Why do so?
That was very sad and jarring.
2 Likes
relevance. original sources trump secondary sources
it was.
12 Likes
Still not a lot of details and this is just the official police side of things from http://sfbay.ca/2015/12/31/police-confirm-ian-murdock-arrest-before-suicide/ but:
[quote]San Francisco police spokeswoman Officer Grace Gatpandan confirmed Thursday that Murdock was arrested early Sunday morning after he was found yelling and screaming outside a residence in the 2400 block of Green Street.
Police were first called to the Green Street address in the Pacific Heights neighborhood at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday on a report someone was trying to break into a residence there, Gatpandan said.
They found Murdock nearby at Steiner and Union streets and detained him because he matched the description of the person trying to break in. He was belligerent with the officers and appeared to be drunk, she said. When he was put in the back of a patrol car as police investigated, he became violent, banging his head on the metal cage separating the back from the front seat, causing an abrasion on his forehead, Gatpandan said.They pulled him from the car to keep him from harming himself and he continued fighting with the officers, she said. Eventually medics were called to treat him and they took him to a hospital. But a few hours later, at 2:40 a.m., police responded to the same address on reports that Murdock had returned, banging on the door and yelling. When they detained him, he allegedly fought with the officers again, Gatpandan said.
Since it was clear he would likely continue coming back, the officers decided to take him to jail on suspicion of four misdemeanor counts, including resisting arrest and assaulting emergency personnel. Before he could go, he was examined by medics and cleared, Gatpandan said. He didnāt indicate at any point in the jail booking process that he was suicidal and was medically examined again in jail, she said.[/quote]
I do wonder whose home he was at that triggered all of this.
2 Likes
ex-wife? lover? thatād be my educated guess since itās always trueā¦
6 Likes
@C. Doctorow, your first paragraph is incorrect. Just because Ian Murdock named half of Debian after his wife doesnāt make her āhalf of the founding team of Debianā. Ian was the sole founder. Also, it should be past tense now that heās deceased.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/comp.os.linux.development/Md3Modzg5TU/xty88y5OLaMJ
https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-intro.en.html
Sorry if my attention to detail is annoying.
Iām really wondering why they took him to jail instead of CMH for a 5150 hold. Most California police agencies have a protocol in place for that, and this exactly why those protocols exist.
1 Like
I assume the reports may become public at some point given the public outcry. I wouldnāt put it past the officers being aggressive assholes and it being ābecause they felt like it.ā We all know cops rarely get disciplined for such things too.
Iām pretty unconvinced he was beaten up by the cops rather than getting into a fight with them but, hey, we donāt really know. They could have actually kicked the crap out of him for no good reason. It isnāt like it doesnāt happen.
2 Likes
Maybe for the same reason why two cops I was standing behind were complaining that they āhavenāt had any Stick Timeā lately?
I felt a great disturbance in The Farce, as if millions of Freuds were silent and suddenly started rolling in their graves.
3 Likes
Clearly, itās the attention to detail. Sorry if my sarcasm is annoying.
1 Like
Is that sarcasm?
1 Like
I was watching his stuff pretty closely, including his blog. He never posted anything other than whatās present in the archives that many people screen-shotted. There was no evidence of his injuries at all. Thatās why a lot of us thought this was fake and someone had hacked his account. We thought he was on vacation somewhere out of town, probably with family, and wasnāt aware that someone was doing this.
So, tldr, no pictures. Nothing. No later blogpost as he said heād type up.
5 Likes
Hereās an alternative reading, consistent with my own opinion of police - I do not claim this is true, but many extremely dubious assumptions are being made so Iām going to reverse them.
Mr. Murdock was doing nothing wrong, but police were called due to some other person causing a drunken ruckus. Unable to find the actual perp, the police grabbed the nearest person fitting the description and started harassing him. Having been told for the entire 21st century that white male wealthy people have nothing to fear from police, it came as a shock to Mr. Murdock when he was beaten and arrested for using words the police were unable to understand but suspected might be derogatory. In order to justify their abuse, police claimed he had fought them.
Mr. Murdock returned home, after being given painkillers at the hospital. Shortly thereafter, the police were again called, due to their failure to apprehend the drunk originally actually at fault, who was still out causing trouble. Assuming that Mr. Murdock was trying to āget backā at the people whoād ācalled the police on himā, and finding no one at the scene of the crime, they went to his house and āquestionedā him extensively, slapping him around some more and making sadistic sexual threats. Mr. Murdock, having been beaten twice in one night, at least once badly enough to require stitches, was disoriented and disillusioned. He had a few shots of whiskey and posted poorly spelled, drug and concussion-addled tweets.
And then he died of his injuries and an adverse reaction to the painkillers. The police who came to the scene were from the same precinct that had caused his death, so naturally they ruled it a suicide.
OK, the last bit is a stretch, but in every other narrative I see there is an assumption that the police act reasonably. They just donāt; they enjoy hurting people, and when they hurt somebody they think they shouldnāt have, they cover it up. Itās what they do.
Itās pathetic how hard people are trying to force Ianās racially tinged tweets into their own narratives. What little I see here (thanks Cory and Enso and noahdjango) sounds like a man trying to tell people that cops are the enemies of everyone - that there is no magical āprivilegeā shield that protects white males from the police, and we need to stop splitting ourselves along racial and gender fault lines. We need to disarm and disband the police, and telling people that they donāt have anything to worry about because they are white or male or rich is idiotic. Iām not saying this is true or false, Iām saying thatās how I read what he wrote. Iām not saying my interpretation is correct (I use the manās software, but I did not know him) but I saw no racism in it.
We donāt know what happened, but until proven otherwise, Iām assuming he was victimized and brutalized by the police for no good reason, and they are running a cover-up. Itās what they do.
4 Likes
Nah, not for a white guy with money. Does not pass basic sniff test. If he was a brown or black guy, maybe.
2 Likes
Hey, I donāt trust cops much either. I live in Oakland. White people are afraid to call the cops here at times because random shit happens.
All that being true, Occamās Razor (to me) says he got drunk, maybe banged on either the wrong door or someoneās door, and got into a drunken tussle with the cops. Thatās pretty simple and if that happens, you either get banged up because youāre drunk and fighting or because youāre dumb enough to fight cops. Either way, hours laterā¦he does it again. Thatās that part that gets me and makes me think he was either drunk, high, or off his meds.
In any case, it is a big stretch to think San Francisco PD offed a fairly well known tech geek who made more than a million a year in Silicon Valleyās back yard. Until I see otherwise, Iām going to think this is a typical tawdry matter and he was being unstable for some personal reasons, which is also why he killed himself.
Weāll see if we ever find out more though.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
