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Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim. People forget that cops also save lives.
by datpuz 1y ago
Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim. People forget that cops also save lives.
- dmkolobov 1y agoConsider yourself lucky that you've never called the cops as a victim and then been further victimized by the police.
- datpuz 1y ago[flagged]
- dmkolobov 1y agoYeah no. This happens in my city and to my friends. You're making a lot of assumptions about people's experiences here.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thot_experiment 1y agolmao, I haven't had a single good interaction with cops and I'm not a minority and I most of the interactions I've had were not as a result of me doing crimes, and the ones that were "crimes" were for things like "being in a park shortly after sundown". I have never once had a reason to view them as anything other than shitty powertripping bullies.
- pfannkuchen 1y ago[flagged]
- 9283409232 1y agoI've called cops as a victim. They were less than helpful to say the least. If anything, they were annoyed that I even bothered to ask for help.
- scottyah 1y agoSince we're throwing in personal experiences to shape skimmer's overall emotions on police- I had a great interaction with police after someone called a wellness check on elderly neighbors. They tried hard to assure they were safe without being invasive or annoying.
- 9283409232 1y agoYou are missing the point if you think it is about shaping someones' emotions towards police. The point is that there are plenty of valid reasons to just want to avoid interactions with or areas with police.
- bryanrasmussen 1y agoI have had positive experiences with American police, but not as many as the negative experiences, and the negative where great enough to sour me on authority. In fact whenever I had a positive experience it was just so weird to have a cop not ruining your day because they had the power to do so, that it seemed surreal.
- mindslight 1y agoI've dealt with the cops a handful of times, with responses anywhere from unhelpful to helpful. It helps to have the right expectations - can a given situation be improved by adding some readily-aggressive dudes, who at the very least will be a little annoyed at having to be there? Sometimes, that answer is yes. Police perform a necessary function in society, and I wouldn't want to have to do that role myself (despite DIYing most other things). But that does not justify supporting unaccountability as if its some kind of team sport! In fact, if you respect the role of the police then you must support accountability - a cop breaking the law is just a criminal acting under the color of state authority.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoI've been nearly killed with significant injuries caused by a repeat offender while in full compliance with the law myself and the police conspired to hide body camera evidence of a witness interview and took the side of the person who broke the law.
- acdha 1y agoNobody forgets that, it’s just that abuse and misconduct sour that. In many communities, people have to weigh the odds that reporting a crime will lead to more problems for them than it will help, with consequences ranging from lack of help to theft to rape or even being shot by mistake. American police departments have largely set themselves above the law, so the average person doesn’t know whether they’re getting a good cop who is genuinely trying to help them or the bad cop whose behavior has been covered up by their fellow officers for years. Anyone concerned about public opinion of police should be focused on accountability and oversight to rebuild public trust.
- AlexandrB 1y agoLet's be real. For all their flaws, US cops are some of the least corrupt in the world. There are places where you better be ready to fork over cash every time you encounter the police.
- afavour 1y ago> US cops are some of the least corrupt in the world I don't think that's a good metric to judge them by (I also don't think it's true if you compare to first world countries). Sure, third world countries have police forces that are more corrupt. But US cops are corrupt in a wide variety of ways and we should be very clear about how unacceptable that is. It doesn't matter if someone somewhere else in the world is worse.
- AlexandrB 1y agoI can't speak for other first world countries, but Canada has its share of police misconduct. The most recent example is the mishandling of the 22-person killing spree in Nova Scotia[1], and the Toronto police are so famously bad at investigating sex crimes and protecting victims that an entire book was written on the subject[2]. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/canada-police-mistakes-novia-scotia-shooting-inquiry/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/canada-police-mistakes-novia... [2] https://www.amazon.ca/Story-Jane-Doe-Book-About/dp/0679312757 https://www.amazon.ca/Story-Jane-Doe-Book-About/dp/067931275...
- ubermonkey 1y agoSometimes, maybe, and increasingly rarely. I live in Texas. Ask me about Uvalde.
- cmurf 1y ago[flagged]
- dang 1y agoCould you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? This is not a valid use of HN, and you're well on the wrong side of the line. I had to go back a good two months before seeing anything else in your posts. (This is not a comment on your politics. The moderation call here would be the same if you had the opposite politics, or any others.) Edit: This has been a problem for a long time. I don't believe it's your intention to abuse HN, so I don't want to ban you, but if you don't fix this, we'll end up doing so. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43121542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43121542 (Feb 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22436733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22436733 (Feb 2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19972399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19972399 (May 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19715736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19715736 (April 2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16758558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16758558 (April 2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16749749 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16749749 (April 2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16457684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16457684 (Feb 2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16234007 (Jan 2018) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15849007 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15849007 (Dec 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15773271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15773271 (Nov 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15484503 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15484503 (Oct 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14672661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14672661 (June 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14233383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14233383 (April 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13517054 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13517054 (Jan 2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13515750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13515750 (Jan 2017)
- computerthings 1y ago[dead]
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y agoI have. They showed up late and didn't do anything useful
- marssaxman 1y agoI have not been unusually lucky in that way, though. I can think of half a dozen occasions when the kind of people who call the cops would have done so, but I didn't, because I expected they would do no good - if they bothered to show up at all - and might well have caused a lot of harm.
- cess11 1y agoYeah, it's great that someone shows up three hours late and writes a worse report than you would.
- heavyset_go 1y ago> Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim. I have, multiple times. They don't give a shit. In my case, the only reason to reach out to them is to get documentation for insurance or to start the legal process for obtaining restraining orders through courts.
- Rebelgecko 1y agoI've only had to call the cops a few times, but they usually put me on hold. 50/50 if they actually do anything or just give me the law enforcement equivalent of this meme- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-aint-reading-all-that https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-aint-reading-all-that (aka "please don't file a report because it makes our metrics look bad)
- danudey 1y agoPeople forget that calling the cops as a victim also costs lives. There have been more than enough cases of someone calling in a wellness check on someone who ends up getting murdered by police instead of helped, or victims who call the police and end up getting shot or arrested by them. The police as they are now in North America are not a good option, they're just the least worst option. You call them and they show up and you hope that they cause more problems for the offender than the victim, but that's never guaranteed.
- nobody9999 1y ago>Consider yourself lucky that you've never had to call the cops as a victim. People forget that cops also save lives. I have. Several times. In the latter two cases (burglaries at my home and my brother's home -- one in NYC and the other in the Bay Area), the police were spectacularly inept and completely useless. In the first case, the police arrested the perpetrators more by happenstance than design, despite the fact that these kids (all except the 22 year-old ringleader were 16 or younger) had been committing similar crimes for months. As the old saw goes, "I don't hate the police, I just feel better when they're not around."
- immibis 1y agoI called the cops as a victim of a violent crime. They put me in handcuffs because I was the person on the scene who best fit the profile of a perpetrator, despite the actual perpetrators standing there next to me. I gave them a video and audio recording of the crime being committed. I did not get my cellphone back. Later, I went to court with the perpetrators, and their only penalty was paying me a fine which was slightly less than what I paid in legal costs. Cops are not your friends, even as a victim; neither are lawyers or judges. Treat the whole justice system more like a Linux server with an SQL injection: amoral, and can be made to do anything you want, if you're evil and happen to know how which levers to pull and how to not get caught. Since it's relevant here, I am a white man.