5 ms·

Also probably a rare case where there are a few Streisand effect's all packed together, where the cops at each step made it worse for themselves. If they never

Also probably a rare case where there are a few Streisand effect's all packed together, where the cops at each step made it worse for themselves. If they never did the raid in the first place, no music video, no "embarrassment". They could have cut their losses, and not made a big deal about it and probably way less people (including myself) would have ever heard about it. Instead they decided to sue, which made even bigger news. Here they could again have chosen "You know what, maybe this is counter-productive, lets settle/cancel it", and again probably people would have cared way less about it. Instead, they go to court, make a bunch of exaggerated and outrageous claims, one officer apparently cried as well, all in a public court room that is being recorded, again making it a bigger thing. Finally, Afroman wins the case, leading to this now seemingly making international news, and the videos continue racking up views. I know cops aren't known for being smart, but I have to wonder who made them act like this, don't cops have lawyers who can inform them about what is a smart move vs not? Seems they almost purposefully and intentionally tried to help Afroman, since they basically made the "wrong move" at every chance they got.

lukan 8mo ago
They would have individually gotten lots of money in compensation if they would have won. So maybe the motives on their side are a bit more materialistic.
lenerdenator 8mo ago
> don't cops have lawyers who can inform them about what is a smart move vs not? Generally, municipalities have at least some sort of attorney on retainer for this sort of thing. Generally. I don't know if that's the case where he lives. Either way, the police have to be smart enough to listen to that attorney, and have to be given a consequence for not doing so. If you can brush off everything as qualified immunity and say you were acting under color of law while a part of a union that would raise absolute hell for any sort of corrective action taken against you, you might not be introduced to said consequence.
- SpaceL10n 8mo ago
  I have no evidence besides my own experience, but I think that the "back the blue" mentality might skew their support staff's objectivity a bit. Especially in smaller cities and towns where cops aren't just law enforcement, they are foundational pillars of morality and governance. The point I hope I'm making is that they are getting bad advice not because they are stupid, or the people around them are, but rather because it's inevitable due to complex social and psychological reasons.
  - cucumber3732842 8mo ago
    > The point I hope I'm making is that they are getting bad advice not because they are stupid, or the people around them are, but rather because it's inevitable due to complex social and psychological reasons. Which basically boils down to when the men with the guns and the violence (or their string pullers) set down a dumb path nobody is going to say "that's fucking stupid, you're stupid, good luck with that". It's gonna be a bunch of tepid "well the odds are long but here's how you could prevail" type criticism that lets them think their path of action is fine right up until it hits reality.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  This. The cops don't care if they "look bad" because looking bad doesn't cost them anything. They don't lose any money. The populace is no more entitled to resist them so their jobs are no harder, their KPIs are not imperiled. Etc. etc. At best the municipality will scold them because the municipality cares very little, but not zero about police optics because it impacts their ability to do things that are unpopular.
  - avidiax 8mo ago
    This has curbed somewhat in small cities because of the insurance industry. Turns out that small towns need insurance to cover police malpractice, and those insurers don't like high-risk or overly aggressive police tactics. Turns out the police can be reasonable, if only they are even slightly accountable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/police-misconduct-insurance-settlements-reform/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...
thinkingtoilet 8mo ago
>I know cops aren't known for being smart Even worse. Police departments can actively reject you for being smart. https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story... (granted this is a one off case, but it is astonishing and speaks to the larger issue)
delecti 8mo ago
I suspect it was less about the legal merits and more about punishing (whether or not they won) through the lawsuit itself.
- mwigdahl 8mo ago
  "The process is the punishment"
  - johannes1234321 8mo ago
    This may be true in many cases. In this case however the story currently is two times(!) on the front page of haackernews (which isn't a music celebrity gossip site), bringing a musician into spotlight who's career was far from its peak. Hardly any better Marketing campaign one could imagine.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  That was what I was thinking at first too, but if I was sitting on their side, my mind would still go for "Wait, if we sue him, won't this make the news and make things better for him?" immediately, rather than "Yeah, this will suck for him". I'm not sure how they thought this would be bad for him, legal costs?
  - JoshTriplett 8mo ago
    You're assuming a rational, reasoned process, rather than an instinctive punishment of a perceived status challenge. When you observe someone acting in a way that seems obviously against their self-interest, it is always worth considering the possibility that there's some interest you don't understand...but it's also worth considering the possibility that they're doing a bad job of considering their own interests.
    - embedding-shape 8mo ago
      This is an event that took course over 3 years! I could understand the initial actions, statements and whatnot from the department to maybe be instinctual and emotional reaction to events/messages, but during these 3 years, at least one of them must have had some still time to reflect on what they're doing.
echelon_musk 8mo ago
> way less people (including myself) would have never heard about it I think the never here is a typo.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  Thanks, `(subs "never" 1)` been applied now!
plagiarist 8mo ago
If I were in a gang such that I routinely committed theft and violence without consequence from the government, I'd probably have internalized that I am superior to the plebs. So I would expect what is obviously SLAPP to actually come out in my favor.
mmooss 8mo ago
[flagged]
- Tostino 8mo ago
  Have you watched any of the video from the raid, depositions, or the trial? They are not smart people.
- ProjectArcturis 8mo ago
  > Not very smart itself. How sad to reduce the whole thing to ignorant stereotypes It's hard to call it an ignorant stereotype when it is the explicit policy of some police departments not to hire smart people. And to go to court to defend that policy. https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story...
  - mmooss 8mo ago
    > some police departments There is one story about one police department. Does the sheriff's department in the OP do that? Does it apply to these particular people? If you don't know, it's ignorant and it's a stereotype.
- Moomoomoo309 8mo ago
  To be fair, there is legal precedent for cops not being too smart. https://ny.prelawland.com/post/719662253773832192/too-smart-for-the-job-jordan-v-the-city-of-new https://ny.prelawland.com/post/719662253773832192/too-smart-... They're allowed to not hire someone if their IQ is too high. The stereotype is at the very least based on truth, and has been affirmed legally.
  - tptacek 8mo ago
    People keep saying this and this case from 2000 is the one instance anybody has been able to cite. Most police agencies use standardized domain-specific written exams --- the PELLETB, NTN, IOS --- that are both not general cognitive exams and have no ceiling score. This really seems like one of those too-perfect Internet myths that just isn't ever going to die. I think the balance of evidence is that if you picked any police department in the US out at random, it would have the opposite of the incentive claimed in your comment, and no ceiling on general cognitive ability whatsoever.
shevy-java 8mo ago
> Also probably a rare case where there are a few Streisand effect's all packed together, where the cops at each step made it worse for themselves. It is not even that rare; some cases covered by Audit the Audit or Lackluster (same guy), or the civil lawyer. The amount of incompetence among many cops is surprising. They really literally don't even know the law or constitution. Just about anyone is hired. Quality standards are mega-low.
BLKNSLVR 8mo ago
I hope he makes another song with additional material from the court case.
- testing22321 8mo ago
  His instagram has daily updates from the court case.
athrowaway3z 8mo ago
US Police are trained such that their first impression in any situation is to see how people are reacting to their authority, and if it's not acquiesced to go on high alert. It's not that they couldn't understand; It's that it's a faux pas to question this way of thinking so nobody does. Play that out long enough and you get clown shows like these.
ngc248 8mo ago
Mega-streisand effect ... they stacked together so many of em
- busymom0 8mo ago
  I hope they appeal this case just to stack together one more humiliation.
renewiltord 8mo ago
Tin foil hat version is that they’re looking for a payday where they can and if this didn’t work they can always check whether the police department failed them as an employer.
TallGuyShort 8mo ago
If the police possessed the self-control and critical thinking to not drag this whole thing into a lawsuit, I think the raid would likely have never happened in the first place.
- busymom0 8mo ago
  I suspect that either this was some confidential informant who just reported false claims about Afroman and the police used it to get a warrant. Or the whole department is just corrupt and make up stuff to get a warrant in order to raid his house hoping to forfeiture his money.
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    They also claimed that they're received hundreds of calls one day, with violent threats from some anonymous individual, and when they tried to track the number, it didn't work, "the numbers didn't actually exists" or something like that, and there is no way of proving the calls actually happened, except for the call log at their police station.
  - TallGuyShort 8mo ago
    So yes, there was an informant who was cited as the reason for the warrant, but the credibility is questionable. The informant referenced a basement that county records would show should not have existed - presumably the SWAT-like team doing the raid didn't bother to consult building plans for any planning, because that would have cast all the testimony into doubt. This part I've heard from social media sources and haven't seen in reputable documents, but some of Afroman's claims about the police officers and their history of sexual abuse is apparently based on claims from the same informant that were never investigated. The whole thing stinks and I'm glad attention has been thrown on that department.
ncr100 8mo ago
In my view it's because the city or locality which those cops protect has been remiss, the community has been remiss in making sure that their police actually police in the way that the community wants them to police. So obviously the community is getting exactly what it deserves by having its police force be legally liable for incompetent malfeasance behavior. Ultimately it will cost the community, Afroman himself, in tax used to fund the police, And then route that money back to afroman and his attorney for his legal fees. An embarrassment. Humiliation of the community. Reinforcement and debasement of the community. Suppressed business attractiveness of the community for its plain lack of oversight.
- throwaway27448 8mo ago
  I'm not saying that the public has no control over the police, but it does often feel like that.
atmavatar 8mo ago
> I know cops aren't known for being smart Not only aren't they known for being smart, but they're known for explicitly filtering out smart people. The 2nd court of appeals ruled in favor of a city (New London, Connecticut) which rejects police applicants for having too high a score on intelligence tests. See: https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story... See: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/
busymom0 8mo ago
I had never even heard of Afroman until 3 days ago when I saw some lawyers livestream the trial on YouTube. The whole thing seemed so bizarre and I was surprised why the case wasn't even summary dismissed by the judge in the first place. Now Afroman has even more material to make YouTube videos of and humiliate these cops for eternity.
nitwit005 8mo ago
You forgot that they stole his money. When he went to get the cash, it was $400 short. They blamed a counting error, but it was supposedly in a sealed evidence bag, so how did it escape? That generated a whole slew of extra stories, because it elevated the whole thing to a deliberate crime.

lukan 8mo ago

They would have individually gotten lots of money in compensation if they would have won. So maybe the motives on their side are a bit more materialistic.

lenerdenator 8mo ago

> don't cops have lawyers who can inform them about what is a smart move vs not? Generally, municipalities have at least some sort of attorney on retainer for this sort of thing. Generally. I don't know if that's the case where he lives. Either way, the police have to be smart enough to listen to that attorney, and have to be given a consequence for not doing so. If you can brush off everything as qualified immunity and say you were acting under color of law while a part of a union that would raise absolute hell for any sort of corrective action taken against you, you might not be introduced to said consequence.

SpaceL10n 8mo ago
I have no evidence besides my own experience, but I think that the "back the blue" mentality might skew their support staff's objectivity a bit. Especially in smaller cities and towns where cops aren't just law enforcement, they are foundational pillars of morality and governance. The point I hope I'm making is that they are getting bad advice not because they are stupid, or the people around them are, but rather because it's inevitable due to complex social and psychological reasons.
- cucumber3732842 8mo ago
  > The point I hope I'm making is that they are getting bad advice not because they are stupid, or the people around them are, but rather because it's inevitable due to complex social and psychological reasons. Which basically boils down to when the men with the guns and the violence (or their string pullers) set down a dumb path nobody is going to say "that's fucking stupid, you're stupid, good luck with that". It's gonna be a bunch of tepid "well the odds are long but here's how you could prevail" type criticism that lets them think their path of action is fine right up until it hits reality.
cucumber3732842 8mo ago
This. The cops don't care if they "look bad" because looking bad doesn't cost them anything. They don't lose any money. The populace is no more entitled to resist them so their jobs are no harder, their KPIs are not imperiled. Etc. etc. At best the municipality will scold them because the municipality cares very little, but not zero about police optics because it impacts their ability to do things that are unpopular.
- avidiax 8mo ago
  This has curbed somewhat in small cities because of the insurance industry. Turns out that small towns need insurance to cover police malpractice, and those insurers don't like high-risk or overly aggressive police tactics. Turns out the police can be reasonable, if only they are even slightly accountable. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2022/police-misconduct-insurance-settlements-reform/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/20...

thinkingtoilet 8mo ago

>I know cops aren't known for being smart Even worse. Police departments can actively reject you for being smart. https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story... (granted this is a one off case, but it is astonishing and speaks to the larger issue)

delecti 8mo ago

I suspect it was less about the legal merits and more about punishing (whether or not they won) through the lawsuit itself.

mwigdahl 8mo ago
"The process is the punishment"
- johannes1234321 8mo ago
  This may be true in many cases. In this case however the story currently is two times(!) on the front page of haackernews (which isn't a music celebrity gossip site), bringing a musician into spotlight who's career was far from its peak. Hardly any better Marketing campaign one could imagine.
embedding-shape 8mo ago
That was what I was thinking at first too, but if I was sitting on their side, my mind would still go for "Wait, if we sue him, won't this make the news and make things better for him?" immediately, rather than "Yeah, this will suck for him". I'm not sure how they thought this would be bad for him, legal costs?
- JoshTriplett 8mo ago
  You're assuming a rational, reasoned process, rather than an instinctive punishment of a perceived status challenge. When you observe someone acting in a way that seems obviously against their self-interest, it is always worth considering the possibility that there's some interest you don't understand...but it's also worth considering the possibility that they're doing a bad job of considering their own interests.
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    This is an event that took course over 3 years! I could understand the initial actions, statements and whatnot from the department to maybe be instinctual and emotional reaction to events/messages, but during these 3 years, at least one of them must have had some still time to reflect on what they're doing.

echelon_musk 8mo ago

> way less people (including myself) would have never heard about it I think the never here is a typo.

embedding-shape 8mo ago
Thanks, `(subs "never" 1)` been applied now!

plagiarist 8mo ago

If I were in a gang such that I routinely committed theft and violence without consequence from the government, I'd probably have internalized that I am superior to the plebs. So I would expect what is obviously SLAPP to actually come out in my favor.

mmooss 8mo ago

[flagged]

Tostino 8mo ago
Have you watched any of the video from the raid, depositions, or the trial? They are not smart people.
ProjectArcturis 8mo ago
> Not very smart itself. How sad to reduce the whole thing to ignorant stereotypes It's hard to call it an ignorant stereotype when it is the explicit policy of some police departments not to hire smart people. And to go to court to defend that policy. https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story...
- mmooss 8mo ago
  > some police departments There is one story about one police department. Does the sheriff's department in the OP do that? Does it apply to these particular people? If you don't know, it's ignorant and it's a stereotype.
Moomoomoo309 8mo ago
To be fair, there is legal precedent for cops not being too smart. https://ny.prelawland.com/post/719662253773832192/too-smart-for-the-job-jordan-v-the-city-of-new https://ny.prelawland.com/post/719662253773832192/too-smart-... They're allowed to not hire someone if their IQ is too high. The stereotype is at the very least based on truth, and has been affirmed legally.
- tptacek 8mo ago
  People keep saying this and this case from 2000 is the one instance anybody has been able to cite. Most police agencies use standardized domain-specific written exams --- the PELLETB, NTN, IOS --- that are both not general cognitive exams and have no ceiling score. This really seems like one of those too-perfect Internet myths that just isn't ever going to die. I think the balance of evidence is that if you picked any police department in the US out at random, it would have the opposite of the incentive claimed in your comment, and no ceiling on general cognitive ability whatsoever.

shevy-java 8mo ago

> Also probably a rare case where there are a few Streisand effect's all packed together, where the cops at each step made it worse for themselves. It is not even that rare; some cases covered by Audit the Audit or Lackluster (same guy), or the civil lawyer. The amount of incompetence among many cops is surprising. They really literally don't even know the law or constitution. Just about anyone is hired. Quality standards are mega-low.

BLKNSLVR 8mo ago

I hope he makes another song with additional material from the court case.

testing22321 8mo ago
His instagram has daily updates from the court case.

athrowaway3z 8mo ago

US Police are trained such that their first impression in any situation is to see how people are reacting to their authority, and if it's not acquiesced to go on high alert. It's not that they couldn't understand; It's that it's a faux pas to question this way of thinking so nobody does. Play that out long enough and you get clown shows like these.

ngc248 8mo ago

Mega-streisand effect ... they stacked together so many of em

busymom0 8mo ago
I hope they appeal this case just to stack together one more humiliation.

renewiltord 8mo ago

Tin foil hat version is that they’re looking for a payday where they can and if this didn’t work they can always check whether the police department failed them as an employer.

TallGuyShort 8mo ago

If the police possessed the self-control and critical thinking to not drag this whole thing into a lawsuit, I think the raid would likely have never happened in the first place.

busymom0 8mo ago
I suspect that either this was some confidential informant who just reported false claims about Afroman and the police used it to get a warrant. Or the whole department is just corrupt and make up stuff to get a warrant in order to raid his house hoping to forfeiture his money.
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  They also claimed that they're received hundreds of calls one day, with violent threats from some anonymous individual, and when they tried to track the number, it didn't work, "the numbers didn't actually exists" or something like that, and there is no way of proving the calls actually happened, except for the call log at their police station.
- TallGuyShort 8mo ago
  So yes, there was an informant who was cited as the reason for the warrant, but the credibility is questionable. The informant referenced a basement that county records would show should not have existed - presumably the SWAT-like team doing the raid didn't bother to consult building plans for any planning, because that would have cast all the testimony into doubt. This part I've heard from social media sources and haven't seen in reputable documents, but some of Afroman's claims about the police officers and their history of sexual abuse is apparently based on claims from the same informant that were never investigated. The whole thing stinks and I'm glad attention has been thrown on that department.

ncr100 8mo ago

In my view it's because the city or locality which those cops protect has been remiss, the community has been remiss in making sure that their police actually police in the way that the community wants them to police. So obviously the community is getting exactly what it deserves by having its police force be legally liable for incompetent malfeasance behavior. Ultimately it will cost the community, Afroman himself, in tax used to fund the police, And then route that money back to afroman and his attorney for his legal fees. An embarrassment. Humiliation of the community. Reinforcement and debasement of the community. Suppressed business attractiveness of the community for its plain lack of oversight.

throwaway27448 8mo ago
I'm not saying that the public has no control over the police, but it does often feel like that.

atmavatar 8mo ago

> I know cops aren't known for being smart Not only aren't they known for being smart, but they're known for explicitly filtering out smart people. The 2nd court of appeals ruled in favor of a city (New London, Connecticut) which rejects police applicants for having too high a score on intelligence tests. See: https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story... See: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-smart-to-be-a-cop/

busymom0 8mo ago

I had never even heard of Afroman until 3 days ago when I saw some lawyers livestream the trial on YouTube. The whole thing seemed so bizarre and I was surprised why the case wasn't even summary dismissed by the judge in the first place. Now Afroman has even more material to make YouTube videos of and humiliate these cops for eternity.

nitwit005 8mo ago

You forgot that they stole his money. When he went to get the cash, it was $400 short. They blamed a counting error, but it was supposedly in a sealed evidence bag, so how did it escape? That generated a whole slew of extra stories, because it elevated the whole thing to a deliberate crime.