Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

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Medics checked him out each time, and cleared him. Are you suggesting Medics aren't to be trusted now too?

To what extent does this paranoia carry?

> How does that in any way suggest the police didn't give him head trauma?

How does this in any way suggest the police gave him head trauma? That's a straw man if I ever saw one.

The head trauma was a theory floated before the police reports where looked into (party because Ian was ranting about being "beaten" and "raped" by the police during his drunken rage). It's pretty clear that is not the case now. The most likely cause of death, was suicide (as announced by Ian himself just a few hours prior).

The man was out in the streets, alone, heavily drunk, and attempting to break into someone's home. This is a situation where we should want the police to intervene.

Just a few hours later, Ian was out in the streets, even more heavily intoxicated, this time pounding on random people's front door at 2:40 AM. This is a situation where we should want the police to intervene.

It's clear something was going on with Ian before all this started. What sequence of events led up to him being this drunk and disorderly in public at that wee hour of the morning?

Yet, because Ian, in his drunken rage, perceived the police as being out to just beat and rape him, people will cling to that theory and claim police brutality, without a single minute piece of evidence.

How many times has a drunken person mistakenly become violent against someone else who's trying to make them do something they don't want to do (send Ian home in this case)? All the time. The police reports read as just another drunk dude in the streets... it's a common story. Nothing unusual here.

It's curious times when we take the word of a drunk over official reports from multiple agencies and parties involved (police, paramedics, neighbors calls, etc...)

Who writes police reports, do you think?

I was arrested at a protest once, and my police report said I was menacingly carrying a sharpened stick, amongst other things. This was meant to indicate a protest sign, which in fact I wasn't actually carrying... the police write whatever they want in the reports, and if there's a question of police misconduct, they should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

And of course when the coroner's report comes out in a few days and states suicide as the cause of death, cites enough alcohol in his system to kill a moose, and possibly drugs... we'll all reject it as part of the cover up, you know... because police brutality!

Sometimes things are what they are. Don't go looking for examples to fuel your anti-police paranoia just because it makes you feel good. It's tragic Ian passed, but there's no evidence he was somehow murdered by police.

I appreciate the concern about evidence, but please stop fuelling this controversy.

> I appreciate the concern about evidence, but please stop fuelling this controversy.

Quite the opposite. I'm demonstrating there is nothing to be of controversy here. It's pretty clear what occurred here (we do have many of the facts now), yet many want to go off on some wild conspiracy theory. That's fueling controversy purely for the sake of controversy.

With that said - I do believe all the cases have been made, and people will see what they want to see, regardless of the truth.

Truth is exactly what we are essentially searching for here.

Some people have good reason not to trust police reports, as abuse of authority is rife within many districts in the US and UK.

This does not mean that we would disagree with what an official independent report would state because "It has to be a conspiracy", or any other garbage reason -- it just means that we disagree that the outcome of the official police report is necessarily correct, because of the bias police reports can hold.

I get that and I appreciate the intent, but it doesn't matter whether you're burning conspiracy theories or something else, you're still adding fuel to the fire. It's keeping this unseemly argument going, so please stop.

Wouldn't want an unseemly argument to continue... people might gawk.

I think it is fair game to argue against breathless conspiracy theories. It sort of surprising to see in this thread such complete acceptance for the "the police murdered him" narrative while noting the obvious reality, that this is extremely unlikely and the truth is probably much simpler, is actually extremely derided.

> Medics checked him out each time, and cleared him. Are you suggesting Medics aren't to be trusted now too?

As with all medical professionals, they are not to be trusted to be omniscient. Clearing him for release is not the same thing as guaranteeing that he had no dangerous injuries.

> Clearing him for release is not the same thing as guaranteeing that he had no dangerous injuries.

Isn't that almost exactly what clearing him for release means? What else are the medics "clearing him" for if not the absence of major/dangerous injuries? I suppose they cannot "guarantee" the lack of injury, but they certainly would have checked for evidence of traumatic brain injury.

It's possible that they missed something, but this is currently unjustified paranoia with nothing behind it except distrust toward the police.

It's the closest thing to a guarantee that they are able to give, which is substantially limited by the information, time, and equipment they are able to obtain.

As someone with a chronic medical condition that was misdiagnosed for ~20 years, I admit to having biases about this sort of thing, but I can assure you that my doubts are not limited to police-involved situations or EMTs.

Sure, medics make mistakes. I don't buy all this conspiracy stuff about the police killing Ian Murdock, though. That narrative doesn't make much sense, partly because the family is asking for privacy rather than loudly demanding justice as you might expect from family members of a murdered man. But also, the alternative is nutty.

The police just randomly assaulted him twice at two different times, then called the medics both times and filed false reports about what happened? Not only does this make absolutely no sense, but seems pretty easy to dismantle if false. Murdock claims that the police attacked him in his home twice. The police claim that he was attempting to break into two different homes. Which of these is more likely? Someone supposedly reported him both times. At least one medic saw him. Are these people in on the conspiracy or made up (seems easy to confirm that these are real people)?

This is tragic, and it is entirely possible that Ian Murdock was a victim of abuse by the police during his arrest/while in custody, but it also seems like Ian Murdock had some sort of mental break before all this happened (I seriously doubt this was all the result of just alcohol use). Given the (presumed) suicide, I wonder if he had some long term mental illness. He very well might have been delusional or psychotic during all this.

> don't buy all this conspiracy stuff about the police killing Ian Murdock, though.

I actually didn't state that police killed Ian Murdock, just that his (presumed) suicide could have been the result of the emotional trauma from the beatings. I can not speak for anyone else.

> Medics checked him out each time, and cleared him. Are you suggesting Medics aren't to be trusted now too?

Who said the medics cleared him? They may have cleared him to go home, but that does not imply he didn't have a concussion, for example.

I do not know if the medics in the US have a different policy, in the UK you can be sent home as long as you have someone to look after you, check you're ok, and make sure you don't fall asleep before 24 (or 48) hours have passed.

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