7 ms·

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I th

I know Peretz personally and he's one of the most rational people I've ever met. There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there, but what happened afterwards is unquestionably wrong. This is who the police stripped naked and put in jail: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-stories/afghan.html http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie... This is not a person we should fear. I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, but the abuse and brutality of what followed are just plain wrong. I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police or that all cops should be killed and I find those to be childish nonsense. For us to have a free and effective society, the rule of law is important and should apply equally to all. I know this isn't always the case but it is the goal. Wishing harm onto authority figures simply muddies the waters. What I want, and what I think all should want, is justice. The best outcome from Peretz's suffering would be reform and we should work towards that end.

janj 13y ago
I'm Brandeis '01, I was a little surprised to see that link. Along with justice for this individual event what about something bigger. Right now there is no way to track these violent interactions officers have with the public. This police officer can do the same thing over and over and get away with it because the precinct will protect her. What if we had a way to keep track of these incidents making it easy for us to review the history of officers each time an event like this happens. If this officer had a fear of a violent interaction with the public going on her 'permanent public record' that might influence her behavior.
- hmsimha 13y ago
  I love this idea. Also, the ability to track police abuse-of-power/brutality instances by location would be extremely useful.
  - droopybuns 13y ago
    This would make an outstanding .onion site.
morsch 13y ago
"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..." It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave? And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you? I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me. The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything. Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.
- josh2600 13y ago
  It's rational for a police officer to respond to civil disobedience in some circumstances with detention. That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger. My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good. We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve. Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster. To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.
  - yscale 13y ago
pbreit 13y ago
Being self-proclamably rational is perhaps the worst attribute to reveal when dealing with this type of situation.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  I don't follow. Care to explain?
  - zanny 13y ago
    It is in the same thought process as telling a cops you have Miranda rights or don't have to answer their questions. From their perspective, you are acting like you are smarter than they are, and they will actively try to be vindictive towards you for it. You can espouse the abuse of police power from a safe distance, but when you are in their faces you need to shut up because in the near future and moment they have the capacity to make your life hell with no recourse.
javajosh 13y ago
The police cannot be trusted, and that is not childish nonsense. It is a rational response to the fact that the police consistently act like thugs, and the problem is only getting worse. One of the most important problems is that the mechanisms for righting these wrongs are almost wholly ineffective or out-of-reach. Peretz talks a little about that in his piece. The most practical thing you can take away from this is to not trust the police. Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment - but what specifically can we do? I would say: you can at least think about the nature of the systematic problem that takes away essentially all accountability from city police departments. Why does it seem like the public is no longer outraged when police abuse occurs? Why does it seem like government officials don't admit any wrongdoing or apologize for anything anymore? Why are lawsuits so expensive? What it seems like to me is that, somehow, the public has been convinced of their ineffectiveness. They have been cowed into submissiveness. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry, and I haven't been abused by the police. It's just not that big of a problem. And the monotonically increasing complexity of government has provided amazing levels of defensive cover for bad actors. It's an almost perfect shield of immunity to prosecution and incredibly expensive litigation barrier-to-entry. "Reform" sounds nice - but what do you think we should do? And in the meantime, are you really advocating that the police should be trusted in the absence of any reform? That's childish nonsense.
- kafts 13y ago
  It seems like a lot of people share this sentiment that police abuse is getting worse all the time. An optimistic part of me wants to think that maybe the problem isn't necessarily getting worse, just getting more exposure than it has in the past. How much harder would it be for this same story to reach this kind of audience 5 or 10 years ago? Hopefully the spreading awareness will lead to improvements down the line.
- Zancarius 13y ago
  > Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment... Not to sound overly pessimistic, but "reform" isn't usually how citizens extricate themselves from a police state. Totalitarian governance is inherently insular and well protected from peaceful reform, using the state monopoly on violence to maintain and cultivate its will. The antithesis of peaceful reform also conveniently starts with "re," but I can't seem to remember what it is... Re... rev-o-something, I think. ;)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kjjw 13y ago
"There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there" What a weird place America must be.
- josh2600 13y ago
  In America we tolerate brutality and are intolerant of nudity. Tis' a silly place.
- bmelton 13y ago
  There's a ton of law around 'lawful orders' by the police, and how a citizen is supposed to respond to them. Ignoring everything else (please), George Zimmerman was accused of not following a 911 operator's "lawful order" to leave the scene. While I think most of America would have been happy for him to have heeded that device, it is not necessarily a 'lawful order', unless there was a reason for him not to have been there. A lot of Americans presume "not unlawful orders" or "reasonable orders" to be presumed legal, if those orders come from a law enforcement officer, but in actuality, most lawful orders that are given are not lawful as they are not predicated on authority. If an officer tells you to leave your home, for example, that is not a lawful order unless you're under arrest, or if you're interfering with their effecting a warranted search. As such, people see orders like "Go stand over there" as being followed on television shows, and assume that the state (or its officers) have the authority to tell you where to stand. Generally speaking, they do not, usually. The problem is in the myriad of exceptions -- we have the freedom to assemble, generally, but that assembly must be lawful. It's pretty obvious to say that we don't have the freedom to assemble on a trafficked highway, for example. Similarly, many 'free speech zones' require permits for use. That may seem unlawful, where those permitted places are common areas, but their issuance is predicated on the idea that if a 'pro' group and an 'anti' group are attempting to protest in the same space, then violence might reasonably ensue. The fix for that is to permit the space, and permit issuance is done on a first-come basis. The contra-position there is that the opposing protestors are effectively allowed to protest _anywhere but within the permitted space_, so, across the street is generally fine, and is also generally does not require a permit. A police officer at a protest may well be making a lawful order if you're in the wrong assembly area. So yeah, it's interesting, and it's completely convoluted, and while I generally scoff at people who don't know even the basics, it's pretty near impossible to understand the intricacies of what does or doesn't comprise a lawful order depending on a myriad of circumstances. To be sure though, I think it's safe to say that most lawful orders are in fact not predicated on any actual authority, and are hence unlawful.
fuckpig 13y ago
> There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there The question here is the same question we face with the TSA: Separating actual threats from threats to someone's personal perception of their own authority. The author wasn't a threat. The cop screwed up. Then again, you'll never get 100% good people, and so there are going to be some screwup cops. I wish I could say our office was 100% solid. But you always get a few.
snsr 13y ago
> I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police A rational individual in America is absolutely justified in not trusting police. Wake up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

janj 13y ago

I'm Brandeis '01, I was a little surprised to see that link. Along with justice for this individual event what about something bigger. Right now there is no way to track these violent interactions officers have with the public. This police officer can do the same thing over and over and get away with it because the precinct will protect her. What if we had a way to keep track of these incidents making it easy for us to review the history of officers each time an event like this happens. If this officer had a fear of a violent interaction with the public going on her 'permanent public record' that might influence her behavior.

hmsimha 13y ago
I love this idea. Also, the ability to track police abuse-of-power/brutality instances by location would be extremely useful.
- droopybuns 13y ago
  This would make an outstanding .onion site.

morsch 13y ago

"I understand that on some level putting Peretz in jail was a reasonable response to him not leaving the scene, ..." It sounds completely unreasonable to me, by the way. Of course he doesn't want to leave, he just found someone bleeding in the street, it's natural to care about what happens to them. Why should he leave? And why would he go to jail after not obeying immediately? Isn't there something else that you guys get in a case like that -- a citation or what have you? I was told to leave a scene not so long ago, when they frisked a group of immigrant kids (and in the end took away one of them who apparently had some drugs on him; so actual police work as opposed to a traffic accident). We didn't. We stood back a meter and observed. After that, they didn't take down my name, I certainly wasn't manhandled. That seemed reasonable to me. The hostility -- the sentiment, not the actions following from it -- displayed by the officers would be understandable (if pathetically unprofessional) if he had been drunk and belligerent. But that's not what he says happened. And I'm inclined to believe him, since he wasn't charged with anything. Edit: Added that anectode, sorry for stealth editing after upvotes, hope nobody minds.

josh2600 13y ago
It's rational for a police officer to respond to civil disobedience in some circumstances with detention. That is not unreasonable in some situations, particularly one where lives are at stake or where there is clear and present danger. My point is that while the arrest may have been bad, what happened after is egregious and clearly definable as awful. There's lots of blame to go around here but blame does little good. We should all want justice because it makes our society a better place. It's all we can ask for and it's all we deserve. Edit for clarity: I'm not saying what happened here was right or good, I'm saying that there are other situations where the police response might've been appropriate. While it's possible to have a debate about the initial arrest, it's impossible to justify what happened after. Rather than muddy the waters of this discussion with anecdotes about the arrest, I was attempting to place the focus onto the portion we could all agree on in an effort to move forward faster. To be explicit, I do not agree with how SFPD handled this situation in any way, shape or form.
- yscale 13y ago

pbreit 13y ago

Being self-proclamably rational is perhaps the worst attribute to reveal when dealing with this type of situation.

redblacktree 13y ago
I don't follow. Care to explain?
- zanny 13y ago
  It is in the same thought process as telling a cops you have Miranda rights or don't have to answer their questions. From their perspective, you are acting like you are smarter than they are, and they will actively try to be vindictive towards you for it. You can espouse the abuse of police power from a safe distance, but when you are in their faces you need to shut up because in the near future and moment they have the capacity to make your life hell with no recourse.

javajosh 13y ago

The police cannot be trusted, and that is not childish nonsense. It is a rational response to the fact that the police consistently act like thugs, and the problem is only getting worse. One of the most important problems is that the mechanisms for righting these wrongs are almost wholly ineffective or out-of-reach. Peretz talks a little about that in his piece. The most practical thing you can take away from this is to not trust the police. Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment - but what specifically can we do? I would say: you can at least think about the nature of the systematic problem that takes away essentially all accountability from city police departments. Why does it seem like the public is no longer outraged when police abuse occurs? Why does it seem like government officials don't admit any wrongdoing or apologize for anything anymore? Why are lawsuits so expensive? What it seems like to me is that, somehow, the public has been convinced of their ineffectiveness. They have been cowed into submissiveness. Besides, there are bigger fish to fry, and I haven't been abused by the police. It's just not that big of a problem. And the monotonically increasing complexity of government has provided amazing levels of defensive cover for bad actors. It's an almost perfect shield of immunity to prosecution and incredibly expensive litigation barrier-to-entry. "Reform" sounds nice - but what do you think we should do? And in the meantime, are you really advocating that the police should be trusted in the absence of any reform? That's childish nonsense.

kafts 13y ago
It seems like a lot of people share this sentiment that police abuse is getting worse all the time. An optimistic part of me wants to think that maybe the problem isn't necessarily getting worse, just getting more exposure than it has in the past. How much harder would it be for this same story to reach this kind of audience 5 or 10 years ago? Hopefully the spreading awareness will lead to improvements down the line.
Zancarius 13y ago
> Reform will take years, and in that time you are at risk. Reform is a great sentiment... Not to sound overly pessimistic, but "reform" isn't usually how citizens extricate themselves from a police state. Totalitarian governance is inherently insular and well protected from peaceful reform, using the state monopoly on violence to maintain and cultivate its will. The antithesis of peaceful reform also conveniently starts with "re," but I can't seem to remember what it is... Re... rev-o-something, I think. ;)

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kjjw 13y ago

"There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there" What a weird place America must be.

josh2600 13y ago
In America we tolerate brutality and are intolerant of nudity. Tis' a silly place.
bmelton 13y ago
There's a ton of law around 'lawful orders' by the police, and how a citizen is supposed to respond to them. Ignoring everything else (please), George Zimmerman was accused of not following a 911 operator's "lawful order" to leave the scene. While I think most of America would have been happy for him to have heeded that device, it is not necessarily a 'lawful order', unless there was a reason for him not to have been there. A lot of Americans presume "not unlawful orders" or "reasonable orders" to be presumed legal, if those orders come from a law enforcement officer, but in actuality, most lawful orders that are given are not lawful as they are not predicated on authority. If an officer tells you to leave your home, for example, that is not a lawful order unless you're under arrest, or if you're interfering with their effecting a warranted search. As such, people see orders like "Go stand over there" as being followed on television shows, and assume that the state (or its officers) have the authority to tell you where to stand. Generally speaking, they do not, usually. The problem is in the myriad of exceptions -- we have the freedom to assemble, generally, but that assembly must be lawful. It's pretty obvious to say that we don't have the freedom to assemble on a trafficked highway, for example. Similarly, many 'free speech zones' require permits for use. That may seem unlawful, where those permitted places are common areas, but their issuance is predicated on the idea that if a 'pro' group and an 'anti' group are attempting to protest in the same space, then violence might reasonably ensue. The fix for that is to permit the space, and permit issuance is done on a first-come basis. The contra-position there is that the opposing protestors are effectively allowed to protest _anywhere but within the permitted space_, so, across the street is generally fine, and is also generally does not require a permit. A police officer at a protest may well be making a lawful order if you're in the wrong assembly area. So yeah, it's interesting, and it's completely convoluted, and while I generally scoff at people who don't know even the basics, it's pretty near impossible to understand the intricacies of what does or doesn't comprise a lawful order depending on a myriad of circumstances. To be sure though, I think it's safe to say that most lawful orders are in fact not predicated on any actual authority, and are hence unlawful.

fuckpig 13y ago

> There's some question as to whether he should've left the scene or not and I think there's some discussion to be had there The question here is the same question we face with the TSA: Separating actual threats from threats to someone's personal perception of their own authority. The author wasn't a threat. The cop screwed up. Then again, you'll never get 100% good people, and so there are going to be some screwup cops. I wish I could say our office was 100% solid. But you always get a few.

snsr 13y ago

> I've heard other thoughts in this thread about not trusting police A rational individual in America is absolutely justified in not trusting police. Wake up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc