# Controversial encounters between law-enforcement and civilians - the omnibus thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 10, 2014, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942 "2014-10-10T07:35:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 272
**Author:** ![climbuponahilltop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c0e974/32.png) [@climbuponahilltop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/climbuponahilltop)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5421 "2015-07-26T21:22:17Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So he laid still, didn’t make any sudden movements, kept his hands where thcould be seen, complied fully with police officers, and _he survived completely unhurt?_ > > It’s almost as if what I’ve been saying over the past 100 pages of thread actually _works_. **Smapti** , the man was a former soldier with extensive military training and practical experience to draw on in that time of stress. Those of us without Horton’s particular work history do not have the background to switch into compliance mode so easily. No, even those of us who know intellectually what script to follow, because without at least basic training, our fight or flight response will kick in. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5422 "2015-07-26T21:25:20Z")
> [@climbuponahilltop](#): > > **Smapti** , the man was a former soldier with extensive military training and practical experience to draw on in that time of stress. “Lie still and don’t make any sudden movements” is hardly a skillset that requires elite military conditioning to acquire. ---
**Author:** ![climbuponahilltop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c0e974/32.png) [@climbuponahilltop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/climbuponahilltop)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5423 "2015-07-26T21:31:12Z")
Awaking from a sound sleep to hear strangers barking orders at you as they invade your home? Yes, actually that does call for a bit of a learning curve. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5424 "2015-07-26T21:35:31Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > “Lie still and don’t make any sudden movements” is hardly a skillset that requires elite military conditioning to acquire. Horseshit. The author even explains it. > [@](#): > > My situation was terrifying. Lying facedown in bed, I knew that any move I made could be viewed as a threat. Instinct told me to get up and protect myself. Training told me that if I did, these officers would shoot me dead. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-i-raided-insurgents-in-virginia-the-police-raided-me/2015/07/24/2e114e54-2b02-11e5-bd33-395c05608059\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iraq-i-raided-insurgents-in-virginia-the-police-raided-me/2015/07/24/2e114e54-2b02-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html) > [@climbuponahilltop](#): > > Awaking from a sound sleep to hear strangers barking orders at you as they invade your home? Yes, actually that does call for a bit of a learning curve. Of course it does. Only a fuckhead would imagine a different story. > [@](#): > > But it was easy to imagine that we forged some in that fire. Similarly, when U.S. police officers use excessive force to control nonviolent citizens or respond to minor incidents, they lose supporters and public trust. Which seems to be something people have been saying for thousands of posts. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5425 "2015-07-26T22:10:26Z")
> [@](#): > > But it was easy to imagine that we forged some in that fire. Similarly, when U.S. police officers use excessive force to control nonviolent citizens or respond to minor incidents, they lose supporters and public trust. It’s not the police who are in the wrong if that’s what’s happening. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5426 "2015-07-26T22:13:56Z")
> [@climbuponahilltop](#): > > Awaking from a sound sleep to hear strangers barking orders at you as they invade your home? Yes, actually that does call for a bit of a learning curve. No, just a bit of self-preservation instinct to realize that you in your half-asleep and undressed state are not going to be able to fight off a band of armed intruders and it is in your best interest to lie still and present no threat. Of course, as we seem to be learning, self-preservation seems to be secondary to “But MY FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!” in these parts. ---
**Author:** ![climbuponahilltop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c0e974/32.png) [@climbuponahilltop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/climbuponahilltop)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5427 "2015-07-26T22:25:55Z")
I feel like you don’t actually understand what the term self-preservation instinct actually means. Lying still and presenting no threat does not come under the heading of fight or flight, so instinct has nothing to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5428 "2015-07-27T00:27:59Z")
Personally, I don’t care who you are, you suddenly shout me awake and I’ll have bitten your nuts clean off before my brain has even shifted out of “whuuu ?!” gear. That’s why I never joined the Army. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5429 "2015-07-27T00:38:26Z")
Let’s not ignore the fact that hey went all Seal Team Six over a report of a fucking _squatter_. ---
**Author:** ![Wolf333](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf333/32/3460_2.png) [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5430 "2015-07-27T00:40:43Z")
> [@climbuponahilltop](#): > > I feel like you don’t actually understand what the term self-preservation instinct actually means. Lying still and presenting no threat does not come under the heading of fight or flight, so instinct has nothing to do with it. Smapti once read a book about humans and now thinks that he understands us. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5431 "2015-07-27T00:52:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It’s not the police who are in the wrong if that’s what’s happening. Do you watch or have you read Game of Thrones? Tell me your thoughts about Joffrey. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5432 "2015-07-27T01:39:52Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Do you watch or have you read Game of Thrones? > > Tell me your thoughts about Joffrey. Clean-cut, law-abiding and respectable fellow. He’s only _forced_ to act like a giant cock all day long because people just won’t do everything he lawfully orders and there’s an endemic culture of “fuck the King” in Westeros. Now, that Robb Stark, he’s a bad sort. He should not have rebelled when his dad’s head got chopped off on a whim of the King, because that is against the law you see. That makes him a Criminal ™ who deserves anything that might happen to him. Next thing you’ll say that the Red Wedding was an example of royal brutality :rolleyes:. Typical of you lawless sorts. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5433 "2015-07-27T02:07:44Z")
Fork to my pit thread on corruption at the New York Police Department and its links to the crime tracking system, CompStat. [Institutionalized Controversial Encounters: NYPD corruption](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=763451). Includes link to [538 / ESPN](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-the-nypd-abused-citizens-in-the-name-of-data-and-how-one-cop-exposed-it-all/) 18 min documentary, “Crime by the Numbers”. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5434 "2015-07-27T03:41:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Of course, as we seem to be learning, self-preservation seems to be secondary to “But MY FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!” in these parts. I’ve lost friends and relatives who felt “freedom” was an important enough concept to fight over. Asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5435 "2015-07-27T06:32:37Z")
[Another day, another participant in activism dying in jail after a traffic stop.](http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/07/native-american-found-in-jail-after-traffic-fine-arrest/) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5436 "2015-07-27T07:46:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Similarly, when U.S. police officers use excessive force to control nonviolent citizens or respond to minor incidents, they lose supporters and public trust. > > It’s not the police who are in the wrong if that’s what’s happening. Can anyone parse what faulty subroutine the bot has stumbed into? Its conclusion makes no sense, even by the standards of the poorly-programmed bots in this thread. It seems like a stuck logic level, maybe a shorted input to an OR-gate, or one of those _if (foo = TRUE)_ errors in C programming. If it really is human, I hope it’s donating its brain to science. It doesn’t seem like bloated amygdala, so what pathology is it? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5437 "2015-07-27T08:06:13Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > So he laid still, didn’t make any sudden movements, kept his hands where thcould be seen, complied fully with police officers, and _he survived completely unhurt?_ > > It’s almost as if what I’ve been saying over the past 100 pages of thread actually _works_. In response to his training, not in response to anything the cops said - they weren’t talking to him. They were treating him as a dangerous enemy, not as a citizen who might or might not be in the wrong place. And he was a suspect of squatting, not of making nitro. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Kumquat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gary\_Kumquat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Kumquat)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5438 "2015-07-27T11:45:18Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > just a bit of self-preservation instinct to realize that you in your half-asleep and undressed state are not going to be able to fight off a band of armed intruders and it is in your best interest to lie still and present no threat. While I accept that’s easy for you to say, it’s a bit more problematic if you’re a non-broken member of a species that evolved the [Fight or Flight response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response) to threatening situations. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5439 "2015-07-27T12:56:52Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Do you watch or have you read Game of Thrones? I watched the first episode and part of the second. I stopped and haven’t come back to it because I found all the characters who’d been presented up to that point to be horrible people and I didn’t care about what happened to any of them. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942/5440 "2015-07-27T13:03:09Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > While I accept that’s easy for you to say, it’s a bit more problematic if you’re a non-broken member of a species that evolved the [Fight or Flight response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response) to threatening situations. “Fight or flight” is only a valid response to danger if you _can_ do either of those things. When you’re half-asleep in your underwear and armed police are raiding your home, you can neither fight nor flee; thus the correct response from someone who wishes to continue living is to submit. > [@Leaper](#): > > [Another day, another participant in activism dying in jail after a traffic stop.](http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/07/native-american-found-in-jail-after-traffic-fine-arrest/) I’ve read that entire article three times and I can’t find a single detail about _what_ he was arrested for or _how_ he died - just a bunch of vague platitudes about how “It’s just like Mississippi in 1964!” or “It happened the day after something else in another state!” Got an actual _news_ article on this story? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=271) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/controversial-encounters-between-law-enforcement-and-civilians-the-omnibus-thread/700942.md?page=273)