Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for U.Va. student

Re:Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for U.Va. s... by sophacles on Saturday June 29, 2013 @11:43AM (#5962711)

And your opinion of the "cold blooded" mistakes? That is to say planning to swarm a couple of young college kids without any clear identification that they were officials? This type of swarming is always loud confusing and chaotic. All on purpose. The goal is to overwhelm and induce a "deer in the headlights" situation in the people approached. This girl just happened to have good survival instincts and did what she could to get out of a situation that was designed to activate those instincts. At the very very very least, those officers should be punished for entrapment. I honestly think she would never have tried to get away if they had calmly approached and showed proper identification without the drama.

But hey, they are just doing their job right? If something bad happens, they as fully sentient beings can't be held responsible for their own actions, because job.

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Re:Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for U.Va. s... by Natsu on Monday July 01, 2013 @10:00PM (#5975270)

My idea of "cold blooded" mistakes are the other cases where they did something like this and then charged them. For those, I have no sympathy whatsoever--those are flatly ridiculous. I don't think this was planned or well-thought out, though, on any side, so I would not classify this as a "cold blooded" mistake by anyone.

Every case of running from the cops could be considered "entrapment" in the narrow sense that the person could not have fled from the police without being chased by them. As such, I do not find it sufficient inducement to support any such claim.

That said, I would certainly acquit anyone whose only crime was fleeing or "resisting" arrest--with no actual underlying crime, I would be highly suspicious of any account given. I am sympathetic to the idea that those are BS charges often added as padding. If there is no evidence of injury to one of the cops, I would consider any charge of "resisting" arrest to be likely BS.

But that's why I support the people who did the right thing and dropped the charges. Cops are not inherently different from anyone else: they make mistakes just like we all do. The big problem is that their screwups cost people more.

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Re:Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for U.Va. s... by sophacles on Tuesday July 02, 2013 @05:10PM (#5980763)

Wait, so the entire training program, which is about how to shock and stun your opponents was not thought out or planned? No wonder we spend so much on law enforcement - even their training programs are accidental transmissions of knowledge and tactics.

I do honestly appreciate your point of view though: the mental contortions you are able to go through are quite impressive!

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Re:Bottled-water purchase leads to night in jail for U.Va. s... by Natsu on Friday July 05, 2013 @01:35PM (#5995841)

> Wait, so the entire training program, which is about how to shock and stun your opponents was not thought out or planned?

The reasoning behind that is to reduce the risk of death or serious injury. In spite of the fright, you will note that nobody got injured in this case, frightening as it may have been.

What is your solution, exactly?

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