Why is it then that other police forces around the globe don’t have that attitude? Why is the police in the self-proclaimed “Land of the Free” behaving more fascist/abusive and with less oversight than in authoritarian countries like Russia?
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Your right to bear arms maybe?
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Even once they were in the safety of the precinct house, the police continued to fail at their job by making a categorically false statement to her husband:
When Huq's husband figured out -- eventually -- what had happened and went to the precinct house, the officers on duty questioned him as to why he had a different surname to his wife. One then told Huq that "In America wives take the names of their husbands."
That’s the level of awareness we’re dealing with, even in a large worldly metropolis. She’s lucky they didn’t shoot her. Sadly, that’s not a facetious statement.
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Yeah. See what you got for it. More government oppression than less - looking at the recent police violence/murders (see Ferguson et al) and the ‘On-Edge, Armed and Perfectly Willing to Kill You’-attitude.
Have a look at Finland or Switzerland that have high gun ownership. Not the same authoritarian attitude and not even half as much police violence and/or police homicides.
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handguns. the proliferation of concealable, deadly weapons.
also:
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Why is it headline material that she is a “human rights lawyer”? I mean, this fact is irrelevant to why she was arrested, although from reading Cory’s headline you might get a different impression. And it’s not like she deserves more sympathy for being a human rights lawyer, or that the incident would be less bad if she wasn’t a human rights lawyer, so I’m not sure why this is so important.
The original, DNAinfo headline (“Mom Arrested for Blocking Sidewalk While Waiting for Family to Use Bathroom”) seems significantly better.
Police in Russia are less fascist/abusive? Maybe when there’s an opportunity to shake those people down for bribes, but not when following orders to do things like intimidate activists, protestors, migrant workers, etc., etc.
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They also, to my knowledge, don’t have a continuing history of practicing forms of slavery on a large proportion of their populace.
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It’s ironic. ‘Human Rights’.
It’s representative of the fact that no matter what strata of society you come from, the police will fuck with you.
It’s interesting.
FFS.
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So like in the USA then (remember the response to occupy?)? They beat you up but at least they don’t kill you as easily as in the US.
Don’t you think it’s quite telling that US law enforcement is more similar (not alike) to police forces of un-democratic regimes than to those of it’s peers like the countries of western europe?
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I didn’t see that one, so I was surprised. Having lived in New York for a few years, I learned to realize the cops there have to deal with all sorts of people. You’d be surprised. I think the assumption that most people are smart, enlightened, and peace seeking is something you fellow BB readers do because you reflect your own awesome personality onto others. However that is unfortunately very far from the reality in New York. You meet all sorts, and many times they are not very pleasant, and will use every trick in the book to fool police.
It was not long ago that New York was not as safe as it is today. It has changed for a reason, and that reason is the police. Some cities require different rules of engagement and levels of tolerance to civil unrest, or things can go haywire pretty fast.
With regards to skin color, it is most unfortunate. It’s difficult for me personally to comprehend, as I grew up in a highly mixed environment and color was never even a “thing”. I find it sad that this is the reality, and this reality has to change and is really up to us to change.
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I challenge your trollish designation of my comment. I lived in New York long enough to understand how things work in the city. Read my other comment.
If your goal is to avoid trouble, you will avoid trouble. If your goal is to make a point, you will make a point, but at what cost? Was it worth it? I think in this case for the lady in question it was, because she lived to tell about it, and ended up returning to her husband and children that same evening.
For me? I’m not sure it would be worth it. I’m a parent myself, and the thought of maybe not being there for my wife that same night to help with our baby would definitely “help” me stay out of trouble. Especially in New York. And especially in the US, where every arrest goes on record and can be (and probably is) used to color you badly should you continue causing trouble in the future. You then become a “known” troublemaker.
So excuse me for adapting to this environment, and taking the easier road. I’m not saying it should not change, but we don’t need martyrs, thank you.
Of course, police work isn’t actually that dangerous- it’s not on the list of the 10 most dangerous jobs in the US, and is safer than being a farmer, taxi driver or refuse collector. And while police are the most likely to die by work-related violence, they’re only marginally more likely to do so than taxi drivers.
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Challenge not needed, I wasn’t designating your comment as trollish but calling you out as a trolley. 
I realise it’s ad hominem so we can discuss my opinion of you in a new thread or privately if you like, here would not be the place.
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Came here to say the same thing! This reflex that the police and politicians constantly spout about “cops putting their lives on the line every day” needs to be cut off at the knees each and every time it’s uttered. There are plenty of jobs where the worker puts his/her life on the line every day and die at a much higher rate than the police do.
Just google “Ten most dangerous jobs”.
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Of course… wait, what? 
I can’t quite unpack your comment; the work isn’t that dangerous but it’s still right up there on work-related violence?
My point is that they are always reacting as if it is a life or death situation and sometimes they are right. They don’t want to take the chance to not be prepared when it happens. Can you blame them for being in that mode when dealing with everyone?
Not to excuse profiling or corruption or lying or falsifying evidence or incompetence or criminality when they commit those acts but it’s not difficult to see why they treat every encounter as potentially life threatening.
If they didn’t buy any food at the restaurant, they should all be thrown in jail.
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so the implication i’m getting from your statement here is that we should give up expecting to be treated like human beings with constitutionally guaranteed rights and immediately assume the stance that we are to be nothing but obediant lackeys of the police. that reminds me of something the character wally from the “dilbert” comic strip said once-- “they can’t break you if you don’t have a spine.”
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They didn’t know she was a human rights lawyer when they arrested her (though they did know she was brown and looked like she could be a Muslim), so it really doesn’t represent that “no matter what strata of society you come from, the police will fuck with you.” Maybe if it was “NYPD arrest white investment banker in $4,000 suit for talking on cell phone outside Goldman Sachs Tower,” you might have a point.
Sure. But that’s not what you said. You said the police in the US are more fascist than those in Russia.
New York, like all cities, used to be more dangerous. But it’s unlikely that safety has improved because of police, as even cities that haven’t used the widely-discredited “broken windows” policing model have also seen substantial drops in crime. I mean, Freakonomics has famously suggested that the right to abortion was the actual cause of the drop in crime rates, but more convincing evidence suggests that the elimination of lead has instead been responsible. Even if you reject these theories, it’s increasingly unlikely that zero tolerance law enforcement has done anything more than incarcerate and criminalize people unnecessarily.
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Intelligence, passivity, alertness, confidence, bearing, comportment and any other kind of body language or other kind of contextual cue you may think of are all indicators to anyone with eyes (street cops all have working eyes) of your ‘class’ in society. (but I limit my argument to visually observable cues; I needn’t)
I’m not sure how the specific information of her having a particular job being relayed to the police after she was arrested can be used as a point of contention unless you contrive to ignore all other then-available evidence at the scene.
Also, being educated to the degree to which she is a human rights lawyer would have some bearing on her ability to know her rights and how they might be of importance in a situation like that. Even a fucking human rights lawyer can’t deal with cops who decide to act like pigs.
I could go on…
way to set up an unreasonable condition.
Should they be cackling madly whilst swimming in a giant pile of gold coins and cash too?
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Yeah, that’s what I said. Look at the prison population per capita and you got your answer.
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