The narrative is totally not credible. There are gaps where its obvious that the author did something to elicit a reaction, but what that was is omitted from the story. My guess would be that the author was being a smart ass, and given the drinking more belligerent than he recalls in retrospect. No, the cops shouldn't have roughed him up just for being a pompous asshole,[1] but the author should tell the whole story.
[1] "My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." My god imagine listening to this self indulgent tripe at 1 am while keeping your cool.
Just to provide a data point: I know the OP personally. I can't be sure that there are no omissions, but him saying things like that is not surprising and it doesn't feel like there are holes. His particular demeanor and pattern of speech would likely make it seem not so much pompous as just eccentric. He's very obviously earnest, and not in the naive way often encountered in the Bay Area these days. Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty. To me, one of the core points of this story is that you can never assume you won't be perceived as a member of a group not so advantaged.
Were I not very familiar with him, an interpretation such as yours would definitely be one of my high probability estimates, which is what compelled me to add my views. Take it as you will.
I don't know him, but I doubt he is naive in the "believes in fairy tales and doesn't understand how the world really works" manner that you suggest. Here's a story about the author's background and how he ended up coaching basketball in Afghanistan: http://www.brandeis.edu/magazine/2013/spring/featured-storie...
> Trying to show you are "an upstanding citizen" in some way is an expression of privilege: the expectation that you can demonstrate membership of a group that is not automatically assumed to be guilty.
That doesn't exist any longer. Our elites are corrupt.
You are absolutely wrong. Almost the exact same thing happened to me, about 400 miles south, last January. Many of the details are even eerily similar. Your claims of omission are totally baseless, and I would guess driven by the same sort of illusions I used to have about the police, their role in our society, and the mechanisms that are in place to deal with bad apples.
My claims of omission are based on the sequence of events being nonsensical as presented. I can buy that the cops were bullies. That's not acceptable behavior for a cop, but I acknowledge it does happen. Cops often act punitively towards those they perceive as giving them lip, and while its not right it happens. You shouldn't mouth off to a cop but cops shouldn't use their office in retaliation. But this story where the cops spontaneously seem to react to nothing is difficult to believe.
Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode. In the same way, her asking for a doctor was the trigger for the jailer to strip her and put her in solitary. If you haven't been in the system, then you don't understand how brutal, arbitrary, and nightmarish it is. Good heavens, almost the exact same thing happened to me, and I live in a sleepy, peaceful little town. It's startling to think that this kind of treatment is only a phone call away, for everyone.
>Her wanting to stay on the scene to look after her friend and the cyclist was enough 'disrespect' to trigger the cop into violent mode.
Even if he was doing something wrong, assuming he wasn't violent, what happened to him was way out of proportion and should be illegal.
However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.
>However, If I'm going to weigh the probabilities--4 cops spontaneously tackle a sober person for politely asking a question sounds a lot less likely than 4 cops tackle a belligerent drunk guy.
I know where you're coming from. It is hard to believe. I could hardly believe it when it happened to me (see my other thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7234781). I still have a hard time believing it.
But the simple fact is that it happens, and what really enables it is the fact that there is not a damn thing anyone can do about it. The police are incredibly well-protected from any sort of accountability. The will to reprimand has to come from the inside, and that is usually done silently, if it's done at all. Cops are big on loyalty.
Interesting that a person acting imperfectly (which I can buy happened, and that this account is colored in that direction) is enough to make him the greater of the people who screwed up here. Roughly 9/10 of your comment is directed at attacking him personally--in terms you have no justification of, since you have no concrete knowledge of the situation--while only 1/10 is a concession that the police screwed up. Despite the police screw up being far more violent and egregious.
The advice given for dealing with cops seems like the advice given for being in a bad area of town.
"Keep your head down, don't give them any lip. Don't say anything unless you don't have to and certainly don't diss them in any way, you'll probably be fine..."
I was in grad school with Peretz for a few years, and I can assure you that he was neither drunk nor a smart-ass. And I have no doubt that his narrative is entirely credible.
(And to be clear, we're talking about a guy that has a PhD from one of the top five biophysics programs on Earth.)
He is earnest and sincere, and I can imagine that the officer mistook him for someone he is not that night, but I don't think any of his actions come close to justifying how he was treated.
Further, it was my experience while living near his current neighborhood that the police were as dangerous (if not more so) than any of the myriad criminals operating there. I'm not anti-police, but I am not a fan of the cops that covered those areas while I lived there.
I have plenty of problems with the way police departments are ran in this country, but I think he was probably a bit drunker than he mentioned in the story.
[1] "My instinct was to make this distinction go away, to show them I know our neighborhood is more complicated than that. To connect on human terms. I told them that it was an early stage startup; I’m doing this because I feel it’s a way to make the world around me better, to bring people joy through better food." My god imagine listening to this self indulgent tripe at 1 am while keeping your cool.