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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   34531 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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Football player Tyreek Hill was arrested the other day during a traffic stop. Because he refused to keep his tinted windows rolled down for the officers, they commanded him to get out of the vehicle. Because he refused to get out of the vehicle, the officers forced him to the ground for a detainment. In Florida, officers have the right to command you to keep the window low enough for (1) communication and (2) officer safety. This appears to be a universally agreed upon fact before this event, as for instance in a video by a criminal defense attorney specifically about a Floridian just two weeks ago, and in legal advice proffered online just a month ago.

Let us assume that the officers knew who Tyrell Hill was, which isn’t a given because of the arresting officer’s thick Latino accent. They would have every reason to treat him with precaution because of his domestic violence and assault record, meaning that a concern for officer safety is legitimate despite the subject’s fame. And really, even thinking about a subject’s level of fame before enacting a law or police procedure should make us recoil. We don’t want to do that, right? We should treat everyone the same. The typical talking heads, of course, are calling this police brutality.

I am interested in how this scene would be treated if the subject were of a different appearance and nature. Tyreek, a 1%er super-wealthy person of privilege, is extremely rude to a working class minority police officer. Let’s imagine some white CEO stammering to the minority police officer, “don’t knock on my window… I’m going to be late… don’t tell me what to do!”, while ignoring the officer’s requests. We would all agree that this behavior is unacceptable. We would rightfully delight in his retribution, being placed on the ground in subservience to the Law. The comments would read like, “white man realizes the law applies to him”. But Tyreek, a (former) criminal, has a social privilege that would never be afforded to a white CEO: he is a star athlete and the public implicitly expects less of him because of his genetic nature. I can understand the public behaving like the public, but it’s annoying to see media figures excusing the behavior, too.

I basically had the same initial reaction and Hill was certainly being a jerk. Rolling his very tinted windows up while the police were talking to him would definitely make anyone nervous. But having looked at the ProtectAndServe thread on the matter, I’ve come around the general consensus that the police escalated the situation way more than they should have. They really did not need to take him to the ground forcibly after he opened the car door. Tyreek Hill’s bad behavior led to bad behavior on the part of the police. Many such cases.

From that thread, this dude had a pretty sensible take:

To me I see multiple things, officer was in the right in their actions. That however doesn’t mean it was the right decision. This is a situational awareness thing where there’s no threat to officers and pulling this guy out is just going to create headaches. Hill clearly didn’t want to wait, explain to him he can roll down his window and cooperate or this is going to take a lot longer. He’s detained either way, let him calm down and either waste more of his time or cooperates.

My opinion is if someone wants to make things difficult I’ve got all the time in the world, I’m on the clock either way. Only person who’s wasting their time is the one who’s not being paid to be there.

I do think this depends on the officer's assessment of whether Hill posed a threat to him. If he knew who Hill was (and he probably did), just taking this approach would have made sense.

I do think this depends on the officer's assessment of whether Hill posed a threat to him. If he knew who Hill was (and he probably did), just taking this approach would have made sense.

My guess is that if he didn't know who Hill was, or if he actually thought Hill was a threat (even if he did know who he was), this ends with a few rounds through the window, killing Hill.

What percentage of traffic stops do you think result in deadly force?

I dunno, but to listen to cops and their apologists you'd think that all of them would involve deadly force (on the part of the person stopped against the cop) if the cops weren't so insistent that the stopped person respect their authority.

You completely dodged the question. You made an explicit assertion that if the police had assessed Hill as a threat they would have shot multiple rounds into his window. How actually likely do you assess the probability of this outcome? Or are you just idly talking out of your ass, venting unspecified frustration about police, with no attempt to engage with the underlying statistical reality?

Yes, I say if some ordinary person rolls up the tinted windows between them and a cop at a stop that's already contentious, the cop is going to put a few rounds into the window and say he was afraid the driver was using the tinted window as cover to get out their own gun. And one "Hoffmeister25" would be among the first to defend said cop. There's no statistical question here -- most people don't do what Hill did, after all.

So what percentage of contentious traffic stops in which the driver disobeys police instructions do you think have the police open fire first?

Because there are a lot of dashcam and bodycam vids which show, undeniably, that the vast majority of police do not do what you are claiming they do. How many do you think you'd need to see to think differently?

Of course there’s a statistical question; there is some number of drivers who do, in fact, roll up their tinted windows, and of that subset of police interactions, there is a percentage in which this resulted in the discharge of a firearm by police. I’m asking you to estimate what that percentage is.

What I can tell you is that I have personally watched probably over a hundred police videos in which the specific scenario you’re describing - a driver rolls up the window on a police officer during a traffic stop - takes place, and I cannot recall a single one in which that alone has resulted in the officer firing a weapon. Furthermore, it would not be difficult - although it would be prohibitively time-consuming - for me to comb through the thousands of hours of police bodycam videos posted by the dozens of YouTube channels I follow which are dedicated to compiling just such videos, and to find you copious counterexamples to your claim.

Flatly, you just do not know what you’re talking about. The use of deadly force during traffic stops is infinitesimally rare in this country; police pull over more than 500,000 drivers every day in this country - more than 20 million motorists every year - and yet less than 1000 individuals are killed by police each year. (Apparently the current tally for 2024 is 836.) Traffic stops comprise only 7% of police uses of deadly force each year. There’s just no plausible reading of the data to support your assertion regarding how common the scenario you’re imagining actually takes place.

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