8 ms·

What I learned from an unfortunate incident with the NYPD

135 points by rdl 13y ago

rdl 13y ago
Part of the irony here is that Nick is one of the most respectable, least threatening, most "establishment" people I know -- he's worked in banking/gov security, and his goal in life is to be a CPA for startups. If someone like that is getting fucked with by the biggest gang in NYC, you know there's a problem.
- o0-0o 13y ago
  There are already too many cops, and they have to keep going back to the same trough to feed themselves. Solving murders, rapes, and robberies doesn't pay. Ticketing people for jaywalking, curfew, and traffic violations does. Also, to further the problem, the police have cash bonuses paid to them for exceeding their quotas with these tickets. The police are there to preserve disorder, but they have lost sight of this. Now, there are two types of cops; the protect and serve kind, and the us against them kind. Sadly, the latter seems to be taking over. I'm afraid this doesn't end well. The nightmare scenario is some kid walking up to a cop on the 4th of July and asking for baseball cards with a toy in his hand that is mistaken for a gun. The real question here is what are we going to do about it?
  - harryh 13y ago
    Empirical research disputes your assertion that there are too many cops: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/police-crime-and-the-usefulness-of-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/pol...
    - rdl 13y ago
      NYPD is 10x too big. NYC is really a special case of infinite budget, powerful union, and external events (1970s/1980s crime wave, followed by 9/11) to justify it. Other places have too few (Oakland PD should be at least 2x and really 5x what it has). The fundamental problem is poor places have less budget and also higher need for policing. Various transit agencies, universities, etc. should probably not operate their own substandard police forces, but use non-sworn security and have a decent working relationship with the local PD.
      - harryh 13y ago
        It looks like NYC has ~40 police officers per 10k people(1). If you cut that by 90% to ~4 per 10k then NYC would have, by far, the smallest per capita police force for any American city. So really you're asserting that police forces are too large almost everywhere in the US? EDIT: ~4 officers per 10k would also be lower than essentially any other country in the world(2). 1. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforcement-police-department-employee-totals-for-cities.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforce... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
        rdl 13y ago
        Oh, I think you're correct; I was using the population of Manhattan only. Oops.
        Glyptodon 13y ago
        But how many do they have per square mile?
        harryh 13y ago
        35k officers / 468 square miles ~= 75 officers per square mile.
        Glyptodon 13y ago
        Just as a comparison, Albuquerque has ~8 police per sq. mile, and Tucson has ~4.5 police per sq. mile. However, New York has ~27000 people/sq. mile, while Tucson has ~2800 and Albuquerque about ~3000. So NY has about ~9x the population density, but ~12x the police. Now what I'm also curious about - would you expect high population density to increase or decrease the number of police needed per capita? Off hand, I would be inclined to think lower population density would need higher police per capita, but here it seems to be the reverse (possibly reflecting the coffers rather than the needs, though).
shubb 13y ago
Very interesting video - a law professor and a police officer explain how to deal with law enforcement in the US, mostly by not saying very much. I learned a lot watching it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
chimeracoder 13y ago
> “Is that a Muslim or Hipster beard?” by a crew of three NYPD officers in Times Square. I'm very curious to hear the full story behind this one. On a separate note - I used to work in Chelsea[0]. Two or three days of the week, as I was leaving the subway, I would see NYPD questioning and/or frisking a young, black man or women. I saw this happen for months, and never once was the person being questioned/frisked white, east Asian, or any other race. Oh, and by the way: > The main I didn’t file any kind of report or move forward at all was that I don’t have badge numbers. NEVER ask a police officer for his/her badge number. Look for it and try to memorize if you want, but don't let them know you're trying to learn it. I know someone who ended up doing ~18 months in prison for doing exactly this. (The official charge was "obstruction of justice" and/or "resisting arrest", but that's basically all he actually did. Once it's clear to the cops that you're looking to report them, they'll do everything in their power[2] to punish and discredit you). [0] Affluent, primarily white, gentrified (former) gayborhood, for those unfamiliar with NYC. [1] This is not the same as the NYPD standing by the tables asking people to let them look through their bags (which you can refuse, by the way!) [2] And possibly even things not in their power
- rdl 13y ago
  I believe it was specifically that he responded with "you can't fucking ask me that" which sent things down the bad path. They shouldn't have asked him at all (but were probably bored?), but "you can't X" to a cop is usually going to provoke them.
  - chimeracoder 13y ago
    I was referring more to what led up to that - how they accosted him, etc. (Also, what was going through their heads when they said this - not that we'll ever know, of course).
    - nickfarr 13y ago
      Actually, that was precisely it. I was in Times Square where there were tons and tons of cops, and not all that many revelers. (It was a really cold night, IIRC.) I heard the comment, looked around, realized they were cops and completely without thinking said, "You can't fucking ask that." Next thing, they asked for ID and as I began to reach for my wallet was thrown up against something by the three officers. It happened really, really quickly--just like being mugged.
r00fus 13y ago
De Blasio unfortuantely hired back Bill Bratton, who defends stop and frisk: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/02/25/bill-bratton-nypd http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/02/25/bill-bratton-nypd
cup 13y ago
This has been the third article on HN recently about the police. Historically it has been minority groups that only see this side of police activity. Now that upper middle class white individuals have experienced it though Its interesting to read the comments people are leaving. For the record: I believe his advice is terrible for any person of lower socio economic background and especially for a person of colour. The number 1 rule when interacting with police should be you have no rights. Only when you're safely away from that policemen are your rights returned. Countless victims of police brutality can attest to that.
- nickfarr 13y ago
  For the record, as the giver of said advice: I pretty much completely agree.
- balls187 13y ago
  I wonder why that middle class, and upper middle class white individuals are now experiencing an increase in police. Perhaps it's resentment of the widening income gap between 20-30 somethings in the tech industry and those in the service industry? Another HN article referenced a Bay Area police officer making a remark about being a "wannabe billionaire."
  - WildUtah 13y ago
    "Perhaps it's resentment of the widening income gap between 20-30 somethings in the tech industry and those in the service industry?" Maybe. Because of the billionaire big winner image, people outside the industry see techies as very well off. In fact, cops make a lot more on average -- benefits included -- than techies or programmers or engineers. In big American cities, cops are paid similar total compensation to doctors. The usual breakdown is 125k or so salary plus gold plated health care, various fancy bonuses and discounts and a pension plan that's worth more actuarially than all of the salary. Totals above $400k are not uncommon. NYPD, as mentioned in op, is considered much more stingy than suburban NY departments so the cops in question may not be making quite that much.
    - 13y ago
pagekicker 13y ago
Another whiny "rules don't apply to me" hipster story. Becoming a tired meme, pls. stop upvoting.
- chrismcb 13y ago
  I think you read a different article than I did. He wasn't whining, he wasn't saying the rules didn't apply to him. He was just saying what you should do if you are in that situation.
- schoen 13y ago
  The original poster seems to have acknowledged that he broke the curfew law, and also acknowledged that he was treated differently by the police in the other case because of his appearance, and that the police and judges treat poor people and minorities more harshly than they treat him. Is there some other kind of acknowledgement you'd like to see from him? Would you like him not to have been surprised when he saw the criminal justice system treating people badly? Or is there something else you found offensive or annoying about his approach to the situation?
- nickfarr 13y ago
  As said whiny hipster, I'm actually more prone to agree with you. I had no idea this story would resonate nearly as much as it has--and my driving point was that the NYPD is being set up by their superiors to police by quota. Naturally, said policing ends up being taken out on the backs of those least able to push back.
ph0rque 13y ago
Love the idea of a stop and frisk app: http://www.nyclu.org/app http://www.nyclu.org/app A more general "I'm being forced to do something against my will" app would be real handy, I think, especially on the 2nd or 3rd generation of google glass.
- avalaunch 13y ago
  I love the idea of the app too. I found this odd though: Shaking the phone stops the filming. That seems like a bad idea given that police brutality might cause the film to stop when you most need it to be filming. The one really positive thing I could see coming out of google glass is a shift of power from the police force to the citizens.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Why stop filming at all? I'd want something that kept on recording until the battery was dead, regardless of any action that an app can resist by any means publishable.
- logfromblammo 13y ago
  I go to "CopBlock" and "Photography is Not a Crime" for these sorts of stories. The general advice there is to start recording immediately, keep your mouth shut, and use a save-to-the-cloud video app like Bambuser so the fuzz can't erase your footage.
  - spiritplumber 13y ago
    However, DO offer to hand over the SD card. And keep a dummy SD card between the battery and the back cover for this purpose. It is also useful for generic SD card duty anyway, and costs like $5.
    - logfromblammo 13y ago
      No, you don't offer anything. You keep your mouth shut until they tell you to hand it over. If they seize and search your property without warrant or reasonable suspicion that you used it to commit a crime, and commit spoliation of evidence by deleting video or images from it, they can be held accountable later. If you give it up voluntarily without them even asking, you are not helping anybody.
stox 13y ago
Welcome to the Police State. Avoid contact with the Police at all costs, otherwise you are going to have a bad time. Justice means nothing, quotas mean everything.
igl 13y ago
They stopped him before checking for a suit??? Bastards.
kimonos 13y ago
Great tips in here! Thanks!
jrockway 13y ago
Regarding the beard incident... ah yes, never go outside when there is any major event in NYC. The cops are unusually crazy. They bring in a bunch of auxiliaries who have no business doing crowd control or even wearing a badge, really. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/careers/auxiliary_police.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/careers/auxiliary_police.s... (Regarding the park incident.. to be fair, most parks in the city close at 1AM. I've seen people asked to leave, but I've never seen anyone get a summons. I usually try to get an extra lap around Prospect Park in as it's closing, and haven't had any problems, but I do keep an eye on the time.)
ihuman 13y ago
Why is this on HN? What does this have to do with technology/startups?
- paulannesley 13y ago
  “On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.” — http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Then again; “Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, […]”
  - rdl 13y ago
    I posted it because it's Sunday and there wasn't much going on. I wouldn't put it up as one of the finest HN submissions ever, but I think there's some value in "this could happen to you" and "this is what you should do if". The piece itself was well written and relatively apolitical and non-threatening. The "tech" aspect is the "fsck the police" part -- I think Nick is going to go into some ways to use technology to 1) help the police do what they should be doing, better 2) help the police not do what they shouldn't be doing 3) help users/clients/customers/victims of the police. And so should other HN people. Video recording seems like the lowest hanging fruit -- figuring out how to do that both safely and reliably is a good problem to solve. If I were GoPro, I'd donate $25mm or so to developing best practices for this, and then make another $5b selling GoPro-Police cameras over the next decade.
    - nickfarr 13y ago
      I didn't put it in the article precisely because I didn't want the shift in focus--but this incident made me think a lot harder about wearing my Google Glass again. That being said, there's absolutely no reason that cops should not have a camera on them at all times. It's more for their benefit than ours. As far as technologies that reliably work, the stop-and-frisk app is actually quite good, but requires practice like anything else. I'd also be all for photographing cops out of habit. I stopped short of recommending that...but, hell, there's plenty of fodder here for a good month's worth of posts.
spiritplumber 13y ago
Cops should be treated like muggers. Move slowly, make your body language indicate that you are not wanting a fight, speak clearly and ask the other person to also speak clearly, and be ready to bolt if the opportunity arises. American cops must be dealt with using de-escalation techniques.
- cryoshon 13y ago
  Yeah, no kidding. Also, keep your hands out of your pockets and make sure you are not holding anything lest they "mistake" it for a weapon, which would justify your death to both them Anything else and they go into a rage and you'll end up in jail. It's especially tough because their only training is to escalate further at any provocation.
- junto 13y ago
  This is extremely good advice.
ted7780 13y ago
I have lived in nyc for 23 years. The police used to be much cooler. The would chat with parade goers, joke around and compared to the harness bulls in Chicago they were great. After 9/11 the department changed. Meaner more suspicious and unfriendly. 10 citations a month is pretty low. One every three days. You could write that in ten minutes in the intersection outside my window. My dad was a cop. It's a hard fucking job. Keep that in mind.
- nickfarr 13y ago
  I know it's a hard job...that was part of the point that I think got lost in the whole article. That being said, this intimidation strategy (along with the rampant drug war incarceration of anyone who isn't 100% clean) has "cleaned up the city". Once the crime rates start going up again, it's going to get a lot worse. Beat cops aren't just supposed to write traffic citations. They're supposed to get a litany of these "pink ticket"s, which account for all the quality of life violations that the Broken Window theory goes after.
wudf 13y ago
I read it, but I still don't understand why you plead not guilty.
- nickfarr 13y ago
  Bear in mind, I didn't get a ticket from the Stop-And-Frisk incident, I got one for trespassing in Central Park a few months prior. I plead not guilty because I was TOLD by the Police Officer that the ticket would get thrown out. I assumed this meant that the officer would not appear were I to appeal it, and when the officer appeals it gets thrown out. What I didn't know is that the "ACD" option--Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal--was not offered to be at my arraignment. The first magistrate I saw wanted my $25, and didn't say a thing about throwing the ticket out. Not knowing my rights at the time (i.e. the ACD option), I plead Not Guilty. Turns out the officer did appear and I was offered ACD. Had I continued with the trial, I would have made a point of the officer's statement saying that "this ticket would get thrown out as long as you appeared".
amagumori 13y ago
i'm inclined to agree with the first comment on the article. if the author was not a privileged, professional-looking white guy, his outcome could have quite likely been much worse. i disagree with his naive conclusion (based on a sample size of one instance of getting arrested for an extremely minor infraction) that the NYPD are largely "good people charged with bad policing tactics". the treatment of minority groups such as chicanos, african-americans, and muslims by the NYPD is well documented and does not reflect a police force full of good people. :-/
- nickfarr 13y ago
  I'm actually going to take you to task on this once, precisely because the NYPD is set to become a "minority majority" force if current hiring trends continue. I've had many, many more interactions with the police than these two incidents in a variety of different contexts and I believe they're decent human beings who want to do the right thing. The systematic mistreatment of all underprivileged groups (including poor whites and the mentally ill, btw.) is, when you look at it, the bad cops getting the outsized share of attention. There are lots of cops who do the right thing when they can, I see it happening all the time even beyond the patina of the blue line of intimidation.
  - amagumori 13y ago
    i don't live in NY, so i'll concede to your actual experience with NY cops. BUT, i think your assumption that a lack of mistreatment of minorities results from a more diverse police force is naive. in my experience, i have seen abuse against ethnic minorities at the hands of police who are themselves ethnic minorities - sometimes even the same ethnicity as the victim. perhaps in many cases police brutality falls along racial lines, but only by correlation. i think it is probably more of an issue of class, and groupings like "people who look like thugs to me". either way, as a professional-looking white or asian dude, you can usually escape being classed as a "thug" sight-unseen just for your appearance. i would also offer that due to the fact you're a successful guy, you have probably not had police interactions in, say, east new york. police attitudes and behavior are highly variable based on where they work. if you're in a shitty neighborhood, you will have much worse interactions with cops no matter your race. in nice neighborhoods, cops are nice.
joesmo 13y ago
"The NYPD aren’t tasked with policing, the act of maintaining law and order." Exactly. That goes for all police. Their only job duty is to make arrests. Only. It is a fallacy to think that the police are there to help. They're not even required to help by law and have no duty to do so. Once this fact is realized by someone, not interacting with police and other smart actions start to make complete sense. It's just too bad that children are wrongfully taught otherwise. It's one thing that parents can be squarely blamed for, as they usually believe the lies themselves.
herbig 13y ago
I'd like to create a mobile app where users can input a badge number. If the number already exists, you get the existing profile, if it doesn't, a new profile is created, from which you can upvote or downvote the officer, add a name or picture, and write a review. Other users can upvote or downvote reviews as well. The other part of the app would be a top 10 list of the best officers in NYC, and a top 10 worst officers. I'm pretty alright at Android, but know nothing about iOS. We'd need a really great and simple design. The whole backend could be done with Parse. Anyone interested?
- schackbrian 13y ago
  Like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RateMyCop.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RateMyCop.com
  - herbig 13y ago
    Yeah, but a mobile app with better design.
- codygman 13y ago
  I actually have a project in mind that would incorporate this.
whatevsbro 13y ago
The correct answer was "Hipster beard", then. > In the nearly six hours I spent in court on two separate dates, I saw around a hundred people plead guilty and pay fines for a variety of different petty offenses This is plea-bargaining in action, and related to: Q: “How many citations have you written since you saw my client?” A: “Maybe 40 or 50. We’re required to write 10 citations a month.” They're "manufacturing prisoners". One reason for that is the prison-industrial complex with the for-profit prisoners demanding "customers" and bought politicians delivering them. Another might have something to do with the burgeoning police state in the US.
conformal 13y ago
fuck the police. they are just another gang and do little to stop real crime in most urban areas. i would venture to say that police actually facilitate more crime than they prevent on the average. in chicago, i have never received anything from a police officer besides disrespect and questionable tickets. i am very excited for the next 20 years since i predict we will see the end of human policing and instead have robotic law enforcement.
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  > i am very excited for the next 20 years since i predict we will see the end of human policing and instead have robotic law enforcement. http://jeremiahlambert.deviantart.com/art/ED-209-June-12-Daily-Art-Jam-Day-18-309511163 http://jeremiahlambert.deviantart.com/art/ED-209-June-12-Dai...

135 points by rdl 13y ago

rdl 13y ago

Part of the irony here is that Nick is one of the most respectable, least threatening, most "establishment" people I know -- he's worked in banking/gov security, and his goal in life is to be a CPA for startups. If someone like that is getting fucked with by the biggest gang in NYC, you know there's a problem.

o0-0o 13y ago
There are already too many cops, and they have to keep going back to the same trough to feed themselves. Solving murders, rapes, and robberies doesn't pay. Ticketing people for jaywalking, curfew, and traffic violations does. Also, to further the problem, the police have cash bonuses paid to them for exceeding their quotas with these tickets. The police are there to preserve disorder, but they have lost sight of this. Now, there are two types of cops; the protect and serve kind, and the us against them kind. Sadly, the latter seems to be taking over. I'm afraid this doesn't end well. The nightmare scenario is some kid walking up to a cop on the 4th of July and asking for baseball cards with a toy in his hand that is mistaken for a gun. The real question here is what are we going to do about it?
- harryh 13y ago
  Empirical research disputes your assertion that there are too many cops: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/police-crime-and-the-usefulness-of-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/12/pol...
  - rdl 13y ago
    NYPD is 10x too big. NYC is really a special case of infinite budget, powerful union, and external events (1970s/1980s crime wave, followed by 9/11) to justify it. Other places have too few (Oakland PD should be at least 2x and really 5x what it has). The fundamental problem is poor places have less budget and also higher need for policing. Various transit agencies, universities, etc. should probably not operate their own substandard police forces, but use non-sworn security and have a decent working relationship with the local PD.
    - harryh 13y ago
      It looks like NYC has ~40 police officers per 10k people(1). If you cut that by 90% to ~4 per 10k then NYC would have, by far, the smallest per capita police force for any American city. So really you're asserting that police forces are too large almost everywhere in the US? EDIT: ~4 officers per 10k would also be lower than essentially any other country in the world(2). 1. http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforcement-police-department-employee-totals-for-cities.html http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/law-enforce... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...
      - rdl 13y ago
        Oh, I think you're correct; I was using the population of Manhattan only. Oops.
      - Glyptodon 13y ago
        But how many do they have per square mile?
        harryh 13y ago
        35k officers / 468 square miles ~= 75 officers per square mile.
        Glyptodon 13y ago
        Just as a comparison, Albuquerque has ~8 police per sq. mile, and Tucson has ~4.5 police per sq. mile. However, New York has ~27000 people/sq. mile, while Tucson has ~2800 and Albuquerque about ~3000. So NY has about ~9x the population density, but ~12x the police. Now what I'm also curious about - would you expect high population density to increase or decrease the number of police needed per capita? Off hand, I would be inclined to think lower population density would need higher police per capita, but here it seems to be the reverse (possibly reflecting the coffers rather than the needs, though).

shubb 13y ago

Very interesting video - a law professor and a police officer explain how to deal with law enforcement in the US, mostly by not saying very much. I learned a lot watching it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

chimeracoder 13y ago

> “Is that a Muslim or Hipster beard?” by a crew of three NYPD officers in Times Square. I'm very curious to hear the full story behind this one. On a separate note - I used to work in Chelsea[0]. Two or three days of the week, as I was leaving the subway, I would see NYPD questioning and/or frisking a young, black man or women. I saw this happen for months, and never once was the person being questioned/frisked white, east Asian, or any other race. Oh, and by the way: > The main I didn’t file any kind of report or move forward at all was that I don’t have badge numbers. NEVER ask a police officer for his/her badge number. Look for it and try to memorize if you want, but don't let them know you're trying to learn it. I know someone who ended up doing ~18 months in prison for doing exactly this. (The official charge was "obstruction of justice" and/or "resisting arrest", but that's basically all he actually did. Once it's clear to the cops that you're looking to report them, they'll do everything in their power[2] to punish and discredit you). [0] Affluent, primarily white, gentrified (former) gayborhood, for those unfamiliar with NYC. [1] This is not the same as the NYPD standing by the tables asking people to let them look through their bags (which you can refuse, by the way!) [2] And possibly even things not in their power

rdl 13y ago
I believe it was specifically that he responded with "you can't fucking ask me that" which sent things down the bad path. They shouldn't have asked him at all (but were probably bored?), but "you can't X" to a cop is usually going to provoke them.
- chimeracoder 13y ago
  I was referring more to what led up to that - how they accosted him, etc. (Also, what was going through their heads when they said this - not that we'll ever know, of course).
  - nickfarr 13y ago
    Actually, that was precisely it. I was in Times Square where there were tons and tons of cops, and not all that many revelers. (It was a really cold night, IIRC.) I heard the comment, looked around, realized they were cops and completely without thinking said, "You can't fucking ask that." Next thing, they asked for ID and as I began to reach for my wallet was thrown up against something by the three officers. It happened really, really quickly--just like being mugged.

r00fus 13y ago

De Blasio unfortuantely hired back Bill Bratton, who defends stop and frisk: http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/02/25/bill-bratton-nypd http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/02/25/bill-bratton-nypd

cup 13y ago

This has been the third article on HN recently about the police. Historically it has been minority groups that only see this side of police activity. Now that upper middle class white individuals have experienced it though Its interesting to read the comments people are leaving. For the record: I believe his advice is terrible for any person of lower socio economic background and especially for a person of colour. The number 1 rule when interacting with police should be you have no rights. Only when you're safely away from that policemen are your rights returned. Countless victims of police brutality can attest to that.

nickfarr 13y ago
For the record, as the giver of said advice: I pretty much completely agree.
balls187 13y ago
I wonder why that middle class, and upper middle class white individuals are now experiencing an increase in police. Perhaps it's resentment of the widening income gap between 20-30 somethings in the tech industry and those in the service industry? Another HN article referenced a Bay Area police officer making a remark about being a "wannabe billionaire."
- WildUtah 13y ago
  "Perhaps it's resentment of the widening income gap between 20-30 somethings in the tech industry and those in the service industry?" Maybe. Because of the billionaire big winner image, people outside the industry see techies as very well off. In fact, cops make a lot more on average -- benefits included -- than techies or programmers or engineers. In big American cities, cops are paid similar total compensation to doctors. The usual breakdown is 125k or so salary plus gold plated health care, various fancy bonuses and discounts and a pension plan that's worth more actuarially than all of the salary. Totals above $400k are not uncommon. NYPD, as mentioned in op, is considered much more stingy than suburban NY departments so the cops in question may not be making quite that much.
  - 13y ago

pagekicker 13y ago

Another whiny "rules don't apply to me" hipster story. Becoming a tired meme, pls. stop upvoting.

chrismcb 13y ago
I think you read a different article than I did. He wasn't whining, he wasn't saying the rules didn't apply to him. He was just saying what you should do if you are in that situation.
schoen 13y ago
The original poster seems to have acknowledged that he broke the curfew law, and also acknowledged that he was treated differently by the police in the other case because of his appearance, and that the police and judges treat poor people and minorities more harshly than they treat him. Is there some other kind of acknowledgement you'd like to see from him? Would you like him not to have been surprised when he saw the criminal justice system treating people badly? Or is there something else you found offensive or annoying about his approach to the situation?
nickfarr 13y ago
As said whiny hipster, I'm actually more prone to agree with you. I had no idea this story would resonate nearly as much as it has--and my driving point was that the NYPD is being set up by their superiors to police by quota. Naturally, said policing ends up being taken out on the backs of those least able to push back.

ph0rque 13y ago

Love the idea of a stop and frisk app: http://www.nyclu.org/app http://www.nyclu.org/app A more general "I'm being forced to do something against my will" app would be real handy, I think, especially on the 2nd or 3rd generation of google glass.

avalaunch 13y ago
I love the idea of the app too. I found this odd though: Shaking the phone stops the filming. That seems like a bad idea given that police brutality might cause the film to stop when you most need it to be filming. The one really positive thing I could see coming out of google glass is a shift of power from the police force to the citizens.
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Why stop filming at all? I'd want something that kept on recording until the battery was dead, regardless of any action that an app can resist by any means publishable.
logfromblammo 13y ago
I go to "CopBlock" and "Photography is Not a Crime" for these sorts of stories. The general advice there is to start recording immediately, keep your mouth shut, and use a save-to-the-cloud video app like Bambuser so the fuzz can't erase your footage.
- spiritplumber 13y ago
  However, DO offer to hand over the SD card. And keep a dummy SD card between the battery and the back cover for this purpose. It is also useful for generic SD card duty anyway, and costs like $5.
  - logfromblammo 13y ago
    No, you don't offer anything. You keep your mouth shut until they tell you to hand it over. If they seize and search your property without warrant or reasonable suspicion that you used it to commit a crime, and commit spoliation of evidence by deleting video or images from it, they can be held accountable later. If you give it up voluntarily without them even asking, you are not helping anybody.

stox 13y ago

Welcome to the Police State. Avoid contact with the Police at all costs, otherwise you are going to have a bad time. Justice means nothing, quotas mean everything.

igl 13y ago

They stopped him before checking for a suit??? Bastards.

kimonos 13y ago

Great tips in here! Thanks!

jrockway 13y ago

Regarding the beard incident... ah yes, never go outside when there is any major event in NYC. The cops are unusually crazy. They bring in a bunch of auxiliaries who have no business doing crowd control or even wearing a badge, really. http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/careers/auxiliary_police.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/careers/auxiliary_police.s... (Regarding the park incident.. to be fair, most parks in the city close at 1AM. I've seen people asked to leave, but I've never seen anyone get a summons. I usually try to get an extra lap around Prospect Park in as it's closing, and haven't had any problems, but I do keep an eye on the time.)

ihuman 13y ago

Why is this on HN? What does this have to do with technology/startups?

paulannesley 13y ago
“On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.” — http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Then again; “Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, […]”
- rdl 13y ago
  I posted it because it's Sunday and there wasn't much going on. I wouldn't put it up as one of the finest HN submissions ever, but I think there's some value in "this could happen to you" and "this is what you should do if". The piece itself was well written and relatively apolitical and non-threatening. The "tech" aspect is the "fsck the police" part -- I think Nick is going to go into some ways to use technology to 1) help the police do what they should be doing, better 2) help the police not do what they shouldn't be doing 3) help users/clients/customers/victims of the police. And so should other HN people. Video recording seems like the lowest hanging fruit -- figuring out how to do that both safely and reliably is a good problem to solve. If I were GoPro, I'd donate $25mm or so to developing best practices for this, and then make another $5b selling GoPro-Police cameras over the next decade.
  - nickfarr 13y ago
    I didn't put it in the article precisely because I didn't want the shift in focus--but this incident made me think a lot harder about wearing my Google Glass again. That being said, there's absolutely no reason that cops should not have a camera on them at all times. It's more for their benefit than ours. As far as technologies that reliably work, the stop-and-frisk app is actually quite good, but requires practice like anything else. I'd also be all for photographing cops out of habit. I stopped short of recommending that...but, hell, there's plenty of fodder here for a good month's worth of posts.

spiritplumber 13y ago

Cops should be treated like muggers. Move slowly, make your body language indicate that you are not wanting a fight, speak clearly and ask the other person to also speak clearly, and be ready to bolt if the opportunity arises. American cops must be dealt with using de-escalation techniques.

cryoshon 13y ago
Yeah, no kidding. Also, keep your hands out of your pockets and make sure you are not holding anything lest they "mistake" it for a weapon, which would justify your death to both them Anything else and they go into a rage and you'll end up in jail. It's especially tough because their only training is to escalate further at any provocation.
junto 13y ago
This is extremely good advice.

ted7780 13y ago

I have lived in nyc for 23 years. The police used to be much cooler. The would chat with parade goers, joke around and compared to the harness bulls in Chicago they were great. After 9/11 the department changed. Meaner more suspicious and unfriendly. 10 citations a month is pretty low. One every three days. You could write that in ten minutes in the intersection outside my window. My dad was a cop. It's a hard fucking job. Keep that in mind.

nickfarr 13y ago
I know it's a hard job...that was part of the point that I think got lost in the whole article. That being said, this intimidation strategy (along with the rampant drug war incarceration of anyone who isn't 100% clean) has "cleaned up the city". Once the crime rates start going up again, it's going to get a lot worse. Beat cops aren't just supposed to write traffic citations. They're supposed to get a litany of these "pink ticket"s, which account for all the quality of life violations that the Broken Window theory goes after.

wudf 13y ago

I read it, but I still don't understand why you plead not guilty.

nickfarr 13y ago
Bear in mind, I didn't get a ticket from the Stop-And-Frisk incident, I got one for trespassing in Central Park a few months prior. I plead not guilty because I was TOLD by the Police Officer that the ticket would get thrown out. I assumed this meant that the officer would not appear were I to appeal it, and when the officer appeals it gets thrown out. What I didn't know is that the "ACD" option--Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal--was not offered to be at my arraignment. The first magistrate I saw wanted my $25, and didn't say a thing about throwing the ticket out. Not knowing my rights at the time (i.e. the ACD option), I plead Not Guilty. Turns out the officer did appear and I was offered ACD. Had I continued with the trial, I would have made a point of the officer's statement saying that "this ticket would get thrown out as long as you appeared".

amagumori 13y ago

i'm inclined to agree with the first comment on the article. if the author was not a privileged, professional-looking white guy, his outcome could have quite likely been much worse. i disagree with his naive conclusion (based on a sample size of one instance of getting arrested for an extremely minor infraction) that the NYPD are largely "good people charged with bad policing tactics". the treatment of minority groups such as chicanos, african-americans, and muslims by the NYPD is well documented and does not reflect a police force full of good people. :-/

nickfarr 13y ago
I'm actually going to take you to task on this once, precisely because the NYPD is set to become a "minority majority" force if current hiring trends continue. I've had many, many more interactions with the police than these two incidents in a variety of different contexts and I believe they're decent human beings who want to do the right thing. The systematic mistreatment of all underprivileged groups (including poor whites and the mentally ill, btw.) is, when you look at it, the bad cops getting the outsized share of attention. There are lots of cops who do the right thing when they can, I see it happening all the time even beyond the patina of the blue line of intimidation.
- amagumori 13y ago
  i don't live in NY, so i'll concede to your actual experience with NY cops. BUT, i think your assumption that a lack of mistreatment of minorities results from a more diverse police force is naive. in my experience, i have seen abuse against ethnic minorities at the hands of police who are themselves ethnic minorities - sometimes even the same ethnicity as the victim. perhaps in many cases police brutality falls along racial lines, but only by correlation. i think it is probably more of an issue of class, and groupings like "people who look like thugs to me". either way, as a professional-looking white or asian dude, you can usually escape being classed as a "thug" sight-unseen just for your appearance. i would also offer that due to the fact you're a successful guy, you have probably not had police interactions in, say, east new york. police attitudes and behavior are highly variable based on where they work. if you're in a shitty neighborhood, you will have much worse interactions with cops no matter your race. in nice neighborhoods, cops are nice.

joesmo 13y ago

"The NYPD aren’t tasked with policing, the act of maintaining law and order." Exactly. That goes for all police. Their only job duty is to make arrests. Only. It is a fallacy to think that the police are there to help. They're not even required to help by law and have no duty to do so. Once this fact is realized by someone, not interacting with police and other smart actions start to make complete sense. It's just too bad that children are wrongfully taught otherwise. It's one thing that parents can be squarely blamed for, as they usually believe the lies themselves.

herbig 13y ago

I'd like to create a mobile app where users can input a badge number. If the number already exists, you get the existing profile, if it doesn't, a new profile is created, from which you can upvote or downvote the officer, add a name or picture, and write a review. Other users can upvote or downvote reviews as well. The other part of the app would be a top 10 list of the best officers in NYC, and a top 10 worst officers. I'm pretty alright at Android, but know nothing about iOS. We'd need a really great and simple design. The whole backend could be done with Parse. Anyone interested?

schackbrian 13y ago
Like this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RateMyCop.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RateMyCop.com
- herbig 13y ago
  Yeah, but a mobile app with better design.
codygman 13y ago
I actually have a project in mind that would incorporate this.

whatevsbro 13y ago

The correct answer was "Hipster beard", then. > In the nearly six hours I spent in court on two separate dates, I saw around a hundred people plead guilty and pay fines for a variety of different petty offenses This is plea-bargaining in action, and related to: Q: “How many citations have you written since you saw my client?” A: “Maybe 40 or 50. We’re required to write 10 citations a month.” They're "manufacturing prisoners". One reason for that is the prison-industrial complex with the for-profit prisoners demanding "customers" and bought politicians delivering them. Another might have something to do with the burgeoning police state in the US.

conformal 13y ago

fuck the police. they are just another gang and do little to stop real crime in most urban areas. i would venture to say that police actually facilitate more crime than they prevent on the average. in chicago, i have never received anything from a police officer besides disrespect and questionable tickets. i am very excited for the next 20 years since i predict we will see the end of human policing and instead have robotic law enforcement.

NAFV_P 13y ago
> i am very excited for the next 20 years since i predict we will see the end of human policing and instead have robotic law enforcement. http://jeremiahlambert.deviantart.com/art/ED-209-June-12-Daily-Art-Jam-Day-18-309511163 http://jeremiahlambert.deviantart.com/art/ED-209-June-12-Dai...