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All of Winona Police Department's Flock cameras cut down and stolen
- NDlurker 3mo agoWINONA, Minn. (Valley News Live) - Every Flock license plate reader camera operated by the Winona Police Department has been sawed off and stolen in what investigators believe was a coordinated theft. All eight cameras were taken Aug. 1, according to the Winona Police Department. A patrol officer first noticed the cameras had not sent any alerts in 24 hours. When officers checked the locations, they found the cameras had been cut from their poles and taken. The poles were left behind. Two additional Flock cameras on the Mississippi River Bridge, owned by Buffalo County, were also stolen in the same manner. Each camera is valued at approximately $3,000, putting the total loss at roughly $24,000. That cost falls directly on the Winona Police Department’s budget. The eight WPD cameras were positioned at key highway entry and exit points throughout the city: near Highway 61 and Bundy Boulevard, Highway 43 and Homer Road, Highway 14 and Knapp Valley Drive, and Highway 61 and Highway 14. Two cameras were stationed at each location. Flock Safety cameras are automated license plate readers that capture images of plates along with a vehicle’s make, model and color. Police use the technology to investigate crimes such as hit-and-runs and to locate missing persons. Camera data is owned by the police department and permanently deleted after 30 days. The thefts are part of a broader national trend. Flock cameras have been vandalized and cut down in communities across the country. The technology has drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates who argue the cameras expand government surveillance and raise concerns about data being shared with third-party companies or federal agencies. No suspects have been identified. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Winona Police Department.
- thomastjeffery 2mo ago> Police use the technology to investigate crimes such as hit-and-runs and to locate missing persons. Disgusting copy. We all know that's not their primary function.
- SoftTalker 2mo agoI for one do believe that is their primary function. However good intentions don't justify violating our rights or accepting the (demonstrated) potential for abuse.
- thomastjeffery 2mo agoIt might be their intended use (from a police department's perspective), but it's certainly not their intended function. Flock collects these images, and uses them to train statistical models, and sells those models to police departments as a one-click crime solving solution. That means that their primary function is to passively aggregate driver behavior into an automated judgement system, where the entire judicial system (designed to check and balance itself) is laundered away. Flock cameras exist to fundamentally replace police work, not to assist with it.
- SoftTalker 2mo agoYou may be right but that's too conspiracy-theory for me. Most things are as they appear. Either way, I don't support it.
- thomastjeffery 2mo agoIt's not a theory. It's literally what they market and sell.
- ndsipa_pomu 2mo agoTo me, it appears that Flock cameras are a mass surveillance tool and that fits in fairly well with the US becoming more fascist (e.g. ICE agents murdering civilians). It also seems very on-brand for police departments to lie and obfuscate.
- goatlover 2mo agoWould be a shame if the public had no such information. /s
- lukan 2mo agoLLM summary I suppose? Who would include "Anyone with information is asked to contact the Winona Police Department." in a HN comment?
- NDlurker 2mo agoThat right there is the FA from the acronym RTFA
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- AngryData 2mo agoLooks like a direct copy from the news site.
- metamet 2mo ago...LLM summary? If you clicked the link and read the article, you'd quickly realize that they copy/pasted the article into a comment.
- fhdkweig 2mo agoIt isn't a summary. It is every word of the original article copied and pasted. I can understand doing that in something that is paywalled, but I didn't have any problems getting to the article.
- nchmy 2mo ago> Each camera is valued at approximately $3,000, putting the total loss at roughly $24,000. That cost falls directly on the Winona Police Department’s budget. Only if they replace them...
- monkpit 2mo agoThat would make the loss $48,000 ;)
- thegrim33 2mo agoWait until you find out where they get the money from to replace them
- mohamedkoubaa 2mo agoThe city planning pyramid scheme: buy things you can't afford with bonds so that 20 years later when everyone is done raising their kids and moves out the people who move in have to debt service with crumbling infrastructure and schools.
- cucumber3732842 2mo agoBonus points if you pass a bunch of laws and rules that make it nigh on impossible for the next generation to develop any commerce that could possibly pay back your debt right before cashing out all your equity and moving to Idaho or Florida.
- morkalork 2mo agoSo like OT for one officer in a year that they're practically guaranteed because of union kickbacks and municipal corruption?
- ortusdux 2mo agoAre they contractually obligated to replace them? IIRC, some municipalities have been covering the cameras with trash bags because they cannot turn them off or remove them until their contract expires.
- adzm 2mo agoWhat alerts are they getting so often anyway? It's a little town of 25k people. I can understand the benefit of being able to track coming and going and criminal activity etc but there is no oversight and it is already being abused. Keeping this data within the municipality and requiring bureaucracy to coordinate with others might be the best solution I've heard, since it prevents dragnets and builds in auditing as part of the process. See also this article about hiding usage of flock https://www.404media.co/do-not-mention-alpr-usage-how-cops-are-trying-to-hide-the-existence-of-flock/ https://www.404media.co/do-not-mention-alpr-usage-how-cops-a...
- reactordev 2mo agoSmall towns don't want people spying on them. Small towns also are prime targets for pushing over with your federal approvals to force them into giving you their tax money in the name of "safety". Someone got paid.
- ricardobayes 2mo ago[flagged]
- DeusExMachina 2mo agoWait, aren't they just licence plate readers? How do they help with all these other crimes?
- AlotOfReading 2mo agoDo you have any hard numbers from your community on how many cases had flock as crucial to resolving the case? When my community banned them, the police were only able to offer a single vehicle theft case as positive evidence, but the data was being sent to police stations and locally unpopular federal agencies clear across the country. We could have spent the municipal budget on giving the victims a new car with far fewer privacy concerns and still saved money.
- 2mo ago
- calculatte 2mo agoSo one of the public-private backdoors to erode citizen's rights is being undermined. Such a shame.
- Cyclone_ 2mo ago[flagged]
- TiredOfLife 2mo agoCriminals are people too.
- goatlover 2mo agoIt's a network of nation wide cameras tracking movement, which can include foot traffic from people's phones. You're giving police and a private company a lot of power with that sort of data. There was a case of a sheriff in Texas town using a nation wide search to find a woman who had an abortion using Flock cameras after claiming it was used for a missing person case. This because Texas has a hard on for trying to prosecute women who have abortions.
- rconti 2mo agoUS courts have held, in multiple cases now, that creating a massive network of datapoints over time, aggregated together, can be a 4th amendment violation in a way that a single datapoint is not.
- ooopsss 2mo agoWithout a physical human operating the camera, at the site, yes, it should not be allowed. This is actually the distinction in many EU countries, i.e. it’s allowed to record a movie if the operator is present, but doing the same thing remotely requires permission from a special authority/agency (that’s not in cahoots with the police).
- nsxwolf 2mo agoEventually, yes, if it goes as far as what Flock is doing.
- jeremyberemy 2mo ago> Police use the technology to investigate crimes such as hit-and-runs and to locate missing persons. > No suspects have been identified. Yeah, that tracks. > Camera data is owned by the police department and permanently deleted after 30 days. I assume this means that the police department deletes one local copy?
- ibejoeb 2mo agoThat whole paragraph is like a paid placement. > Flock Safety cameras are automated license plate readers Like Ring is a door chime.
- gowld 2mo agoNo, Flock plays a semantic game where data on Flock's servers os "owned" by the client, so Flock is not responsible for the content or management of the data.
- skybrian 2mo agoIsn't that what you'd expect from a camera service provider? I'd certainly want any videos taken by my own cameras to be owned by me.
- ButlerianJihad 2mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
- Terr_ 2mo agoI don't see how that relates to any of this. If I record a video of a crowd in public, under US law I have copyright to that video. The crowd isn't creating the record, I am. The issue of which group (Flock/police/city) has the real copyright versus an expensive license is interesting to contemplate, but that list doesn't include monkey-agency either.
- 2mo ago
- nightsun 2mo ago[dead]
- jgbuddy 2mo agoFind flock cameras near you here! https://maps.deflock.org/ https://maps.deflock.org/
- amanaplanacanal 2mo agoHeads up though: not every camera on that map is Flock. In my town, only a couple of Flock cameras are in place, on private property (Lowes is a big user). All the others are owned by my local police department.
- altairprime 2mo agoHopefully they had the wits to put a sticker on them saying as much!
- encrypted_bird 2mo agoIt's not about the company; it's about the technology. Whether a Flock-branded camera or not, ALPRs as a technology is *dangerous*. From deflock.org itself: > Flock is not the only ALPR vendor, and other vendors still participate in similar practices. See this list of other common ALPR vendors.[1] [1] https://deflock.org/identify https://deflock.org/identify
- Cider9986 2mo agoAnd contribute additional ones on iOS or Android. https://deflock.org/app https://deflock.org/app
- dhosek 2mo agoOne thing I’ve learned from reading accounts of Flock camera thefts is that you shouldn’t do more than one per outing. This sounds like a group arranged to do them all at once which also works.
- oceansky 2mo agoImpressive what a community can do together if that's true .
- ryandvm 2mo agoCurious about the official YCombinator stance on this extremely unpopular YCombinator-backed startup (unpopular here at HN anyway).
- avree 2mo agoThe official YCombinator stance is that Flock was a huge success as an investment - which it seemingly was, given that they managed to sign deals with what seems like every tiny municipality/sheriff/government organization. https://www.ycombinator.com/library/N0-unpopular-ideas-that-became-billion-dollar-businesses https://www.ycombinator.com/library/N0-unpopular-ideas-that-...
- SoftTalker 2mo agoBecause for police departments, they are a huge benefit and well worth the cost. A lot of crimes have been solved with Flock cameras. Stolen cars, or cars linked to criminal activity have been tracked and located. Missing persons have been found. None of that justifies the massive invasion of privacy that these cameras represent. You don't have a right to not be individually surveiled in public, but that doesn't mean it's OK for the government to warrantlessly track everyone everywhere they go 24x7, or to do it by proxy with a private company such as Flock. The potential for abuse is just too high, and we've seen many cases of that too.
- snootypoot 2mo ago[dead]
- chuckadams 2mo agoI believe "money good" is YC's only guiding principle. HN is a nice resource, but let's not have any illusions about the morals of the owners.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- EasyMark 2mo ago
- accountrequired 2mo agoit is bad to see theft of physical property as a good thing
- autoexec 2mo agoIt wasn't private property. It belonged to the people and the people decided they didn't want it. It's bad to see people being forced to break the law to retain their freedom, but it's a good thing that folks are still willing to fight for it.
- culi 2mo agoGood point. It's public money that funded it. Just like drug research. We should be demanding ownership over the fruits of our tax dollars
- nchmy 2mo agoA handful of thieves/activists are not "the people". A town hall, vote etc... would have the backing of "the people". If that happens and theyre still not removed, then perhaps actions like these might be justified.
- overfeed 2mo agoPerhaps the activists were representing the people, but were unfortunately under a Makita/DeWalt NDA, and cannot make public their deliberations and actions just yet. Rest assured they are acting in your best interests.
- topspin 2mo ago"but it's a good thing that folks are still willing to fight for it" This is at least as likely to be theft as much as civic action. There are far easier ways one might permanently inhibit these cameras than cutting them down and taking them away.
- autoexec 2mo ago
- jauntywundrkind 2mo agoCoincidentally, ran into a YouTube short testing how to cut down steel poles quickly yesterday, with battery powered tools. Sawzall, 1m 15s, circular saw 1m, circular saw like 20s. https://youtube.com/shorts/aAc3Kq0bFPs https://youtube.com/shorts/aAc3Kq0bFPs Yet to see anyone describe what to do once they are down. They for sure have all manners of wicked battery backed up trackers etc, I'm sure. (This would be highly illegal to do and you should not do it, even to evil surveillance cameras that hoover up our lives to terrifying central databases, even if these are ragingly unpopular.)
- Ancalagon 2mo agorocks and rivers my friend :)
- convolvatron 2mo agonot exactly right. the first is an abrasive disc. that's the right guy for steel, but doesn't work great in aluminum because its very sticky and melty. the third is a metal skill saw blade. I really wouldn't use this with steel at all, but you definitely want to cut aluminum and not grind it. the tool I would normally use for this is a portable bandsaw, with speed control that you would set high for Al and low for steel, probably pretty close to the skill saw.
- patrickmay 2mo agoFlock cameras are typically mounted on aluminum alloy poles. Easier to cut than steel.
- reaperducer 2mo agoan into a YouTube short testing how to cut down steel poles quickly yesterday, with battery powered tools. Sawzall, 1m 15s, circular saw 1m, circular saw like 20s. Manual pole cutters have existed for at least 100 years. No batteries. Almost zero noise. You put one on the pole, walk around the pole once, and it's cut. They were used a lot in the 1970's when people were rebelling against parking meters. I believe it's part of the opening scene of the film Cool Hand Luke.
- 2mo ago
- charcircuit 2mo ago[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoIt's private property owned by a corporate surveillance state startup, Flock Group|Safety, typically (but not always) colocated on public property without the consent of local citizens. Various government entities are simply consumers of their data platform. Facts matter.
- NDlurker 2mo agoYour comment is disgusting and goes against the spirit of freedom this country is supposed to be the embodiment of.
- gverrilla 2mo agoThis ship has sailed a long time ago. If anything it's internal national propaganda. USA is known worldwide for corruption, wars, and increasingly for how bad it's own population lives while being so rich.
- NDlurker 2mo agoI know. I still try and call it out when I see it.
- charcircuit 2mo agoIn order to protect the freedom of the many we need to be able to effectively remove the few who are causing trouble.
- NDlurker 2mo agoYes, let's send camera vandals to a prison archipelago. Great idea.
- MSFT_Edging 2mo ago
- tencentshill 2mo ago...total loss at roughly $24,000. That cost falls directly on the Winona Police Department’s budget. I thought flocked owned the hardware?
- a2ff6eeb0 2mo agoGood, but when do the nerds put on suits and lobby to make mass surveillance tools like Flock illegal?
- metamet 2mo agoSeems these days the only cross-partisan agreement is resistance to Flock and Axon. People don't want Big Brother. Politicians unironically trying to positively refer to them as an enhanced Big Brother is completely tone deaf. And we know that police departments were working with ICE during Metro Surge: > But the Star Tribune found law enforcement agencies around the country searched several Twin Cities suburbs’ camera data and labeled their queries as civil immigration enforcement — a mechanism used to detain those in the country illegally who have not committed other crimes. A vast majority of the searches were run on Fridley’s Flock Safety cameras as it had looser restrictions on its data than other agencies. https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-suburbs-license-plate-cameras-immigration/601873543?utm_source=gift https://www.startribune.com/twin-cities-suburbs-license-plat... This dozen even get into the dozens of documented instances of officers using the system to stalk people... couple that with Stingray devices. It's not hyperbole to say we're existing under the thumb of Big Brother. Resistance to or acceptance of Flock/Axon is going to be a big tipping point in an already over-surveilled country.
- buellerbueller 2mo ago>Seems these days the only cross-partisan agreement is resistance to Flock and Axon. Also: Don't sell the World Cup to Private Equity.
- JuniperMesos 2mo ago[flagged]
- diego_moita 2mo agoI suspect there is more at play here than activism. In many 3rd World places you must conceal/hide surveillance cameras because they are a valuable asset worth stealing.
- mohamedkoubaa 2mo agoPSA: third world means non-aligned in the cold war. It's use in 2026 is meaningless at best.
- funvill 2mo agoToday I learned something new. Thank you
- Eueudhsbsj32 2mo agoThe use and meaning of words shift over time. Today, third world just means less developed.
- mohamedkoubaa 2mo agoIn 1995 it meant that. Today it is meaningless
- john_strinlai 2mo ago>It's use in 2026 is meaningless at best. not really. the word has evolved enough that dictionaries and wikipedia acknowledge the common-day usage of "underdeveloped"
- mohamedkoubaa 2mo agoWikipedia and dictionaries are wrong. It has a different usage than "underdeveloped" and that usage at best doesn't have a clear meaning, and at worst does have a clear derogatory meaning
- 2mo ago
- semiquaver 2mo ago> and stolen I’m sure flock’s agreement with the Winona Police Department makes clear that they are only purchasing a license to use these cameras, so in fact the department’s cameras have not been stolen at all, they’ve merely been prevented from enjoying licensed use.
- kotaKat 2mo ago> That cost falls directly on the Winona Police Department’s budget. Nope, Flock bills out the ass for replacement cost right to the taxpayer. The grift continues! Alternatively, "defunding the police" by way of smashing Flocks is another view point, from what I've heard.
- eli 2mo agoThey bill out the ass to lease them
- yapyap 2mo ago> I’m sure flock’s agreement with the Winona Police Department makes clear that they are only purchasing a license to use these cameras License to use but responsible for loss
- s1artibartfast 2mo agoWhy would you think that and be so confident?
- semiquaver 2mo agoBecause it’s a matter of public record. Thousands of executed contracts between flock safety and its customers are public. Here’s one which makes clear that flock retains ownership and is actually entering into a hybrid hardware lease and concurrent services agreement. https://53024.org/documents https://53024.org/documents
- s1artibartfast 2mo ago
- esilverman 2mo agogood
- thangalin 2mo agohttps://i.ibb.co/WWWYznHX/flock-future.png https://i.ibb.co/WWWYznHX/flock-future.png ;-)
- culi 2mo agoIt's been pretty interesting to see the proliferation of zines like these around cities https://www.anarchistfederation.net/new-zine-birds-of-a-feather-destroy-a-flock-together/ https://www.anarchistfederation.net/new-zine-birds-of-a-feat...
- havefunbesafe 2mo agoMaybe I'm overly confident in Flock's ability to triangulate, but wouldn't government agencies be able to know exactly who is cutting down Flock cameras? Isn't that the entire purpose of these things?
- fckgw 2mo agoIf you roll up on a bicycle with a hat and sunglasses then probably not!
- asadotzler 2mo agoYou're so close.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- maerF0x0 2mo agoGotta vote out those who voted this in.
- EasyMark 2mo agoYeah I've been saying this for years, throw all the bums out. It takes them losing power to get the message.
- avdwrks 2mo agoI just watched Benn Jordan's video about Flock's (numerous) vulnerabilities last night. Pretty crazy to think what people can do with these if they can get their hands on them.
- EasyMark 2mo agoI mean who cares about their vulnerabilities? I'm more concerned they simply exist and attempting to put 24/7 surveillance on everyone, the whole concept is rotten. I trust the hackers more lol
- doublerabbit 2mo agoI'm not saying you should, but cheap laser pens can do fair damage to a camera CMOS sensor. I discovered that with my Sony Ericsson k700i with a laser pointer when trying to take a picture of the laser.
- burnt-resistor 2mo agoThat's probably way more effective, efficient, and destructive than aggressively fouling the solar panel. Hopefully, picture quality isn't something they monitor because it would be kind of difficult. And, it would be best to unlock a Flock camera to verify that damage is possible using a specific laser pointer, distance, and time period. Then, someone might think about doing it behind concealment and/or far away enough to be below the threshold of identifiable pixel resolution.
- GiorgioG 2mo agoFuck Flock and any other mass surveillance company.
- Eueudhsbsj32 2mo agoGood. It's nice to finally see some mainstream support for privacy rights.
- culi 2mo ago> All eight cameras were taken Aug. 1, according to the Winona Police Department. A patrol officer first noticed the cameras had not sent any alerts in 24 hours. When officers checked the locations, they found the cameras had been cut from their poles and taken. The poles were left behind. Wow so they did all 8 in in 24 hours. That's quite impressive
- rconti 2mo agoDoes anyone actually know how the data is stored? They seem to _imply_ they're not storing images, merely license plates. Oh, and presence of bumper stickers bike racks and other vehicle metadata to create a unique fingerprint. So are they implying they merely store a descriptive hash, and discard the images? Of course, until the revenue knob needs a little tweak, and they start hashing the human data....
- GiorgioG 2mo agoDoes it matter? It's stored. If you have the data it can be misused.
- rconti 2mo agoYes, it matters to me, because I'm curious.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- EasyMark 2mo agoIt seems likely they retain the whole video for a bit, but that is a huge amount of data, so then it's better to finger print and timestamp and toss the video after x days.
- rconti 2mo agoI think probably what I'm getting at with my curiosity is, who and what defines the metadata that is kept? They describe it as a "motion activated camera" but I think it's pretty clear they're just recording 24x7 (but probably not uploading! most of the time!) I'm guessing some on-device logic does the "motion capture" logic. What software then decides an "object of interest" and decides how to hash it? Are the still frame(s)/video sent to a server for analysis, or is that done on-device? We know they store and catalog vehicles based on license plates and other bits of metadata. But what is uploaded, where does the processing happen, what is actually stored, etc? Obviously it's a camera so it's trivial to turn it into a facial recognition camera, but does the on-camera software need to be updated for this to happen, or can it just be done server-side? Are they already retaining stills and videos of people on purpose (rather than just incidentally), but not _yet_ cataloging it (officially?) Anyway. I'm curious what the public answer to all of these questions is, and then, obviously, I'm curious what's _actually_ happening behind the scenes. We know what can happen, but there are a lot of things we don't know for sure.
- superkuh 2mo agoLets be clear, Flock itself is is also breaking the law and refusing to remove it's camera's from city's properties. The cities, apparently, have no recourse but to cover Flock's vigalante cameras with plastic bags to block their view. This is not a one sided case of illegal property damage and trespass. Flock corporation is acting illegally too. Only no one in government is willing to hold them accountable in a court of law.
- 1-6 2mo agoYou can't have nice things until you can trust the government: https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/info/1320/12059.htm https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/info/1320/12059.htm /sarcasm
- balozi 2mo agoI hope all the cool people doing all the cool things in current year are not doing cool vandalism just because its a cool thing-to-do that they saw on Reddit in current year. Other cool things cool people are into in current year; Cyber trucks are still on the road, and data centers are still being built.
- RickJWagner 2mo agoI’m with you. Vandalism is not the right path.
- sssilver 2mo ago> Winona Police Department's Flock cameras Does Winona Police Department actually own these cameras? Or is this heading technically deceptive.
- LetsGetTechnicl 2mo agoThis is good. I'm pretty sure Flock cameras have been used more often to stalk cops' exes than solving any crime.
- bdangubic 2mo agoThe need to double the number of cameras so that they can see from one camera who is cutting the other camera.
- ck2 2mo agosure hope whomever did that knows what they signed up for this is not how you affect political change no matter how noble over $1000 in damage so felony and if they went from location to location with a smartphone pinging, all cops have to do is find out what phone was at all those locations
- wewtyflakes 2mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
- FireBeyond 2mo agoOne of my bigger concerns with this story, given the Flock CEO's public statements, and this Administration's attitude towards such things is how easy it might be to attempt to spin, or pursue, this as "domestic terrorism" rather than "vandalism".
- cucumber3732842 2mo agoHalf the country already considers that label a joke.
- burnt-resistor 2mo agoThe those in power that are the system are what matter. It doesn't matter most people believe or want because the corrupt, self-serving system and regime does whatever the hell it wants without a care. And because so many are passive and silent, they give consent to it.
- arjie 2mo agoThe anti-camera things are also somewhat effective at getting rid of London's ULEZ cameras. Quite admirable that this coalition of quite disparate interests was able to form around opposition to the specific device used to manage different objectives.
- jmyeet 2mo agoIf I'm ever on the jury of somebody charged with this, the prosecution has an incredibly high burden to convince me the poles and the cameras on them didn't die of natural causes. Maybe if police weren't using Flock cameras to stalk their ex-wives [1][2]. There's an interesting angle to the Flock issue I heard recently. Some predominantly black communities prefer Flock cameras because they're over-policed, black men in particular are more likely to be pulled over on "routine" traffic stops and those stops have a skewed chance of ending in violence of death. As a reminder, US law enforcement kills over 1000 civilians every single year. Over half of those are black men and black men are only ~6% of the population. But that's really a lesser evil type situation because the police simply shouldn't be killing so many people. [1]: https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/08/03/brentwood-officer-accused-using-license-plate-reader-stalk-ex-wife/ https://www.firstalert4.com/2026/08/03/brentwood-officer-acc... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-police-officers-used-vast-network-cameras-spy-their-exes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/02/how-pol...
- buellerbueller 2mo agoClassic jury nullification.
- JuniperMesos 2mo ago[flagged]
- jmyeet 2mo ago1350 is a neo-Nazi dog whistle. Think about it this way, let's say that black men committed more crimes per capita than men overall. That means one of two things: 1. There is an intrinsic reason. That's just racism. Black people are no different to any other people. What you're suggesting is that they're inherently violent, basically; or 2. There is an extrinsic reason. Put another way, there's a confounding variable. This part is true. The confounding variable is poverty. The link between poverty and crime has been known about for thousands of years. It's ridiculous and unfounded to claim black people are "under-policied". They're 20% more likely to be stopped for a "routine" traffic stop ("driving while black" is a thing for a reason) [1]. This evidence is solid enough for this that when it's dark this number drops when the police can no longer see the driver in the car. The empirical evidence for over-policing is overwhelming (eg [2]). They tend to get longer sentences for the same crime and are found guilty more often, particularly when there's a racial disparity in the jury, which there often is. [1]: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/black-drivers-more-likely-to-be-stopped-by-police.html?challenge=d06e90d7-4d8f-4b88-9d8c-10b73beb60f1 https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/bl... [2]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10242413/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10242413/
- Havoc 2mo ago>Each camera is valued at approximately $3,000 Wow. Those must be some really nice cameras...
- s1artibartfast 2mo agoseems cheap to me.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- imthatsteve 2mo agoGood, keep fighting the good fight!
- EasyMark 2mo agoThey're doing the Lord's work
- rmarques7 2mo agoCurious that an hour ago, this was the top post on hackernews, and now it has been relegated to the 3rd page.
- NDlurker 2mo agoI thought that was interesting too. I was excited that I got a post to the top and then was like what the heck?
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- sfmike 2mo agowhat if this was a ultra genius move to end authoritarianism by being so blatantly bad that we actually get a new amendment added for right to privacy and flock was a non profit all along
- metalman 2mo agoI believe that the police with due dilligance will find that there has been a "behind closed doors" citizens plebisite to create a volunteer technical comittee to provide free service and down grades to varios publicy funded equipment as part of the future archiology initiativ.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- zombot 2mo agoKeep up the good work.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- dangisacuckbitc 2mo ago[flagged]