Unity has temporarily closed its offices in San Francisco and Austin, Texas and canceled a town hall meeting after receiving death threats. The company made the call as a precaution against possible retribution after it announced a contentious change to its business model this week.
WTF, I honestly hesitated to post this, because I felt like “We shouldn’t threaten the Unity management” was so obvious that I felt ridiculous taking it seriously enough to break down the reasons. But the votes clearly indicate that that’s not the consensus.
All I can say is, y’all need to study history a lot more than you have. I get that you feel justified in your viewpoint, but there’ve been a lot of people who felt justified in their viewpoint who then got proper fucked up because of it.
If people did it your way we would still have slavery and women wouldn’t be able to vote or hold jobs. There comes a point where the people preaching the reasoned approach are simply helping the oppressors. I’m not saying people should go out making death threats, but expecting people who’s livelihoods are threatened by greed to shut up and martyr themselves or go through broken channels that don’t work is stupid and not going to happen.
expecting people who’s livelihoods are threatened by greed to shut up and martyr themselves or go through broken channels that don’t work is stupid and not going to happen.
So, I’m actually specifically not telling you that this whole thing is ridiculous and you should just be a good citizen and get back in line. If you look back over my posts you’ll see that I’m addressing it more than anything from a perspective of “If you want economic justice, what is the most effective way to get it?”
This guy wanted to be treated and talked to respectfully, and to understand what was going on and feel safe in the situation he was in. Those are 100% reasonable things to want. Would you say that the way he went about pursuing those things got him the result that he wanted?
Notice how the cops try to get him to accept a search of his car? That’s them hoping they can find something to destroy this man’s life. They have absolutely zero reason for the search. The issue is a busted break light. They should just ticket him for that instead of wasting time and resources on their antagonistic bullshit.
Antagonism level of the cops here: 3/10, I have some notes
Antagonism level of the suspect: 12/10, dude is literally SCREAMING at and totally ignoring the totally legal and reasonable behavior of the cop who’s just trying to conduct a traffic stop on him
I get that both the cop and the big dude are basically just scared and reacting poorly out of fear. Two particular things really pissed me off from the cops’ side: At the end they can’t seem to understand, or don’t want to understand, that they’re fucking up his shoulders. There’s no urgency to standing him back up, and he’s understandably upset because he’s in a lot of pain, and he seems pretty ready at that point to work with them, if they show him a little calm and empathy or just back off and let the medically qualified hospital staff deal with him. And, in the beginning, the whole situation was escalated by the initial cop, who clearly seemed scared and unsure and didn’t do a perfect job and specifically requested an uncalled-for violent response just because the guy was yelling and being unreasonable (“step it up” basically means “I am in a physical fight right now and may lose, drop everything you’re doing and come in guns blazing,” it’s one of the highest-priority calls you can make and clearly didn’t apply to the situation he was in).
Two separate times in my life, I’ve seen cops deescalate situations where someone was yelling or arguing heatedly in their faces, and it went fine and no one got arrested. They can do it if they’re good at the job. But, that doesn’t mean you can just refuse to participate in a traffic stop, wander off somewhere else and keep conducting your personal business, start SCREAMING aggressively at the police in a Walgreen’s when they try to talk to you, and have an expectation that it’s all on them to make sure it turns out well, otherwise that’s unfair. IDK what ultimate outcome he realistically expected from what he did other than getting violently arrested once more cops arrive. And yeah, at that point, they’re going to look for whatever they can charge you with and aim to fuck up your life.
(Edit: And – one of the very first things they do once the situation is stable is go to try to check on his cuffs to make sure they’re not too tight. When they try to do that, he just starts screaming aggressively at them again and they give up, but one of the first things on their mind is trying to make sure he’s ok, which they in no way had to do.)
What outcome would you suggest that the cops do in this situation? Just leave, or let him leave, or what? You say they should have just ticketed him, but that was literally what the first cop was trying to do and it looks to me like big dude was 100% ready to just get back in his car and leave without accepting the ticket.
Judging by the yt comments, you’re subscribed to a channel that caters heavily to racists, so I don’t have high hopes here.
Antagonism level of the cops here: 3/10, I have some notes
Called in backup. Put victim on ground in handcuffs. Tried to search his car without cause. Harmed the victim needlessly.
Antagonism level of the suspect: 12/10,
Literally walked away to avoid conflict.
I get that both the cop and the big dude are basically just scared and reacting poorly out of fear.
Only one of them is armed with a lethal weapon and regularly assaults people. The cop is actively pursuing conflict, whereas the victim is avoiding it.
Two particular things really pissed me off from the cops’ side: At the end they can’t seem to understand, or don’t want to understand, that they’re fucking up his shoulders. There’s no urgency to standing him back up, and he’s understandably upset because he’s in a lot of pain, and he seems pretty ready at that point to work with them, if they show him a little calm and empathy or just back off and let the medically qualified hospital staff deal with him.
I see absolutely no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s their job. They regularly have people in a position like that. They were hurting him intentionally.
And, in the beginning, the whole situation was escalated by the initial cop, who clearly seemed scared and unsure and didn’t do a perfect job and specifically requested an uncalled-for violent response just because the guy was yelling and being unreasonable (“step it up” basically means “I am in a physical fight right now and may lose, drop everything you’re doing and come in guns blazing,” it’s one of the highest-priority calls you can make and clearly didn’t apply to the situation he was in).
What you’re saying here is that the first cop was fixing to get someone killed. 3/10 though.
But, that doesn’t mean you can just refuse to participate in a traffic stop, wander off somewhere else and keep conducting your personal business, start SCREAMING aggressively at the police in a Walgreen’s when they try to talk to you, and have an expectation that it’s all on them to make sure it turns out well, otherwise that’s unfair. IDK what ultimate outcome he realistically expected from what he did other than getting violently arrested once more cops arrive.
He was afraid. Justifiably so, given that the cop acted in a way that could have gotten him killed. The generous reading here is that you’re making excuses for gross incompetence. Why?
And yeah, at that point, they’re going to look for whatever they can charge you with and aim to fuck up your life.
Why should we just accept that as a given? That’s not their job.
What outcome would you suggest that the cops do in this situation?
You’re ignoring the long history of systemic abuse that plays into this. To improve that, it is the party favored by the power imbalance who must go above and beyond.
Do you think the cops in that video acted with excellence?
Actual reasonable approach: follow the man in. Don’t keep making demands of him to stop, etc. Just keep up and explain to him that you’re going to ticket him for a broken break light, and if he accepts that you’ll be on your way. If he refuses, instruct him to get it fixed asap and take down his number plate so you can send the ticket in the mail. Cars usually have several brake lights. One of them being broken really isn’t a big deal.
Just leave, or let him leave, or what?
Not the worst outcome, but I know you’re horny for some JUSTICE.
Judging by the yt comments, you’re subscribed to a channel that caters heavily to racists, so I don’t have high hopes here.
Right, it’s clearly a channel that looks purely from the police’s POV. I watch other stuff from all kinds of different viewpoints. Audit the Audit is probably the most evenhanded one in terms of breaking down when the police did wrong, or when the citizen involved did something wrong, or both.
I definitely try not to come just from a purely “pro police” standpoint; to me what’s important is coming up with a system that works. I would be fully in support of:
More police accountability when they do something illegal
Better training, something like Verbal Judo and elements of psychology – i.e. help the cops not to antagonize people when they walk up to them, like this particular cop did in this particular interaction, and got the guy all amped up and then punished him for being amped up.
So with that all being said, I don’t feel like coming at things from a purely “anti-police” standpoint makes sense either. Maybe this dude has a warrant for some violent crime. He honestly gets pretty much no sympathy from me based on his behavior, because I suspect that he interacts with people this way in his personal life, too. He parks in the handicap space using someone else’s placard, he shouts over the cop and insists things that are clearly not accurate (“I’m not under arrest!”) and tries to bully his way to the cop accepting them. To be honest, for as much as I agree he was reacting out of fear, this whole interaction makes him seem like a POS that likes to throw his weight around and starts shouting if things aren’t exactly how he likes them. If I saw someone walk up to a cop and say something, and the cop reacted that way – which, yes, some cops do in some situations – I would make pretty much the exact same POS judgement about that cop based on what I observed. Just the fact that ultimately he got bullied, instead of being able to be the bully like he was trying to do, doesn’t change my assessment of how he acted at the outset.
Antagonism level of the suspect: 12/10,
Literally walked away to avoid conflict.
I get that both the cop and the big dude are basically just scared and reacting poorly out of fear.
Only one of them is armed with a lethal weapon and regularly assaults people. The cop is actively pursuing conflict, whereas the victim is avoiding it.
But that’s not the whole context! If I came up to your table in a restaurant, took your wallet, and then walked away and tried to leave, and screamed at you if you tried to follow me, I don’t get to blame you for “actively pursuing conflict.” There’s unresolved business we need to talk about, same as in this video.
Actual reasonable approach: follow the man in. Don’t keep making demands of him to stop, etc. Just keep up and explain to him that you’re going to ticket him for a broken break light, and if he accepts that you’ll be on your way. If he refuses, instruct him to get it fixed asap and take down his number plate so you can send the ticket in the mail. Cars usually have several brake lights. One of them being broken really isn’t a big deal.
If you want to change the system so the police can’t stop you for a brake light out, we can do that. There have already been some reforms after BLM, and some areas (e.g. cash bail) that clearly still need reform. But it needs to be, okay what’s a good whole system and how do we change things? Not just that we change them on the side of the road because someone’s shouting and if we counter-escalate in accordance with written law, that’ll wind up in a situation that’s bad for the shouting person.
Would you be in favor of changing the system so that what you’re describing is the prescribed behavior for cops in this situation? I.e. written law that if someone leaves a traffic stop for a minor infraction just shouts in your face for you to get the fuck outta here and leaves, you take down their plate number and deal with it via the mail?
Edit: And, just to throw my own answer in - how I think the cop should have reacted in this particular moment was somewhat similar to what you said, just without letting the guy bully his way out of the citation. I’ve actually seen a cop deescalate in a similar situation by using this general approach: Hey man, all I really need to you do is X, Y, Z. If you can do that, I’ll be out of your way and you can go about your night. If you don’t want to do that, then you are going to go to jail. But that’s not what I want to do. I want for you to do X, Y, Z so we can resolve our business and everything can be good. But I will take you to jail if you don’t do those things. Here’s what’s up, here’s the reason, and what I want to do is talk to you a little and then we can go on our way.
In the case I observed, it took a while (I think around 10 minutes) for the other person to calm down, and a whole lot of it has to do with the tone and body language involved. It is hard to do that, remain calm and steady and patient while someone bigger than you is screaming in your face. I actually can get why the cop here was rattled and reacted badly. But, that being said, him being calm and more understanding and less just repeating “Do X, Y, Z. Do X, Y, Z. Do X, Y, Z,” like he’s the boss and everyone’s supposed to obey, would have gone a long way on the cop’s side to making this have a better outcome.
WTF, I honestly hesitated to post this, because I felt like “We shouldn’t threaten the Unity management” was so obvious that I felt ridiculous taking it seriously enough to break down the reasons. But the votes clearly indicate that that’s not the consensus.
All I can say is, y’all need to study history a lot more than you have. I get that you feel justified in your viewpoint, but there’ve been a lot of people who felt justified in their viewpoint who then got proper fucked up because of it.
If people did it your way we would still have slavery and women wouldn’t be able to vote or hold jobs. There comes a point where the people preaching the reasoned approach are simply helping the oppressors. I’m not saying people should go out making death threats, but expecting people who’s livelihoods are threatened by greed to shut up and martyr themselves or go through broken channels that don’t work is stupid and not going to happen.
So, I’m actually specifically not telling you that this whole thing is ridiculous and you should just be a good citizen and get back in line. If you look back over my posts you’ll see that I’m addressing it more than anything from a perspective of “If you want economic justice, what is the most effective way to get it?”
This guy wanted to be treated and talked to respectfully, and to understand what was going on and feel safe in the situation he was in. Those are 100% reasonable things to want. Would you say that the way he went about pursuing those things got him the result that he wanted?
He seems terrified.
Notice how the cops try to get him to accept a search of his car? That’s them hoping they can find something to destroy this man’s life. They have absolutely zero reason for the search. The issue is a busted break light. They should just ticket him for that instead of wasting time and resources on their antagonistic bullshit.
Okey dokey, let’s talk.
Antagonism level of the cops here: 3/10, I have some notes
Antagonism level of the suspect: 12/10, dude is literally SCREAMING at and totally ignoring the totally legal and reasonable behavior of the cop who’s just trying to conduct a traffic stop on him
I get that both the cop and the big dude are basically just scared and reacting poorly out of fear. Two particular things really pissed me off from the cops’ side: At the end they can’t seem to understand, or don’t want to understand, that they’re fucking up his shoulders. There’s no urgency to standing him back up, and he’s understandably upset because he’s in a lot of pain, and he seems pretty ready at that point to work with them, if they show him a little calm and empathy or just back off and let the medically qualified hospital staff deal with him. And, in the beginning, the whole situation was escalated by the initial cop, who clearly seemed scared and unsure and didn’t do a perfect job and specifically requested an uncalled-for violent response just because the guy was yelling and being unreasonable (“step it up” basically means “I am in a physical fight right now and may lose, drop everything you’re doing and come in guns blazing,” it’s one of the highest-priority calls you can make and clearly didn’t apply to the situation he was in).
Two separate times in my life, I’ve seen cops deescalate situations where someone was yelling or arguing heatedly in their faces, and it went fine and no one got arrested. They can do it if they’re good at the job. But, that doesn’t mean you can just refuse to participate in a traffic stop, wander off somewhere else and keep conducting your personal business, start SCREAMING aggressively at the police in a Walgreen’s when they try to talk to you, and have an expectation that it’s all on them to make sure it turns out well, otherwise that’s unfair. IDK what ultimate outcome he realistically expected from what he did other than getting violently arrested once more cops arrive. And yeah, at that point, they’re going to look for whatever they can charge you with and aim to fuck up your life.
(Edit: And – one of the very first things they do once the situation is stable is go to try to check on his cuffs to make sure they’re not too tight. When they try to do that, he just starts screaming aggressively at them again and they give up, but one of the first things on their mind is trying to make sure he’s ok, which they in no way had to do.)
What outcome would you suggest that the cops do in this situation? Just leave, or let him leave, or what? You say they should have just ticketed him, but that was literally what the first cop was trying to do and it looks to me like big dude was 100% ready to just get back in his car and leave without accepting the ticket.
Judging by the yt comments, you’re subscribed to a channel that caters heavily to racists, so I don’t have high hopes here.
Called in backup. Put victim on ground in handcuffs. Tried to search his car without cause. Harmed the victim needlessly.
Literally walked away to avoid conflict.
Only one of them is armed with a lethal weapon and regularly assaults people. The cop is actively pursuing conflict, whereas the victim is avoiding it.
I see absolutely no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s their job. They regularly have people in a position like that. They were hurting him intentionally.
What you’re saying here is that the first cop was fixing to get someone killed. 3/10 though.
He was afraid. Justifiably so, given that the cop acted in a way that could have gotten him killed. The generous reading here is that you’re making excuses for gross incompetence. Why?
Why should we just accept that as a given? That’s not their job.
You’re ignoring the long history of systemic abuse that plays into this. To improve that, it is the party favored by the power imbalance who must go above and beyond.
Do you think the cops in that video acted with excellence?
Actual reasonable approach: follow the man in. Don’t keep making demands of him to stop, etc. Just keep up and explain to him that you’re going to ticket him for a broken break light, and if he accepts that you’ll be on your way. If he refuses, instruct him to get it fixed asap and take down his number plate so you can send the ticket in the mail. Cars usually have several brake lights. One of them being broken really isn’t a big deal.
Not the worst outcome, but I know you’re horny for some JUSTICE.
Right, it’s clearly a channel that looks purely from the police’s POV. I watch other stuff from all kinds of different viewpoints. Audit the Audit is probably the most evenhanded one in terms of breaking down when the police did wrong, or when the citizen involved did something wrong, or both.
I definitely try not to come just from a purely “pro police” standpoint; to me what’s important is coming up with a system that works. I would be fully in support of:
So with that all being said, I don’t feel like coming at things from a purely “anti-police” standpoint makes sense either. Maybe this dude has a warrant for some violent crime. He honestly gets pretty much no sympathy from me based on his behavior, because I suspect that he interacts with people this way in his personal life, too. He parks in the handicap space using someone else’s placard, he shouts over the cop and insists things that are clearly not accurate (“I’m not under arrest!”) and tries to bully his way to the cop accepting them. To be honest, for as much as I agree he was reacting out of fear, this whole interaction makes him seem like a POS that likes to throw his weight around and starts shouting if things aren’t exactly how he likes them. If I saw someone walk up to a cop and say something, and the cop reacted that way – which, yes, some cops do in some situations – I would make pretty much the exact same POS judgement about that cop based on what I observed. Just the fact that ultimately he got bullied, instead of being able to be the bully like he was trying to do, doesn’t change my assessment of how he acted at the outset.
But that’s not the whole context! If I came up to your table in a restaurant, took your wallet, and then walked away and tried to leave, and screamed at you if you tried to follow me, I don’t get to blame you for “actively pursuing conflict.” There’s unresolved business we need to talk about, same as in this video.
If you want to change the system so the police can’t stop you for a brake light out, we can do that. There have already been some reforms after BLM, and some areas (e.g. cash bail) that clearly still need reform. But it needs to be, okay what’s a good whole system and how do we change things? Not just that we change them on the side of the road because someone’s shouting and if we counter-escalate in accordance with written law, that’ll wind up in a situation that’s bad for the shouting person.
Would you be in favor of changing the system so that what you’re describing is the prescribed behavior for cops in this situation? I.e. written law that if someone leaves a traffic stop for a minor infraction just shouts in your face for you to get the fuck outta here and leaves, you take down their plate number and deal with it via the mail?
Edit: And, just to throw my own answer in - how I think the cop should have reacted in this particular moment was somewhat similar to what you said, just without letting the guy bully his way out of the citation. I’ve actually seen a cop deescalate in a similar situation by using this general approach: Hey man, all I really need to you do is X, Y, Z. If you can do that, I’ll be out of your way and you can go about your night. If you don’t want to do that, then you are going to go to jail. But that’s not what I want to do. I want for you to do X, Y, Z so we can resolve our business and everything can be good. But I will take you to jail if you don’t do those things. Here’s what’s up, here’s the reason, and what I want to do is talk to you a little and then we can go on our way.
In the case I observed, it took a while (I think around 10 minutes) for the other person to calm down, and a whole lot of it has to do with the tone and body language involved. It is hard to do that, remain calm and steady and patient while someone bigger than you is screaming in your face. I actually can get why the cop here was rattled and reacted badly. But, that being said, him being calm and more understanding and less just repeating “Do X, Y, Z. Do X, Y, Z. Do X, Y, Z,” like he’s the boss and everyone’s supposed to obey, would have gone a long way on the cop’s side to making this have a better outcome.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Audit the Audit
Verbal Judo
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.