Hacker News Reader

Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

This sounds like a case of "the citizen review board was created by fed-up voters at the municipal level, and then the state stepped into neuter it". Because DeSantis etc. are about local control except when the locals make a decision they don't like.

View on HN

I find it interesting how it probably evolved from "people on the citizen review board don't know what it means to police" to a moderate position of "why not add a retired policeman, so he can at least explain it to them?" to "fuck it, let's dismantle the whole thing"

> people on the citizen review board don't know what it means to police

If regular people are hearing what an officer is doing and need to be explained by a former cop, "yeah, <horrific behavior> is just part of the job" then what is even the point of having a citizen review? Isn't that the very class of behavior the board exists to stop?

I don't know, I don't want want to be too political here. But there were people saying out loud that it would be better to have no police at all a few years back. Not sure how common this position is nowadays. But that shows that it is easily possible for people to come to unrealistic conclusions if they don't have a real dialog.

In Louisiana, the literal parish (county) level government used to be called "police jury" (and still is in some more rural parishes)

The article I read pointed out that ther used to be a report on the FDLE website, done by a LEO, that came to the conclusion that the Citizen Review boards had generally good feedback by the LEOs they were reviewing and from the communities. Of course, that report has apparently been scrubbed from the FDLE site now.

See also: the Texas "water breaks ban", which actually superceded all county and municipal employee protections in a wide array of classes that exceeded the state minimums.

There was no water break ban as such. And no one in Texas will forbid employees from drinking water in the scorching heat unless it is to make a political point.

Yes, I explained what the law actually was in my comment. The nickname was earned by removing municipal protections for hydration breaks along with every other protection not specified at the state level.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com