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Police brutality is terrible and should be eliminated from our society. Hopefully the proliferation of officer mounted, always-on cameras can help minimize it.

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
        I see where you're coming from. Perhaps I should have said "seemingly nonsensical" (I'm sure the bystanders think they're being helpful). The point doesn't change in the slightest. Correct response: "You've done good, but it's time to let the EMTs take things from here." Incorrect response: "Move to the other side of the street. [Arrest for hesitation.]"
        pdonis 13y ago
        You labeled the responses wrong. The one you labeled "Correct" should have been labeled "Would be nice to see but totally unreasonable to expect"; the one you labeled "Incorrect" should have been labeled "Abrupt but to be expected from a cop who has more important things to think about than pandering to the ego of a bystander".
        jjoonathan 13y ago
        Nope, I labeled them correctly. Your expectations of what would happen (which align with my own) have no bearing on what is right or wrong. Police officers have better things to do than "pandering to the ego of a bystander" (is that what they're calling politeness these days)? Then surely they have much better things to do than spending hours engaging in an egregious miscarriage of justice to flatter their own notions of self-importance (i.e. that they deserve unquestioning obedience even in non-urgent situations). Except that they clearly didn't. So what, exactly, are the "more important things" they have to think about?
- jcheng 13y ago
  The cops' account is in the police report: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779439/police_report_annotated.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779439/police_report_ann...
- Karunamon 13y ago
  I have to ask.. why does it matter? I find the sequence of events the author was subjected to is impossible to justify with any conceivable amount of being "smug and obnoxious". This is behavior that should be reserved for dangerous, combative criminals (and probably not even then), certainly not bystanders who are merely annoying.
  - bronson 13y ago
    Read the police report (linked in other commments). Author was buzzed and buzzing around, and creatively left a few important details out of his story. (not saying the police report is 100% of the story either of course)
    - icebraining 13y ago
      What makes you think that the police didn't creatively add a few details to the story?
whywhywhy5 13y ago
Police brutality will never go away unless the the police themselves hold officers accountable for such actions. Sadly, they just don't, or give them a slap on the wrist when they cross the line.

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
        I see where you're coming from. Perhaps I should have said "seemingly nonsensical" (I'm sure the bystanders think they're being helpful). The point doesn't change in the slightest. Correct response: "You've done good, but it's time to let the EMTs take things from here." Incorrect response: "Move to the other side of the street. [Arrest for hesitation.]"
        pdonis 13y ago
        You labeled the responses wrong. The one you labeled "Correct" should have been labeled "Would be nice to see but totally unreasonable to expect"; the one you labeled "Incorrect" should have been labeled "Abrupt but to be expected from a cop who has more important things to think about than pandering to the ego of a bystander".
        jjoonathan 13y ago
        Nope, I labeled them correctly. Your expectations of what would happen (which align with my own) have no bearing on what is right or wrong. Police officers have better things to do than "pandering to the ego of a bystander" (is that what they're calling politeness these days)? Then surely they have much better things to do than spending hours engaging in an egregious miscarriage of justice to flatter their own notions of self-importance (i.e. that they deserve unquestioning obedience even in non-urgent situations). Except that they clearly didn't. So what, exactly, are the "more important things" they have to think about?
jcheng 13y ago
The cops' account is in the police report: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779439/police_report_annotated.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/779439/police_report_ann...
Karunamon 13y ago
I have to ask.. why does it matter? I find the sequence of events the author was subjected to is impossible to justify with any conceivable amount of being "smug and obnoxious". This is behavior that should be reserved for dangerous, combative criminals (and probably not even then), certainly not bystanders who are merely annoying.
- bronson 13y ago
  Read the police report (linked in other commments). Author was buzzed and buzzing around, and creatively left a few important details out of his story. (not saying the police report is 100% of the story either of course)
  - icebraining 13y ago
    What makes you think that the police didn't creatively add a few details to the story?

whywhywhy5 13y ago

Police brutality will never go away unless the the police themselves hold officers accountable for such actions. Sadly, they just don't, or give them a slap on the wrist when they cross the line.