San Francisco police beat up and detain Good Samaritans who call 911 and perform first aid on accident victim

By all means, blame the person illegally detained and not the cops.

There is one of these folks in every cop thread.

12 Likes

Did we get the whole story here? It seems absurd and somewhat depressing if the reporting here is in any way accurate. I think I’m going to stop reading these ‘cops are inveterate unaccountable arseholes’ stories. It makes me sad.

1 Like

“Maybe it’s the luck of the draw when you call 911, maybe it’s where you live, maybe it’s the color of your skin or the way you are dressed.”

Or maybe there is more to this story since we’ve only heard one side. I’m not big fan of law enforcement and my personal experiences have been that they tend to be the ex-jocks from high school who realized there isn’t much of a call for their bully skillset in the adult world, hence being police officers, security guards or club bouncers… But I’ve also learned that even those people rarely go all aggro without some sort of provocation. And when the story comes from someone who appears to be prone to hyperbole and a bit of a smartass… well…

4 Likes

You raise a good points, but I think you have conflated your points in an unhelpful manner. Here is how I would frame this story.

  1. Cops can and do break the law and do bad things. This story is appears to be an excellent example
  2. When someone is hurt, call 911 or otherwise help. Being a Good Samaritan is the Right Thing To Do ™, even if it complicates your own life
  3. Should 1 happen, for whatever reason, try avoid being perceived as a jerk by the those wielding power, however unfair, unjust, unwarranted or just plain illegal your treatment.

That last point is “a suggestion to get out of a bad situation”, not “blame the victim.”

It doesn’t matter if our Protagonist is a jerk, an angel, a jerky angel, or an angelic jerk. He has basic rights, and it does appear SFPD transgressed them. Horribly. However, as a matter of personal convenience, being perceived as a jerk by those with a local monopoly on violent force is a generally a Bad Idea ™. Pointing out that our Protagonist might have been able to defuse his situation by acting differently is potentially helpful to others who may be finding themselves in similarly bad situations.

Peretz seems to be living out my wife’s dictum,

“If you can’t be a good example, you can be a horrible warning”

4 Likes

“On arrival at the scene, found two injured persons. When I instructed the male subject to step away from them, subject identified himself as a ‘good Samaritan’. I responded that I would be the judge of whether he was good or not, and required him to show a visa or other authorization to be in the country. At this point, subject claimed to be an American citizen, a statement clearly inconsistent with his previous self-identification as a Samaritan. I therefore arrested the subject for giving false information to a law enforcement officer. During the arrest, subject resisted by repeatedly placing his hands under my boots in an attempt to cause me to lose my balance, and struck my knee with his head. Subsequently, subject attempted to obtain personal information about arresting officers, probably with a view to intimidating or attacking them.

While completing arrest report, was unable to find any evidence to show that Samarita has any diplomatic representation in United States. Recommend referral to DHS/ICE to investigate possibility that subject is in country illegally, possibly with intent to commit an act of terrorism.”

33 Likes

Well, it’s a relief to know that being labeled as “crazy” still means “acting in a way that I don’t like”.

2 Likes

Most cops are hammers and therefore everything looks like a nail to them.

Personal experience - I was anemic and fainted outside a restaurant / bar in Duluth MN. First on the scene was a cop who immediately saw “drunk and disorderly” rather than “medically distressed person who just passed out and hit his head on the sidewalk”. Only a lot of intervention from friends (middle class and white) and the arrival of the paramedics prevented him from taking me to jail rather than hospital - even though I hadn’t had a drink that night.

Cops see what they want, and unfortunately many of them now interpret any explanation or resistance as questioning their authority - which needs to be stopped and punished immediately. Experience shows that whatever they do - up to and including killing innocent people - will be excused and defended and will result in no action or investigation.

This has always been the case, but things appear to have much worse in the past 10 years or so - perhaps because of the increase in PTSD-afflicted veterans in the police or perhaps because of the justified feeling of immunity from any consequences most cops enjoy.

12 Likes

posted by the screenname Danegeld

Oh, the Irony. The lovely, Anglo-Saxon irony.

5 Likes

Would you care to point to the hyperbole in question? Or the smartassedness? I read the same story as you ostensibly did, and I didn’t catch it.
There’s no reason an officer can’t respond politely to a question from a passerby, or to take thirty seconds to point out why civilian A shouldn’t be in the spot they’re currently standing. Maybe if THEY took that touch of time, this whole nonsense of filling a cell with yet another body and clogging the already clogged justice system with another pointless load of paperwork wouldn’t happen. If the cops are there, they have the time and it’s what they’re paid to do.
Also, notice the treatment received by the photographer. Taking an image of that scene is entirely legal and within that person’s rights–if they’re acting appropriately (as in, not shouting "Hey, the cops are kicking my friend’s face in!! HELP HELP!!) then there’s no reason for the popo to act in that manner. Then THEY are the ones escalating the situation unnecessarily.

8 Likes

I love you too man :slight_smile: You have a good one.

2 Likes

And for G-d’s sake, cover yourself up! I wouldn’t let my daughter out of the house in that scrap of fabric you call a skirt!

3 Likes

Well, to be fair Peretz seems to view himself as a bit of a smart ass… the title he uses (at the bottom of his essay) is “theoretical experimentalist and a cheeky bugger.”

1 Like

The problem is that even if this sort of thing was rare, or the “luck of the draw”, it should not happen and when it does it should be dealt with severely.

It’s not dealt with, at all, yet we continue to increase the amount of power people have. So we’re giving incredible amounts of authority and leeway while placing no real oversight on that authority. Both of those things can’t be true.

5 Likes

All the people here saying “Oh, there is more to the story” or “Oh, the author is obnoxious,” I’ve got news for you: It is a police officer’s job to calmly and professionally deal with the public, usually in moments of stress. It is on THEM to keep their shit together and act like a professional, not Joe Citizen. If you’re a cop and you can’t do this, you should go join the army or something if carrying a gun and throwing your authoritay around is that important to you.

28 Likes

Maybe he lacked you experience with dealing with law enforcement officers?

4 Likes

I am glad to see this covered here. Thank you Boingers.

1 Like

If this is accurate, it’s horrifying. Now, take this with a grain of salt, as I want to believe its accurate…
…and yet at this point in space-time, I find it hard to tell if the story is true as told, or if the situation was an intentionally executed ‘false-flag’ operation in order to give credence to privatizing 911 for the benefit of companies like Lyft, et cetera.
After all, many BB followers & cyberpunk readers will acknowledge that the 21st century has had enough Verhovenesque/Dickian moments to at least half seriously consider the possibility…

1 Like

I was driving through a quiet suburban side street a few years ago during lunch hour when I spotted a young boy of maybe 10 years or so, fallen at the roadside astride a bicycle. I stopped the car, put the hazards on and ran back to see if he was OK. A neighbour a few doors down saw me and called 911, then came running. The kid was out cold, cause unknown.

Unfortunately, she didn’t see the kid fall, so she assumed it was a car accident and that’s what she told the 911 dispatcher. When the ambulance and police arrived, they told me not to leave the scene. I started getting nervous.

Luckily for me, one of the neighbours happened to be walking by, one who had been a babysitter for the family. She quickly stepped forward and told the medical professionals that she knew the child, and that he had diabetes. A runner was dispatched to get some fruit juice, and the kid started to come around.

Had that lady not stepped forward, I would have been in a pickle. The kid might not have recovered as quickly, and without his story to back me up, my denial of an accident would likely have fallen on deaf ears. For sure I would have lost more than a lunch hour before extricating myself from legal attention.

But still, if I saw another person at roadside who needed help, I’d stop. It’s the right thing to do.

9 Likes

Victim blaming, ten yards, repeat first down

9 Likes