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> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation aut

> For example, in Kansas City a bus stop at a particular intersection was attracting drug sales and loitering. So the police called the local transportation authority and had the bus stop moved. > “I think within a week, maybe not even that, that immediately cut down on the loitering and foot traffic,” Capt. Jonas Baughman told the local press. As an outsider, I have no words for how absurd this is to me. The fact that "cut down on the loitering and foot traffic" is somehow presented as a good thing is beyond surreal and infuriating. It is really difficult to comprehend a free society where standing still in a public space is a crime, and where the priority of police is to make people walk less and not hang out in public spaces.

unethical_ban 4y ago
I thought that line was going to end with cops paying more attention to the corner. You know, doing their jobs.
anigbrowl 4y ago
Also tough shit if you were used to catching the bus there and now have to find and probably walk farther to another stop. There used to be 'beat cops' whose job was to just walk around neighborhoods and be familiar with them; not the most efficient approach to policing, but also not the most intimidating or heavy-handed. Now you only see police outside a cruiser if they're doing crowd control, managing a crime scene, or doing community outreach, as a form of PR.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  Because humanizing your chattel is a poor idea. It leads to corruption, favoritism, and being soft on the law. Community policing is a great idea, except for enforcers who realized that having people from the same neighborhood enforcing violence on the population tended to leave those enforcers a little soft.
  - kqr 4y ago
    I'm not entirely sure how high your sarcasm knob was turned up for this, but I'm choosing to interpret it as stuck on high.
  - 2fast4you 4y ago
    Huh, maybe the violence is the problem. Maybe officers SHOULD be a little soft
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      violence is the supreme authority from which all authority is derived
- SantalBlush 4y ago
  I only see law enforcement looking friendly on their Facebook page. In person, they are armed to the teeth and not to be spoken to.
- incompatible 4y ago
  People loitering at a bus stop ... reminds me of something I read once, maybe it was: https://www.abhmuseum.org/black-teens-arrested-while-waiting-for-the-bus/ https://www.abhmuseum.org/black-teens-arrested-while-waiting...
superjan 4y ago
A great example of positive action was the story of the Oakland Buddha. Intended to discourage littering but in the end cleaned up the entire neighberhood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddha https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-15-hes-neutral/ https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-15-hes-neutral/
- antiterra 4y ago
  2009-2014 sounds a lot like tech gentrification years for Oakland, no?
  - zemvpferreira 4y ago
    As someone who briefly lived in Oakland around that time, both things can be true. It was (and might still be) pretty rough territory while it had us tech people all moved in. The Bhudda effect sure looked real to me.
newsclues 4y ago
Isn’t loitering and foot traffic code for drug dealers selling drugs illegally to their customers?
- AviationAtom 4y ago
  It's generally people hanging out that don't have good intentions in mind, which might include drug transactions.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    I imagine since in the US, no one walks and there is nothing of interest outside, anyone who is out standing around is probably engaging in some criminal activity. What a sad society where this is the case.
    - newsclues 4y ago
      It’s often in areas that had factories or businesses that are closed and there is nothing but vacant buildings lefts for the underworld and marginalized to live until the next development.
      - feet 4y ago
        Might as well use the abandoned property instead of letting it go to waste
    - claytongulick 4y ago
      That's a pretty broad brush you're painting one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world with. Certainly where I live, everyone walks, rides bikes, and spends a huge amount of time outside. > there is nothing of interest outside Whew. I don't even know where to start with this one. If this is how you perceive the United States, I think there's a huge opportunity for you to learn more about this country.
- mwt 4y ago
  Outside the context of crime: loitering, yes, foot traffic, not really. It's possible this particular phrase is a euphemism used in crime reporting, I don't know, but if it is I don't know why they wouldn't just say "officers no longer suspected dealers were using this place" / "informants/word on the street was that distribution moved to xyz ... " That sentence read strangely to me as well; I think foot traffic is great and my favorite places in America are built around promoting it.
sandworm101 4y ago
>> loitering and foot traffic I laugh at how in this article that foot traffic is seen as a bad thing. HN has seen hundreds of threads opining on how we should get rid of car lanes and open up space for pedestrian traffic. But this article talks of pedestrians as a scourge to be eliminated. Cops in cop cars are out there keeping the sidewalks clear of people. How many pedestrians or mass transit riders, fearing police encounters, will op to travel instead by private car?
- quantified 4y ago
  More foot traffic likely lowers crime, too many non-criminals around and about.
sumy23 4y ago
It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone strung out on heroin loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime. This person is well within their rights to use the public space. But in many cases, people like this form a small minority that ruins the public space for everyone. Discouraging this type of person is actually maximizing the utility of public space.
- pgt 4y ago
  By...removing the park?
  - sandworm101 4y ago
    If you remove a vehicle lane then traffic is reduced. Pull up the sidewalks and loitering pedestrians disappear. Remove the parks and there will be fewer people sleeping in parks. Under-inclusive metrics generally lead to poor decisions.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      Vehicles are the only things that use traffic lanes. Pedestrians are the only things that use sidewalks. Heroin addicts are not the only things that use parks, unless your neighborhood is very disjointed and sad.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime. That's hard to believe. If it's apparent to anyone else, it will be a crime in a few different ways. For example: > A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he or she: > (1) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; [or] > (2) Makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/11.441 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/11.441 , apparently a rule of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the crime exists everywhere with somewhat variable definitions.)
nabilhat 4y ago
It's true - reducing foot traffic, social activity, and on-site jobs (transit drivers) is counterproductive to passive crime prevention. A persistent presence of crime-averse residents, professionals, and activities can inform effective response better than brute force law enforcement labor, often without police involvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_environmental_design#Natural_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_envir...
rayiner 4y ago
I’m not squeamish about urban areas—I lived in downtown Baltimore, Wilmington Delaware, and Atlanta. But you’re missing some perspective. The captain is talking about gangs. The presence of gang members means that law abiding citizens are driven out of these public places. So the folks who are “loitering” typically aren’t up to anything good. I just met an Uber driver from Germany the other day. He lives in Georgia (the state) now and was talking about how he moved to this town to get away from the dangerous city nearby. He was happy that his kid could ride around on his bike like back home in his village in Germany. I remember thinking it odd because I had never heard a European talk like that. But I suspect they don’t “get it” until they actually live it.
- loldk 4y ago
  Here's a radical idea: invest in mental health, food security & education, and community programs to directly combat the source of the gangs and bad behavior, rather than try to control people's behavior. That is the distinction you've seemed to miss here. Controlling others' behavior is ineffective at best. It's treating symptoms with pain killers while ignoring the source of the problem. It's weak leadership, and, it gives broken people the ability to manipulate the system to hurt others.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    It is not a radical idea. That type of massive wealth transfer is only possible on the federal level, where it simply has no political chance. All the non federal governments can do is like removing bus stops (or letting drug addicted communities flourish when the pendulum swings the other way).
    - banannaise 4y ago
      Welp, we don't have the political capital, guess we can't fix anything, only thing left to do is beat the shit out of poor people in the streets. Society!
      - 4y ago

unethical_ban 4y ago

I thought that line was going to end with cops paying more attention to the corner. You know, doing their jobs.

anigbrowl 4y ago

Also tough shit if you were used to catching the bus there and now have to find and probably walk farther to another stop. There used to be 'beat cops' whose job was to just walk around neighborhoods and be familiar with them; not the most efficient approach to policing, but also not the most intimidating or heavy-handed. Now you only see police outside a cruiser if they're doing crowd control, managing a crime scene, or doing community outreach, as a form of PR.

calvinmorrison 4y ago
Because humanizing your chattel is a poor idea. It leads to corruption, favoritism, and being soft on the law. Community policing is a great idea, except for enforcers who realized that having people from the same neighborhood enforcing violence on the population tended to leave those enforcers a little soft.
- kqr 4y ago
  I'm not entirely sure how high your sarcasm knob was turned up for this, but I'm choosing to interpret it as stuck on high.
- 2fast4you 4y ago
  Huh, maybe the violence is the problem. Maybe officers SHOULD be a little soft
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    violence is the supreme authority from which all authority is derived
SantalBlush 4y ago
I only see law enforcement looking friendly on their Facebook page. In person, they are armed to the teeth and not to be spoken to.
incompatible 4y ago
People loitering at a bus stop ... reminds me of something I read once, maybe it was: https://www.abhmuseum.org/black-teens-arrested-while-waiting-for-the-bus/ https://www.abhmuseum.org/black-teens-arrested-while-waiting...

superjan 4y ago

A great example of positive action was the story of the Oakland Buddha. Intended to discourage littering but in the end cleaned up the entire neighberhood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_Buddha https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-15-hes-neutral/ https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-15-hes-neutral/

antiterra 4y ago
2009-2014 sounds a lot like tech gentrification years for Oakland, no?
- zemvpferreira 4y ago
  As someone who briefly lived in Oakland around that time, both things can be true. It was (and might still be) pretty rough territory while it had us tech people all moved in. The Bhudda effect sure looked real to me.

newsclues 4y ago

Isn’t loitering and foot traffic code for drug dealers selling drugs illegally to their customers?

AviationAtom 4y ago
It's generally people hanging out that don't have good intentions in mind, which might include drug transactions.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  I imagine since in the US, no one walks and there is nothing of interest outside, anyone who is out standing around is probably engaging in some criminal activity. What a sad society where this is the case.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    It’s often in areas that had factories or businesses that are closed and there is nothing but vacant buildings lefts for the underworld and marginalized to live until the next development.
    - feet 4y ago
      Might as well use the abandoned property instead of letting it go to waste
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    That's a pretty broad brush you're painting one of the largest and most diverse countries in the world with. Certainly where I live, everyone walks, rides bikes, and spends a huge amount of time outside. > there is nothing of interest outside Whew. I don't even know where to start with this one. If this is how you perceive the United States, I think there's a huge opportunity for you to learn more about this country.
mwt 4y ago
Outside the context of crime: loitering, yes, foot traffic, not really. It's possible this particular phrase is a euphemism used in crime reporting, I don't know, but if it is I don't know why they wouldn't just say "officers no longer suspected dealers were using this place" / "informants/word on the street was that distribution moved to xyz ... " That sentence read strangely to me as well; I think foot traffic is great and my favorite places in America are built around promoting it.

sandworm101 4y ago

>> loitering and foot traffic I laugh at how in this article that foot traffic is seen as a bad thing. HN has seen hundreds of threads opining on how we should get rid of car lanes and open up space for pedestrian traffic. But this article talks of pedestrians as a scourge to be eliminated. Cops in cop cars are out there keeping the sidewalks clear of people. How many pedestrians or mass transit riders, fearing police encounters, will op to travel instead by private car?

quantified 4y ago
More foot traffic likely lowers crime, too many non-criminals around and about.

sumy23 4y ago

It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone strung out on heroin loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime. This person is well within their rights to use the public space. But in many cases, people like this form a small minority that ruins the public space for everyone. Discouraging this type of person is actually maximizing the utility of public space.

pgt 4y ago
By...removing the park?
- sandworm101 4y ago
  If you remove a vehicle lane then traffic is reduced. Pull up the sidewalks and loitering pedestrians disappear. Remove the parks and there will be fewer people sleeping in parks. Under-inclusive metrics generally lead to poor decisions.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    Vehicles are the only things that use traffic lanes. Pedestrians are the only things that use sidewalks. Heroin addicts are not the only things that use parks, unless your neighborhood is very disjointed and sad.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime. That's hard to believe. If it's apparent to anyone else, it will be a crime in a few different ways. For example: > A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he or she: > (1) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; [or] > (2) Makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/11.441 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/11.441 , apparently a rule of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the crime exists everywhere with somewhat variable definitions.)

nabilhat 4y ago

It's true - reducing foot traffic, social activity, and on-site jobs (transit drivers) is counterproductive to passive crime prevention. A persistent presence of crime-averse residents, professionals, and activities can inform effective response better than brute force law enforcement labor, often without police involvement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_environmental_design#Natural_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_prevention_through_envir...

rayiner 4y ago

I’m not squeamish about urban areas—I lived in downtown Baltimore, Wilmington Delaware, and Atlanta. But you’re missing some perspective. The captain is talking about gangs. The presence of gang members means that law abiding citizens are driven out of these public places. So the folks who are “loitering” typically aren’t up to anything good. I just met an Uber driver from Germany the other day. He lives in Georgia (the state) now and was talking about how he moved to this town to get away from the dangerous city nearby. He was happy that his kid could ride around on his bike like back home in his village in Germany. I remember thinking it odd because I had never heard a European talk like that. But I suspect they don’t “get it” until they actually live it.

loldk 4y ago
Here's a radical idea: invest in mental health, food security & education, and community programs to directly combat the source of the gangs and bad behavior, rather than try to control people's behavior. That is the distinction you've seemed to miss here. Controlling others' behavior is ineffective at best. It's treating symptoms with pain killers while ignoring the source of the problem. It's weak leadership, and, it gives broken people the ability to manipulate the system to hurt others.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  It is not a radical idea. That type of massive wealth transfer is only possible on the federal level, where it simply has no political chance. All the non federal governments can do is like removing bus stops (or letting drug addicted communities flourish when the pendulum swings the other way).
  - banannaise 4y ago
    Welp, we don't have the political capital, guess we can't fix anything, only thing left to do is beat the shit out of poor people in the streets. Society!
    - 4y ago