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Comment by RodericDay | Hacker News Reader

> Nieto was clearly a man having a crisis, and his purported reaction when approached by police was not that of a rational person. Told to show his hands, Nieto allegedly demanded that the cops show theirs. He then reportedly drew his taser and fired three times. And so he was shot—and shot and shot—by officers who claim they did not realize Nieto was carrying a less-than-lethal device.

This is the stuff she should have included into her article?

This platitude about mental health,

> Our jails are full of men and women whose crime is being mentally ill.

Is not a more compelling analysis of the event than Solnit's take.

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> ...there is no mention whatsoever of Nieto’s long and well-documented battle with mental illness. No mention of Nieto’s “history of aggressive and bizarre behavior and auditory hallucinations,” as described in a letter written by District Attorney George Gascón following his office’s investigation of the shooting. Likewise, no mention of “a clinical history of psychosis exacerbated by his failure to take ... medications.” No mention of a police report filed less than three weeks before Nieto’s death by a man alleging that Nieto tased him (Nieto, in turn, filed a police report claiming this was an act of self-defense). No mention of prior incidents in which police intervened when Nieto’s internal battles spilled out into the public sphere. - See more at: http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/alex-nieto-w...

The severity of his "long and well-documented battle with mental illness" is:

a) Disputed

b) Weaponized against him, taking advantage of the fear and misunderstanding people have of mental illness ("he burnt a book! that sounds like he'd pull guns on people!")

c) Used to avoid engaging with the racial issue that brought it to the fore

Disputed? He was confined on a 72 hour mental health hold twice. You need to be examined by health professionals for that to happen. I would argue his mental health problems are not disputed at all.

I also love how you said "he burned a book". No, he set a book on fire in his parents home, which they luckily extinguished, then took the ashes and ate them. Even his parents said they were in fear of their own safety.

Jesus, twisting facts knows no ends when it comes to supporting a certain narrative doesn't it?

I'm generally sympathetic to Solnit's previous writings on gentrification in SF, but this just seems too much of a stretch to me. Police violence in SF (and across the US) is out of control. They need training in how to de-escalate confrontations without resorting to overwhelming firepower.

I don't think that the gentrification is completely referring to the police, but also to the couple that called the cops.

I actually know the couple, they are very nice people and I am sure they feel terrible about what happened. But they are from upper-middle and upper class families, I am sadly not too surprised that they felt threatened by a latino man in a park.

Normally I'm pretty damn critical of the police, but drawing a gunlike weapon that's actually a weapon and not a plastic toy, while also being clearly out of your right mind...

Well, he shouldn't have been shot, but wow.

The police, or at least two of them, claim that he drew the taser. That doesn't mean he actually drew it, but merely that the police did what police often have done in the past--embellish or exaggerate the details to exonerate themselves.

For this reason, and of course also to protect police from dishonest civilian witnesses, body cams should be standard issue equipment. In fact, I'm surprised SFPD hasn't long since required them.

Good points.

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