12 ms·

Good Samaritan Backfire

164 points by blearyeyed 13y ago

kbar13 13y ago
repost, but looks like the article was fleshed out some more since I last saw it on HN. Included recording of 911 call, which I'm curious how he obtained.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  They're recorded and they're covered by the California Public Records Act. You just have to ask for it; they can withhold for privacy reasons. In this case (and as with many others), no such withholding was made. Just ask.
  - drpp 13y ago
    I'm the OP. It takes some persistence with paperwork and followup, and a recording costs 30$, but here is the form: http://sfdem.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1268 http://sfdem.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1268
wtvanhest 13y ago
Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it. We should continued to do what we can to minimize it and should pay attention to stories like this one. This story invokes emotion but even after he released all the documents it still doesn't ring true. Part of it is the language used and the overly cautious structure about his thoughts and actions. The following paragraph just didn't seem like a true representation of his thought process: "Rich SOMA, poor SOMA. My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food. I live here, right on this block, in a loving home with 16 roommates. I love this community. I asked them where they lived. And they responded in unison: “Far away! We can’t afford to live here.”"
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Yeah, this guy comes off as really smug and obnoxious in his own words. I have no doubt the police overreacted and acted unjustly, but I also think there's more to this story than we're getting. Is there a lawsuit pending? What's the cops' account of these events?
  - tensafefrogs 13y ago
    The police report is now posted in the story (it wasn't there when this was posted a few weeks ago after the incident). It sounds like the cops told him to leave (aka cross the street) and he didn't, so they pushed him down and cuffed him for refusing to leave. Sounds like excessive force to me, and wtf @ arresting him and putting him in jail for that. But really, it sounds like the whole thing could have been avoided if he just walked a ways away from the scene and let everyone do their job. Why make a big deal out of being told to cross the street? That's the part that smells funny to me.
    - jjoonathan 13y ago
      They made a (EDIT: seemingly) nonsensical request and used his confusion as an excuse to abuse their discretionary powers. Sounds like a strategy they use to bag naive bystanders. Power tripping / stats-boosting, plain and simple.
      - MarkTee 13y ago
        What was nonsensical about their request?
        bronson 13y ago
        Right. Anybody who's been a first responder will recognize the importance of the request.
        jjoonathan 13y ago
mikemac 13y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730
Kiro 13y ago
Does anyone have a summary?
- michaelt 13y ago
  TLDR: Guy calls 911 to report someone else's bicycle accident. When the cops turned up they decide to rough him up and stick him in solitary confinement over night. He reports doing nothing that could reasonably justify this.
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    He reports doing plenty that would unreasonably "justify" the response he received. The causal void that you object to (which would shed doubt on his story) simply doesn't exist.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      >He reports doing plenty I'm not sure how essentially "hanging around" justifies violent treatment, solitary confinement, etc. Perhaps you could explain?
      - PeterisP 13y ago
        Well, the guy definitely doesn't deserve all the followup treatment that he's rightly complaining about, but about that particular single episode it is quite clear - if you're given a lawful order to not hang around i.e., cross the street; for whatever technically valid reason (and not disturbing 911 ops == not hanging around == not only a technicaly valid, but a very very valid reason) - then there are two options: a) you comply voluntarily; b) you get made to comply; c) there is no option c. (a) and (b) are both reasonable options, allowing to not comply is not a reasonable option.
        Karunamon 13y ago
        Except when the order is not lawful because the person is not "interfering" in any meaningful way, that is. Police absolutely do not have carte blanche to dictate what someone must or must not do outside of specific, limited circumstances. Not that it matters, because the behavior demonstrated here and the current climate of the justice system (i.e. he-said-she-said vs a cop, you always lose) means that those limitations are mostly invalid. Police can order you to do whatever and if you decline, knowing that they have no right to say such a thing, you'll just get hassled and imprisoned anyways.
cordite 13y ago
How does "Hello Sir," imply that "Oh yeah, he’s going to be a problem."?
- maxerickson 13y ago
  From the perspective of the officer that had put him in that situation, ignoring the question she just asked and instead addressing the other officer made that implication.
- michaelt 13y ago
  When cop 1 says to cop 2 "I think he's going to be a problem" cop 2 probably says "oh yeah, he's going to be a problem" regardless of what the suspect says.
  - Namrog84 13y ago
    If a cop says that about you and you are able to walk away without issues. That should be the moment you shut up and go home. Or at least cross the street down a block away from them...
    - icebraining 13y ago
      OP was in a police van at that time, though.
    - danielweber 13y ago
      He was in the back of caged van at that point. No walking away.
ollysb 13y ago
The HN lens has certainly been showing the US police force in a bad light over the last year or so. What are the origins of this strange behaviour? Why is force regularly used against people that verbally query the police? Even the army is trained to use dialogue where possible. It does sound like cameras will help but surely good and regular training programs should encourage good engagement with citizens.
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  "What are the origins of this strange behaviour?" It's not strange behavior. It's just that wealthy, white people are discovering what poor people and minorities have known for a long time: the police are not their friend, are not accountable to them, and are prone to violent overreaction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
  - ollysb 13y ago
    >> are prone to violent overreaction. That's not true of every country though, it's certainly not the case in the UK. Here the police do act as your friends, they make a lot of effort to talk to the general public, both on the beat and at events. Certainly every encounter I've had with the police has been positive, even when I've been in the wrong (speeding or whatever). Police can be your friend, they can be accountable and they certainly don't need to be prone to violent outbursts.
    - Dale1 13y ago
      Stephen Lawrence would probably disagree with you. The basic upshot of this story is to keep your contact with the Police brief, friendly and say no more than you need to. The Police have been doing this to black people, gay people and other minorities for years, it's actually quite ironic that the Stonewall riots happened in San Fran too. All that's happened this time is a well off, straight, white chap has realised just how hard life gets when you're treated as a minority. I hope he gets his day in court and if the story is true they will sort the copper out and pay some compensation to him.
rburhum 13y ago
Sadly, I have many friends with similar stories from police departments in different places. I attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment. Add to this the types of personalities that are attracted to this line of work, and things start getting a bit more clear. I am not trying to justify or even imply that it is correct behavior from the police or that "all police officers are [x] or [y]", but from direct and indirect experience this story doesn't fully surprise me ( I don't think it is right though). I don't think the conclusions at the end of the blog post are correct though. Not calling 911 or even using lyft to go to the hospital seems like bad rules that are imposed to avoid interacting with the police. A better rule of thumb is to just minimize your dialogue with the police to the bare minimum and keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. All my friends that have experienced something like this is because they made a smart ass comment in an situation prior to them knowing how fast these things can go downhill.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. This is generally just good life advice.
- danielweber 13y ago
  > attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment As I get older I wonder if there are certain jobs that everyone in society should cycle though, because they can be soul-crushing to do them long term.
  - foobarian 13y ago
    This is exactly why we have a release engineering rotation at our company.
  - derefr 13y ago
diminoten 13y ago
> She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. "I then walked home." should have been the next line, and I'm fairly sure the author knows it. That doesn't excuse what the officers did, but it's not "being a good Samaritan" that backfired. Being nosy is the part that didn't end well. I'm not even sure the use of force wasn't justified - even in this immensely biased account, he mentions being told to back away by the officers. What are they supposed to do when you ignore them?
- rayiner 13y ago
  > Being nosy is the part that didn't end well. Neither did being obnoxious, I imagine: "I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." I don't condone the violence and abuse of authority, obviously. But imagine being a cop, and having to deal with this at 1 am after a long day at work.
  - ForHackernews 13y ago
    Yeah, I'm surprised and almost impressed by how much he manages to come across as a total wanker in his own account where he's presumably trying to cast himself in the best possible light.
  - jellicle 13y ago
    And yet your reply condones the violence and abuse of authority. Why is that? Here's the basic rule: as a police officer, you must be polite, fair, kind, and law-abiding, even if the public you deal with is rude, nasty, entitled, somewhat drunk, and otherwise unpleasant. Period. If you can't do that, you're in the wrong profession. And if the profession permits people who can't do that, the profession has systemic issues that need to be corrected.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      Asserting that the reaction was predictable and in some sense understandable isn't the same as condoning it. This is the real world, and it's unavoidable that the sorts of people who are going to sign up to police the streets in the face of aggressive hobos and violent gang-bangers aren't going to be the most staid and self-controlled.
incision 13y ago
This was posted previously and drew a mountain (793) of comments [0], including mine [1]. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235079
- Namrog84 13y ago
  Does hacker news not flag/block duplicate posts urls. Especially when first one was clearly recognized?
  - brokentone 13y ago
    It does, but it uses a very strict match. You'll notice that the first submission uses a trailing slash whereas this one does not.
  - ColinWright 13y ago
    The URLs are different: 7233730 : https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ [0] 7496137 : https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 [1] HN's dup detector is crude and simplistic. Suggestions over the years to help fix it have been ignored, and efforts to help cross-link items have been lauded by some, and vilified by others who somehow seem to see the repetition as a feature. I guess that since it's documented (many times over, again, discussions repeated ad nauseam) it's definitely a feature rather than a bug. Largely, I've given up. Let the discussions repeat the same points over and over - most don't care, others don't even notice. An engineer at heart, I find it almost physically painful to see such inefficiencies and loss of opportunity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137
    - revelation 13y ago
      I think the duplicate detector was recently tweaked, at least the query string trick no longer worked for me.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mscarborough 13y ago
This is obnoxious. Dude did not need to be put in solitary, but he also didn't need to stay 15 feet from an accident scene that involved police and EMTs, how is he helping anything? He hurt his elbow recently so he had to stay involved at 1 AM? And for real, what do you expect riding on handlebars in the city at 12:30? Sounds like a great, sober idea!
norswap 13y ago
Interestingly, the same kind of stuff lead to a few scandals in China, where injured people where ignored by a host of bystander, apparently by fear of legal pursuits (which is something that had happened earlier to some people helping traffic victims).
pdonis 13y ago
There is some bad advice at the end of this: recommending Lyft as an alternative to calling 911. First of all, Lyft doesn't exist in most places; not everybody lives in San Francisco. Second, moving people who have had an accident without proper medical knowledge and procedures and equipment can often make their condition worse. The author does say there are exceptions to his "don't call 911" rule, but he says "they are fewer than you think". Is he claiming that this particular situation was, or wasn't, one of the exceptions? If it was, then how does this situation support the rule? If it wasn't, he's taking on a lot more responsibility; sure, maybe calling Lyft "worked fine" for him when he broke his elbow, but was that because he showed good judgment or because he got lucky? Would it have "worked fine" for the people who got hurt in this scenario?
- glenra 13y ago
  Clearly in this case for him calling 911 was a mistake, because it made him more likely to be mildly beaten up, arrested, and thrown in jail. The outcome of this particular situation revealed that calling 911 has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered; it's a public service to share that information. Calling lyft, uber, or any other cab-type service probably would have worked fine in this scenario too. Because cops have a known tendency to be violent idiots who make situations worse by their presence, the fact that calling 911 automatically brings cops along with EMTs is a problem. Perhaps what we need is to find or set up some sort of emergency number that just brings EMTs but doesn't also bring cops, and program that number into our phones. You might still want to call 911 for a freeway accident where cops are needed to redirect traffic, but not for something like this.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    it made him more likely to be mildly beaten up, arrested, and thrown in jail. What caused that wasn't his calling 911, it was his failing to go away when the cop told him to. calling 911 has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered No, continuing to pester cops when they've told you to go away has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered. By blaming it all on his calling 911, he's not only giving bad advice to others, he's failing to properly adjust his own behavior. Calling lyft, uber, or any other cab-type service probably would have worked fine in this scenario too. And if that was the option the injured person had chosen, that would be fine. But she asked him to call 911. If he had called Lyft instead, that would have been a huge mistake. Perhaps what we need is to find or set up some sort of emergency number that just brings EMTs but doesn't also bring cops That would be nice, but I suspect it would end up being misused enough (EMTs being called to a scene that should have had cops summoned as well) that it would end up working the same as the 911 we have now.
subpixel 13y ago
Officer Kaur, should you read this: thank you for doing your job, for regularly exposing yourself to great risk in the line of duty, and for carrying on in spite of interactions you must endure with all manner of bozos (including, as we are now aware, over-privileged, self-righteous, know-it-alls).
- mycousinvinny 13y ago
  Yeah lets just ignore the cops instructions and act like a smug hipster, yeah then we'll post about it on the internet. That will get 'em!
mycousinvinny 13y ago
Stopped reading when the cops told him to go home and he just kept talking and not obeying their order. Just another hipster who wants attention.
jrochkind1 13y ago
So of course he should not have been treated that way, and he has my sympathy. But nowhere in his account is any recognition that this happens to lots and lots of people all the time, it's not special. The cops are surprised that he's expecting to be treated with dignity and respect, because they aren't used to treating people with dignity and respect, it's not what they do. It's just that usually this isn't directed at well-off white people. So there are two ways your reaction can go, when you're a well off white person who gets caught in that crap. 1) _I_ don't deserve to be treated this way, because I'm different, and I demand justice. 2) _Nobody_ deserves to be treated this way, and those people who normally get treated this way are _no different_ than me and don't deserve to be either, and I'm going to use what I've got to try and make it so. The OP is full of me, me, I, I, and what makes him such a person that didn't deserve to be treated like this. Nope, he didn't, neither does _anyone else ever_, and _most_ people who are treated like that are not like him, and it's not a one-time thing either, and frequently has worse consequences than a night in jail. You think the officer would have agreed that he "never should have been there" if he had looked like most of the other people in those cells?
jcabala 13y ago
I had a law professor who told our class, "If a police officer throws me on the ground and tells me to eat dirt. I get on the ground and eat dirt." Point being that it doesn't matter if the law is on your side at that moment or not, that is not the time to argue. Take it up in court later.
tankm0de 13y ago
this dude. by his own admission he, 1. had been drinking, was potentially drunk 2. disobeyed police officers at scene of accident 3. provoked the guards of the holding cell police can be thug-ish but this guy is not exactly a posterchild for innocent bystander. I find his thinly veiled sense of entitlement ('I can't have done anything wrong... I work for a non-profit!') pretty obnoxious. There are many victims of police or prosecutorial misconduct out there far more deserving of attention or sympathy. sadly they don't blog. https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give
DanBC 13y ago
One thing to remember: do what they say, and complain later. This helps give police departments something they can use against rogue officers. It keeps you safer - you are not as likely to get shot or crushed to death by police after writing a letter than after complaining about what they're telling you. Yes, you shouldn't have to do this and no, police shouldn't feel that they can do what they like. But "don't talk to the police" applies strongly in the OP story.

164 points by blearyeyed 13y ago

repost, but looks like the article was fleshed out some more since I last saw it on HN. Included recording of 911 call, which I'm curious how he obtained.

EliRivers 13y ago
They're recorded and they're covered by the California Public Records Act. You just have to ask for it; they can withhold for privacy reasons. In this case (and as with many others), no such withholding was made. Just ask.
- drpp 13y ago
  I'm the OP. It takes some persistence with paperwork and followup, and a recording costs 30$, but here is the form: http://sfdem.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1268 http://sfdem.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1268

wtvanhest 13y ago

Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it. We should continued to do what we can to minimize it and should pay attention to stories like this one. This story invokes emotion but even after he released all the documents it still doesn't ring true. Part of it is the language used and the overly cautious structure about his thoughts and actions. The following paragraph just didn't seem like a true representation of his thought process: "Rich SOMA, poor SOMA. My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food. I live here, right on this block, in a loving home with 16 roommates. I love this community. I asked them where they lived. And they responded in unison: “Far away! We can’t afford to live here.”"

ForHackernews 13y ago
Yeah, this guy comes off as really smug and obnoxious in his own words. I have no doubt the police overreacted and acted unjustly, but I also think there's more to this story than we're getting. Is there a lawsuit pending? What's the cops' account of these events?
- tensafefrogs 13y ago
  The police report is now posted in the story (it wasn't there when this was posted a few weeks ago after the incident). It sounds like the cops told him to leave (aka cross the street) and he didn't, so they pushed him down and cuffed him for refusing to leave. Sounds like excessive force to me, and wtf @ arresting him and putting him in jail for that. But really, it sounds like the whole thing could have been avoided if he just walked a ways away from the scene and let everyone do their job. Why make a big deal out of being told to cross the street? That's the part that smells funny to me.
  - jjoonathan 13y ago
    They made a (EDIT: seemingly) nonsensical request and used his confusion as an excuse to abuse their discretionary powers. Sounds like a strategy they use to bag naive bystanders. Power tripping / stats-boosting, plain and simple.
    - MarkTee 13y ago
      What was nonsensical about their request?
      - bronson 13y ago
        Right. Anybody who's been a first responder will recognize the importance of the request.
        jjoonathan 13y ago

mikemac 13y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730

Kiro 13y ago

Does anyone have a summary?

michaelt 13y ago
TLDR: Guy calls 911 to report someone else's bicycle accident. When the cops turned up they decide to rough him up and stick him in solitary confinement over night. He reports doing nothing that could reasonably justify this.
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  He reports doing plenty that would unreasonably "justify" the response he received. The causal void that you object to (which would shed doubt on his story) simply doesn't exist.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    >He reports doing plenty I'm not sure how essentially "hanging around" justifies violent treatment, solitary confinement, etc. Perhaps you could explain?
    - PeterisP 13y ago
      Well, the guy definitely doesn't deserve all the followup treatment that he's rightly complaining about, but about that particular single episode it is quite clear - if you're given a lawful order to not hang around i.e., cross the street; for whatever technically valid reason (and not disturbing 911 ops == not hanging around == not only a technicaly valid, but a very very valid reason) - then there are two options: a) you comply voluntarily; b) you get made to comply; c) there is no option c. (a) and (b) are both reasonable options, allowing to not comply is not a reasonable option.
      - Karunamon 13y ago
        Except when the order is not lawful because the person is not "interfering" in any meaningful way, that is. Police absolutely do not have carte blanche to dictate what someone must or must not do outside of specific, limited circumstances. Not that it matters, because the behavior demonstrated here and the current climate of the justice system (i.e. he-said-she-said vs a cop, you always lose) means that those limitations are mostly invalid. Police can order you to do whatever and if you decline, knowing that they have no right to say such a thing, you'll just get hassled and imprisoned anyways.

cordite 13y ago

How does "Hello Sir," imply that "Oh yeah, he’s going to be a problem."?

maxerickson 13y ago
From the perspective of the officer that had put him in that situation, ignoring the question she just asked and instead addressing the other officer made that implication.
michaelt 13y ago
When cop 1 says to cop 2 "I think he's going to be a problem" cop 2 probably says "oh yeah, he's going to be a problem" regardless of what the suspect says.
- Namrog84 13y ago
  If a cop says that about you and you are able to walk away without issues. That should be the moment you shut up and go home. Or at least cross the street down a block away from them...
  - icebraining 13y ago
    OP was in a police van at that time, though.
  - danielweber 13y ago
    He was in the back of caged van at that point. No walking away.

ollysb 13y ago

The HN lens has certainly been showing the US police force in a bad light over the last year or so. What are the origins of this strange behaviour? Why is force regularly used against people that verbally query the police? Even the army is trained to use dialogue where possible. It does sound like cameras will help but surely good and regular training programs should encourage good engagement with citizens.

ForHackernews 13y ago
"What are the origins of this strange behaviour?" It's not strange behavior. It's just that wealthy, white people are discovering what poor people and minorities have known for a long time: the police are not their friend, are not accountable to them, and are prone to violent overreaction. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
- ollysb 13y ago
  >> are prone to violent overreaction. That's not true of every country though, it's certainly not the case in the UK. Here the police do act as your friends, they make a lot of effort to talk to the general public, both on the beat and at events. Certainly every encounter I've had with the police has been positive, even when I've been in the wrong (speeding or whatever). Police can be your friend, they can be accountable and they certainly don't need to be prone to violent outbursts.
  - Dale1 13y ago
    Stephen Lawrence would probably disagree with you. The basic upshot of this story is to keep your contact with the Police brief, friendly and say no more than you need to. The Police have been doing this to black people, gay people and other minorities for years, it's actually quite ironic that the Stonewall riots happened in San Fran too. All that's happened this time is a well off, straight, white chap has realised just how hard life gets when you're treated as a minority. I hope he gets his day in court and if the story is true they will sort the copper out and pay some compensation to him.

rburhum 13y ago

Sadly, I have many friends with similar stories from police departments in different places. I attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment. Add to this the types of personalities that are attracted to this line of work, and things start getting a bit more clear. I am not trying to justify or even imply that it is correct behavior from the police or that "all police officers are [x] or [y]", but from direct and indirect experience this story doesn't fully surprise me ( I don't think it is right though). I don't think the conclusions at the end of the blog post are correct though. Not calling 911 or even using lyft to go to the hospital seems like bad rules that are imposed to avoid interacting with the police. A better rule of thumb is to just minimize your dialogue with the police to the bare minimum and keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. All my friends that have experienced something like this is because they made a smart ass comment in an situation prior to them knowing how fast these things can go downhill.

rayiner 13y ago
> keep any intellectual/ironic/satirical comment to yourself. This is generally just good life advice.
danielweber 13y ago
> attribute the officer's behavior to constantly being surrounded by violence. If everyday, most people around you are violent unreasonable delinquents that want to hurt you, then you start developing personality characteristics to compensate and survive that environment As I get older I wonder if there are certain jobs that everyone in society should cycle though, because they can be soul-crushing to do them long term.
- foobarian 13y ago
  This is exactly why we have a release engineering rotation at our company.
- derefr 13y ago

diminoten 13y ago

> She turned to me and abruptly said that I was not needed as a witness and should leave immediately. "I then walked home." should have been the next line, and I'm fairly sure the author knows it. That doesn't excuse what the officers did, but it's not "being a good Samaritan" that backfired. Being nosy is the part that didn't end well. I'm not even sure the use of force wasn't justified - even in this immensely biased account, he mentions being told to back away by the officers. What are they supposed to do when you ignore them?

rayiner 13y ago
> Being nosy is the part that didn't end well. Neither did being obnoxious, I imagine: "I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." I don't condone the violence and abuse of authority, obviously. But imagine being a cop, and having to deal with this at 1 am after a long day at work.
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  Yeah, I'm surprised and almost impressed by how much he manages to come across as a total wanker in his own account where he's presumably trying to cast himself in the best possible light.
- jellicle 13y ago
  And yet your reply condones the violence and abuse of authority. Why is that? Here's the basic rule: as a police officer, you must be polite, fair, kind, and law-abiding, even if the public you deal with is rude, nasty, entitled, somewhat drunk, and otherwise unpleasant. Period. If you can't do that, you're in the wrong profession. And if the profession permits people who can't do that, the profession has systemic issues that need to be corrected.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Asserting that the reaction was predictable and in some sense understandable isn't the same as condoning it. This is the real world, and it's unavoidable that the sorts of people who are going to sign up to police the streets in the face of aggressive hobos and violent gang-bangers aren't going to be the most staid and self-controlled.

incision 13y ago

This was posted previously and drew a mountain (793) of comments [0], including mine [1]. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235079 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7235079

Namrog84 13y ago
Does hacker news not flag/block duplicate posts urls. Especially when first one was clearly recognized?
- brokentone 13y ago
  It does, but it uses a very strict match. You'll notice that the first submission uses a trailing slash whereas this one does not.
- ColinWright 13y ago
  The URLs are different: 7233730 : https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/ [0] 7496137 : https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 https://medium.com/human-parts/9f53ef6a1c10 [1] HN's dup detector is crude and simplistic. Suggestions over the years to help fix it have been ignored, and efforts to help cross-link items have been lauded by some, and vilified by others who somehow seem to see the repetition as a feature. I guess that since it's documented (many times over, again, discussions repeated ad nauseam) it's definitely a feature rather than a bug. Largely, I've given up. Let the discussions repeat the same points over and over - most don't care, others don't even notice. An engineer at heart, I find it almost physically painful to see such inefficiencies and loss of opportunity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7233730 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7496137
  - revelation 13y ago
    I think the duplicate detector was recently tweaked, at least the query string trick no longer worked for me.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mscarborough 13y ago

This is obnoxious. Dude did not need to be put in solitary, but he also didn't need to stay 15 feet from an accident scene that involved police and EMTs, how is he helping anything? He hurt his elbow recently so he had to stay involved at 1 AM? And for real, what do you expect riding on handlebars in the city at 12:30? Sounds like a great, sober idea!

norswap 13y ago

Interestingly, the same kind of stuff lead to a few scandals in China, where injured people where ignored by a host of bystander, apparently by fear of legal pursuits (which is something that had happened earlier to some people helping traffic victims).

pdonis 13y ago

There is some bad advice at the end of this: recommending Lyft as an alternative to calling 911. First of all, Lyft doesn't exist in most places; not everybody lives in San Francisco. Second, moving people who have had an accident without proper medical knowledge and procedures and equipment can often make their condition worse. The author does say there are exceptions to his "don't call 911" rule, but he says "they are fewer than you think". Is he claiming that this particular situation was, or wasn't, one of the exceptions? If it was, then how does this situation support the rule? If it wasn't, he's taking on a lot more responsibility; sure, maybe calling Lyft "worked fine" for him when he broke his elbow, but was that because he showed good judgment or because he got lucky? Would it have "worked fine" for the people who got hurt in this scenario?

glenra 13y ago
Clearly in this case for him calling 911 was a mistake, because it made him more likely to be mildly beaten up, arrested, and thrown in jail. The outcome of this particular situation revealed that calling 911 has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered; it's a public service to share that information. Calling lyft, uber, or any other cab-type service probably would have worked fine in this scenario too. Because cops have a known tendency to be violent idiots who make situations worse by their presence, the fact that calling 911 automatically brings cops along with EMTs is a problem. Perhaps what we need is to find or set up some sort of emergency number that just brings EMTs but doesn't also bring cops, and program that number into our phones. You might still want to call 911 for a freeway accident where cops are needed to redirect traffic, but not for something like this.
- pdonis 13y ago
  it made him more likely to be mildly beaten up, arrested, and thrown in jail. What caused that wasn't his calling 911, it was his failing to go away when the cop told him to. calling 911 has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered No, continuing to pester cops when they've told you to go away has a bigger potential downside than he had previously fully considered. By blaming it all on his calling 911, he's not only giving bad advice to others, he's failing to properly adjust his own behavior. Calling lyft, uber, or any other cab-type service probably would have worked fine in this scenario too. And if that was the option the injured person had chosen, that would be fine. But she asked him to call 911. If he had called Lyft instead, that would have been a huge mistake. Perhaps what we need is to find or set up some sort of emergency number that just brings EMTs but doesn't also bring cops That would be nice, but I suspect it would end up being misused enough (EMTs being called to a scene that should have had cops summoned as well) that it would end up working the same as the 911 we have now.

subpixel 13y ago

Officer Kaur, should you read this: thank you for doing your job, for regularly exposing yourself to great risk in the line of duty, and for carrying on in spite of interactions you must endure with all manner of bozos (including, as we are now aware, over-privileged, self-righteous, know-it-alls).

mycousinvinny 13y ago
Yeah lets just ignore the cops instructions and act like a smug hipster, yeah then we'll post about it on the internet. That will get 'em!

mycousinvinny 13y ago

Stopped reading when the cops told him to go home and he just kept talking and not obeying their order. Just another hipster who wants attention.

jrochkind1 13y ago

So of course he should not have been treated that way, and he has my sympathy. But nowhere in his account is any recognition that this happens to lots and lots of people all the time, it's not special. The cops are surprised that he's expecting to be treated with dignity and respect, because they aren't used to treating people with dignity and respect, it's not what they do. It's just that usually this isn't directed at well-off white people. So there are two ways your reaction can go, when you're a well off white person who gets caught in that crap. 1) _I_ don't deserve to be treated this way, because I'm different, and I demand justice. 2) _Nobody_ deserves to be treated this way, and those people who normally get treated this way are _no different_ than me and don't deserve to be either, and I'm going to use what I've got to try and make it so. The OP is full of me, me, I, I, and what makes him such a person that didn't deserve to be treated like this. Nope, he didn't, neither does _anyone else ever_, and _most_ people who are treated like that are not like him, and it's not a one-time thing either, and frequently has worse consequences than a night in jail. You think the officer would have agreed that he "never should have been there" if he had looked like most of the other people in those cells?

jcabala 13y ago

I had a law professor who told our class, "If a police officer throws me on the ground and tells me to eat dirt. I get on the ground and eat dirt." Point being that it doesn't matter if the law is on your side at that moment or not, that is not the time to argue. Take it up in court later.

tankm0de 13y ago

this dude. by his own admission he, 1. had been drinking, was potentially drunk 2. disobeyed police officers at scene of accident 3. provoked the guards of the holding cell police can be thug-ish but this guy is not exactly a posterchild for innocent bystander. I find his thinly veiled sense of entitlement ('I can't have done anything wrong... I work for a non-profit!') pretty obnoxious. There are many victims of police or prosecutorial misconduct out there far more deserving of attention or sympathy. sadly they don't blog. https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give https://www.aclu.org/donate/join-renew-give

DanBC 13y ago

One thing to remember: do what they say, and complain later. This helps give police departments something they can use against rogue officers. It keeps you safer - you are not as likely to get shot or crushed to death by police after writing a letter than after complaining about what they're telling you. Yes, you shouldn't have to do this and no, police shouldn't feel that they can do what they like. But "don't talk to the police" applies strongly in the OP story.