7 ms·

Policing in the USA, to a nearby outsider, appears to be more about enforcing societal norms than safety or laws. It seems to me they harass anyone they percei

Policing in the USA, to a nearby outsider, appears to be more about enforcing societal norms than safety or laws. It seems to me they harass anyone they perceive to be abnormal. As a delightfully abnormal human, I'm very glad I was born just north of the 49th parallel. It's not perfect, but I do feel free to be myself.

sneak 6y ago
As a weird person who grew up in the USA (and eventually left for just this reason), I can attest to the accuracy of this analysis. I even wrote about it recently: https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-america/ https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-ame...
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  This is just wrong on so many levels. You even included the widely debunked (even by her own colleagues!) Nikole Hannah-Jones 1619 project lies. Cops do not care if you are “weird”. Police do in fact exist to enforce the law. It really is that simple.
  - inefficient 6y ago
    Well that's just blatantly not true. They aren't even required to know the laws and can enforce laws that they think exist even if they do not. See Heien vs North Carolina. Police exist to "keep the peace." The question is whose peace are they keeping. Well I suppose the reaction of police at the Jan. 6 insurrection vs that of the BLM protests tells us a little. Or the union busting police did in the past. Or blocking the polls for minorities. But it absolutely isn't "that simple."
    - kortilla 6y ago
      > Well I suppose the reaction of police at the Jan. 6 insurrection vs that of the BLM protests tells us a little. They shot a woman in the neck. What’s the difference you’re trying to portray?
  - dualthro 6y ago
    Police murdered this kid for being weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_McClain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_McClain
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    That's a nice fantasy. They're supposed to enforce broken laws. It isn't unusual for them to abuse their power with mental gymnastics to violate the civil rights of law abiding citizens. I've had two illegal stops in the past year because in one I took a swig from a soda bottle going by a speed trap and the cop wanted to see if it was alcohol. The other, a cop in an unmarked car tried to run me out of my lane to follow a speeder. Some years ago I had to deal with a small town gumshoe in Indiana who had staked out an intersection of IN route 55. This was late at night in pitch black darkness. Indiana highway signs look like speed limit signs from a distance and IN55 in particular is hard to distinguish from the 55MPH speed limit signs. The local cops know this and abuse their power to make illegal stops. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2361263,-87.2433936,3a,75y,10.8h,85.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sw4XGP2lfFU2YNiLamsc2vw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2361263,-87.2433936,3a,75y,1... Indiana requires signals 200 ft from an intersection in rural areas rather than the normal 100 ft. The county couldn't be bothered to have an advance sign for the intersection so I didn't know when to signal for the turn. He and I were the only two people on the road but clearly I was a major threat to public safety.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      What does any of that have to do with the true fact that cops exist to enforce the law? I don’t think anyone made the claim that no cops are abusive.
- YuccaGloriosa 6y ago
  That font on your article looks awful on my phone
powersnail 6y ago
Not just policing. I've found that in USA, the society in general wants to meddle with people's business. Me and my buddy were standing on the sidewalk of a bridge, making a time lapse. Within one hour, someone called the police on us twice.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  How can anyone possibly draw conclusions about the USA based on this? Like, really stop and think about all of the fallacies here. Do that 10 more times on 10 different bridges, and I’ll be shocked if that happens even one more time.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - powersnail 6y ago
    My bad. I was speaking in too general a tone. I should have said that my interaction with the US society has been that people tend to meddle with others' business more often than in other countries that I've been to. But, yeah, I have many more anecdotes.
    - geargrinder 6y ago
      There are many other countries where I have experienced more societal meddling with neighbors' business. Ignoring the obvious authoritarian countries, many western european countries have a culture of making sure you are doing the normal or right thing. Germany is the easiest example.
  - naewonawonga 6y ago
    >> Do that 10 more times on 10 different bridges, and I’ll be shocked if that happens even one more time. Likely it would happen another 8-10 times. Happens all the time, the bigger the bridge, the more likely.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Haha, having spent time above and below 49, I would say you couldn’t be more wrong with that perception. In any American city, especially big liberal ones (which is most of them) you can forget about societal norms. There are weird and crazy people everywhere. Nothing is “weird” to anybody who has spent any amount of time in them. Everyone walks right past a circus on their way to work. Cops pay no attention. Ask a New Yorker about their favorite subway stories. It’s hard enough to get a response to actual crime, let alone a cop waste their time on someone acting weird. North of 49, there is way less for them to focus on. Traffic enforcement as a means of revenue generation is huge up there. It’s important not to confuse media narratives and cherry picked videos with trends. It’s also important not to generalize across such a diverse set of individuals and jurisdictions. You’ve got everything from LAPD to an elected backwoodsy county Sheriff.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  Have you considered that your viewpoint might be so wildly opposing to other opinions because you’re part of an “accepted group” that gets their way...while others like me [an individual of color] get the brunt of enforcement — with or without cause? Heck, I’ve been stopped in NYC for “walking with a limp” (bike accident, fractured knee)...while wearing a $500 shirt and designer suit. What you refer to as “cherry picked videos” are just the instances that happen to have been filmed. Seriously, after Central Park Karen and Minnesota, can we at least acknowledge there might be an issue?!
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Do you not understand the problem with extrapolating trends from cherry picked anecdotes? And no, those videos are absolutely not evidence of problems. They aren’t even evidence of isolated cases of racism. But it wouldn’t change the situation if they were. More importantly, parent wasn’t even commenting about race.
- simlevesque 6y ago
  > You’ve got everything from LAPD to an elected backwoodsy county Sheriff Did you try to make a joke ? Both of those are racist to the core. They are the same.
AshWolfy 6y ago
Broken windows policing believes that abnormal behavior creates disorder, so all minor infractions must be heavily punished and "problematic" neighborhoods have to have heavy police presence

sneak 6y ago

As a weird person who grew up in the USA (and eventually left for just this reason), I can attest to the accuracy of this analysis. I even wrote about it recently: https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-america/ https://sneak.berlin/20200628/the-problem-with-police-in-ame...

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
This is just wrong on so many levels. You even included the widely debunked (even by her own colleagues!) Nikole Hannah-Jones 1619 project lies. Cops do not care if you are “weird”. Police do in fact exist to enforce the law. It really is that simple.
- inefficient 6y ago
  Well that's just blatantly not true. They aren't even required to know the laws and can enforce laws that they think exist even if they do not. See Heien vs North Carolina. Police exist to "keep the peace." The question is whose peace are they keeping. Well I suppose the reaction of police at the Jan. 6 insurrection vs that of the BLM protests tells us a little. Or the union busting police did in the past. Or blocking the polls for minorities. But it absolutely isn't "that simple."
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > Well I suppose the reaction of police at the Jan. 6 insurrection vs that of the BLM protests tells us a little. They shot a woman in the neck. What’s the difference you’re trying to portray?
- dualthro 6y ago
  Police murdered this kid for being weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_McClain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_McClain
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  That's a nice fantasy. They're supposed to enforce broken laws. It isn't unusual for them to abuse their power with mental gymnastics to violate the civil rights of law abiding citizens. I've had two illegal stops in the past year because in one I took a swig from a soda bottle going by a speed trap and the cop wanted to see if it was alcohol. The other, a cop in an unmarked car tried to run me out of my lane to follow a speeder. Some years ago I had to deal with a small town gumshoe in Indiana who had staked out an intersection of IN route 55. This was late at night in pitch black darkness. Indiana highway signs look like speed limit signs from a distance and IN55 in particular is hard to distinguish from the 55MPH speed limit signs. The local cops know this and abuse their power to make illegal stops. https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2361263,-87.2433936,3a,75y,10.8h,85.16t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sw4XGP2lfFU2YNiLamsc2vw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.2361263,-87.2433936,3a,75y,1... Indiana requires signals 200 ft from an intersection in rural areas rather than the normal 100 ft. The county couldn't be bothered to have an advance sign for the intersection so I didn't know when to signal for the turn. He and I were the only two people on the road but clearly I was a major threat to public safety.
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    What does any of that have to do with the true fact that cops exist to enforce the law? I don’t think anyone made the claim that no cops are abusive.
YuccaGloriosa 6y ago
That font on your article looks awful on my phone

powersnail 6y ago

Not just policing. I've found that in USA, the society in general wants to meddle with people's business. Me and my buddy were standing on the sidewalk of a bridge, making a time lapse. Within one hour, someone called the police on us twice.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
How can anyone possibly draw conclusions about the USA based on this? Like, really stop and think about all of the fallacies here. Do that 10 more times on 10 different bridges, and I’ll be shocked if that happens even one more time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- powersnail 6y ago
  My bad. I was speaking in too general a tone. I should have said that my interaction with the US society has been that people tend to meddle with others' business more often than in other countries that I've been to. But, yeah, I have many more anecdotes.
  - geargrinder 6y ago
    There are many other countries where I have experienced more societal meddling with neighbors' business. Ignoring the obvious authoritarian countries, many western european countries have a culture of making sure you are doing the normal or right thing. Germany is the easiest example.
- naewonawonga 6y ago
  >> Do that 10 more times on 10 different bridges, and I’ll be shocked if that happens even one more time. Likely it would happen another 8-10 times. Happens all the time, the bigger the bridge, the more likely.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

Haha, having spent time above and below 49, I would say you couldn’t be more wrong with that perception. In any American city, especially big liberal ones (which is most of them) you can forget about societal norms. There are weird and crazy people everywhere. Nothing is “weird” to anybody who has spent any amount of time in them. Everyone walks right past a circus on their way to work. Cops pay no attention. Ask a New Yorker about their favorite subway stories. It’s hard enough to get a response to actual crime, let alone a cop waste their time on someone acting weird. North of 49, there is way less for them to focus on. Traffic enforcement as a means of revenue generation is huge up there. It’s important not to confuse media narratives and cherry picked videos with trends. It’s also important not to generalize across such a diverse set of individuals and jurisdictions. You’ve got everything from LAPD to an elected backwoodsy county Sheriff.

TuringNYC 6y ago
Have you considered that your viewpoint might be so wildly opposing to other opinions because you’re part of an “accepted group” that gets their way...while others like me [an individual of color] get the brunt of enforcement — with or without cause? Heck, I’ve been stopped in NYC for “walking with a limp” (bike accident, fractured knee)...while wearing a $500 shirt and designer suit. What you refer to as “cherry picked videos” are just the instances that happen to have been filmed. Seriously, after Central Park Karen and Minnesota, can we at least acknowledge there might be an issue?!
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Do you not understand the problem with extrapolating trends from cherry picked anecdotes? And no, those videos are absolutely not evidence of problems. They aren’t even evidence of isolated cases of racism. But it wouldn’t change the situation if they were. More importantly, parent wasn’t even commenting about race.
simlevesque 6y ago
> You’ve got everything from LAPD to an elected backwoodsy county Sheriff Did you try to make a joke ? Both of those are racist to the core. They are the same.

AshWolfy 6y ago

Broken windows policing believes that abnormal behavior creates disorder, so all minor infractions must be heavily punished and "problematic" neighborhoods have to have heavy police presence