To all the “police apologists”
The community apologizes for your poor treatment in the comments section. You aren’t apologists, you’re merely better at critical thinking. If you (readers) make judgements of fact based on one account, without proof, you’re morons.
Sometimes I have to take a step back when reading stories like this. Cory, Jeni and the team aren’t (usually) engaged in classical journalism. They are posting interesting shit. This is interesting shit. But without actually seeing his evidence and/or hearing the SFPD side, it stays interesting shit and not enough for me to feel justified in pulling out my moral outrage hipster cardigan.
No, you got off with a ticket instead of jail or worse due to the cop’s mood and whim that night. Never expect rational and reciprocal behavior from a cop. They act as judge and jury and citizens are at their mercy.
A bystander once nearly accused me of punching an old man who had tripped on broken sidewalk. Luckily he faceplanted into flats of nursery plants. probably avoiding several broken bones.
For what it’s worth, the civil rights suit that he mentions appears to be:
James Edward Holmes v. San Francisco Police Department
I haven’t found out much about it, though. Googling the case brings up mostly stuff about a more notorious James E. Holmes.
Good job buddy, did you just find that phrase on the internet and run back here looking for an opportunity to use it?
I’m not blaming the victim, nothing that happened to him is his fault. But prisons are an institution of control and dehumanization and attempts to assert control are only going to trigger a hasher response from the thugs that run the place. There is no justice in a system where your opponent holds every advantage.
Fair enough–I didn’t see that part of the essay. I suppose my irritation comes from the insinuation that we must act absolutely appropriately so that the cops don’t give us a truncheon to the testicles. That’s not respect for the law, that’s fear of the law, and that’s not what the police are there to foment engender.
Edited because I like the word “foment” but that’s not necessarily the proper usage to my mind.
True enough, good advice and well meant I’m sure, but I wonder if you realize that the basic assumption that it is possible to not appear as a jerk to an irrational person, and one who is acting as such in a group setting is disingenuous?
It also glosses over the fact that the original commentator’s opinion was that “reasoning” is the accepted threshold for appearing as a jerk.
My dearly departed father had some words of wisdom regarding police and how to deal with them. He said to me once, "It doesn’t matter where you’re going, where you’ve just come from or what you’re doing; cops have guns and can kill you regardless of whether you’re in the right or wrong. The only things you should ever have to say to a cop are: “‘Yes Sir’, ‘No Sir’ and ‘On my way home Sir.’”
Best advice ever. I have gotten out of quite a few sticky situations with this advice, many that had all the hallmarks of going south. I’ve also gotten flak from friend who see it as kau tau to authority, which might be a legitimate opinion. All I can say is that it has worked for me.
You’ve never been arrested, have you? I photographed a bunch of misbehaving cops once, back in the pre-Rodney-King 80s, but at least it was in a rural/suburban area, so all of their abuse was nonviolent.
Half empty/half full, indeed!
Strange times, when the world begins to emerge ever more from the ‘shifting realities’ of authors such as Rucker, Gibson, Dick, Sterling!
It is not disingenuous to expect professionalism from professionals.
It is disingenuous to go to the music store for bread, though. I cede the point that once the police or any sadist with authority starts abusing you, your best bet is to not escalate them, and instead to do exactly this -document and expose them- after the fact.
I agree that sometimes the person with power (eg the officer) is unreachable, meaning the victim can’t get out of the bad situation. But usually not. To be constructive, here is
Cop Management 101:
The first priority for any Peace Officer is usually to" attain and maintain control." That is the filter though which a trained officer typically evaluates developments, and the primary narrative they will use to make sense of events. Until the Officer feels in control the officer is likely to escalate, perhaps horribly and quickly. Any action taken on your part that runs against the “attain and maintain control” narrative running through the officer’s head is unlikely to improve matters.
This is not fair or right or just – it puts the officer’s subjective paranoias and emotional control needs first and foremost. But it does inform how a wise citizen conducts themselves when stuck in such a bad situation.
Taking this one step further, the police officer’s first thought when encountering a new person is often: “is this person going to kill me.” So you are dealing with an armed person with serious emotional control needs who could readily trip into an adrenaline rush.
and that’s just a routine traffic stop.
In any contact with LEO, the first step is ALWAYS is to establish that
you are not life threatening, and
the officer is in control of the situation.
Until the Officer feels these two statements to be true, the situation is likely to be difficult.
I do not claim this is just or right or good. I do claim the informed citizen is wise to navigate the situation accordingly. Personally, I am downright obsequious.
Again, I am not justifying the SFPO actions. I am trying to help anyone who finds themselves in such a (bad and unfair) situation
(Why I feel knowledgeable about this is a long post unto itself. This post is already long enough.)
Seriously, how does this happen? We recruit our officers from the far side of Venus, but our budget doesn’t allow us time to teach them how to talk to human beings.
Certainly someone who is a full grown adult should have been in situations where there are other people before.
And if you’re going to have a planned encounter, best to replan. Never, ever, ever, have anything to do with the police if you can possibly avoid it. They aren’t on your side. They can’t be trusted.
