[HN Gopher] NYPD is refusing to comply with NYC's new surveillan...
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NYPD is refusing to comply with NYC's new surveillance tech laws
Author : heavyset_go
Score : 333 points
Date : 2023-03-31 13:39 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dailydot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dailydot.com)
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Surely the DA will be on top of this, presumably charging
| officials with not following the law to a T. When is the
| indictment coming?
| ehvatum wrote:
| I hope you're not suggesting that the DA being motivated by
| politics is a bad thing.
|
| He's an elected official. His job is to respond to his
| constituents by prosecuting people they don't like.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| ...rather than people that break the law?
| irrational wrote:
| Law enforcement for thee, but not for me.
| drumhead wrote:
| There isn't much accountability when it comes to the NYPD. They
| seem to do what they want and get away with it, and the public as
| a whole there don't really look like they care.
| aqme28 wrote:
| > the public as a whole there don't really look like they care
|
| Really? The George Floyd protests were the largest protests in
| US history. That summer in NYC was extremely tense between the
| NYPD and regular residents (I have plenty of stories). Maybe I
| lived in an NYC bubble, but nearly everyone I knew was
| extremely upset with the NYPD, and remains upset.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I think you're probably living in a bubble. The people of NYC
| elected an ex NYPD officer as mayor in 2021, so they can't be
| that upset with the NYPD.
| banannaise wrote:
| Adams won the Democratic primary by less than one percent,
| despite aggressive campaigning on his behalf by, among
| other organizations, the Police Benevolent Association. (I
| am discarding the general election because his Republican
| opponent was, let's say, a less-than-serious candidate.)
|
| He also had police reform as a key part of his platform,
| although at this point his dedication to that seems
| questionable at best.
|
| I wouldn't exactly call his win a mandate for policing.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Adams won the Democratic primary by less than one
| percent, despite aggressive campaigning on his behalf by,
| among other organizations, the Police Benevolent
| Association. (I am discarding the general election
| because his Republican opponent was, let's say, a less-
| than-serious candidate.)
|
| Adams barely won the primary, and that was only after
| literally four other forerunners all either dropped out
| for personal reasons or became embroiled in campaign-
| ending personal scandals (e.g. sexual harassment
| allegations).
|
| > I wouldn't exactly call his win a mandate for policing.
|
| The media reported it as if it were one, but that was an
| incredibly lazy and dishonest interpretation of the
| election results. There were many other citywide _and_
| local races on the same ballot, and more progressive
| candidates pretty consistently swept all of those races.
| The mayoral race was the one exception, making it quite
| obvious that was an accident of circumstance rather than
| an affirmation of Adams specifically.
|
| If anything, the 2021 NYC elections were a clear mandate
| for reigning _in_ the NYPD: when given the option of a
| candidate who wanted to reign in NYPD power and _didn 't_
| have objectively disqualifying personal behavior, voters
| pretty consistently chose that candidate for nearly every
| single race in every single level of government and in
| every district.
|
| Unfortunately, because of the series of scandals that
| marred the mayoral primary, it made it easy for national
| media to ignore the entire context and focus entirely on
| the end result of one single race, rather than the causes
| of that race, or the many other candidates that people
| voted for on literally the exact same ballot.
| drumhead wrote:
| Why hasnt anything changed then?
| [deleted]
| philipov wrote:
| Who are you to be quoting laws to those who have guns?
| salawat wrote:
| New York, remember? The State that looks at the Second
| Amendment as an aspirational guideline. To be frank, I
| think the current problem may be a symptom of the other.
|
| (Unarmed populace -> Corrupt cops)
|
| Power dynamic changes a bit, taking one down a few pegs
| when everyone else in the room is packing iron without
| having to get a blessing from the Police.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > Power dynamic changes a bit
|
| Not even a bit. If the officer is never held accountable,
| they can threaten with their gun and the civilian who
| wants to pull theirs in response is just going to be
| legally shot by the threatening officer (and if not,
| found guilty of murder by a vengeful police department).
| This really is a problem of accountability, which guns
| don't bring except in a revolution.
| aqme28 wrote:
| We're commenting on an article about how the NYPD aren't
| accountable and aren't even following NYC laws. It is well-
| known that they don't follow the law in general.
|
| There's very little power for the citizens to actually do
| anything. The NYPD holds tremendous political power, and
| wields it aggressively. They even _publicly threatened_ the
| children of the previous mayor.
| Aunche wrote:
| > There's very little power for the citizens to actually
| do anything.
|
| How much effort did you expend before declaring that
| change is futile? The NYPD has political power because
| they worked to establish relationships with politicians
| and spent money to hire lobbyists that keep these these
| politicians accountable to their interests. On the other
| hand, most people would have trouble to name a single
| city councilor.
| feanaro wrote:
| > They even _publicly threatened_ the children of the
| previous mayor.
|
| I'm curious to learn more. Do you have a source?
| kevviiinn wrote:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-attacks-nypd-for-
| threate...
| Bud wrote:
| This doesn't seem to support any allegation that the NYPD
| "publicly threatened" DeBlasio's "children". What did
| happen is that the NYPD Sergeants' union inappropriately
| tweeted details about her arrest, after she was arrested.
| That's one child, for those keeping score, not
| "children", and it's also not a "threat" of any
| identifiable kind. It is definitely inappropriate,
| though.
|
| So it would appear that Business Insider's headline was
| sensationalist and not well supported.
| mjhay wrote:
| It was not a coincidence they arrested her when she did.
| It was absolutely a tactic to intimidate DeBlasio. It
| worked too!
| s5300 wrote:
| >> inappropriately tweeted details about her arrest
|
| This is typically considered a threat by most well
| adjusted people, and most definitely an extreme level of
| harassment.
| eevilspock wrote:
| because those large protests were mainly young people. Most
| New Yorkers, especially the middle-aged and older white
| liberals, are pro-cop. New York city, the supposed bastion
| of progressivity and human rights, has the most segregated
| school system of any big city in the nation. Walk around
| liberal brooklyn and look at the color of the people being
| served and those doing the service, and you will see a
| caste system no better than anywhere in the South.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Quite frankly we lost. We were beaten and tear gassed and
| arrested and called rioters & looters on the news. Public
| figures called for more violence against us in major
| mainstream liberal publications. Many of us are still in
| jail with six figure bails, some of us are facing terrorism
| charges.
|
| The entire system came down _hard_ on those protests, from
| nearly every angle. The democrats refused to endorse or
| support the goal, and the risks & costs of continuing or
| escalating were too high. So it stopped, failed.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Most cities that started to follow through on either
| scrapping their police force or cutting their funding saw
| a massive spike in crime, and even those mayors and city
| councillors who were adamantly defund-the-police types
| are now begging for more money for the police and for
| police officers to come back out of retirement or from
| the other cities they moved to.
|
| The public turned on the movement when the movement
| turned on the public. Minneapolis neighborhoods were
| faced with turning into food deserts after looting caused
| enough damage to force the grocery stores to close for
| nearly a year (smoke and water damage).
|
| Some stores partner with non-governmental community peace
| organizations (i.e. civilized gangs) to reduce the need
| for police presence, and it is slowly working.
|
| Others haven't been so lucky. A Walmart recent closed in
| a suburb because it needed to call police nearly 6,500
| times over the course of 5 years. That was after other
| local retail outlets had also closed.
|
| Social fabric in some areas is just fundamentally torn,
| and there's nobody with a good solution.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Which cities were those, that started to follow through
| on defunding?
|
| Cities that _increased_ funding are also experiencing the
| crime spike. It 's a national phenomenon. Also one that
| apparently police can't prevent because, again, more
| police haven't prevented it.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Over 20 major cities cut or moved funding in some way by
| 2021: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-
| cities-de...
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Over 20 major cities cut or moved funding in some way
| by 2021
|
| That's a misleading way of talking about those numbers,
| and in fact the source linked within the article shows
| the exact opposite.
|
| For example, it cites New York as an example of a city
| which "reduced" police funding. Except New York famously
| didn't - they simply moved SROs to the Department of
| Education instead. Total funding for police actually
| _increased_. It just was reported on a different line in
| the budget.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Most cities that started to follow through on either
| scrapping their police force or cutting their funding saw
| a massive spike in crime
|
| This is factually incorrect. Every major city in the
| country _increased_ funding for police between 2019-2021.
| None defunded the police. Some made temporary adjustments
| in 2020 due to pandemic changes, but every single one was
| reversed by a subsequent increase over baseline levels
| for the 202-2021 or 2021-2022 cycle, depending on when
| the city 's fiscal year falls.
|
| Minneapolis is the only one which even voted to
| permanently defunded the police, but that was reversed
| before it went into effect.
| Plasmoid wrote:
| "Fiery but peaceful protests"
|
| The image of a CNN anchor in a respirator standing in
| front of a burning building calling things peaceful was
| when the movement lost it.
|
| It's hard to sympathize with an angry mob that's burning
| down cities and looting stores.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I'm not claiming protests were or should be necessarily
| peaceful. Those protests started because of _murder_ and
| disempowerment, and a context of decades of it.
|
| Making it hard to sympathize with protestors is an
| important role of the news, and a significant part of why
| those protests failed.
|
| I've seen astounding violence from police, before during
| and after those protests. Look at the thread we're in!
| Look at the one yesterday about them smuggling fentanyl!
| Look at the one from last week about the LA county
| sheriff gangs! Protesters don't carry a responsibility to
| uphold the law, they are a reaction to the police
| refusing to do so.
| ononon wrote:
| [flagged]
| mrWiz wrote:
| Floyd had traces of fentanyl and meth in his blood and
| had used them in the last several days. He did not have
| enough to be "on" them at the time of death.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| The police aren't supposed to execute drug users either I
| don't think we have a different system for that. Or
| people with covid (??).
|
| And it's actually ok to be upset by people being killed.
| Good even. If it doesn't bother you your soul is weak and
| cowardly, as much as you might try to frame it as some
| inevitable result of objective facts or whatever.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I would say it's equally hard to sympathize with the cops
| that pushed down an elderly man, then left him bleeding
| _from the head_ on the street, _marching over his
| unmoving body towards protestors_ , in broad daylight.
|
| It's important to remember that it's the cops with the
| deadly weapons, its the cops with the chemical weapons,
| and its the cops depriving access to medicine when they
| hurt protestors.
| Aunche wrote:
| What are you talking about? The media and Democrats were
| heavily in favor of the protesters to the extent of
| denying its part in enabling rioters and looters.
|
| One of the greatest disservices in American education is
| how they teach about activism. The narrative goes that if
| you can get a million people to complain on the streets,
| this will magically drive political reform. What doesn't
| get talked about are the intense lobbying and legal
| challenges that actually kept the government accountable.
| gorbachev wrote:
| Because the various police unions hold enormous power over
| city council, the DAs and the mayor.
|
| There's nobody in the city that seems to dare hold them
| accountable, because past experience has thought them they
| will get completely owned by Pat Lynch.
| [deleted]
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| I think the public has seen the dramatic increase in violent
| crime and other major crimes since the pandemic and want NYPD
| to fix it and they don't really care how they do that. Adams
| ran on a platform of exactly this and now the public expects
| results.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| The perception that crime has skyrocketed since the pandemic
| is propaganda, fueled by a police department afraid of being
| defunded, media outlets desperate for clicks, and a cop
| running for mayor.
|
| Reality doesn't back it up. The murder rate in NYC is roughly
| where it was in 2009, and still five times less than it was
| in the 90s.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-
| st... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City#/m
| edia/...
| overrun11 wrote:
| Your stats don't back up your claim. Crime _has_
| skyrocketed since the pandemic as both of your links show.
| Your first links subtitle states: "Violent incidents are up
| since the pandemic began" and the second link shows a graph
| with a quite large spike starting around 2020.
|
| That there existed a time in history when the murder rate
| was a higher than it is now is completely irrelevant.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| That is not skyrocketing. It's just an "increase". Crime
| is back to where it was 10 years ago, when NYC was still
| considered one of the safest cities in the country.
|
| Did you read the part of my first source that compares
| the rate of crime to the rate of crime reporting, or did
| you just read first half of the subtitle (conveniently
| omitting "But widespread anxiety obscures the fact that
| crime is still at decades-long lows.")
|
| Do you think there was this much fear around crime in
| 2009 when the crime rate was exactly the same?
| overrun11 wrote:
| > That is not skyrocketing, by any definition of
| skyrocketing
|
| Again, this doesn't somehow negate the fact that they did
| rise substantially.
|
| > Did you read the part of my first source that compares
| the rate of crime to the rate of crime reporting
|
| This is not surprising or damning. Crime rates have been
| dropping for 30+ years and this was the first major
| reversal of that trend. We lost 10 years of progress in
| one year. Such a highly abnormal event deserves outsized
| news coverage. There's no reason why news coverage must
| rise and fall in perfect proportion to the absolute value
| of the events being reported on.
|
| If median household income fell in one year from current
| highs to 2009 levels, I'd expect a lot of news coverage-
| more news coverage than it would have received in 2009.
| Likewise, I'm positive there's a lot more stories about
| interest rates now than the last time they were at the
| same levels. The background context is important to the
| newsworthiness of any particular statistic.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > Again, this doesn't somehow negate the fact that they
| did rise substantially.
|
| You said the data don't back up my claim. My claim was
| that they did not "skyrocket". Now the goalposts have
| been moved to "rise substantially," which can mean
| anything. Even the increase in 2006 from 539 to 596
| murders (more than 10%) could be considered
| "substantial," it's a meaningless term.
|
| If you don't think the media and the public outcry about
| this has been extremely overinflated (including comparing
| crime rates to the 90s), then I don't think we have much
| to discuss here. The graphs in the sources I link make it
| pretty clear that the bump in crime is insignificant
| compared to the historical crime rates in NYC. And based
| on your comment history, you're clearly pretty partisan
| to one side of the issue, so I don't think there's much
| to be gained for either of us by continuing this. I find
| it particularly ironic that you complain about mainstream
| media coverage of Trump, but find it impossible to
| believe the media could be exaggerating crime rates.
| overrun11 wrote:
| Don't think either of us are interested in a debate on
| the definition of the word "skyrocketing."
|
| I'd be interested in a survey of New Yorkers on how much
| they think the murder rate rose from 2019-2020. I suspect
| they'd be pretty close to the right answer (48%), you
| think it'd be much higher (if I read you correctly) but
| without that data we will just have to agree to disagree.
|
| > I find it particularly ironic that you complain about
| mainstream media coverage of Trump, but find it
| impossible to believe the media could be exaggerating
| crime rates.
|
| This is a good example of the type of statement that
| passes as meaningful in partisan debates but is actually
| incoherent. I'm allowed to believe the media fairly
| reported one thing but not some other unrelated thing.
| There's no logical connection between the two that
| demands a consistent treatment. I haven't been caught in
| some epic contradiction.
|
| ...but if you have caught me in a contradiction, and you
| believe the exact opposite, then aren't we both in the
| same boat? If x and y cannot both be true then neither
| can ~x and ~y.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Except the police aren't fixing it and are _also_ still
| walking around like they are untouchable gods. It's one thing
| to be a thug that runs the trains on time and another to be a
| thug that doesn't.
|
| See, also, Putin's current reputation in Russia.
| GVIrish wrote:
| This is why police reform is so hard to achieve. When crime
| spikes, people are far less committed to police reform.
|
| Even when crime isn't spiking, police can just sit on their
| hands whenever reforms are pushed and instantly change the
| narrative. This happened in SF with the AG recall and has
| happened in numerous municipalities. Local politicians can't
| afford to anger the police union because all the police has
| to do is stop enforcing the law aggressively and a local
| politician is done for.
|
| So New Yorkers may want police reforms but the NYPD union has
| a lot of leverage to resist it. And voters generally dont'
| have the stomach to oppose police union backlash.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Tbh, in my circles there's already deep resentment for Adam's
| not actually addressing this. Instead we have cops lining up
| to ticket bike riders for no bells or turning on a red, while
| bike lanes themselves are notoriously unprotected from cars
| parking in/driving through them and pedestrians are getting
| killed in hit and runs that go ignored. The general sentiment
| is that police presence will always make a situation worse
| and don't have incentives aligned with actually improving the
| lives of people.
| deepspace wrote:
| > There isn't much accountability when it comes to the NYPD.
| They seem to do what they want and get away with it
|
| We were recently discussing police accountability in Vancouver,
| Canada. Different city, different country, but the same issue.
| Our police chief openly stated that he is not accountable to
| the city, or anyone at all, and he and the VPD will continue to
| do as they please.
| i80and wrote:
| This is anecdotal, but most New Yorkers I know _care_ , there's
| just not much they can _do_. The NYPD is effectively a military
| force and they have de facto veto power over the city
| government.
| kulahan wrote:
| Why would veto power matter in a scenario where they've gone
| rogue?
| taco_emoji wrote:
| Yeah, I mean, who do you call to arrest the cops?
| int_19h wrote:
| Even _NYPD cops themselves_ can 't do much about it: Here's
| one guy who tried to blow a whistle on his PD:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft
|
| The very people who were in charge of investigating police
| conduct reported him to his superiors. And then his own
| colleagues raided his house and forced him into involuntary
| confinement as an "emotionally disturbed person", handcuffs
| and all. The cops who delivered him to the psychiatric ward
| intentionally lied and misrepresented the whole thing to make
| sure that he remained confined and restrained.
|
| Luckily, the guy had two recorders running during the raid,
| and the cops only found one, so there was ample evidence. I
| actually wonder if he'd still be in psych ward if not for
| that.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is correct, and to elaborate: the NYPD (1) is largely
| staffed by employees who live outside of the city, and (2)
| has an openly revanchist attitude towards the citizens they
| ostensibly protect and serve.
|
| Under the current scheme, there is no incentive structure
| that "fixes" the NYPD; the NYPD is functioning _as intended_
| , and in broad conflict with the roles that constrain every
| other NYC civil servant (e.g., around living in the city).
| bogomipz wrote:
| "Revanchist"? What territory did they ever posses and lose?
| What would be the revanche?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Revanchism doesn't require physical territory, only a
| sense of loss and a corresponding drive for revenge.
|
| The NYPD sees itself as an occupying force in a hostile
| city. What they've lost (or believe they've lost) is the
| respect of the natives; rather than questioning _why_
| that is, they 've decided that the appropriate course of
| action is to extract all the value they can from the city
| while diminishing the natives' qualities of life to the
| greatest extent possible. Revanchism is the appropriate
| descriptor.
| bogomipz wrote:
| Even if taken as a general "sense of loss" what did they
| lose? They didn't lose anything. They weren't "defunded",
| there was no structural reform or consents decrees. The
| protests stopped and it went back to business as usual
| for them. In fact as of last week they exceeded their
| already notorious annual overtime budget by 100 million
| dollars![1]][2]
|
| Again what loss do they to avenge exactly?
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-20/nypd-
| blow...
|
| [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-nyc-police-
| overtime-...
| ambicapter wrote:
| Quoting relevant part of comment you just replied to:
|
| > What they've lost (or believe they've lost) is the
| respect of the natives;
| bogomipz wrote:
| I'm sorry but "the natives"? That's a hollow cliche. What
| does that mean? Just native New Yorkers? Because it's a
| city of transplants and immigrants. Tense relations
| between citizens and NYPD is not new. See Amodou Diallo,
| the 2004 Republican National Convention protests, "Stop
| and Frisk", Eric Garner, the list spans many decades.
| People also realize that realize that crime and public
| safety are a concern and that police have an important
| job. The tension between police and residents has been a
| near constant for decades. It ebbs and flows and there's
| fundamentally no more or and no less respect now.
| woodruffw wrote:
| "Natives" was just a euphemism for residents.
|
| I don't know why you're performing such a hostile
| reading: it can be simultaneously true that tension for
| police and residents has been present for decades, _and_
| that the police have shed a degree of respect and
| baseline approval that they 've historically held[1],
| regardless of whether that approval was ever actually
| justified.
|
| Which is what has happened[2].
|
| [1]: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/205619.pdf
|
| [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/us/gallup-poll-
| police.htm...
| ghodith wrote:
| Can NYPD police officers even reasonably afford living in
| NYC?
| naremu wrote:
| Indeed.com reports an average salary of 82k a year for
| NYPD officers, 49% above what it considers the average
| annual income in the US.
|
| I recently looked into moving to NYC and was shocked to
| see prices similar to my middle of nowhere, significantly
| lower quality city. I could work in a pizzeria and live
| in NYC, this "it's too expensive" is really a suburban
| view of the sqft.
|
| So why don't the civil servants making four times as much
| armed with lethal weapons live there?
|
| Frankly, I'm amazed they consider it worth the commute to
| live outside the city.
| Avshalom wrote:
| which doesn't include the overtime (which for nypd was
| 2.2 billion last year
| https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/overtime-overview/ )
| wldcordeiro wrote:
| It seems to be a policy thing across the nation to have
| police not live in the communities they police. Part of
| it I'm sure is some amount of fear of retribution but I
| think it's really to avoid the officers from developing
| empathy towards the community members. I recall years ago
| my roommate working at a fast food restaurant and he
| advanced to manager level and they immediately moved him
| from the store he worked at to another to make sure he
| was more detached with his underlings and it seems like a
| similar tactic.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's more a reflection of the general trend for middle-
| class folks in the US to flee to the suburbs, plus the
| fact that a cop job generally makes one middle-class (in
| both directions: the weeding process of getting hired
| tends to exclude the lower classes, and the pay scale
| tends to make one able to afford a middle-class dwelling
| arrangement).
| throwaway743 wrote:
| If you consider Staten as part of the city, then yeah :/
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yes[1]. Millions of people survive in this city on
| salaries far below the average (and even starting) NYPD
| salaries, even before you factor in overtime.
|
| [1]: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-
| officers/po-ben...
| kevviiinn wrote:
| Police officers are some of the most well paid workers in
| the country, they make insane amount off overtime on top
| of already comfortable salaries
| smegger001 wrote:
| and get a well funded pension with many cops retiring in
| their late 40s to early 50s.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Many NYPD officers own super cars and have unusually high
| salaries. They leech money off the communities they lord
| over. They are an organized gang of criminals.
| pc86 wrote:
| This is not unique to the NYPD. Without dox'ing myself I
| have first-hand experience working with a police officer
| who drove a GT-R worth more than they made in a year on
| paper. Maybe he had family money, maybe he had saved a
| bunch of money from earlier in his career getting
| overtime on the street. But it certainly wasn't a good
| look regardless.
| susanasj wrote:
| yeah they get paid a decent middle class salary. Can they
| afford a nice apartment in the West Village? No. Can they
| afford a nice 3BR/2BA in a decent neighborhood in
| Brooklyn/Queens/Bronx/Staten Island if their partner is
| also a civil servant like a teacher? I think so yes.
|
| (not that teachers shouldn't get paid more, they should)
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| > by employees who live outside of the city
|
| I think that's addressed in Cop Land
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118887/). Excellent movie.
| bogomipz wrote:
| "Revanchist"? What territory did they ever posses and lose?
| What exactly would be the revanche here?
| atchoo wrote:
| They voted for an NYPD Captain as mayor so it would seem if
| they do care, then it's supportive, desiring more NYPD power
| over government not less. Which seems insane to me...
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Most New Yorkers didn't vote for him in any real sense - he
| barely won a crowded Democratic primary in which the
| progressive vote split widely, and then in the general
| election the main vote was that he was better than the
| pretty far out there Republican candidate.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > They voted for an NYPD Captain as mayor so it would seem
| if they do care, then it's supportive, desiring more NYPD
| power over government not less. Which seems insane to me...
|
| It's actually very difficult to argue that peope wanted
| more NYPD power over government rather than less if you
| look at the full story of the 2021 elections in NYC.
|
| Eric Adams only _barely_ squeaked through the primary, and
| even that was after literally four other forerunners either
| dropped out of the race or became embroiled in their own
| personal scandals.
|
| As further evidence that the mayoral race was somewhat of a
| fluke, the same ballot also included many other citywide
| and local races, and more progressive candidates swept
| those races citywide, many of whom ran on platforms that
| explicitly promised to take on the NYPD. That's a trend
| that was pretty consistent in districts across the city, as
| opposed to looking at one single race that had a
| particularly unusually large number of scandals (even by
| NYC standards).
|
| Eric Adams didn't win because people wanted more NYPD power
| in city government; he won because he happened to be in the
| right place at the right time.
| valarauko wrote:
| tbf to Adams, he did really well in the primary in some
| areas, driven at least partly by his hard on crime image.
| His success in Brooklyn could possibly be attributed to
| his connection to the borough, but the Bronx? Adams was
| the overwhelming choice in the Bronx, and from speaking
| to many Bronxites, they absolutely wanted to see more
| cops on the streets and cops on the subways.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > His success in Brooklyn could possibly be attributed to
| his connection to the borough, but the Bronx? Adams was
| the overwhelming choice in the Bronx,
|
| Compared to who - Garcia? Sure, but that's not
| surprising. The point is that the top four frontrunners
| were already eliminated, figuratively or literally, by
| the time the primary happened.
|
| > and from speaking to many Bronxites, they absolutely
| wanted to see more cops on the streets and cops on the
| subways
|
| It's easy to find anecdotes, but the facts show how
| people voted, and with the exception of the mayoral race,
| they consistently and overwhelming voted for candidates
| who promised to reign in the NYPD.
| valarauko wrote:
| > Compared to who - Garcia? Sure, but that's not
| surprising.
|
| Nope, Adams's closest competitor in the Bronx was Wiley,
| but he still did about twice as well as she did in the
| first round. Adams was the first choice candidate for 45%
| of voters in the Bronx, the highest of any borough.
|
| > It's easy to find anecdotes, but the facts show how
| people voted, and with the exception of the mayoral race,
| they consistently and overwhelming voted for candidates
| who promised to reign in the NYPD.
|
| ... which suggests to me that people are capable of
| voting for different candidates for different things, and
| that people have different expectations out of each. My
| district overwhelmingly sent AOC to Congress - and Adams
| to City Hall, beating out AOC endorsed Wiley 2:1.
|
| > the facts show how people voted, and with the exception
| of the mayoral race, they consistently and overwhelming
| voted for candidates who promised to reign in the NYPD.
|
| I don't see it quite the same way. People have different
| priorities and can pick and choose candidates
| accordingly. AOC's views on Congressional matters aligns
| with voters in my district, and they overwhelmingly
| supported her for Congress. Her views on the NYPD do not
| align with voters in my district, but they're not under
| her purview, so it doesn't matter. I can say that in my
| district when it comes to local matters, public safety is
| the number one priority, and that they look to the cops
| for support. At every public town hall meeting I've been
| to in my neighborhood, there have been demands for
| increased police presence, not less. I should also point
| out that a majority of the district is black/hispanic.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| This has been the case for over a century. The history of the
| NYPD is actually wild: it was originally two different police
| organizations who would regularly get into fights with one
| another. This was itself the result of a power struggle between
| the city and the state.
|
| The public _do_ care, though - in fact, it 's why the
| Democratic Party base was more or less calling for a total
| purge of police departments. It wasn't because they want to be
| able to crime with impunity or because they want The Purge IRL.
| It's because a good chunk of them live in a city where the
| police force is a only few steps away from being the deep
| state.
| akira2501 wrote:
| A personnel purge without enacting any structural changes is
| not particularly useful, and it is often the action of a
| group who wishes to capture the corruption for themselves,
| rather than actually fixing it.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Yes, but the people calling for outright purges were also
| calling for significant structural changes.
|
| The real problem is that they blindly copypasted a
| conservative slogan and called it "Defund the Police". When
| what they were actually calling for was more training,
| especially in regards to mental health situations and
| deescalation. That would require _increasing_ police
| budgets[0], not slashing them. But slash the politicians
| did, because they could do the most literal interpretation
| of the protesters ' demands and then blame them when they
| obviously don't work.
|
| The reason why the current policing structure is so corrupt
| is that the police are expected to "pay their own way" in a
| sense. There's a whole phenomenon of known-bad cops jumping
| from department to department[1]. Underfunded PDs are
| perfectly willing to hire them because they are the perfect
| candidate "on paper": they work for cheap and fix the
| problem, as long as the problem is "people that we don't
| want being able to live in our city".
|
| [0] Perhaps they should have called it "Refund The Police".
| It even has a double meaning: we need more money for less
| harmful policing and we need to refund (i.e. send back) the
| idiots who were running the current corrupt system.
|
| [1] The slang term for it is "gypsy cops", which is
| offensive in Europe.
| classified wrote:
| So the NYPD is breaking the law. Aren't they supposed to enforce
| it?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If you don't have a single monolithic local paramilitary law
| enforcement entity, then you won't have this problem of police
| veto.
| theknocker wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| shadowgovt wrote:
| After watching the NYPD's response to Black Lives Matter, nobody
| should be terribly surprised about this sort of thing. The
| organization's leadership pretty clearly considers the
| organization to be a power unto itself that is only partially
| regulated by civilian authority.
| malfist wrote:
| Sounds like a police department wants to be defunded. They forget
| who they work for.
| piuantiderp wrote:
| Defunding is the dumbest possible move. You have to align the
| incentives of the police with those of the middle middle-upper
| class, anything else is disfunctional will only get worse.
| int_19h wrote:
| Why should incentives of police be aligned with one
| particular swath of the population that isn't even
| representative of it?
| hedora wrote:
| Hey, citizen's arrest is a thing. We just need the proponents
| of this law to surround the chief on their way to work (or
| maybe a police station), then call the feds.
|
| This actually worked reasonably well in the US a century or so
| ago. It's one of the few use cases for the 2nd amendment that
| made any sense (other than hunting for food).
| dikaio wrote:
| "Call the Feds" is that sarcasm? If you haven't read of late
| the way the federal government uses law enforcement for their
| own agenda regardless of the US constitution than I will
| assume calling the feds was made in parody.
| ericmay wrote:
| What are some specific examples of the "federal government
| using law enforcement for their own agenda" and what is
| that specific agenda that they are using law enforcement
| for?
| rendall wrote:
| I believe that equitable sharing of civil forfeiture
| counts. Locals make a law preventing local cops from
| seizing cash and property that is not part of a criminal
| investigation. Local cops bypass that law by working with
| the Feds. Profit!
|
| https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/
| ericmay wrote:
| What's the specific agenda here?
| rendall wrote:
| What it says right on the tin, man. To bypass local laws
| that prevent local cops from using civil forfeiture to
| seize cash and property. Confused by your question.
| ericmay wrote:
| Oh sure let me try again:
|
| The GP stated that
|
| > ...the federal government uses law enforcement for
| their own agenda...
|
| Can you just state what the agenda is? It can be general,
| or it can be specific to civil forfeiture since you
| brought that as an example.
| rendall wrote:
| I will restate it. The agenda here is not complicated.
|
| A federal LE agency wants to pad their budget. That's it.
| That's the agenda.
|
| A state or municipality forbids their own LEOs from
| employing civil forfeiture. The Feds see an opportunity
| and collude with the local LEOs to convert local civil
| forfeiture seizures to Federal seizures thus bypassing
| the wishes of the locals.
|
| This is an example of the Federal government using law
| enforcement for their own agenda. I don't know if that's
| the kind of thing that GP meant, but that was an example
| that came to my mind.
| ericmay wrote:
| Ok so you're asserting that federal law enforcement
| agencies have an agenda (probably either a formal or
| informal process) to co-opt local law enforcement
| agencies to leverage the power of civil forfeiture to pad
| their own budgets.
|
| What percentage of a federal law enforcement agency's
| budget is padded using this practice? Does this apply to
| all federal law enforcement agencies or only some? How
| can we tell the difference between matters of coincidence
| and matters of an _agenda_? Any suggestions?
| rendall wrote:
| You moved the goalpost. You asked for x. I gave you x.
| ericmay wrote:
| That which is claimed without evidence can be dismissed
| without evidence.
| [deleted]
| dabluecaboose wrote:
| The 2nd amendment isn't, and literally never was, about
| hunting.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Makes me wonder if anyone has ever been charged with
| resisting a citizen's arrest.
| zdragnar wrote:
| No, but you'll definitely get charged with false
| imprisonment if a judge decides your citizen's arrest was
| unwarranted.
| euroderf wrote:
| Yup, that is the deterrent.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| Or the police will just gun everyone down, I wouldn't be
| surprised
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Makes me wonder if anyone has ever been charged with
| resisting a citizen's arrest.
|
| Citizen's arrest is a state phenomenon, meaning that there
| it's not one single law but rather a function of a variety
| of laws in states and which differ between states.
|
| That said, most modern citizen's arrest systems in the US
| trace their origins back to the Civil War era, to provide a
| way to arrest alleged escaped slaves (emphasis on
| "alleged").
|
| You can imagine how that played out in practice.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Do citizens get Qualified Immunity? b/c that's the what
| allows the police to murder you.
| merrywhether wrote:
| I wish the defunding movement had instead focused on moving
| monetary liability from the city instead to the police union.
| Let the officers pay higher dues to protect their problematic
| colleagues from million dollar judgements. I feel like that
| change would be much more politically viable and also have a
| strong ripple effect. Right now the solidarity of the thin blue
| line is free, and I don't think it would stand up to
| internalizing that cost.
| dgacmu wrote:
| History with NYPD suggests they know they have a good chance of
| getting away with it, unfortunately.
| EGreg wrote:
| History is colorful
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_riot
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Politicians of bigger metropolitan areas tend to learn quickly
| that cops are a fairly important power center ( usually come a
| bigger unrest ). For example, in Chicago, both Lightfoot and
| her predecessor faced those issues.
|
| You have to understand. The relationship is not nearly as
| straightforward as you make it out to be.
| susanasj wrote:
| I understand the objections to "abolish the police" sloganeering
| because I think the alternatives of "restorative justice" and all
| that are pretty poorly defined (I say this as someone pretty
| involved in left wing politics).
|
| However, it's increasingly clear that city police departments in
| many cities basically operate as unaccountable gangs that extort
| city government. LA Sheriff's Department has quite a few actual,
| traditional gangs operating within it. The NYPD routinely breaks
| the law when they feel like it. In Austin, the Police Academy
| training was found to be discriminatory and militaristic so the
| City Council created an oversight board, and the Police
| Department just doesn't let the board view trainings that they
| are supposed to.
|
| Not to mention the constant police violence that they are rarely
| held accountable for, including the stuff from 2020 where we
| watched NYPD officers running their vehicles into protestors.
|
| I don't know what the solution is but the status quo feels
| unsustainable.
| firstlink wrote:
| So? Nothing will happen. Police are above the law.
| hedora wrote:
| Does this law have any teeth? OIG-NYPD's only reasonable
| conclusion is that the NYPD's use of all the surveillance
| technologies bundled into the noncompliant report is unlawful.
| (Due to lack of correct record keeping and reporting.)
|
| This should be easy enough to prosecute, e.g., via internal
| affairs.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| My guess is that this is not a criminal violation and the "best
| case" scenario would be a civil lawsuit which would end up
| being paid by the city.
| uncertainrhymes wrote:
| When I worked in NYC (mid 2010s) we were on the top floor of our
| building and one day a service guy came through needing access to
| the roof from our suite.
|
| Turns out he was there to update some cameras on the roof that
| pointed out to Union Square. I talked to him for a while, and
| while he wouldn't specifically say who owned them, he did say
| "they could read a business card from 300 yards away."
|
| This was probably before there was much facial recognition going
| on, but it stuck with me that we were only one of many buildings
| with these set ups. I always heard about London being over-
| surveilled, I guess the NYPD did a much better job of keeping
| quiet about it.
| [deleted]
| magicalist wrote:
| > _he did say "they could read a business card from 300 yards
| away."_
|
| Almost certainly made that up. You'd need a telescope mounted
| there to accomplish that. The mid-2010s video output would
| still be pretty bad, and you'd only be monitoring a FOV of
| maybe the width of a doorway or two, not anything like street-
| wide monitoring.
|
| Maybe this is why the NYPD's clearance rate is so low? Hyper
| advanced surveillance, as long as the criminal stands exactly
| where we're already looking?
| Teever wrote:
| Are you sure about that?
|
| https://youtu.be/0Sx3rAdz2SA
| Retric wrote:
| Normal zoom levels aren't that useful from the top of a ~30
| story buying. Looking down you'll just see the top of
| people's heads, and looking sideways means an even longer
| distance.
| lostlogin wrote:
| You need a Samsung phone - they'll add the detail you want.
| samstave wrote:
| Resurrected a memory in me:
|
| Back in ~2002 I lived in San Jose, and my neighbor across from
| me was a satellite designer at Loral Space Systems...
|
| We often had the same "wash car in driveway" schedule - and I
| would ask him a bunch of questions about his work, which he
| couldnt talk about...
|
| But we had a system - I would ask yes/no questions and he would
| just wash his car - btu if he "waxed left" it was a yes, and if
| he "waxed right" it was a no...
|
| Now, I dont know how truthful he was, but I would ask about the
| resolution and size of the spy satts... and he indicated that,
| yes, they did in-fact have satellites that could read your
| license plate from space.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Reading newspaper headlines from satellite imagery was
| possible in the late 1960s. Source: my father, who worked at
| Kodak and Hughes Aircraft on such systems.
| samstave wrote:
| DEAR GOD I hope you have some images which you can share?
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Doesn't surprise me. Maxar sells CNN photos where you can
| make out with reasonable clarity what is going on at the
| surface of the earth. The stuff the government has probably
| makes that look like a child's attempt at satellite imagery.
| neilv wrote:
| If only you'd taught him wax on, wax off instead, now he'd
| know karate, instead of getting questioned by stern-looking
| people next week about security practices.
| toss1 wrote:
| When I was in college before Hubble was launched, my
| astronomy professor told me that the original design for the
| Hubble space telescope was for a smaller mirror, but got
| upgraded because the larger one would be cheaper to make the
| larger mirror, because larger mirror size was already being
| made. Also the Space Shuttle was sized for the larger mirror
| diameter. The strong inference is that the US DOD was already
| making that size, so existing tooling could be used. Consider
| Hubble pointed at a target only 200-3mmkm away...
| samstave wrote:
| I actually asked this question multiple times on HN and
| other places, asking "what if we take hubble and point it
| at earth? Now that you have that thought, dont you think
| there are many objects that are "micro hubbles" that are
| already pointed at earth? MIC bots downed me to heck.
|
| Lets just imagine, in a sci-fi/Black-Mirror sense, that all
| the constellation class of satts (starlink, the EU one, the
| chinese/russian one) have additional sensors for 'ocular-
| patt-downs-from-sattelites' -- Lets get our hands on some
| of these units and inspect?
|
| Is Starlink a classified object?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It could be done, you could make a virtual image from
| many small sats. Since you see from different angles, if
| you timestamp data with high resolution you could even
| cancel out a lot of atmosphere.
| sigstoat wrote:
| > dont you think there are many objects that are "micro
| hubbles"
|
| you reply to a comment about the size of the mirror, and
| then ask if there are "micro hubbles". no, there
| literally cannot be a micro hubble, because the mirror is
| enormous.
|
| the mirror in hubble alone is larger than a starlink
| satellite
|
| https://lilibots.blogspot.com/2020/04/starlink-satellite-
| dim...
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/content/about-facts-hubble-fast-
| facts
| [deleted]
| mturmon wrote:
| By now, it's well-known that HST was based on spy satellite
| designs via the mirror-making technology, as you say.
|
| See under "size and mass" at:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-11_KENNEN
|
| According to that page, NASA moved the primary mirror
| diameter from 3.0m to 2.4m to match the already-developed
| mirror-making technology.
| TchoBeer wrote:
| the NRO is the craziest US government agency. iirc all
| their workers are contracted and all their expenses are
| highly classified. About the KH-11, trump accidentally
| tweeted an image from one of them (see https://www.forbes
| .com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/09/01/t...) and its
| resolution was an international incident. This technology
| was developed in the 70s. The NRO has sci-fi technology.
| pc86 wrote:
| I totally believe they have satellites with this level of
| _clarity_ , and probably did 20+ years ago as well.
|
| But how do you read a license plate at a 90deg angle from
| space?
| bhhaskin wrote:
| The earth is round my dude.
| samstave wrote:
| [flagged]
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Wow, you're really leaning in on this one!
| bhhaskin wrote:
| Here is a great example from the company planet:
| https://youtu.be/GPgU5OYpwCs
|
| The angle changes as the satellite counties on its orbit.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There is no license plate reading from space. It is
| physically impossible to achieve such resolutions from LEO
| with atmosphere in the way. It gets worse with off axis
| viewing through a longer column of air.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Aren't adaptive optics a thing for telescopes? The giant
| laser beam might be a bit conspicuous though I suppose
| (if it even works looking downwards)
| try_the_bass wrote:
| Given the quality of unclassified photos released to the
| public at times [1], it's not unreasonable to assume the
| classified stuff is an order of magnitude better (or
| more). Note the angle of some of the photos!
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42510783
| sleepybrett wrote:
| It could be that he meant that you could read something
| 'license plate sized' from space.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I'd imagine spy satellites don't always look directly down
| on their targets. Especially if they want to look at
| something not directly under its ground track, the
| satellite would need the ability to look at things off to
| the side. So that'd enable reading something vertical.
| Still would need to look at it from the _correct_ angle
| though.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| >he wouldn't specifically say who owned them
|
| That sounds a little concerning. Was the implication that it
| was a government agency at some level?
| TheFattestNinja wrote:
| It's quite likely they had no idea. Easy to imagine a
| scenario where there is a company owning the building, one
| owning the cameras and maintenance, one owning the
| data/recording, all wrapped up in management partners mergers
| shells etc.
| version_five wrote:
| With government, unless it's an organization mature enough
| to do something deliberately covert, it's more likely
| theres so much bureaucracy to deal with that everybody
| knows who they are working for.
| emodendroket wrote:
| The NYPD has covert operations not only all over the
| country but in many foreign countries so I'd say they're
| operating at a pretty high level of sophistication in
| that sense.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It really _is_ Gotham, isn't it?
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Apparently referring to the "International Liaison
| Program" run by the "NYPD Intelligence Bureau" which has
| only executive oversight and is funded by the "New York
| City Police Foundation" instead of the city itself.
| PaulWaldman wrote:
| Are NYPD personnel sent outside their jurisdiction to
| fulfill these roles? Or do they contract it out?
| emodendroket wrote:
| > Through its International Liaison Program, the
| Intelligence Bureau posts officers in law enforcement
| agencies in major cities around the world.
|
| https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/bureaus/investigative/intel
| lig...
| nextaccountic wrote:
| Shouldn't the NYPD be in charge of local stuff and leave
| this to the FBI?
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| I was curious about this so I did some Googling.
| Apparently it's called the International Liaison Program,
| a subdivision of the Department Intelligence Bureau. More
| info here. [1]
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Police_Dep
| artmen...
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| The NYPD does do deliberately covert things including
| counterintelligence. No information one way or another
| whether that's true in this case.
| Eumenes wrote:
| there are a lot of rich foreign nationals in NYC, so its
| no surprise
| samstave wrote:
| Cut the 'server hard line' and see who shows up!
| 14 wrote:
| Exactly. Why would you let a random person into your building
| if there was no answer who they worked for? Was it because
| they claimed to work for business and you blindly trusted
| they were doing what they said or did you have some heads up
| from your boss saying let them in? There must be more to this
| story or maybe op just didn't care about random people
| entering and accessing equipment.
| rideontime wrote:
| The parent comment did not claim to have let the person
| into the building themselves.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It wasn't _their_ building, it was clearly a building they
| rented a suite in. And, at a guess, the tech was let in
| because the landlord called and asked them to let the tech
| in.
| swores wrote:
| More likely the person telling the story isn't the person
| who authorised their access, and just happened to witness
| it / have a conversation about it.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Awareness_System
| dionidium wrote:
| The wild aspect of this is that nothing seems to have come of
| it.
|
| If you had told me 20 years ago that eventually every single
| house would have cameras on their front door I'd have guessed
| that certain types of crime would drastically drop off in
| response. But in my neighborhood all the cameras mean is that
| there's video of the package theft or car break-in to post to
| the neighborhood group so that everybody can complain about it.
| It doesn't prevent the crime. It doesn't generate more arrests.
|
| It doesn't, as far as I can tell, do much of anything.
| tycho-newman wrote:
| It lowers insurance premiums.
| MollyRealized wrote:
| Part of that is that it seems the police are very reluctant
| to do their job. That is from secondhand anecdote, I'll give
| you, but I've seen several stories that people have related
| of bringing Find My results or video to the police only to
| have the police refuse to follow up on it.
| RoyGBivCap wrote:
| I live in Portland and watching the Portland Police planes
| circle downtown all night with their data hidden on
| https://www.flightradar24.com/, (but visible on
| https://globe.adsbexchange.com/ (for now)) is a little
| unnerving. I have no clue what tech they have onboard, but I
| assume high res + night vision.
|
| It was every night last summer and I think most residents are
| completely unware that they're up there.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| You can find the auditor's report and learn more about how
| the ASU works. The cameras are 90s tech and not suitable for
| identifying individuals - just good enough to track the
| movement of someone they already know about.
|
| The plane is particularly useful for reducing the need for
| car chases.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tVI6fn4YGFo
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j0jTuCj7Qeg
|
| Auditor's report link directly to air support unit info:
| https://www.portland.gov/audit-
| services/news/2022/4/6/police...
| tedunangst wrote:
| "they could read a business card from 300 yards away."
|
| What's the field of view?
| TomK32 wrote:
| Probably just the business card.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| > I always heard about London being over-surveilled
|
| In London it's not the government that's spying on you. The
| reason there are so many cameras is that it was established
| policy for insurance companies give discounts if you have
| comprehensive camera coverage, and then digital cameras got so
| cheap that it's simply a great deal for any business owner to
| acquire enough cameras to surveil the entirety of their
| business and all the surroundings. And since there's often no
| co-ordination, if you are walking in Central London you are
| always in the field of view of at least half a dozen cameras
| with different owners.
|
| Of course, it did turn out to be very convenient to the police
| that if something happens, it almost certainly happened on
| video and they just have to go talk to all nearby business
| owners to get a copy of it.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Sounds nice if the police doesn't have direct access to all
| cameras, but instead needs to talk with the nearby buildings.
| Some balance between capturing crime on camera, and not
| having a surveillance state -- from the so-many-cameras point
| of view.
|
| But I suppose there are things I don't know (and wouldn't
| like), related to this
| kennywinker wrote:
| If the cops can demand, rather than request, the video,
| that's not really a check or a balance on the surveillance
| state. All it functionally means is that collecting footage
| is not automated, and there is some small back flow of
| information about what is being looked at.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Just requiring the cop to let go of his coffee and go
| there in person is enough. It is not practical.
|
| I mean Stasi with all their agents could not dream of
| having all the PI Google and Zuckerberg have.
| kennywinker wrote:
| The stasi didn't need that much information, or
| automation tech, to suppress dissent and ruin lives. I'm
| not complaining that those checks exist, but I am saying
| we definitely need more than that to protect us from a
| surveillance state.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Stasi had like 200 000 informants and we're drowning in
| the shear weight of their paper archives. There was a
| practical limit on how much they could surveil even with
| total commitment.
|
| Which is relevant to my point that the police should have
| some work to gather data to keep down the scale.
|
| Obviously, Stasi did persecute people in far worse way
| than Google et al. do right now.
| wwweston wrote:
| Those may not be adequate checks, but they are checks,
| and personally I think it's worth worrying that the day
| could come when we'll look back with nostalgia on "not
| automated, and there is some small back flow of
| information about what is being looked at."
| kennywinker wrote:
| I worry about that too, but my hopeful vision of the
| future is when we look back in disgust at the lack of
| limitations on government surveillance.
| xapata wrote:
| Even better when the public surveils the state.
| Arrath wrote:
| Reminds me of doing a site survey at a somewhat remote cell
| tower, prior to performing some expansion work. Was told there
| was sensitive, classified military communications equipment
| inside the shack at the base of the tower, and had to perform
| work carefully around it lest we damage something.
|
| Couldn't tell me what kind of vibrations etc I had to keep my
| equipment under, as those details were classified. While I was
| there, I watched a Verizon tech show up to fiddle with their
| equipment inside the shack, which happened to have the door
| frame somewhat out of square. The tech's solution to getting
| through the tight security door? Unlock it, then smash on it
| with a sledge hammer until it came loose and swung in.
|
| I guess the fragility memo hadn't gotten down the line to the
| service techs.
| mjevans wrote:
| Seems logically like: They'll either fix their equipment or
| the frame next ticket if this is too much.
|
| In shared sites like that, infra should all have a clear and
| obvious owner to report issues to.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| "Impact on disparate groups"
|
| I know who made the law happen, but it seems odd to me to ask
| police depts to run statistical analysis of their own work. Not
| only they are not a neutral party, but thats not their mission.
| Thats for qualified data scientists and researchers to do.
|
| Police are supposed to address crime
| thrillgore wrote:
| Police in the US have no obligation to serve the public or
| prevent crime due to Warren vs DC.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Can you elaborate? id like To understand what you mean.
| krisoft wrote:
| They are talking about "Warren v. District of Columbia"
| court case.
|
| To quote from wikipedia: "Warren v. District of Columbia[1]
| (444 A.2d. 1, D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981) is a District of
| Columbia Court of Appeals case that held that the police do
| not owe a specific duty to provide police services to
| specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine."
|
| It kinda means (very loosely): If you call the police to
| help you, but they don't show up, tough luck. You can't sue
| them over that.
| loeg wrote:
| "Protect and serve" is a slogan not backed up by anything.
| Police can observe, e.g., a mass shooter, and take no
| action. They have no responsibility to take any action.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Court found that if there's a crime in progress, police
| aware of it don't need to do anything about it. They aren't
| crime stoppers. The court case was from when police were
| alerted to an ongoing break in and rape/battery against
| several women, the police arrived and left after the
| attackers told them it was ok (with the women tied up
| upstairs). One of the women had called the police, which
| then alerted the attackers that there was another woman in
| the house they hadn't known about, who they then found and
| attacked as well. Court found the police had done nothing
| wrong by trusting the men and leaving without entering the
| home or doing anything else, after the woman's 911 call.
| The ruling said that the police have no obligation to
| follow up on reported and active crimes, even if they're
| already present at the scene - it's simply not their
| purpose.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| This applies to constitutional law only. Any state or
| municipality can legislate more specific requirements for
| policing if they choose, because that's how federalism works.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > This applies to constitutional law only. Any state or
| municipality can legislate more specific requirements for
| policing if they choose, because that's how federalism
| works.
|
| When it comes to restricting police powers, they actually
| _cannot_. That was a key determination in Scalia 's
| majority opinion in Castle Rock v. Gonzalez.
|
| People are always shocked by this, because it goes against
| how they understand the legal system to work. And they're
| right to be surprised, because it is a truly
| incomprehensible ruling when you pick it apart. But it's
| right there in the text of the ruling. And it has been
| treated as binding precedent and applied as such by lower
| courts in the years since.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I don't think that's what Castle Rock v. Gonzalez means.
| It pretty narrowly addresses "legitimate claim of
| entitlement" related to enforcement of a restraining
| order. Scalia specifically held that "enforcement of the
| restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law,"
| which means that a state COULD mandate enforcement, but
| that Colorado had not.
|
| That said, I still think it was a shitty way to slice due
| process law.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I don't think that's what Castle Rock v. Gonzalez
| means. It pretty narrowly addresses "legitimate claim of
| entitlement" related to enforcement of a restraining
| order. Scalia specifically held that "enforcement of the
| restraining order was not mandatory under Colorado law,"
| which means that a state COULD mandate enforcement, but
| that Colorado had not.
|
| That's actually not true! Read the ruling itself and
| you'll see. Or if you can't read the ruling, read the
| legal analysis of it.
|
| The ruling is incredibly broad and exhaustive. It
| basically said "Colorado didn't, but even if they had,
| they couldn't because that would be unconstitutional, and
| even if it weren't, the Due Process clause wouldn't
| apply, and even if it did, the value would be $0".
|
| It basically preempted five levels of rebuttals to the
| law, making it difficult or impossible to overturn it
| without directly abandoning _stare decisis_.
|
| Scalia'a argument for why the law was unconstitutional
| basically boils down to "police have always enjoyed near-
| unlimited freedom, and this law is too recent in the
| scale of US history, so it contradicts historical
| precedent". Which is another way of saying that states
| can't pass laws to restrict police discretion, because
| any law that is passed is by definition... "recent".
|
| The ruling did that because the Colorado law was quite
| explicit in how it mandated a right to enforcement, so
| there was no other way to overturn the law.
|
| And as if that's not enough, the precedent applied is
| quite clear: courts _including in New York City_ have
| specifically used Castle Rock to rule that police do not
| have a duty to protect, serve, prevent crime, or
| intervene in a crime that is taking place, _even if they
| were specifically dispatched to arrest that particular
| criminal for that particular crime_. (Yes, that last part
| was an NYC court ruling that cited Castle Rock as
| precedent).
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That's interesting. I've read a few summaries of the
| decision but not the original text. I'd be curious to see
| how the court would respond to a state like Texas or
| Arizona challenging Castle Rock on something like
| immigration enforcement.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| > impossible to overturn it without directly abandoning
| stare decisis.
|
| The Supreme Court really doesn't care about state decisis
| except when it suits them. That was made plainly evident
| last year in Dobbs v. JWHO.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Great. Get rid of 'Police' departments and create a new
| form of community protection with no long history and
| none of that baggage :) problem solved. Thanks Scalia for
| encouraging 'defund the Police' as the ONLY solution to
| the problem!
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Police in the US have no obligation to serve the public or
| prevent crime due to Warren vs DC.
|
| Actually it's due to Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, but you have
| the right idea.
| pwinnski wrote:
| This is a bad reading of the case. The ruling on appeal was
| that the police in that case had no special duty to that
| particular person, but still had a duty to the public at
| large.
|
| Specifically, "the duty to provide public services is owed to
| the public at large, and, absent a special relationship
| between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty
| exists."[0]
|
| People like to extrapolate from that, saying that if no
| specific legal duty exists toward individual 1, and no
| specific legal duty exists toward individual 2, and so on,
| then ultimately, no specific legal duty exists toward any
| individuals at all, but again, the first part of that
| sentence restates that there is a duty to provide services to
| the public.
|
| I mean, look, the story of the crime itself is horrifying,
| but if the ruling had gone the other way, the concern was
| that cops would essentially be held to a standard of
| perfection, and any cop who ever didn't investigate any crime
| aggressively enough would be liable in court for their lack
| of aggressiveness.
|
| I think it's a bad ruling, but it doesn't say what people
| claim it does, and it also doesn't seem to apply particularly
| strongly outside of the District of Columbia.
|
| 0.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > I think it's a bad ruling, but it doesn't say what people
| claim it does, and it also doesn't seem to apply
| particularly strongly outside of the District of Columbia.
|
| Unfortunately Castle Rock v. Gonzalez was a SCOTUS ruling,
| which _is_ binding nationwide, and it did in fact rule that
| the police have no duty to protect the public. Worse, the
| ruling decided that because police have "always" enjoyed
| broad freedoma (in Scalia's mind), any law which attempts
| to curtail police freedoms is impermissible. (If that
| sounds tautological to you, that's because it is.)
|
| That ruling has been used as precedent by lower courts
| across the country to determine that police do not, in
| fact, have any duty to protect or serve the public, to
| prevent crime, or even to halt a crime in progress.
| mindslight wrote:
| IMO this is the right decision, because the duty to
| protect the public should arise from the _contractual_
| duty to the municipality of performing the job they were
| hired to do. If we want police reform in general, then
| police need to be legally treated just like every other
| citizen, rather than being given special exceptions that
| exempt them from the legal system. Legally there should
| be very little difference between a police officer and a
| random citizen that stops a crime in good faith.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > IMO this is the right decision, because the duty to
| protect the public should arise from the contractual duty
| to the municipality of performing the job they were hired
| to do.
|
| Castle Rock _explicitly_ prohibits states and
| municipalities from placing these sorts of restrictions
| on the police. It 's a very broad ruling.
| mindslight wrote:
| I haven't read the decision, but the case seems to
| revolve around Gonzales wanting to legally compel the
| town / its police to perform their advertised jobs. While
| the actions of Castle Rock do seem highly unreasonable,
| trying to legally compel performance would seem untenable
| in general - would this right also apply to a person in
| an area with an understaffed or nonexistentant police
| department?
|
| Whereas the duty I was talking about was just the basic
| standard of performing every job - when you don't do your
| job to the satisfaction of whomever is paying you, then
| you get fired or otherwise let go. (Of course this is
| modulo needing to get rid of police unions, or at least
| needing to seriously reform them so that bad employees
| will indeed be fired).
|
| Furthermore Gonzales's argument would seem to rely on the
| idea that police are a special type of citizen that
| carries specific responsibilities/capabilities, which
| runs contrary to removing the privileges they abuse.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| You're making a lot of assumptions about the facts of the
| case and the opinions, and they're simply... factually
| incorrect.
|
| > but the case seems to revolve around Gonzales wanting
| to legally compel the town / its police to perform their
| advertised jobs
|
| That is incorrect. It's about a specific law which
| required the police to perform a specific task, which
| they repeatedly refused to do.
|
| > Furthermore Gonzales's argument would seem to rely on
| the idea that police are a special type of citizen that
| carries certain intrinsic responsibilities
|
| It doesn't. That wasn't the argument at all.
|
| > I haven't read the decision
|
| In that case, I'd suggest you do that.
| mindslight wrote:
| I skimmed the majority opinion and I don't see how I'm
| off here -
|
| 1. The case revolves around Gonzales arguing that police
| were legally compelled to attempt enforcement of the
| restraining order.
|
| 2. The opinion says nothing about the ability of Castle
| Rock to fire the involved officers for being derelict in
| their employment duties (like any other employee).
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > The opinion says nothing about the ability of Castle
| Rock to fire the involved officers for being derelict in
| their employment duties (like any other employee).
|
| I mean, it literally does. The ruling overturns the law
| which gives them the basis to do so, and additionally
| establishes that states cannot pass laws imposing such
| requirements (as well as prohibiting a number of other
| things as well).
|
| I'd suggest actually reading the opinion and dissents
| before discussing this further.
| mindslight wrote:
| Okay, I've done so - at least the version at [0] claiming
| to be a copy. The dissent lays out a compelling chain of
| arguments, to the point that I'll retract my initial
| assertion of " _the right decision_ ".
|
| However, I still cannot figure out what you are
| referencing when you say " _Castle Rock explicitly
| prohibits states and municipalities from placing these
| sorts of restrictions [contractual employment
| requirements] on the police_ ". Is this something from
| one of the earlier decisions, or what am I missing? I'd
| appreciate a quote or other reference.
|
| To the extent that municipalities may need some explicit
| legal justification to fire individual police officers
| (as you seem to be implying), then that is its own
| problem. But I'd say it's unrelated to this case which is
| ultimately about whether the town itself is legally
| liable to Gonzales.
|
| [0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/04-278
| int_19h wrote:
| What this means in practice is that you can have a crazy
| guy actively trying to stab you in full sight of several
| cops, who refuse to get involved due to concern for their
| own safety until you subdue the guy with the knife
| yourself. And, somehow, that's perfectly legal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree#
| L...
| teachrdan wrote:
| > The ruling on appeal was that the police in that case had
| no special duty to that particular person, but still had a
| duty to the public at large.
|
| But "duty to the public at large" doesn't mean anything,
| right? Duty to an individual can be litigated when the
| police fail to perform it. There's no way to hold the
| police accountable to "the public at large."
|
| I agree that, taken to its extreme, it would be problematic
| to hold the police responsible to serving every single call
| perfectly. But we seem to be nowhere near that standard.
| kevviiinn wrote:
| What it means is the police exist to protect capital not
| individuals. They're there to protect the system
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Duty to an individual can be litigated when the police
| fail to perform it.
|
| It actually can't. Castle Rock v. Gonzales is the
| relevant ruling here, not Warren v. DC.
|
| In the majority opinion for Castle Rock, Scalia wrote
| that not only do police not have any special duty, but
| states cannot establish such a duty even through
| legislative means. (It also says that even though any
| such duty would be unconstitutional, if it somehow were
| established, the aggrieved parties would still have zero
| recourse under the constitution for _other_ reasons).
|
| It's a fantastically broad ruling, preempting pretty much
| every conceivable attempt for states to work around it
| even if they want to.
| yowzadave wrote:
| Could one use statistical means to show that the police
| are not providing adequate service to the public at
| large, and could therefore be prosecuted/held
| accountable?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| With what data? There's very little data available for
| police accountability
| hobs wrote:
| Well, it seems like they should arrest themselves based on this
| article.
| sixothree wrote:
| This country was founded on the principle of checks and
| balances. There are no checks on the police. Without
| adversarial oversight, police will always be above the law.
| This is a bad place for our country to be.
| javajosh wrote:
| Yes. In theory justice checks the police. But if the DA
| and/or judge goes after the police, then the police stop
| cooperating with them on cases. Even good police in the
| department who want change will get no leverage that way.
| I'd love to read a long-form, probably anonymous piece by
| an NYPD IA officer about their experiences. I'm sure it
| would be suitably horrifying.
| everforward wrote:
| > But if the DA and/or judge goes after the police, then
| the police stop cooperating with them on cases.
|
| I don't think that procedural issue is really the root.
| Judges have wide authority to issue contempt of court
| charges (including for refusing to
| appear/testify/cooperate). Police officers are not immune
| to those, and could bear significant fines or
| imprisonment as a result.
|
| The issue underlying that solution is who enforces those
| charges? The police department sure isn't. I don't know
| if a judge could ask US marshals to effect the arrest or
| not. The judiciary relies on the executive branch to
| provide the muscle, and doesn't have any real means to
| enforce its own judgements.
| sixothree wrote:
| The current framework is not sufficient. The DA needs
| adversarial checks too.
| salawat wrote:
| Public Defenders are supposed to be a check on the DA,
| but we can all see how well that turns out funding-wise.
|
| I can only assume the media was assumed to be a check on
| the police, as they're the only professionally
| investigative edifice that isn't government funded. Again
| though, there is a notable asymmetry there. Particularly
| nowadays.
| Avshalom wrote:
| they're coming for the public defenders too.
|
| https://ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics/supreme-court-
| gideo...
| drstewart wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_Justice
|
| >Demand Justice is a politically progressive American
| 501(c)(4) legal advocacy organization. It focuses on
| motivating left-leaning voters based on its goal of
| changing the composition of the American federal
| judiciary, as well as encouraging the United States
| Senate to confirm progressive nominees to judicial
| positions and to expand the United States Supreme Court.
|
| How unbiased.
| salawat wrote:
| I honestly don't care in this specific case. It could be
| the head of the Union of Public Defenders everywhere. The
| fact is if you look at the funds allocated to support the
| police/prosecution, then look at the dollars spent
| maintaining the Public Defenders office (which should
| arguably be at parity), and given the unavailibility of
| "stealing from the populace" (civil asset forfeiture or
| fine assessment) to level the budgetary playing field,
| the resulting fiscal asymmetry would and should make any
| bookkeeper blush.
|
| Our system is no justice system without parity between
| the prosecution and defense. That is nowhere near the
| case. It is an undeniable fact.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In Czechia, we have a special agency that just investigates
| possible criminal activity of the police and similar
| agencies (such as the prison service or customs service).
|
| They seem to be doing a sort-of OK job. There are quite a
| few cops in prison.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Inspection_of_Securit
| y...
| [deleted]
| pulisse wrote:
| The NYPD has more than a few data scientists on staff, as they
| should. At their scale (40k officers policing a population of
| 8.5 million), small biases have effects that are large in
| absolute terms.
| mjhay wrote:
| Those data scientists are incentivized to make assumptions
| that wind up giving the results the NYPD wants. Statistics is
| not objective.
| malfist wrote:
| They're addressing crime....by committing it.
| zzzeek wrote:
| send some data scientists and researchers into an NYPD office
| to "touch" things and see how that goes
| jtmlis wrote:
| https://english.ctivd.nl/binaries/ctivd-eng/documenten/revie...
| zzzeek wrote:
| cant imagine why a police department where thousands of their
| employees park their personal vehicles each day all over
| sidewalks illegally as a matter of course might be slow-walking
| some annoying rule about surveillance.
| javajosh wrote:
| They also regularly use their lights and sirens just to get
| through traffic. Those constant little violations of the law
| have a cumulative effect, like how broken windows and other
| minor violations make a neighborhood feel less safe.
| bitwize wrote:
| Reminds me of the stories I'd heard about Toronto cops using
| their lights and sirens to clear a path to Tim Horton's.
| Which I found mildly surprising in Toronto's case, not at all
| surprising in NYC's.
| piuantiderp wrote:
| I've seen this in Seattle. My friend took me to some famous
| ice cream shop. As we are walking in, firefighters
| nonchalantly come out with their ice creams, get into their
| truck and start blasting the siren for people to make way.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Not another illegality story but I remember in the first
| weeks of Toronto lockdown walking past a few unmasked
| police who laughed at me for putting my mask on as their
| group came near me, with one saying "Too late!" to me with
| a gleeful grin.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Cop-deaths like doubled during 2020/21/22 and it was
| entirely covid related.
| cmh89 wrote:
| COVID-19 has been the number one cause of death for
| police officers for three years
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-leading-cause-law-
| enforc...
|
| It's not surprising in the slightest. I'm guessing a lot
| of them developed a aversion to vaccines from the media
| they ingest.
|
| Edit* I'm laughing at the downvotes for posting an
| article. Real Reddit energy.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I think it's a few factors:
|
| 1) as you said they seem to be, as a group, vaccine
| adverse. Maybe because they see themselves as the ones
| that 'should be giving the orders not taking them'
|
| 2) Similarly, perhaps in macho alignment with point 1,
| their masking discipline was poor
|
| 3) .. and this is one in their favor, they were perhaps
| one of of the largest groups of 'essential workers' that
| still had to interact with many people even during the
| height of whatever we want to call that period early on
| where we were 'locked down'.
| John23832 wrote:
| This is a very succinct way to describe the problem. This is
| "Broken Windows" by our government/law enforcement.
|
| The constant skirting of the law public servants in NYC, be
| it the illegal parking, the using of sirens to push their way
| through traffic, the "I won't wear a mask but will fine you
| for not wearing one", NYPD officers not paying subway fares
| but fining the average joe, the special treatment (private
| spaces for NYPD families and adjacents in what are supposed
| to be public events)...
|
| All of that shit culminates in the lack of trust in
| institutions and the degradation of OUR city.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I'm a firm believer that law enforcement should be held to
| a higher standard when it comes to breaking the law. For
| instance, a person in law enforcement for any crime should
| have the punishment doubled after sentencing.
| thephyber wrote:
| It is mostly the consistency, not so much the severity,
| of punishment which fixes the behavior.
|
| People don't know the exact charges and likely
| punishments before they commit a crime, so they don't
| game out exactly the risk-reward tradeoff.
|
| However, cops generally know the likelihood of avoiding
| prosecution before they commit a crime. Fixing the
| disincentive to prosecute police officers for any small
| crime is 1000x better than doubling the theoretical
| punishment that is so rarely applied.
| javajosh wrote:
| Yes. When you join the force, the deal should be made
| clear: you get extra physical power over the people
| around you. In return, they get to hold you to a higher
| standard of conduct.
|
| Now the deal is: you get extra physical power over the
| people around you, the public is grateful for your
| 'sacrifice' and protection, such that if you screw up
| you'll get away with it. You will, like most humans,
| behave in a way that maximizes your pleasure and
| minimizes your pain, to the extent you can get away with
| it, and you'll quickly find that you can get away with
| almost anything. Just don't be too good, or piss off the
| wrong people in the department, and after 20 years you
| get to retire on a fat pension. Let's just get you tested
| to make sure you aren't too intelligent, and then you'll
| get your 6 weeks of training, and boom, you'll be on the
| street with a gun, ready "to protect and to serve"!
|
| Sometimes I think we'd be better off with AI cops.
| gameman144 wrote:
| In my mind, we don't even need to go _that_ far, we just
| need to reasonably apply the actual laws that we have
| today. I don 't expect police officers to be paragons of
| virtue, I just expect them to follow the same laws that
| everyone else has to follow.
|
| If I park on the sidewalk, I will get a ticket. If a
| police officer parks on the sidewalk, there is no check
| on their ability to say "It was necessary for police
| business", even if it wasn't. Adding a method to track
| and prosecute that abuse is all I care about; police
| aren't being held accountable today, but I also don't see
| any need to hold them _extra_ accountable -- just the
| same amount as everyone else is fine by me.
| gukov wrote:
| Oh, so exactly like in Canada. Good to know we're not the
| only ones, I guess.
|
| I do think turning on the lights possibly serves a good
| thing: it's a silent reminder that the cops are in the area,
| especially at night.
| mcronce wrote:
| A well-intentioned version of this is just having a couple
| of the overhead lights on - not strobing, and not running
| red lights.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| It's called patrol lights.
|
| They went out of fashion as police departments
| transitioned from "visible deterrent presence" to "haha
| gocthca, now pay up you filthy peasant" business model
| over the course of the war on drugs.
|
| I think Hawaii and Connecticut still do them though.
| joncrane wrote:
| Maybe also a silent reminder that many police officers will
| abuse every inch of power they're given?
| beebeepka wrote:
| Not in Canada, though. They use the metric system.
|
| On a more serious note, I am surprised parking on
| sidewalks is a thing over there. It really is a massive
| problem here in Bulgaria. Has been for decades at this
| point
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| I've actually heard that this is a gang surveillance
| tactic. The police will act in car pairs to shadow a gang's
| car from a block over. And not use their sirens or lights
| to not alert the criminals.
|
| Or maybe that's just conjecture.
| dylan604 wrote:
| What you describe sounds like an amateur hour Keystone
| cops level of surveillance. Or some dirty cops doing some
| shady stuff. A real surveillance would be so much more
| professional. Depending on the budget/case/interest, they
| use multiple cars in the pursuit. Some cars are in front,
| some are behind the subject. They rotate positions so
| that the same car isn't in the same position all the
| time. There are so so many other techniques available as
| well that isn't just conjecture.
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| Yes, that's what I'm describing. Except sometimes the
| cars get behind. So to catch up they blow intersections
| without lights.
|
| However I'm quite uninformed about it. Just raising the
| topic :)
| aqme28 wrote:
| Remember on July 4th when they made a private fireworks
| viewing section in a prime area for only police and their
| families, while the public areas were overcrowded?
|
| https://gothamist.com/news/nypd-blocked-off-vip-viewing-
| site...
| dathinab wrote:
| Honestly anything I hear about NYPD sounds like they are
| beyond being fixable and need to be dissolved and recreated
| from scratch with anyone in power of the recreation needing
| to be unrelated to the original NYPD.
|
| But then what I hear about it is very limited an done-sided.
| zzzeek wrote:
| well here's the thing. shut down the NYPD, fire all the
| cops, they all go back home to Suffolk County.
|
| Now let's recreate the NYPD as something new! Let's hire
| all new cops. All 36000 of them.
|
| Who's going to apply for those jobs? Seems likely most of
| that original 36000 would be in line.
|
| that is, if you have cops, someone has to do that job. It
| seems like the job as practiced in the US naturally
| gravitates towards the kind of policing we seem to have. I
| think that all extends from the fact that guns are
| basically fully legal and ubiquitous throughout the US
| which puts it on police departments to be hyper aggressive,
| highly armed and dangerous, and generally mistrustful of
| the public; it also does not help that the educational
| background requirements for cops in the US are very low.
| int_19h wrote:
| Georgia (the country) did this exact thing with their
| traffic police that was notoriously corrupt. After firing
| literally everyone, they recreated the force from scratch
| with much more stringent hiring standards and
| correspondingly higher pay. Most of those old cops didn't
| even try to get rehired. They ended up having no traffic
| police at all for about one month before the new force
| was staffed enough to start running things. Sky didn't
| fall.
|
| As far as why US cops specifically are like that - it's
| because they're literally trained to be like that. Look
| up Dave Grossman and his "killology" nuttery (if you ever
| heard people talking about "sheep, wolves, and
| sheepdogs", that's from there). You'd think that would be
| some kind of fringe stuff, but no - there are police
| departments where the leadership paid for the entire
| force to attend one of his seminars.
| yowzadave wrote:
| And often run red lights without even using their sirens.
| This kind of corruption drives me nuts.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| The people serving the bourgeoisie feel untouchable
| themselves usually before a period of upheaval.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| It's not unreasonable to assume these same people end up
| clubbing dissidents after the upheaval as well.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Professionals are always wanted and needed.
| javajosh wrote:
| That's a negative, good buddy.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism
| crop_rotation wrote:
| This reminds me of San Francisco Police Strike 1975 where the
| Police ignored court orders and called the court order
| "Unconstitutional".
| (https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/20/archives/police-out-san-f...)
| In the end they got what they wanted too.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_police_strike
|
| Ten deaths and countless other crimes, violent and property
| related.
| fakedang wrote:
| Looks like USA is a police state after all. The irony.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| NYC, SF, and other big cities behave this way, but most of
| the rest of the country doesn't.
| Bud wrote:
| Did you miss the Murdaugh murders in South Carolina? Might
| want to review that the murderer's family was in charge of
| basically the entire justice system in a wide swath of that
| state. For the last 100 years.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Most? Corrupt county sheriffs are a tale as old as time. I
| don't know why people try to give a pass to non-big city
| policing with a brush off like this.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| What are you talking about? Small cities are just as rife
| with corruption. The nationwide "cash for kids" scandal
| occurred in a small city in Philadelphia. Pasco County,
| whose largest city is less than 20,000 in populace,
| literally collected lists of children's names and families
| for extra surveillance under the assumption they would be
| future criminals regardless of actual criminal history.
| Sundown Towns, a notion where hate crimes are effectively
| legal after dark, were enforced by local law enforcement
| (i.e. the law enforcement were lynching black people).
|
| There's no reason not to believe that law enforcement
| everywhere can and does turn dangerous to the local
| population without stringent education, repercussions for
| bad behavior, and transparency.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Local law enforcement branches can be very corrupt, but
| don't have the resources to run a surveillance/police
| state like this.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Small town budgets don't stop pigs from using
| surveillance tech, it's just with more budget constraint
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/961103187/surveillance-
| and-lo... Etc
| amrocha wrote:
| Police state doesn't mean surveillance
| iudqnolq wrote:
| In a small community where everyone knows everyone you
| don't need equipment to run a surveillance state.
|
| What about medium communities? Tech is very scalable,
| federal antiterror funds are significant, and
| surveillance is a profit center for police forces. Many
| medium police forces fund the majority of their budget
| through fines and fees.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Again: I don't think you're accurate here. The Pasco
| County case kept heavy surveillance of children by
| trawling every school in the county and systemically
| categorizing every child in the county by GPA,
| Attendance, credit count, etc. to identify which children
| to put under heavy specific surveillance (e.g. showing up
| dozens of times at family members workplaces unprompted
| and with no suspicion of crime) effectively harassing
| entire whole families out of the county.
|
| I would 100% consider screening every child to identify
| future criminals and then cracking down on their
| families, including unprompted visits to workplaces
| dozens of times, to be police state stuff.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| Where is your evidence for that?
| [deleted]
| paxys wrote:
| Small town police departments are worse. They just don't
| get all the press.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| They also don't have the same level of power as the NYPD,
| which is a big difference.
| fakedang wrote:
| I doubt that. They do have higher levels of relative
| power within their tight-knit communities. And for the
| most part, their instances of corruption would be
| investigated much less often, simply because there's no
| one there to investigate them.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Small town cops would literally get shot if they behaved
| the way NYPD officers behave towards citizens. Their
| accrual of power depends on being nice to the 30,000
| people in the town. In turn, they get away with a lot of
| bad stuff.
|
| The NYPD also needs to be nice to about 30,000 people to
| accrue power too, but that is wielded against a city of
| 40 million, with industrial scale.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I have to give it to you, you're sticking to your
| preconceived notions. However, that's not a good trait
| with the preponderance of evidence against your notion.
| Maybe you're not from a smaller community to be able to
| understand how much control someone can actually have.
| Whether it is the local law enforcement, a coach, or a
| minister, history is full of examples where smaller
| communities have been kowtowed to those in positions of
| authority. To me, it's even easier as the smaller
| community doesn't have the numbers to support each other
| to fight against the oppressor. There's a reason there
| are so so many 80s films where the out of town tough guy
| comes in to rescue the local community.
| cmh89 wrote:
| > Their accrual of power depends on being nice to the
| 30,000 people in the town
|
| No it doesn't. Small town cops get their power from their
| lack of having anything to do and the blind support of
| the community.
|
| The small town I grew up in had a cop murder four people
| because he broke chase policy and even left his
| jurisdiction. The town newspaper wrote a weeks worth of
| articles talking about what a great guy he was and how
| all the youths in the town loved him.
|
| Don't piss off a small town cop. They have literally
| nothing to do and can/will pull you over every single
| time they see you.
|
| Edit* I have to edit this due to this forums anti-
| discussion features
|
| Sorry, most police departments have rules about how
| far/fast you can chase someone in a vehicle who is
| fleeing. They have these in place so cowboy cops don't
| engage in dangerous behavior for low value.
|
| This cowboy pulled into a cul-de-sac and some kids who
| had some weed on them got spooked a pulled out. He
| started to chase them, it turned into a high-speed chase
| on rural roads. They flew through a stop sign and t-boned
| a car with four people inside of it. Killed them all.
| Over some weed.
|
| That's why the policies exist in the first place, he
| violated it, and four people paid the price.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| One of the local cops around here got the Dick Cheney
| special at about "across the room" range a couple years
| back.
|
| Of course the guy that shot him got railroaded but they
| never did tell the public what he and the guy with them
| were doing on that guy's property two towns out of their
| jurisdiction without a warrant...
|
| I can see why the cop was feeling cockey though. This
| state has just about the lowest rate of firearms
| ownership in the country. They're not used to getting
| shot back at.
| cutemonster wrote:
| What's Chase policy? Is it about the bank, Chase? (I'm in
| Europe and don't know much)
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| They're talking about the policy for a car "chase". They
| edited their post to explain how the policy was broken.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Thanks for explaining, you and cmh89
| Shared404 wrote:
| I suspect that the difference in views is at least
| partially related to location - pclmulqdq sound's like
| something that I've heard from people in the Appalachians
| before, while your experience very much matches what I've
| observed in small town TX.
|
| No actual data to back this suspicion of course, it's
| just anecdotal based on what I've seen and heard. Would
| be interested in data if anyone can provide it.
| Avshalom wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30012544
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Nope. Look at the "Ending the Criminalization of Poverty"
| section of https://civilrightscorps.org/our-work/. It's
| full of successful lawsuits against small town police
| departments that turned around 40% of the population into
| a cash cow they ruthlessly exploited for unconstitutional
| fines and fees.
|
| If anyone shot the cops the entire system would rush
| resources in and teach them a lesson. This is why the
| idea the second amendment protects against tyranny is
| silly.
|
| Edit: s/unconditional/unconstitutional
| int_19h wrote:
| It very much depends on _which_ citizens.
|
| I have a friend who lives in Republic, WA - if you're not
| from hereabouts, you might have heard about that place
| from national news in the context of Loren Culp. She's an
| old leftie from the bygone era (used to be active in
| anti-war movement during Vietnam etc) and her politics
| are not exactly a secret there. At some point, one of her
| neighbors placed signs on their property saying things
| like "liberals and communists not welcome", "get out
| while you can" etc, angled specifically towards her
| driveway. The local cops - then still under Culp - not
| only didn't see any problem with that, but they actually
| told her it's good neighborly advice.
| [deleted]
| try_the_bass wrote:
| In absolute terms, sure. But in relative terms, I'm
| pretty sure a small town with a thoroughly corrupt police
| force is worse off than NYC.
| vkou wrote:
| Police in the rest of the country behaves in worse ways, it
| just that they don't usually get put under a microscope
| unless they kill a sufficiently photogenic person.
|
| The system of checks and balances between police and the
| people they are supposed to be accountable to is completely
| broken.
|
| (Even if by some miracle, you do manage to hold a small-
| town cop accountable for something he did, he can make it
| his life's goal to personally make yours a living hell. At
| least in a big city, you're not going to be driving past
| any particular cop, every day, on your way to work.)
| BonoboIO wrote:
| I don't know why you are downvoted.
| seanw444 wrote:
| As a police officer, you swear an oath to uphold the US
| Constitution. If you believe a law is unconstitutional, you
| have an obligation to not enforce it. I know, that kind of
| autonomy and trust is foreign to non-USAers, but that's why
| this country is great.
| int_19h wrote:
| That would have been relevant if they were at least
| consistent about it. But, somehow, stuff like asset
| forfeiture or stop and frisk is never "unconstitutional" as
| far as cops are concerned, while stuff like publishing
| reports on their activities or removing qualified immunity
| suddenly is.
| s5300 wrote:
| >> If you believe a law is unconstitutional, you have an
| obligation to not enforce it.
|
| This is so funny because police overwhelmingly do not seek
| any form of higher education & are given guns to kill
| people in weeks-months of training they're essentially
| babied & coddled through.
|
| Not a singular new police officer on the force in my small
| Ohio hometown took a singular advanced class in high
| school, and most of them legitimately got D's and shit in
| _basic US history class_. These were my peers, some my
| friends. I know the level of their education and
| intellectual pursuits fairly well.
|
| If we live in a nation where people have a developed world
| 6th-8th grade level education at best enforcing what they
| think is unconstitutional, we're utterly unbelievably
| fucked.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > As a police officer, you swear an oath to uphold the US
| Constitution.
|
| We'll, they routinely violate the Constitution too, so at
| least they're consistent.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Yeah right. Where does the US constitution gives police
| officers the right to decide whether a court order is
| "unconstitutional"?
| [deleted]
| salawat wrote:
| Actually, it stems from the Nuremberg Trials, and
| actually having a goddamn moral compass.
|
| If you're looking for something a bit more internal to
| the U.S., look no further than the original Declaration
| of Independence. While it may scare the bajeezus out of
| many, the responsibility for calling out governmental
| bullshit is vested solely with the People, and law
| enforcers are still People to.
|
| Welcome to why the United States is "Home of the Brave".
| It takes courage to stick around in a melting pot of
| crazy, and you never really know who is coming to dinner,
| or how long the civility is going to hold out.
| cmh89 wrote:
| >Actually, it stems from the Nuremberg Trials, and
| actually having a goddamn moral compass
|
| It doesn't 'stem' from anywhere. It's just a right-wing
| thing to pretend that police have some unwritten ability
| to decide the legality of laws.
|
| > While it may scare the bajeezus out of many, the
| responsibility for calling out governmental bullshit is
| vested solely with the People, and law enforcers are
| still People to.
|
| Calling out 'governmental bullshit' is something they can
| do on their own time by practicing their 1st amendment
| rights. Choosing to not enforce a law because you don't
| like it is not free speech. It's job abandonment and
| should be treated as such.
|
| If you think part of your job is morally wrong, you
| should quit.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| the flaw in this logic is that, while cops are people,
| they are not The People, and they don't usually reflect
| The Will Of The People
| bee_rider wrote:
| The issue here is that these departments are not
| complying with elected officials and laws. The individual
| has an obligation to not-comply a with an illegal order
| and blow the whistle so the public can weigh in. The
| department should faithfully implement the instructions
| of the public.
|
| For example if the whole department really thinks that
| the requirement for the police to report their
| surveillance equipment is unconstitutional, they they
| should all quit and tell the public about this apparent
| grand violation of their right as police officers to
| secretly spy on the public.
| eastWestMath wrote:
| As a police officer you also typically have a high school
| education, and your idea of whether or not something is
| constitutional carries little to no weight.
| DANmode wrote:
| It didn't used to be that way, and doesn't need to be
| now.
| fakedang wrote:
| I thought deciding what laws are constitutional or not
| falls upon the Supreme Court?
|
| Wait, police get to choose which parts of the Constitution
| they want to enforce and which they don't? Right, police
| state it is.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This sort of thinking is, I think, pretty important. It is
| good if people feel responsible for following their oaths
| and professional obligations. This obviously depends on a
| personal interpretation of those obligations, so it will
| have to be performed by all us laymen. I don't think, as
| some of the other comments here have pointed out, that the
| lack of legal training is a huge problem.
|
| But that's a personal obligation. And the obligation is not
| to simply not comply, it is to blow the whistle. You very
| well may be wrong about your interpretation of that oath,
| so the only answer is to, basically, bounce it to the
| populace and see what the people's interpretation of that
| document is (might have to go through the news, courts, and
| politics to ultimately get the public's opinion). This will
| likely be a career killer--it wouldn't be an obligation, if
| following it was easy and cost-free!
|
| This is not really what has happened here. In the NYC
| example: The police department is not an individual with an
| oath, it is a bureaucratic and legal entity that exists
| within a defined chain of command, it is supposed to comply
| with the laws that the government passes. In fact, if the
| department is asking individual officers to do something
| unethical by not following the law, the officers have an
| individual obligation to blow the whistle and not comply
| _with the department_.
|
| In the SF strike: The police union is a labor entity, it
| exists to represent the interests of the members. The
| officers were not saying they were asked as police officers
| to do something unconstitutional, they were saying that the
| order to not strike or protest was unconstitutional. That
| has nothing to do with their oath.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I've got no problem with that so long as there's also a
| standing policy that if you refuse to follow the law you're
| fired.
| [deleted]
| ck2 wrote:
| Think about this one:
|
| The NSA is probably aware and/or can detect every corrupt cop in
| the country.
|
| Certainly the financial corruption, they aren't stuffing cash
| into their mattresses.
|
| Yet nothing is ever done with that data, even without using it
| for prosecution.
| Avshalom wrote:
| You don't need to be the NSA to figure out who's a corrupt cop.
| They wear badges and have uniforms.
| bastard_op wrote:
| Perfect example of why they don't care, they already ignore
| virtually all oversight anyways.
| https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/31/nypd_surveillance_rul...
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