6 ms·

I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll

I was stopped too by police and one time briefly searched, so what? Being stopped by the police is not a game changer. If you haven't done anything wrong you'll walk away and go to work and back home. Why is being stopped by police such a big deal? I think the police should do more of that in the US, it would reduce crime considerably.

lucian1900 6y ago
Black peoples in the US are far more likely to be summarily executed when interacting with police.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. There are 32 million traffic stops each year. In 2019 the police shot 14 unarmed black Americans. I think every death is unforgivable, but let's not pretend that going to work and back as a black person you're putting your life at risk when meeting the police. There is a bias, sure, but it's just that, a bias. I fail to see the evidence for widespread discrimination. Police should do more stops and preventive interventions, look at Baltimore https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... I'm deviating, but my point is that police is not a suppressor for the black community, but a helper and an enabler for the honest working people. It can be intimidating and demeaning interacting with the police, but it's still 100x better than interacting with the gangs of Baltimore.
  - vmception 6y ago
    I’m familiar with these talking points and what influences you would have to regurgitate them. That talking point still assumes that the killings of armed people was necessary. It doesn't tell you if they were legal holders, responsible concealed carry holders, the type of weapon or anything. Supporting this frame of thought requires being too much of an apologist for an institution that just has too many options with too little accountability. It is a false dichotomy to simplify it to more police or less, the same goes to people saying defund the police. Accountability is an overarching theme. Overpolicing certain areas is a self fulfilling prophecy that even pollutes your own stats. Black and white people commit arrestable crimes at a similar distribution while the areas black people live in are policed more, or enforced more.
    - flavius29663 6y ago
      I don't think police should kill as many people as they do. They are way too trigger happy. I was making an argument that the police is about as shitty for whites and blacks. It's not a matter of racism, but of bad policing. I want police to be better to everyone, not just black people. If we don't address the root of the problem (and racism isn't it), you just end up with other Baltimores. For example just the other day I saw in the news that NYPD is losing officers at twice the rate since 2020.
      - zpeti 6y ago
        And in fact the solution is more money and training to the police. Police don't get trained, especially in high pressure situations, which creates even more mistakes. People upset with the police should be asking for funding the police and more training, not defunding them.
  - bjourne 6y ago
    > not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. ... Think about it. How does higher levels of crime among black Americans explain why more unarmed black Americans are killed by police? Think about it ...
    - esyir 6y ago
      Simple. Assuming that unarmed shooting rate is a proportion of police calls, more crime directly results on more calls and thus more shootings.
      - bjourne 6y ago
        I don't see how you get from point A to point B. More police calls means that more perpetrators get shot, perhaps, but why would it mean that more unarmed people get killed?
  - ingleswood 6y ago
    So if the police escalate a situation and shoot someone who is not a violent criminal, because he is black and therefore more likely (from the police officer's point of view) to be a violent criminal than a white person in the same situation, that's the system working as designed? Do you understand that this is exactly what people who say 'the police are racist' mean when they say it?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  They're more likely to be roughed up and about equally likely to be shot https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  An unfortunate myth that is easily disproven after a quick glance at the data. Yet, it persists.
metiscus 6y ago
Let's work through a hypothetical. Say that drug use is evenly distributed regardless of race across a group of people. If orange people get searched more frequently, even if every search is equally justified, then the number of orange people being prosecuted for drug infractions would be disproportionate. Note: I am not making a statement about the propriety of this, but merely working through an example of applied statistics.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  I see the problem, but I fail to see what you're suggesting? Are we supposed to let criminals go free? Don't deal drugs, is it that hard? If black people wouldn't deal drugs, they wouldn't be targeted by police officers. Think of the east Asians, they are discriminated and mocked maybe even more than black people, but they are less likely to commit crimes, so police doesn't target them.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    If I’m Muslim I should be OK with being profiled because some reprobates think it’s still the 7th century AD? It’s a little more complicated than “Was drugs your dealer?”
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Actually, there have been quite a few studies on this and there are marginally fewer black drug users than white drug users, and roughly equal rates of drug dealing in the white and black populations https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and...
snypher 6y ago
Because one should have the freedom to continue about their day without being detained for no reason. Can you support your claim? In my city people who have outstanding warrants (arguably having met a standard of having committed a crime) are regularly released after being stopped by police. It seems to me that being stopped by the police doesn't result in the detention of people actually charged with crimes - so why should an average citizen be subject to that or worse?
- flavius29663 6y ago
  I honestly don't understand this argument. Please help me do so, because I keep hearing it. If you're doing crimes, you're paying for them. Now the police, the argument goes, lets white people walk away with warrants. In the same time, they let less black people walk away. Is that the argument? This might be true, but my problem is the letting people walk away in the first place. I don't want the police to do that at all. If the crime is not too bad, then don't emit warrants to begin with. But if there is a warrant, then that should be enforced. I don't see how not enforcing warrants for black people or criminals of any color will make things better. It won't make things better for the society at large or for the black community. I believe the hard working black people also want less crime on the streets. There is a problem with longer sentencing for black people, from what I heard. That is not a police issue. Police violence is a police issue, for all races. But police trying to arrest based on a warrant is not an issue, even if it devolves in violence. What am I getting wrong?
- zpeti 6y ago
  In my city (non US), the police block a bridge over the river, stop everyone, and check the levels of alcohol in their breath. I don't make a fuss about it, because it probably keeps me safer as a lot of idiots won't drink and drive because of this being done regularly. Deal with it. The police stopping you is not them thinking you are a criminal necessarily.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    stop everyone That's a very different situation which is obviously non-discriminatory. But consider how you'd feel if they just stopped some and waved others through, don't you see the potential for unfairness?
anigbrowl 6y ago
The rapidly evolving complexity of your arguments above and below suggests to me your appearance of cluelessness was no more than a rhetorical posture. I have more respect for people who make their strongest arguments up front.
- flukus 6y ago
  Classic sealioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    It's a pity you're getting downvoted.
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    How did I troll? I started a conversation, it evolved in a way I didn't anticipate. I did write full answers, with both personal experience, data and articles? How is that "trollinhg by asking concerned questions"? I did make my point and tried to support it with (some) data.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
"it would reduce crime considerably" There are several things wrong with this statement: the idea that most crimes are commited by individuals and not corporations, the idea that they are commited on the street, and the idea that searching a person somehow can prevent crime. Firstly a large chunk of crime, is commited by corporates, thats wage theft, consumer law breaches, money laundering, environmental protection, etc. Secondly most crimes are white collar crimes, and we do a very poor job of investigating both. Lastly even for street crime, which is a small percentage of all crime, stop and search is just a populist show of force that does nothing usefull. You know what actually reduces crime? Having competent detectives, investigators and prosecutors who can actualy arrest not the individual weed smoker but the kingpin running the show, or bring a complex case against a major company have it stand up to their highly paid team of lawyers.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  This is where you are wrong. First of all, I was only talking about violent crimes. Real life experiment, look at Baltimore homicides https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... All the police did was not getting proactively involved on the streets, those stop and search you were mentioning. They still responded to calls and did their investigations. The result is 50% more deaths from homicides, each year.
ingleswood 6y ago
Have you ever been shot and killed by the police?
x1ph0z 6y ago
I mean the past year hasn't shown you that being stopped while being black is could end up being a dangerous situation?
- flavius29663 6y ago
  not really. Jacob Blake was wanted for rape and he violated a restraining order(approaching the said rape victim). He fought the police and even choke-hold one of them. He was preparing to run away with a stolen car with the kids in it (that he did not have custody of). Their mother was the one that called the police, and the police knew who they were dealing with. If he would have been let go by the police, I assume an amber alert would have been issued. Floyd was being arrested for passing counterfeit bills. Brianna Taylor was shot after her boyfriend started shooting at the cops. The cops were executing a warrant for drug dealing. They didn't find anything, but that is beyond the point. The guy that was shot at Wendy's (Rayshard Brooks -had to look him up)was so drunk that he fell asleep at the drive through, and the employees had to call the police to clear the lane. He had prior DUIs and he fought during the arrest, stole a taser and fired it at the cops. These were the big cases of last year that I can remember right now. None of these were because of mere stops in traffic. The 3 shouldn't have died, sure, but I am addressing your point: It was more than a benign stop for any of the big cases last year. I am assuming there are traffic stops where innocent people died, but BLM of 2020 was not protesting for them.

lucian1900 6y ago

Black peoples in the US are far more likely to be summarily executed when interacting with police.

flavius29663 6y ago
not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. There are 32 million traffic stops each year. In 2019 the police shot 14 unarmed black Americans. I think every death is unforgivable, but let's not pretend that going to work and back as a black person you're putting your life at risk when meeting the police. There is a bias, sure, but it's just that, a bias. I fail to see the evidence for widespread discrimination. Police should do more stops and preventive interventions, look at Baltimore https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... I'm deviating, but my point is that police is not a suppressor for the black community, but a helper and an enabler for the honest working people. It can be intimidating and demeaning interacting with the police, but it's still 100x better than interacting with the gangs of Baltimore.
- vmception 6y ago
  I’m familiar with these talking points and what influences you would have to regurgitate them. That talking point still assumes that the killings of armed people was necessary. It doesn't tell you if they were legal holders, responsible concealed carry holders, the type of weapon or anything. Supporting this frame of thought requires being too much of an apologist for an institution that just has too many options with too little accountability. It is a false dichotomy to simplify it to more police or less, the same goes to people saying defund the police. Accountability is an overarching theme. Overpolicing certain areas is a self fulfilling prophecy that even pollutes your own stats. Black and white people commit arrestable crimes at a similar distribution while the areas black people live in are policed more, or enforced more.
  - flavius29663 6y ago
    I don't think police should kill as many people as they do. They are way too trigger happy. I was making an argument that the police is about as shitty for whites and blacks. It's not a matter of racism, but of bad policing. I want police to be better to everyone, not just black people. If we don't address the root of the problem (and racism isn't it), you just end up with other Baltimores. For example just the other day I saw in the news that NYPD is losing officers at twice the rate since 2020.
    - zpeti 6y ago
      And in fact the solution is more money and training to the police. Police don't get trained, especially in high pressure situations, which creates even more mistakes. People upset with the police should be asking for funding the police and more training, not defunding them.
- bjourne 6y ago
  > not when accounting for a higher level of crime. In fact, whites are more than half of police victims, while causing way less than half of violent crimes. ... Think about it. How does higher levels of crime among black Americans explain why more unarmed black Americans are killed by police? Think about it ...
  - esyir 6y ago
    Simple. Assuming that unarmed shooting rate is a proportion of police calls, more crime directly results on more calls and thus more shootings.
    - bjourne 6y ago
      I don't see how you get from point A to point B. More police calls means that more perpetrators get shot, perhaps, but why would it mean that more unarmed people get killed?
- ingleswood 6y ago
  So if the police escalate a situation and shoot someone who is not a violent criminal, because he is black and therefore more likely (from the police officer's point of view) to be a violent criminal than a white person in the same situation, that's the system working as designed? Do you understand that this is exactly what people who say 'the police are racist' mean when they say it?
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
They're more likely to be roughed up and about equally likely to be shot https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal...
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
An unfortunate myth that is easily disproven after a quick glance at the data. Yet, it persists.

metiscus 6y ago

Let's work through a hypothetical. Say that drug use is evenly distributed regardless of race across a group of people. If orange people get searched more frequently, even if every search is equally justified, then the number of orange people being prosecuted for drug infractions would be disproportionate. Note: I am not making a statement about the propriety of this, but merely working through an example of applied statistics.

flavius29663 6y ago
I see the problem, but I fail to see what you're suggesting? Are we supposed to let criminals go free? Don't deal drugs, is it that hard? If black people wouldn't deal drugs, they wouldn't be targeted by police officers. Think of the east Asians, they are discriminated and mocked maybe even more than black people, but they are less likely to commit crimes, so police doesn't target them.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  If I’m Muslim I should be OK with being profiled because some reprobates think it’s still the 7th century AD? It’s a little more complicated than “Was drugs your dealer?”
- klyrs 6y ago
  Actually, there have been quite a few studies on this and there are marginally fewer black drug users than white drug users, and roughly equal rates of drug dealing in the white and black populations https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and_sales_by_race_rates_of_drug_related_criminal_justice https://www.hamiltonproject.org/charts/rates_of_drug_use_and...

snypher 6y ago

Because one should have the freedom to continue about their day without being detained for no reason. Can you support your claim? In my city people who have outstanding warrants (arguably having met a standard of having committed a crime) are regularly released after being stopped by police. It seems to me that being stopped by the police doesn't result in the detention of people actually charged with crimes - so why should an average citizen be subject to that or worse?

flavius29663 6y ago
I honestly don't understand this argument. Please help me do so, because I keep hearing it. If you're doing crimes, you're paying for them. Now the police, the argument goes, lets white people walk away with warrants. In the same time, they let less black people walk away. Is that the argument? This might be true, but my problem is the letting people walk away in the first place. I don't want the police to do that at all. If the crime is not too bad, then don't emit warrants to begin with. But if there is a warrant, then that should be enforced. I don't see how not enforcing warrants for black people or criminals of any color will make things better. It won't make things better for the society at large or for the black community. I believe the hard working black people also want less crime on the streets. There is a problem with longer sentencing for black people, from what I heard. That is not a police issue. Police violence is a police issue, for all races. But police trying to arrest based on a warrant is not an issue, even if it devolves in violence. What am I getting wrong?
zpeti 6y ago
In my city (non US), the police block a bridge over the river, stop everyone, and check the levels of alcohol in their breath. I don't make a fuss about it, because it probably keeps me safer as a lot of idiots won't drink and drive because of this being done regularly. Deal with it. The police stopping you is not them thinking you are a criminal necessarily.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  stop everyone That's a very different situation which is obviously non-discriminatory. But consider how you'd feel if they just stopped some and waved others through, don't you see the potential for unfairness?

anigbrowl 6y ago

The rapidly evolving complexity of your arguments above and below suggests to me your appearance of cluelessness was no more than a rhetorical posture. I have more respect for people who make their strongest arguments up front.

flukus 6y ago
Classic sealioning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  It's a pity you're getting downvoted.
- flavius29663 6y ago
  How did I troll? I started a conversation, it evolved in a way I didn't anticipate. I did write full answers, with both personal experience, data and articles? How is that "trollinhg by asking concerned questions"? I did make my point and tried to support it with (some) data.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

"it would reduce crime considerably" There are several things wrong with this statement: the idea that most crimes are commited by individuals and not corporations, the idea that they are commited on the street, and the idea that searching a person somehow can prevent crime. Firstly a large chunk of crime, is commited by corporates, thats wage theft, consumer law breaches, money laundering, environmental protection, etc. Secondly most crimes are white collar crimes, and we do a very poor job of investigating both. Lastly even for street crime, which is a small percentage of all crime, stop and search is just a populist show of force that does nothing usefull. You know what actually reduces crime? Having competent detectives, investigators and prosecutors who can actualy arrest not the individual weed smoker but the kingpin running the show, or bring a complex case against a major company have it stand up to their highly paid team of lawyers.

flavius29663 6y ago
This is where you are wrong. First of all, I was only talking about violent crimes. Real life experiment, look at Baltimore homicides https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 https://homicides.news.baltimoresun.com/?range=2015 Look at pre-2015 and post-2015. The homicides increased from 200s to 300s. All because of a police crime and BLM protests in 2015. Now you have 100 extra people each year losing their lives. US needs more police, not less. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltimore-police-not-noticing-crime-after-freddie-gray-wave-killings-followed/744741002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/07/12/baltim... All the police did was not getting proactively involved on the streets, those stop and search you were mentioning. They still responded to calls and did their investigations. The result is 50% more deaths from homicides, each year.

ingleswood 6y ago

Have you ever been shot and killed by the police?

x1ph0z 6y ago

I mean the past year hasn't shown you that being stopped while being black is could end up being a dangerous situation?

flavius29663 6y ago
not really. Jacob Blake was wanted for rape and he violated a restraining order(approaching the said rape victim). He fought the police and even choke-hold one of them. He was preparing to run away with a stolen car with the kids in it (that he did not have custody of). Their mother was the one that called the police, and the police knew who they were dealing with. If he would have been let go by the police, I assume an amber alert would have been issued. Floyd was being arrested for passing counterfeit bills. Brianna Taylor was shot after her boyfriend started shooting at the cops. The cops were executing a warrant for drug dealing. They didn't find anything, but that is beyond the point. The guy that was shot at Wendy's (Rayshard Brooks -had to look him up)was so drunk that he fell asleep at the drive through, and the employees had to call the police to clear the lane. He had prior DUIs and he fought during the arrest, stole a taser and fired it at the cops. These were the big cases of last year that I can remember right now. None of these were because of mere stops in traffic. The 3 shouldn't have died, sure, but I am addressing your point: It was more than a benign stop for any of the big cases last year. I am assuming there are traffic stops where innocent people died, but BLM of 2020 was not protesting for them.