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Comment by jimmar | Hacker News Reader

I followed the shooting at Brown University last year very closely. Brown's leadership was heavily criticized for having camera blind spots and not being able to track the shooter's exact movements through campus. I can understand why people with stewardship over the safety of their students/customers/constituents would make decisions to err on the side of tracking. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand it.

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I'm sorry... people think that the problem with, a school shooting, is camera placement?

Something, something, forest, trees.

"No way to prevent this" says the only country where this regularly happens

Arm the teachers!

When a teacher then shoots their entire class: arm the students!

Given the teacher to student ratio: this kills the teacher.

Whoosh

I got my BS in Computer Science legally carrying a Glock in every class. I think it's very likely I was the only person doing so; Not because I was fearful, but because I like being prepared. It takes very little long-term effort for people to carry pepper spray, a gun (if able), and a first aid kit everywhere they go. You never know who's life you might save.

You are not clint eastwood.

Thanks for that constructive, helpful comment. I have helped several people carrying a first-aid kit.

How many have you shot down before they drew on you?

A majority of states have laws preventing carrying of firearms on university campuses. Were you breaking the law by doing this?

I have a license to carry a handgun, and it was at a public university in a state that allows this.

There's been exercises where you simulate active shooters with some or none of the people armed. As I remember it the situation with some of the targets were armed ended up with higher casualty numbers in quite a few simulations. The solution to a bad guy with a gun might be a good guy with a gun, but it also might be easier paths to run away and lowering the probability of a bad guy getting access to a gun.

Looking at the non-US stats, it's pretty clear the latter is at least a lot more credible.

The ideal counter to one bad guy with a gun is good guys with knives!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Old_Dominion_University_s...

I'm actually not surprised. As a conceal carrier, I think that most people that conceal carry a firearm are woefully under-trained and potentially a liability. I still absolutely encourage people willing to put in the effort to do it, given the potential to save lives. Pretty much every single active shooter situation only ends with the suspect shooting themselves, or being shot - I want every chance to end the threat possible.

We need more good cameras with guns.

Actually, give them small rotors - then they can even move and aim their guns at things!

The criticism around that event, I believe, involved Brown University disablinf cameras trying to protect potential illegal immigrants being targeted by ice. It wasn't the lack of cameras. It was a purposeful disabling of said cameras that already existed.

Whoever made that decision should be held liable.

Correct, whoever made the decision to create ICE, as it became a security risk that lead to deaths. Glad that's what you said, and no other valid interpretation.

Yes, let's have no federal immigration enforcement entity in this country, novel idea.

Well, while I don't know you personally. Most working people are older than ICE.

It's actually a relatively new agency and clearly not effective.

What would an effective immigration enforcement agency look like, in your opinion?

I think we can agree that when they're executing innocent citizens in the street, the agency is no longer effective.

I agree with you. What would an effective immigration enforcement agency look like?

Sorry but there is no chance you get a good faith reply

A little know fact is that Biden deported more illegal immigrants then previous presidents with smaller budget and without killing them. He also deported higher amount if actual criminals in the set. So, you know, whatever before ICE is now was more effective.

Also, the abuses and violence are staggering. And they managed to deport or mistreat actual citizens, because they did not cared. Again, not effective.

Here is the problem - conservative and right wing people use "effective" as euphemism for "we want to see as much cruelty and abuse as possible".

It's a relatively new agency in name (2003), but it's not really all that new. It was formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and U.S. Customs.

Well, that is literally how the country was founded; it would just be going back to its roots!

There are literally only 2 options.

1. Have an enforcement agency going around killing people, and locking people up who have valid reason to exist in country waiting for status updates.

2. Complete anarchy and chaos, monkeys flying planes, elephants driving taxis, dogs marrying cats.

Actually you know what, I reckon give the elephants a go.

> it became a security risk that lead to deaths

While there were deaths, I didn't see any that were the result of a "security risk". I did see a whole lot of stupid people doing stupid things, and none of them were ICE agents, so I'm surprised there weren't more deaths.

> I did see a whole lot of stupid people doing stupid things, and none of them were ICE agents, so I'm surprised there weren't more deaths.

Random masked goons in unmarked cars trying to arrest people is pretty damn stupid, yes. Same goons putting themselves in front of cars, and shooting through side windows of cars driving away, or shooting at random people on the street, is pretty damn stupid.

I'm going to provide a bit of nuance here, but would like to clarify I am not a fan of ICE's tactics in the slightest. Yes, the ICE agent was stupid for standing in front of the car, just as Renee Good was stupid for hitting the gas while he was standing in front of her car. At that moment, he became 100% legally justified to shoot. The limits of human cognitive performance significantly limit how fast your brain can send the signal to your hand to stop shooting, and the stop-signal happened when he was standing by her side window. In a split-second, he was shooting to defend himself against a reasonably perceived threat of being run over. Yes, it could have been completely avoided by both individuals, but "shooting through side windows of cars driving away" is misleading. The Alex Pretti incident, completely, totally unjustified. Just wanted to provide a bit of nuance from the perspective of someone who studies self-defense encounters.

That's a lot of words to cover for being intentionally obtuse.

The ICE agent was 100% in the wrong, completely, totally unjustified in murdering Renee Good.

Nothing you wrote changes that.

I'm not arguing the necessity of him having to shoot, but there is absolutely enough reasonable fear for it to be legally justified.

Yes and so the real issue is that they outsourced to the wrong compan, gave up control of their camera feeds, and violated the privacy of their campusgoers. Had they just had their own CCTV system then this would have not happened.

Camera blind spots are solved with more cameras and correct positioning, not automated AI surveillance.

Crazy how it's always a data problem in the end.

This is a very common pattern; my university pushed through a ZeroEyes AI camera/open carry weapon detection contract within 2 weeks of a shooting at a nearby school, even though it’s trivial to bypass by hiding it; it’s most probably just (gruesome as it is to think about) a bad press insurance so if anything happened, they can say they had “state of the art AI detection” and they did all they could. No one wants to be the one caught not doing “all they could” against the media cacophony in the immediate aftermath.

and then some kid gets tackled by a team of armed police when AI flags a bag of doritos as a gun. https://abc7.com/post/student-handcuffed-doritos-bag-mistake...

Yep, here they admitted there were local revolutionary war re-enactors who were falsely flagged (although thankfully they didn't let it get past the first flag).

With most of these things, people are against state power until they are victimized. It’s a common pattern.

People hate cops until they need one

Police work for the State. The State orders them to work for the Public when it interests the State. Intervening in violent crime and property crime can be seen, cynically, as a PR move.

To be beholden to the State for justice and protection is fine when the State is beholden to the Public for their consent. Today, in the West, the Public has been so thoroughly disarmed, and /disrobed/, that consent is a formality, consent can no longer be withheld.

Look no further than Flock and FISA for the ongoing crisis of consent.

When cops are released from the State apparatus, they'll be given the respect and admiration they deserve. Until then, it's difficult to separate them from their incentive structure.

Most people hate cops after they need one too.

> People hate cops until they need one

that doesn't seem to be the case always, given the data on crime reporting:

"Patterns in police reporting for property crime during 2020–2023 were similar to those for violent crime. A quarter (25%) of all property victimizations in urban areas were reported to police, which was lower than the percentages in suburban (33%) and rural (36%) areas (figure 2). Similar to overall property victimization, a lower percentage of other theft victimizations were reported to police in urban areas (20%) compared to suburban (28%) and rural (31%) areas."

https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/reporting-police-ty...

"For violent crimes, in 1997, 7% of victims stated that “Police wouldn’t help” as the reason they did not call the police. This more than doubled to 16% by 2021. For property crimes, the corresponding rates were 12% in 1997 and 18% in 2021"

https://datacollaborativeforjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

Ah yes, a pro-cop 'hacker' in the wild

With most of these things, people are for state power until they are victimized by it. It's a common pattern.

I've had property stolen. Cameras generally won't help, and didn't help. Limiting ingredient is often not knowing who did it in any case-- in most places most common crime is committed by a tiny number of regular characters. Go look at the mountains of threads online where someone had a tracker enabled object stolen and knew exactly who had it only to have law enforcement do nothing.

I recently did a dive into ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder i.e. sociopaths) and unsurprisingly most what's stopping them from outright killing people is the likelihood that they'd be caught. So one thing is clear is that as long as we have sociopaths and the like who treat crime purely as value/risk proposition some sort of powerful detective tooling will always be necessary.

Unfortunately automated surveillance is considered the best detective tool we have but in reality it doesn't seem to be the case with public self surveillance and good ol' park a policeman box in every neighborhood seems to outperform automated surveillance. So there's much more to this than "surveillance is bad or good" discussions we have right now.

Correct. The Leviathan. A reasonable person should be able to argue for and against both sides.

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