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Comment by moheeb | Hacker News Reader

No...more like "leave when the cops show up". What is some drunk yahoo gonna do to help after the call has been made?

I'm sure the cops have all kinds of anecdotes about how helpful the drunks loitering around a scene at 1AM are!

I don't believe the police have any right to give a lawful order to compel a citizen from leaving a public area unless there is a public disturbance or danger. The samaritan, according to her own story, was not creating a problem. 3 drinks in 3 hours makes few people intoxicated. The people have a right, nay, an obligation, to resist unlawful orders. If her story is true and accurate, that law enforcement officer and the jailors with poor behaviors need to be fired, arrested, and prosecuted. I don't care what bad examples "cop logic" can use to justify their immoral and prejudicial thoughts. This story is a travesty and LE's actions reprehensible.

There's a difference between what the cops have a right to do and what they will, in practice, do to you if you don't give them the respect they have come to expect. E.g. this story.

Nobody, least of all the black community, are saying it's right, they're just saying it's naive to think the world works any other way.

I'm conflicted. I agree avoiding law enforcement is a good idea, and I'm pretty straight and narrow. Too many stories like this and shooting dogs. But I feel like a coward absenting myself from the tyranny. Like someone else said, we the people are starting to get more and more fed up.

If you're in that situation you have a choice.

Comply with what you're told and complain later or take a stand and face the consequences. They have tasers and guns and handcuffs and colleagues who will arrive on scene later and assume that you're guilty. Death is a real possibility.

http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/20/kelly-thomas/

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