This showed up on Hacker News today, and was soundly panned as well as flagged. Which shouldn’t surprise me, I guess.
12 Things to do Instead of Calling the Cops
Most of this seems like good advice, although the HN comments point out that 1500 women are killed by domestic partners every year, so the last point might seem too passive in light of that.
I once stood outside my apartment and asked an upstairs neighbor if she needed help, rather than call the cops, and it took me longer than I wish to admit to work up the nerve to even go outside. I didn’t want her to face her ex alone, but I didn’t want to bring armed police into the situation, either. Seeing me seemed to calm the guy down quickly, and he left immediately. Realizing there was a witness, I thought at the time, although now I wonder if he was thinking the same way I was: I could call the cops, and they might shoot him first and ask questions later.
@pwinn@qoto.org HN is very weird. In general they're pro-police, but anti-surveillance. unless it's apple.
No one wants to think about what, in the US, over $350,000,000.00 of our tax dollars go to, every year. We, you and i (well, me, i dunno if you're in the US) pay for the privilege of possibly being beaten or shot at the hands of "law" "enforcement" depending on time, place, phase of the moon, window tint, whatever.
I know "trained social workers" won't kill anyone, and most americans think that's a good reason to not invest in having responders be trained that way.
There's a lot wrong in the US, and putting cops on a pedestal is a big one.
Since you shared an anecdote, i will too. I was living in Riverside County, California, i had gone out for a quick trip and when i got back i got flagged down by a neighbor in my apartment complex, someone had just stolen their girlfriends car! and he just went that way you can see him! so i drove after him to get the plate and a description. We had electronic gates, so the guy got stuck and turned around. I blocked the gate with my car, mostly. Cops arrived real quick, maybe 45-80 seconds later. The thief was being chased by the cops, blew past my car and barely missed hitting the building it was attached to, and hit a parked vehicle. The cops tried to box the thief in, in this front parking area, and the thief backed into a cop car trying to get turned around.
Four cops unloaded on this guy right then and there. I was 3' from one of them when he just started blasting. They killed this car thief for daring to back into their car. Rolled his lifeless body out, it got tangled in the seatbelt. I heard his body hit the pavement. dead on the scene. Two of the cops shot through their windshields to kill this guy.
I didn't want him to die. i just didn't want my neighbor's girlfriend's car to get stolen. i was hoping the thief would realize he couldn't get out with a car and jump a wall and escape.
My wife says this screwed me up for a long time, watching the cops murder someone. It wasn't even the first time i'd been nearby when the cops killed someone...
I am so sorry you were involved in that horrifying story. I think that would screw me up pretty badly, too.
I do live in the US, and in a city that requires a minimum of a four-year college degree for cops, which you might think would help. And yet somehow when I search for my city name, I see a story about how cops arrested a Black teenager, a high school senior, who was walking home from work during a winter storm. Kid spent the night in jail because he didn't want to talk to the cops.
The city website suggests the last "officer-involved shooting" was in 2021, with three in 2020, one in 2019, two in 2017, and one in 2015. It says something that I think that's actually not too bad for a city of more than 280k people.
It's terrible, of course.
They've got a "Use of Force" report for 2021 that (surprise!) finds no "out of policy" events all year, with 41 "within policy" and 7 "under investigation."
I should be happy about the accountability, but I trust cops so little that I figure at least some of those 48 would horrify me if I dug into the details.
