Comment by pravus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pravus | Hacker News Reader

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I watched a video today of a 75-year old man being shoved by police for something that I can in no way defend. He fell backwards and blood started leaking from his head while he fell unconscious. No officer even attempted to render aid.

I have watched a video of a SWAT team breaking into a man's home and murdering him point-blank because he was holding a golf club for the crime of using naturally occurring plants and chemicals. No charges filed against any officer. Even though trained for combat, apparently their life was in mortal danger.

I have been personally threatened with arrest by police numerous times for the "criminal" offense of not following their exact instruction or being in an angry disposition for extremely minor offenses. If you want me to be peaceful, why are representatives of The State negotiating with me using violence?

Yes. This is evil.

I’m sure there’s truth to it, but there are 800k police officers in the US. Are you ready to condemn the entire profession because of a handful of bad experiences?

Imagine a handcuffed, nondangerous, nonviolent person is literally murdered by strangulation by a cop, and three cops stand right there watching and do nothing and don't even appear to be fazed by what's going on.

If I was the cop watching, I would kick that asshole in the face and try to stop him. I'm sure if you asked 99% of normal people they would agree. But three cops literally watched and did nothing.

Many cops do not partake in evil, but almost every single American cop has no issue with letting the bad cops be evil. And that makes them evil too.

And these aren't a few occurrences; they have been happening frequently for decades. We only see them more often because of smartphones and people only got so mad about this occurrence because Coronavirus means everyone has too much spare time.

> every single American cop

based on what?

Because it keeps happening for generations. The supposedly not-bad-apples have declined to clean house for at least 70 of policing in the USA.

At some point, decades ago, one must assume complicity.

Imagine thinking he was not dangerous and not violent.

>Are you ready to condemn the entire profession because of a handful of bad experiences?

1, maybe 2, deaths are a "handful". Repeated, country wide, incidents is far more than a "handful".

How many people should be executed, in your opinion, before you are ready to condemn the entire institution?

It's not so much the profession that's being condemned, more the institution.

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