4 ms·

If the police can't gracefully handle a jerk with a cellphone, how do we expect them to behave in even more trying situations?

• meepmorp 3y ago
  If anything, their greater authority and power over other people demands a higher standard of behavior than we'd expect from regular citizens.
• sandworm101 3y ago
  There is no way to handle these people gracefully. They don't respond to police requests to leave. They see gradual escalation as weakness. Getting someone to leave private property, a provocator who doesn't want to leave and doesn't respect anyone's authority, will inevitably require more than words. Manhandling someone out of an area by force cannot be done gracefully. Arguably, common policies on gradual escalation only exacerbate the problem of auditors. Cops go from polite requests, to direct orders, trespass notices, through non-lethal things like tasers and pepper spray, and only then to handcuffs and arrests. The cops that handle these people best seem to be the ones that skip the middle stuff, instead going straight from polite request to handcuffs, with trespass notices coming afterwards.
  • ceejayoz 3y ago
    > There is no way to handle these people gracefully. The First Amendment doesn't have an "unless they're a pain in the ass" exemption. > Getting someone to leave private property These folks tend to be on public property. That's the whole schtick.
    • sandworm101 3y ago
      If the first amendment even applies. Many/most auditors are not in public spaces. They are on private property that the wrongly believe to be public spaces. I've even seen more a few on military property in some crazy belief that all such places are open to public inspection.
      • ceejayoz 3y ago
        I can't fight a strawman. If you trespass in restricted spaces (like a military base, or an NYPD evidence locker) you'll get arrested, yes. The crime is trespass, whether or not you have a camera filming. Most of the "auditors" I've seen (and many are certainly insufferable) film from public sidewalks, public lobbies (as is the case in this particular court case, which the auditor won), Border Patrol checkpoint / police traffic stops within their own vehicles, etc. It's very common for them to encounter police resistance in these situations, despite a clear First Amendment right to film. Police violating Constitutional rights isn't some wildly uncommon theoretical; I'm not sure why you seem to be portraying it as such.
      • kolanos 3y ago
        Care to share any videos of auditors going to private property?
        • autoexec 3y ago
          I've seen a few where they've removed auditors using the private property excuse because the city/state was leasing privately owned property and using it to operate public services out of. I think that's something courts may ultimately have to rule on, because it seems like an easy way for the government to shield themselves from accountability and violate people's freedoms.
          • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
            > operate public services Therein lies the rub. I'd be tempted to challenge the hell out of that.
        • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
          It's kind of a different context because these people are both based in the UK but there are many videos on the channels of DJ Audits[0] and PJ Audits[1] focusing on industrial estates. They go "to" private property but not "on"; they also launch drones from public space and fly them over the property for aerial footage. I guess there's some "SIA" licensing that contracted security usually has (I'm not familiar because I'm not a UK citizen), which is a common point of contention for the auditors, but they're mostly just interested in highlighting some bit of industry. 0: https://www.youtube.com/@DJAUDITS https://www.youtube.com/@DJAUDITS 1: https://www.youtube.com/@PJAudits https://www.youtube.com/@PJAudits
  • thomastjeffery 3y ago
    There absolutely is. Of course they don't leave, they have the constitutional right to stay! The very act of asking them to leave is already an overstep. > The cops that handle these people best seem to be the ones that skip the middle stuff, instead going straight from polite request to handcuffs, with trespass notices coming afterwards. That is absolutely disgusting. Is that how you want people to treat you?
  • jstarfish 3y ago
    > The cops that handle these people best seem to be the ones that skip the middle stuff, Rightfully so; tasers and pepper spray were meant to incapacitate violent suspects. They were never supposed to be used to enforce compliance with orders. Pulling out tasers to deal with "auditors" is the very behavior they seek to document.
• jimbob45 3y ago
  Did you think people were flooding these precincts with resumes after 2020? With people like you screaming "ACAB" and "Defund the police"? There's a finite amount of officers at any precinct - even less after 2020 - and having officers have to deal with people like this just increases the response time for calls elsewhere.
  • Clubber 3y ago
    Have you considered maybe good people who want to help their communities don't want to be part of a corrupt department? Everyone has to remember, not all departments are bad, but all departments can have bad cops; some WAY more than others to put it lightly. It's the unwillingness to remove or even punish the bad cops, that is the issue.