Comment by chroma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chroma | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

If there's one thing people like to do in political arguments, it's caricature the opposition. While fun, it's not very productive. In this case, I find it much more useful to actually understand why police behave the way they do.

Cops don't want to shoot innocent people. They want to do their job and get home safely. But last year, 62 cops were murdered while on duty.[1] Even more were shot and survived. For cops, every traffic stop is a second away from becoming deadly. They don't know if the person they pulled over is armed or crazy. Looking away for a moment can get them killed. Don't believe me? Watch this cop's body cam.[2] Now imagine seeing similar videos every few days, because that's how often it happens. You don't think you'd be on-edge?

While police work isn't particularly dangerous compared to fishing or logging, people can't internalize that fact. And in fairness to intuitions, much of the risk is compressed into short moments such as traffic stops.

Are some cops sociopaths? Yes. Should every cop have a body cam? Yes. Do I think most police departments have problems with excessive force, discrimination, and hostility? Definitely. But it makes no sense to demonize people who, at the end of the day, just want to see their family.

One more thing: I'm very glad the Sandra Bland video was released, as it is a perfect example of a cop behaving horribly. Hopefully, more bad cops will get the message: if you act this way, you will be discovered.

1. http://www.nleomf.org/assets/pdfs/reports/Preliminary-2014-O...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8-hgt8Z_qI&t=27 (warning: loud & graphic)

Edit: Apparently, this topic is poison to rational discourse. Please remember the principle of charity and avoid nitpicking or misconstruing.

> Cops don't want to shoot innocent people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-i-raided-ins...

> When I later visited the Fairfax County police station to gather details about what went wrong, I met the shift commander, Lt. Erik Rhoads. I asked why his officers hadn’t contacted management before they raided the apartment. Why did they classify the incident as a forced entry, when the information they had suggested something innocuous? Why not evaluate the situation before escalating it?

> Rhoads defended the procedure, calling the officers’ actions “on point.” It’s not standard to conduct investigations beforehand because that delays the apprehension of suspects, he told me.

Yeah, given how they reacted in this article and the fact they defended not even bothering to contact the apartment complex...yeah.

Sorry, I'm not really able to believe that. Its pretty clear this procedure exists to pad some kind of statistic rather than any rational cause. It can't be justified outside of that.

"Does the property owner know about this?" is literally the first question worth asking if you cared about not shooting innocent people.

I think part of the Sandra Bland story is the apparent escalation of the encounter BY the officer. Asking sarcastic, passive aggressive questions when you have the trust of the community and a gun at your waist is abusive. Its outrageous to many of us who watch the video and just juvenile bullying really.

Regarding your comments on the danger of policing, its somewhat fallacious--police work is generally safer than it's ever been and not any more dangerous than simply walking the streets in most U.S. cities. Im having a hard time pasting the link on mobile but Radley Balko has a number of articles on the subject in the Washington Post and Reason.

I completely agree. The behavior of that officer was egregious. Engaging in dominance games is stupid and petty; doubly-so when you have weapons, training, and legal authority.

I thought I addressed the stats about danger, though not deeply:

> While police work isn't particularly dangerous compared to fishing or logging, people can't internalize that fact. And in fairness to intuitions, much of the risk is compressed into short moments such as traffic stops.

I know police work isn't particularly dangerous, but I also think that during a traffic stop, it would take superhuman willpower to not be more prone to violence than the situation merits. That's just how people are wired. There might be some training or technology that could ameliorate this, but I don't think it exists yet.

It should be noted that those stats are averaged over all aspects of police work. Some particular aspects are more dangerous, and some are less dangerous. Traffic stops are more dangerous, accounting for something like more than half of on duty officer deaths and serious injuries.

Also, several people here seem to be reasoning that policing is safe, so there is no need for police to take strong control in these situations. Isn't it possible that taking strong control in these encounters is why they are reasonably safe?

>Hopefully, more bad cops will get the message: if you act this way, you will be discovered.

and then what? get put on paid leave while you're being investigated, and then cleared in a year or two, after all the public anger died down? At worse the cop loses his job and gets a fraction of the sentence that a civilian would get under the same circumstances.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com