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In a US federal civil rights lawsuit, a Connecticut man has shared footage to bolster his claims that police illegally confronted the pedestrian because he was filming one of them. Authorities seized Michael Picard's camera and his permitted pistol, and the officers involved then accidentally recorded themselves allegedly fabricating charges against the man.
Picard's police encounter began as he was protesting a sobriety checkpoint while lawfully carrying a handgun in a holster. The plaintiff often protests near sobriety checkpoints in the Hartford region and is known by locals and police in the area, according to court documents. "Cops Ahead: Keep Calm and Remain Silent," read the 3-foot-by-2-foot sign Picard held up to motorists ahead of the checkpoint in West Hartford last year.
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 23 2016, @04:25PM
> this is not the country I was raised in
Yes it is. But your eyes are a bit more open.
There's a very long list of facts to corroborate that these things didn't start yesterday.
> I don't recognize my home anymore
Understandable, since the crude spotlight makes things look very different from the pink filter that was (and still is for many) the norm.
> its like someone swapped out our good principles while we were all sleeping.
Don't worry, hollywood will soon get back to KoolAid mode.
I know it makes you feel good and smug to have been right all along (I'm guilty of that, including in this post), but this kind of patronizing tone does nothing to help, and drives people away. This person is reflecting upon new facts and this is an opinion changing opportunity. If you talk down to them, insult them, or generally offend them they'll just turn away.
Rather than just dismissing them as things "everybody knows [xkcd.com]," it's better to give them more information. You can talk about how the various US agencies monitored Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr., and numerous others [wikipedia.org]; or the murders of the Mississippi civil rights workers [wikipedia.org]; or the practice of parallel construction [wikipedia.org]; or the practice of asset forfeiture [wikipedia.org]. You can even give examples, such as how the SWAT team killed the dog of the mayor of a city [wikipedia.org], or the numerous police killings [theguardian.com] in the US.
If you give actual examples of things the person didn't know in a neutral way, you are more likely enlighten them to what they had previously been ignorant of... you may even "convert" them such that they can help in the future.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 23 2016, @04:45PM
> I know it makes you feel good and smug to have been right all along
No, it makes me angry that people who have had all the world's information at their fingertips for well over a decade are still falling for basic "our system is the best/strongest/bravest, the other are jealous retarded idiots" blinders-on worldviews. And I'm not just talking about an excessively vocal minority of a specific country.
So many humans are dumb and selfish, yours truly included, that it's amazing we ever get to know about toxic clouds shimmering in the sun on Titan.
Point taken on educating rather than mocking. Have a +1.