "going into dangerous situations" thing - plenty of professions get required to do that (paramedics, firemen) and manage to be both unarmed and not shoot people all the time.
  - yholio 6y ago
    > "going into dangerous situations" thing - plenty of professions get required to do that (paramedics, firemen) and manage to be both unarmed and not shoot people all the time. Firemen, in fact, take every precaution they can before going into a blaze, such as flame retardant suits and breathing masks. A gun does not stop fire and fire does not shoot back at you, nor has any intelligence to work around predictable defenses. A human has that intelligence, so the only way to safely handle an armed man that does not want to cooperate is with extreme, overpowering violence.

j4yav 6y ago

> I'm not sure what the cops think this person did but whatever she was accused of this is an absolutely unacceptable way to handle it in the US. If you asked me this is exactly how I would assume this sort of thing is handled in the US

zdragnar 6y ago

I dont think I disagree, but isn't this standard practice when there is suspicion that evidence might be destroyed had they just knocked at the door. They did the same thing to General Flynn, IIRC.

studius 6y ago

I'm sure if it were to happen to me, I'd feel similar to the citizen posting this on Twitter, especially if they felt it was unjust and weren't expecting it. However, from a police procedural point-of-view: When the subject(s) perceive a threat, it only takes a small amount of time for the adrenaline rush that could make them more dangerous than they typically would be. Subject(s) that would never usually be a threat can act in ways they don't even expect when they are confronted by something they perceive as a threat. Even if the first subject is calm, one of the others in the house might react poorly and use whatever is at their disposal to resist or harm the perceived threat. Let's say instead that a single plain-clothes officer calls or emails asking someone to come downtown, or maybe even comes to a house unexpectedly because they couldn't get in-touch with the person, then asks them to come downtown at their convenience. The subject may shortly after throw the kids in the car and speed off so quickly they run into traffic and kill themselves and another driver. So, when police control the situation, they cause a little more temporary stress in the short-term, but may avoid harm for the individual citizen and the rest of the citizens. The alternative is a society within which each person acts responsibly on their own, but there are bad actors, and using science to treat or evolve bad actors is: 1. imagined as evil, such as in the fictional works: Brave New World - example of dual-society, half utilitarian scientist gangbangers and the other half free natives; the reader understands the "evolved" culture as disgusting, scary, and harmful. A Clockwork Orange - attempt to rehabilitate the psychopath, sex-addict subject, but due to the music choice, the psychopath becomes hurt when they play the music, leaving them where they started- with a psychopath. 2. actually evil in real life, for example: psychological and Eugenics experiments, as well as genocides and holocaust. In social media bubbles, psychotic elements in the bubble tend to be hushed or hidden; they seem not to exist. In real-life, about 1 in 10 people are not sufficiently altruistic to be trusted to act on societal best interests under duress and about 1 in 100 people are psychopathic to the point of being a greater risk to others on any day of the year. Even for a fully libertarian society to function, some part of the 90% would have to cover for the 10% and some portion of the 99% would have to cover for that 1% to make things run smoothly. So, we have police. And, if you add wild animals and wide open spaces without assistance into the mix, you understand why the U.S. has the 2nd amendment, and that applies to everywhere because it's meant to cover all cases and likely futures (if disaster happens and infrastructure collapses, we may need to hunt to survive, given the amount of space in the U.S.). But, I don't want gun violence, and I don't want citizens to be unjustly apprehended.

noxer 6y ago

There are rumors that she did not open the door for a long time and hang up on them when they called. Obviously we dont know if that is true but if it is the cops had to assume well prepared people inside the house. It would be gross negligence to just walk in and please everyone to come out regardless of what the people did that caused the raid.