Random News not worthy of own thread

[Morkonan]

Ok America, seriously. . . WTF is wrong with you (or more specifically your police).
I have no words.
https://abc7ny.com/4868592/

We only see part of that video. Withhold your judgement until the rest comes to light.

Officers are not judges or juries. They determined that there was enough evidence that a crime had been committed to arrest her. They can't do that while she's holding a baby in her arms. It may seem heartless, but that's just the way it is, for everyone's safety. Some people try to shield themselves by using their own children, too, thinking that they can't be arrested because they have a baby or child with them and that's just not the case.

[Bishop149]

We only see part of that video. Withhold your judgement until the rest comes to light.

The part I saw was enough, I saw a 1yo child being put at serious risk of injury by the force used by a police officer / security guard in removing said child from its mother.
I care little for the context because there is no possible one that can justify it.

[felter]

As far as I see it she is the one putting the kid at risk, just as much as the police are, seeing as she is the one holding onto the kid and not letting it go. It's not like the cops were going to take the baby out the back and shoot it or anything if she lets it go, so her refusing to do so is just as bad if not worse. I'm sorry but to me it's not making the cops look bad, just another bad mother which there are a lot of these days, a baby is just a commodity to them and they don't give a damn about them, facebook and twitter means more to them.

[Bishop149]

So we’re blaming the mother for not simply handing her child over to an unknown agent of state when asked to do so. Great.
Thanks for further crushing my already low faith in humanity.
Speaking personally as the father of a child of a similar age the words cold, dead and hands come to mind.

Edit: Actually I won't do what I previously wrote here, but I'll considering this strike 1.

[felter]

So here's the thing, do I think the police did the right thing and did they handle it correctly, hell no. Do I think that the women handled it right and did the right thing, once again, hell no. Do I think the police are an innocent party, hell no. Do I think that the women is an innocent party, hell no.

Everyone is blaming the police but she was in the wrong to start with, this didn't happen over a matter of a minute but had been escalating for some time even before the police were called in. Here's another point, all of these people are going she wasn't bothering anyone but the security guards were pestering her as she was sitting on the floor in front of a door, where she shouldn't have been sitting, so they were doing their job which is what they are meant to do. Now here's a crucial point, how many of those same people watching the scene got up off of their seat and offered it to a mother and child, and how many of those same people are now accusing everyone else of being in the wrong.

By the way, you are not the only one here that has a child, though it is a long time since mines were that age but that does not make any kind of difference.

[Morkonan]

We only see part of that video. Withhold your judgement until the rest comes to light.

The part I saw was enough, I saw a 1yo child being put at serious risk of injury by the force used by a police officer / security guard in removing said child from its mother.
I care little for the context because there is no possible one that can justify it.

I do understand your point of view, but what do you expect the officers to do if they have determined that she should be detained/arrested? They are telling her that very thing and she is not complying. Her non-compliance is now endangering her child and you can see the force that she, herself, is using to hold onto that baby. You can't expect the officers to refuse to arrest her because she's holding a baby, right?

I'm sure the entire thing was handled poorly by everyone involved. It loos exactly like one of those "everybody screwed up, here" moments.

What would you have had the officers do in this situation?

PS - I don't know enough about what happened before the video, so I can't really pass judgement on everything here. But, just taking what I'm seeing on vid, all of this would have been entirely unnecessary if she had just legally complied with the requests of the officers. If she had, then whether or not they were doing the right thing would have gone before a judge and possibly a jury rather than the court of popular opinion. Now, all of that is wasted since she's going to have a bunch of charges thrown at her that would be difficult for her to deny, since they're on "tape."

So we’re blaming the mother for not simply handing her child over to an unknown agent of state when asked to do so...

They aren't taking her baby away from her, they're arresting or physically detaining her. Those are two different things. Their objective is to arrest her - The child is an incidental variable that has to be dealt with, too. Because there is a minor child involved, the baby would be taken by Child Protective Services/whoever in that State, and true effort would be undertaken to find the child's nearest relative, including asking the mother who she would wish to have temporary custody of her child while she was detained/arrested/in jail. They would attempt to comply with the wishes of the child's legal guardian, even if that guardian was in jail. (Unless they were in jail for child-abuse charges.)

[Bishop149]

What would you have had the officers do in this situation?

What exactly do you expect a parent to do when someone tries to take their child by force?
As I said the context is largely irrelevant.
There are however a number of factors that would further exacerbate the mother response, namely shes poor, black and financially dependant upon assistance.
Simultaneously a member of three groups that are routinely victimised by both the police, the state more broadly and the general populace: see Felter's instant uncharitable characterisation earlier on, one they made based a mere snapshot of a few minutes of a persons life.
If I was me in that situation I'd be scared, angry and probably violent, if I was her I would be mortally terrified beyond any and all capacity for rational thought.
It's INCREDIBLY naive of you to blithely assume that she should just trust the system to either care for or return her child.

Anyway in direct response to your question its not hard. Here are a bunch of options just just off the top of my head which any even moderately civilised person would apply before defaulting to: Use physical violence to separate a mother from her child. I'm sure there are many more I could think of given a few minutes.
- Arrest her and allow her to stay with her child.
- Do nothing, simply detain her where she is until the situation deescalates. (This is the obvious option I'd probably go with, its incredible how effective simple boredom can be in making people more reasonable)
- Get her a lawyer, so she can be informed of her legal situation by someone she sees as more sympathetic to her situation.

Everyone is blaming the police but she was in the wrong to start with . . . .

Irrelevant.
I have been deliberately not commenting upon the situation because as Mork wisely pointed out we can not know what it was for sure, because all of our info is being received at least third hand no doubt with bias attached, and to which we will add our own. All I am commenting on is something I can be almost certain of from the evidence: that is that at some point one of the authority figures (police or security guard) made the decision to remove the child from it's mother by force.
That is the ONLY decision upon which I am passing judgement, and it can not possibly be justified except under the most extreme circumstances, which this categorically was not.
All else that we see proceeds from that decision.
You can not possibly be of the opinion that what we see is simply the inevitable result of the Mothers minor misdemeanour and/or her intransigence over it.
This really reminds me of the "Rapists are really the fault of short skirts and inebriated victims" brand of logic.

[Morkonan]

What would you have had the officers do in this situation?

What exactly do you expect a parent to do when someone tries to take their child by force?

You're ignoring the fact that the police are intervening in a situation in which they believe, at this time, that there is a reasonable reason for them to intervene, either by detaining the person while investigating a possible crime or apprehending the person when they have enough reasonable evidence that they have committed a crime worthy of detention/arrest.

As I said the context is largely irrelevant.

Tell that to the officer the next time you have them standing in front of you, questioning you about a possible crime being committed...

There are however a number of factors that would further exacerbate the mother response, namely shes poor, black and financially dependant upon assistance.
Simultaneously a member of three groups that are routinely victimised by both the police, the state more broadly and the general populace:

Ahh... So, if she was white, then you wouldn't be complaining so loudly?

...one they made based a mere snapshot of a few minutes of a persons life.

Being apprehended for shooting someone in the face with a bazooka is based upon "a mere snapshot of a person's life."

If I was me in that situation I'd be scared, angry and probably violent, if I was her I would be mortally terrified beyond any and all capacity for rational thought.

It would be a good idea for you not to place yourself in a position where you may be apprehended by the police, then.

It's INCREDIBLY naive of you to blithely assume that she should just trust the system to either care for or return her child.

Oh, yes, I forgot - The "system" usually sells babies, especially black ones, so their organs can be harvested for rich people to use to replace their own organs, which they have abused after a lifetime of self-indulgent behavior, usually at the expense of the working poor and disenfranchised shaded peoples of the world. We should stop preying on our own poor for this, so we don't run out of them, and go conquer one of the many useless, poor, third-world nations with lots of brown people in it, instead!

Anyway in direct response to your question its not hard. Here are a bunch of options just just off the top of my head which any even moderately civilised person would apply before defaulting to: Use physical violence to separate a mother from her child. I'm sure there are many more I could think of given a few minutes.

Do any of your solutions use a blimp? They probably should. Maybe a zeppelin, since those are cooler... IOW - How many of your "options" are actually sane and workable solutions to an immediate and dangerous problem that police often face?

- Arrest her and allow her to stay with her child.

How? Ask nicely? Do you think they avoided doing that? Where is your evidence that they didn't first try to get her to willingly cooperate with them? And, why have you extrapolated all of this to the point where they're taking her child "away" from her. Should her child be put in the back seat of the police-car while she's sitting there with handcuffs on, unsupervised? Maybe they could just set it on the hood? Or, should they prepare her and the baby for breastfeeding, in case it gets hungry? Maybe every police department should equip officers with a wetnurse? They could ride along in the trunk and they could be very handy in case the officer encountered a baby somewhere?

- Do nothing, simply detain her where she is until the situation deescalates. (This is the obvious option I'd probably go with, its incredible how effective simple boredom can be in making people more reasonable)

People don't call upon police assistance so they can stand around and "do nothing." That's just a ridiculous suggestion.

"Let's hire a bunch of police that will stand around and do nothing whenever we call them when there's a possible crime being committed! Think of all the tax dollars we'd save in training costs!"

- Get her a lawyer, so she can be informed of her legal situation by someone she sees as more sympathetic to her situation.

Maybe order her a pizza, ask her what she wants for Christmas, offer to paint her nails, load her pistol for her so she can shoot more people? You do realize that "safety" of EVERYONE involved is a primary factor, too, right? That includes her safety, her baby's safety, the safety of innocent bystanders and the safety of the officers involved. You have to have a procedure that is LAWFUL and that can be implemented with the most assurance of success and safety. You can not throw out all caution and protection as well as the Law just because "she has a baby."

We have procedures in place to handle situations like this. There is no ill-intent, here. I DO agree that this situation got out of hand and I am not absolving anyone involved, including the officers, of wrongdoing or mistakes. That is not intent. But, what you're accusing people of is not in evidence and what you suggest should be done in this sort of situation is just not practical nor is it fair to make it some form of standard police procedure.

Unlike you, apparently, I do not believe that any of the officers are intending any harm to the baby or even the mother. They didn't show up because someone called them to come over and beat the crap out of a darn baby... They showed up because someone requested their intervention in a situation to likely prevent further escalation of a problem. The officers on the scene are NOT a judge or jury, but they are charged with enforcement of the law where they believe there is a reasonable suspicion a crime has been committed.

If she had fully cooperated, do you think they would have still put her on the floor and wrestled with her and her baby?

I think mistakes were made, all around. I just don't think your interpretation of the events and the motivations of those involved is accurate or even sensible "*yet."

*Added. I am not in possession of enough facts to render a judgement, here. I don't know all of what happened and, until then, I can only make certain basic assumptions. I think we both need to know much more than what is available in order to properly judge, for ourselves, the situation at hand.

[Mightysword]

So here's the thing, do I think the police did the right thing and did they handle it correctly, hell no. Do I think that the women handled it right and did the right thing, once again, hell no. Do I think the police are an innocent party, hell no. Do I think that the women is an innocent party, hell no.

Everyone is blaming the police but she was in the wrong to start with, this didn't happen over a matter of a minute but had been escalating for some time even before the police were called in. Here's another point, all of these people are going she wasn't bothering anyone but the security guards were pestering her as she was sitting on the floor in front of a door, where she shouldn't have been sitting, so they were doing their job which is what they are meant to do. Now here's a crucial point, how many of those same people watching the scene got up off of their seat and offered it to a mother and child, and how many of those same people are now accusing everyone else of being in the wrong.

By the way, you are not the only one here that has a child, though it is a long time since mines were that age but that does not make any kind of difference.

I know I mentioned it in the Trump thread, but here is such a fine example of what I meant by looking at a situation objectively that I think deserve a shout. Unfortunately, it seems one of the main requirement to facilitate an objective view is that it has to be "cold" and void of sentimental thought and bias, something that most find it difficult to do. An unexpected post from an an unexpected source, respect.

As I said the context is largely irrelevant.

Context is often not irrelevant, not 99.9% of time anyway. After all that's why sometime we justify the need of committing evil to prevent even a greater evil. And this situation IMO, does not belong to the other 0.01%

[Bishop149]

@Morkonan
I started to write a point by point rebuttal to this but decided that all the quoting out of context and reductio ad absurdum wasn't really worth the effort.
I will instead address the the actual arguments you seem to be making from my POV.

1) By committing a crime you become primarily responsible for any and all police action taken against you. The police may share some responsibility for their actions but fundamentally the situation is the fault of the criminal and therefore the criminal also takes the lion's share of the responsibility for all consequences.
2) The polices obligation to follow "procedure" supersedes their own decision making ability and (at least partially?) absolves them of any responsibility for their actions in enacting those procedures. Or to use the word you chose, absolves them of "intent".
3) Situations (contexts) exist in which the police violently removing a child (placing said child at substantial risk of injury) from it's parent can be justified.

------------------

1) I would argue almost the exact opposite. In any situation to which the police are called they can (well, should at least) reasonably be expected to the party that is the most: Objective, informed and professional.
The also have the PRIMARY responsibility of protecting the public from harm. This includes the criminals*.
This means that harming any member of the public can:
a) Only be justified if it is to prevent an immediate greater or equal harm to another.
b) Only be considered as an absolute last resort.
As such they have the greatest responsibility for the outcome of any situation in which they find themselves and this applies double if they decide to use of force.
We can not simply excuse them of this merely because they encounter an intransigent woman.
I am also fully aware that the police routinely fail to uphold these standards, and that we the public and our political and legal systems . . let them.
We allow them to use violence against people to protect mere property.
We shouldn't.

2) Nope, this is basically "I was just following orders", no shortage of legal precedent to shoot that one down in flames. I also doubt that ANY of what we see in that video could be categorised as police procedure.
"Minor Property Crime: Part V. Subsection f - The officer having applied subsections a-e without success should proceed to remove the child from its mother by force, risk of injury to the child is deemed acceptable"
Yeah I doubt it.

3) Yes, such a situation might exist but would be both extreme and rare. I would discount this possibility as irrelevant to the case under discussion, hence "context is irrelevant".

Finally I am rather surprised at your casual dismissal of the idea that legal counsel might be provided to someone suspected of a crime / being arrested, or that the police should resist the facilitation of such.
You should be aware that entire charities exist with this as their raison d'etre and also that I (as a relatively wealthy person who has in the course of my life ad cause to make use of a law firm) have this facility available to me 24/7 via my phone. A privilege I am fortunate to have to be sure, but which I would happily see extended to everyone, also one you seem keen to deny . . . . . just to poor people, or should the police seek to remove this privilege from me too if I am ever arrested?

*A fact that SO many people just love to ignore. . . . which is also the reason that so much policy is required outlining in excruciating detail the exact duty of care police have over criminals.

[Morkonan]

...Finally I am rather surprised at your casual dismissal of the idea that legal counsel might be provided to someone suspected of a crime / being arrested, or that the police should resist the facilitation of such....

I have nothing against that at all. In fact, I firmly believe that is a priority... but not right in the middle of an arrest. The accused has the right to counsel as soon as it is practical, given the circumstances. That doesn't mean that the police must wait until BEFORE the person is arrested to provide them with counsel... If they're not under arrest, there is no mandate that counsel be provided to them. Otherwise, things would get ridiculous.

The police protect the public - This is true. The police also have a duty to protect the criminal, up to the point where their own persons may be in danger of harm. But, this whole instance obviously went pear-shaped and I am highly suspicious of why we only get footage of a cop trying to take the baby... Where's the rest of it? Where is the rest of this incident?

Either way, the baby must be taken from the mother to allow the police officers to expedite the arrest. There is no exception, here. It is in the best interest of all that this occur. They should, of course, not harm the baby when doing so and should exercise good judgement in how much force should be used. Still, it has to happen if she is to be arrested. Further, if she continues to resist, if you watch the vid, she's in danger of harming her own baby.

This may be a case of an Irresistible Force meeting an Immovable Object. There may not be a "perfect solution" that makes everyone warm and fuzzy. But, the problem that is presented is that if the officers are doing their duty properly and have determined this person must be detained or arrested, then that is what must happen.

Again, we need the full incident on vid to know what really happened and to comment on it with adequate knowledge.

PS - Since this is more for random stuff, go ahead and rebut, but I'll refrain from replying just so it doesn't get drawn out too much. I'd be happy to discuss it at length and look for more info/vids/reports and the like if you wanted to, but in a dedicate thread. (Or, PM, if you'd rather. Up to you, I just don't want to focus the discussion too much in a thread dedicated for "random stuff."

[Golden_Gonads]

She was asked repeatedly to stand up and not sit on the floor. She refused. Security asked her to move. She refused. The management asked her. She refused. The police asked her. She refused. She was being arrested and caused a scene. At this point I would wonder at here mental stability. Should the officer have pulled at the kid? No. But other than calling in a specialist and waiting hours, what choice was there? You can't let someone under arrest carry a kid.

[felter]

There is one other thing that keeps on being missed out, and that was at the time she already had an arrest warrant issued for her arrest, so the police had no choice they could not just walk away and leave her they had to arrest her. She refused to allow herself to be arrested, so what were they meant to do, I have not heard what they were meant to do everyone is saying they shouldn't have done this or that but not what they were meant to do.

Here's one other thing, as soon as she heard that the police were being called, just what did she think was going to happen, considering she must have known that there was an arrest warrant for her arrest. As soon as she heard the police were on their way, she should have been out of there as fast as she could go, but she was far too arrogant for that to happen. Obviously she thinks that she was above the law and that they couldn't touch her, and seeing as she used her kid as a shield, she thought that the kid gave her some kind of immunity to being arrested.

The only person I feel sorry for in this whole fiasco, is the kid, not because of what happened but because of who she has as a mother.

[felter]

So every Tuesday I go shopping with my mother and today was no different, though last time this year (YIPPEE). So anyway we got our shopping, paid for it and I was taking it out to the car. This guy walks down the isle pushing a trolly full of shopping and just casually walks out the door, in front of me, it looked very suspect to me, not just because he never came from the tills but he had shopping bags in his trolly but his shopping was in the trolly not the bags. So anyway I went and dumped all the shopping in the car, dumped the trolly and went back for my mother to make sure she could find her way back to the car. Anyway back in the shop the same guy walks past us pushing a trolly full of shopping, I said to my mother watch this, she was like watch what, I pointed the guy out. We stood and watched him as he walk over to the flower stand grabbed a bouquet of flowers dumped them into the trolly, picked up a Christmas potted plant which went in the trolly, before casually walking past a member of staff and a security guard and out the doors. That takes balls, that second trolly would have had probably over £50 of shopping, about £20 just for the flowers alone. It was just the way he did it, he didn't try to hide it or be sneaky about it, he just picked it up and walked out of the shop.

[Morkonan]

... It was just the way he did it, he didn't try to hide it or be sneaky about it, he just picked it up and walked out of the shop.

This kind of thing... It makes me sad.

It's always possible he paid in advance or something, I guess. But, it's doubtful. In this sort of situation, I'd be sorely tempted to ask him directly if he paid for that item. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't shoplift for need, but greed or just because they want the excitement.

When I was a kid, working my series of "first jobs," I worked at a grocery store for awhile. We had a lot of shoplifting going on and it was a bad neighborhood. However, there were times when a person was shoplifting food obviously due to "need." And, when that happened, the managers would usually just let it pass, not infrequently giving the person more food.

There was a policy that we were not allowed to chase shoplifters out of the store. Years later, I learned that an assistant manager I knew from my time there ended up getting shot and killed after chasing a shoplifter. By a shoplifter... stealing from a grocery store for goodness sake.

[Morkonan]

AS: Patch Now - Microsoft Issues Emergency Update to fix critical IE flaw under active exploitation.

"Microsoft has issued an emergency update that fixes a critical Internet Explorer vulnerability that attackers are actively exploiting on the Internet.

The memory-corruption flaw allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code when computers use IE to visit a booby-trapped website, Microsoft said Wednesday. Indexed as ..."

Ah... "IE." Whew, I was worried there for a second. I'm sure the five people that still use Internet Explorer will be very thankful for Microsoft acting to squash this hack. I'm really curious as to how anyone noticed this exploit was already in use in the wild...

Meanwhile, just like it does all the time, the emergency patch push caused my 'puter to crash during update. Windows 10 is just so super-awesome... friggin' thing.

[pjknibbs]

Ah... "IE." Whew, I was worried there for a second. I'm sure the five people that still use Internet Explorer will be very thankful for Microsoft acting to squash this hack. I'm really curious as to how anyone noticed this exploit was already in use in the wild...

You might be surprised--according to StatCounter there are still 6% of people using IE as of October 2018!

[Morkonan]

Ah... "IE." Whew, I was worried there for a second. I'm sure the five people that still use Internet Explorer will be very thankful for Microsoft acting to squash this hack. I'm really curious as to how anyone noticed this exploit was already in use in the wild...

You might be surprised--according to StatCounter there are still 6% of people using IE as of October 2018!

"ROFLCOPTERS! I can't wait to put this new lolwut YTMD I found up on my Myspace page!" = IE user, probably

[Morkonan]

O_M_G_ .... NVidia has done it again.... This is pretty darn awe-inspiring:

These portraits were made by AI. None of these people exist.

Look at those "portraits!" If NVidia's engine can dynamically generate faces like this without all the overhead required, today, think of the realism factor coming into play? No more wooden, expressionless, caricatures of people. While animation has still a ways to go in terms of "The Uncanny Valley" half the battle is just with creating static "lifelike" faces/heads in games. Bodies are easy. (Well, unless they're completely naked, then things get tricky. "Softbody" and all that.)

Amazing capability being demonstrated here. And, a bit unnerving. In the future, will showing one's face be enough to authenticate one as being human?

[Antilogic]

https://www.wigantoday.net/news/custome ... -1-9012638

This country is falling apart. I bet it's those foreigners fault.