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Comment by ogre_codes | Hacker News Reader

Lots of people jumping to conclusions one way or the other here, but keep in mind a few things.

#1 The police had a warrant. That means they had to have a certain amount of evidence to present to a judge. "She is a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind" is probably not enough to get a warrant. Server logs with an IP address would hold up in court.

#2 Pointing guns at clearly non-aggressive people and particularly kids is bullshit in general. The PD says she hung up on them and knocked on the door for 20 minutes. Maybe BS cover up, but if true, might explain the seemingly over-aggressive entry.

Not jumping to conclusions, but sometimes decent people do stupid things.

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For further context, this is the message that she's accused of sending:

> It's time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don't have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it's too late.

That's literally it. When I hear "disgruntled former employee" I think of phishing for credentials or threatening former coworkers, in this case the terms "whistleblower" and "civil disobedience" seem more appropriate.

I'm not sold that what she did was a terrible crime. I do think it was foolish and likely pointless, but not something which merits police pointing guns at her kids and going to prison.

A disgruntled former employee allegedly accessed the former employers system to send an unauthorized emergency message. That’s illegal and it doesn’t matter if it’s the Florida Department of Health, Google, or McDonalds.

Creating your own dashboard and fighting your former employer’s data is much more like whistleblowing or fighting the system. Hopefully these are just allegations and she can get good lawyers.

Whistleblowing is often illegal. Civil disobedience is, by definition, illegal. Actions can be both illegal and morally/ethically admirable--hopefully we can all agree on that.

It’s not often illegal for public employees. Most of the time there are specific Whitleblower statues. She falls into the one for Florida.

Prong 1: Any violation or suspected violation of any federal, state, or local law, rule, or regulation committed by an employee or agent of an agency or independent contractor which creates and present a substantial and specific danger to the public’s health, safety, or welfare; and/or

Prong 2: Any act or suspected act of gross mismanagement, malfeasance, misfeasance, gross waste of public funds, suspected or actual Medicaid fraud or abuse, or gross neglect of duty committed by an employee or agent of an agency or independent contractor.

https://www.floridalaborlawyer.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a...

#1 seems like a fairly optimistic interpretation of how the system works in practice.

Re #2, "sometimes decent people do stupid things": these "decent people" have been doing these "stupid things" habitually, systematically, across the nation, for decades. This isn't some one-off incident, this is the typical procedure.

"Decent people do stupid things" when oversight is lax, accountability is thin, wrong is not punished, and right is not highlighted.

All of these factors are the result of poor institutional control, and a lack of capacity of institutional leaders to incentivize good behavior and eradicate bad behavior.

There's no reason to pull a gun on an unarmed child in a household of people who have demonstrated no danger to the police executing the warrant, even if it took forever to enter the property. There is no planet upon which "she hung up on us and didn't answer the door for 20 minutes" is by itself a reason to threaten to kill someone.

> There's no reason to pull a gun on an unarmed child in a household of people who have demonstrated no danger to the police executing the warrant, even if it took forever to enter the property. There is no planet upon which "she hung up on us and didn't answer the door for 20 minutes" is by itself a reason to threaten to kill someone.

Fully agree. Wasn't trying to justify it.

I wasn't going after you, apologies if it came off that way. My frustration is aimed at the system which tacitly consents to needless police aggression.

When I read about police behavior I am always reminded of Dr. Zimbardo's suggestion that systems may be corrupted not by bad apples, but rather by a bad barrel that damages otherwise healthy apples within. Your comment about decent people hits near the same concept.

No worries, I can see how you could read it as justifying their actions. I was just trying to point out that she likely made things worse.

I wish our police forces could be much more like the British where only a small percentage of officers are armed. The over-abundance of weapons here makes that exceedingly difficult, but it would be nice.

Certainly situations like this where the probability of violent resistance is so small should merit unarmed response, but that's just not the way we do things.

Just because they have a warrant does not mean they should be going in with weapons drawn even if they were made to sit around for 20 minutes while the innocent person decided what do to.

And once they had taken violent charge of that innocent person they had no business lurking in the family dwelling with weapons drawn menacing people that were not even listed on that warrant.

You are making a very thin apologium for appalling behaviour.

> Just because they have a warrant does not mean they should be going in with weapons drawn even if they were made to sit around for 20 minutes while the innocent person decided what do to.

Agree.

> You are making a very thin apologium for appalling behaviour.

Wasn't my intent, but I can see how you would read it that way.

#2 acting aggressively simply because someone didn't comply is an abuse of power. The only justifiable reason to draw their weapons is if the occupants were viewed as a threat. To threaten as retaliation for non compliance is fucking horse shit.

> Server logs with an IP address would hold up in court.

TIL I can frame somebody by breaking their wifi password and doing some crimes. Cool.

Well I meant the IP was enough for getting a warrant. But people have been in some dicey situations due to funky shit on their IP addresses. "I have an unsecured wifi" is a defense that's been used in court.

> Well I meant the IP was enough for getting a warrant.

That makes more sense, but I suppose you can still frame somebody for the warrant only and make their life miserable. (Rebekah's computers were confiscated, as an example.)

It's possible the guns were not point at them but were in a low ready too.

There are home security videos that you can watch in the article.

I'll have to watch that.

Edit: Watched it, but did not see guns being pointed at anyone.

And they don't show any guns being pointed at anybody.

There is a video, I didn't watch it, I was just taking her comment about guns at face value.

There's only 30 seconds, but I couldn't see the guns pointed at anyone unless they were off-frame.

20 seconds in the video she posted here: https://twitter.com/GeoRebekah/status/1336065787900145665

Officer is clearly pointing a firearm upstairs at the family.

It doesn't show people upstairs in that video. Even if they were, they were doing it to clear the corner and then lowering the weapon after identifying them as non-hostile (or no person at all since they aren't on video).

Why did they need to do that? Why would they have any reason to believe anyone in the house was a violent threat?

Come in with the damn guns holstered. It's some scientist's house, where her kids live. Not a fucking prepper compound.

Do you know if they have guns in the house or if they are violent? This is standard procedure if they were noncompliant. No harm was done, so I don't see why this is being discussed. If they had thought there was a chance of violence, they would have been much more forceful.

> No harm was done, so I don't see why this is being discussed

Come on now. If you can't look at events this year and understand why people are frustrated/scared about a situation like this, then that's willful ignorance.

Is it reasonable for LE to come into certain situations preemptively prepared for violence (gun draw in tight quarters)? I think yes. Is this one? Hell no

They're prepared to defend themselves because the individual was non-compliant for 20 minutes so they don't know if the people in the residence were setting up an ambush. I believe it's willful ignorance to ignore the facts of the case. Have you ever educated yourself on police training and tactics?

So coming in with guns drawn and covering their arcs as they move through the building is okay even if they thought there was no chance of violence? The fact that no one got shot this time makes it ok for this to be SOP?

You seem to have made a lot of posts on this thread about how law enforcement should behave and the tactics they employ. What experience with law enforcement or the military do you have? If you don't have direct experience, what are you basing these comments on?

Which one said they thought there was no chance of violence?

I am trained in a law enforcement program and do self study (more than many officers do) on tactics and the law.

> Which one said they thought there was no chance of violence?

You implied it. "If they had thought there was a chance of violence, they would have been much more forceful."

I feel like we're going to continue to disagree here but I do want to thank you for contributing your viewpoint to the discussion.

I should have worded it better as high chance of violence.

Same to you.

> This is standard procedure if they were noncompliant

Laws differ greatly across the US as to this. I am unfamiliar with the laws and procedures of this particular jurisdiction though.

> No harm was done

Though everyone is different, pointing guns at kids is very likely far from harmless, no matter the firearm operator. As we have seen very much in 2020, law enforcement makes mistakes all the time (to be generous).

I know of no laws that would prevent clearing a house they way they did.

If you have a mother acting illogically and emotionally, then I would say that is what would cause the harm. Kids will respond the way they think they are supposed to respond based on the response of others. If the mother remains calm and tells them everything was fine and normal, then there should be no harm.

> If the mother remains calm and tells them everything was fine and normal, then there should be no harm.

Kids vary a lot, but I've not seen a kid that ever behaved in such a way.

You've never seen a little kid get a bump and only start to cry when the parent starts to coddle them? This is very common.

I can remember being a little kid and being afraid of stuff. A parent telling you not to be scared because the situation was normal can work.

This is not my experience, no.

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