>"Every Flock license plate reader camera operated by the Winona Police Department has been sawed off and stolen in what investigators believe was a coordinated theft, [...] All eight cameras were taken"

8? LOL! We had over SIX HUNDRED of those privacy-raping devices as of mid-last year in my metro area. Probably up to 700 by now.

Name calling isn't intelligent.

>"In a civilized democratic society, non-compliance with a police officer is not an excuse for summary execution."

Non-compliance very rarely leads to to a fatal or horrible outcome (and it wouldn't be an "summary execution" if the police resort to lethal force to protect themselves and the public). But it greatly increases such chances. And compliance almost guarantees a reasonable outcome.

Your broad characterization of police as blood-thirsty nazis is warped. And they don't put their hands on their guns simply because of "mean words." I suspect if you had to do their job for a few months in a high-crime area, you would quickly understand why they have to be hyper-aware/careful/defensive.

Please keep in mind I was replying to someone saying he/she is "afraid to visit the USA." Which is pretty ridiculous.

But still, you give people zero agency. It doesn't matter where you live, you still can choose to be law abiding and respectful and usually choose not to associate with others who are not. I know in some circumstances that can be difficult....

Being raised by toxic people can make it very difficult; if you are a minor and forced to live with someone who is not law abiding and respectful that might be insurmountable. Especially if you weren't taught good morals/manners. My hope would be schools, and that is where more focus should be placed. Stressing strong discipline/control coupled with respect and reward for good behavior.

>"also, getting pulled over with guns drawn is NOT reasonable."

Yes, it is reasonable if they believe the suspect is armed or extremely dangerous. I care about the safety of the police and the public, as I do for the suspect.

>"but i doubt you will care until it happens to you."

Wrongly pulled over? Of course I would care. Just as I care about it happening to that woman or to you or anyone. Look through my previous posts. I even believe she should get an official apology AND reasonable monetary compensation because of it.

>"So long as your skin is light enough and you stay in wealthy and middle class areas."

Sorry, I think you are using skin color or area as an excuse for behavior.

>"You miss the point."

Not really

>"Instead of choosing to depend on a fragile ( FLOCK ) identification system, police depts could choose NOT to use it at all."

The police are absolutely going to use any tool they have access to. The legislators need to be the ones who fix/limit/remove the cameras.

>"Efficiency is the excuse of a tyrant/gestapo agent, not one policing in a free republic."

I agree. And, as I wrote before, I am not a fan of Flock or the surveillance state. These connected spy cameras *ARE* effective at catching criminals. But it is also ripe for abuse. So much so that we need to see if the balance between safety and freedom/privacy is out of balance (and I think it is way out of balance).

>"The "suspected plate" ploy stinks to high-heaven."

Hanlon's razor: one should not assume malicious intent when a situation can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, or accident.

If you are a law-abiding person, and hang around with law-abiding people, the chances of your interacting with police is extremely low. And if you are compliant on the very rare case of interacting, your chance of having anything bad happen are so small to be almost nothing.

I am pretty old now. I have always lived in cities or large counties and have only encountered police twice in my entire life. Both were while driving. One was for a speeding ticket, and one was a warning for speeding. The encounters were completely fine/normal/respectful. I didn't do anything stupid. I didn't insult, complain, or have some nasty attitude, and I followed commands. Having discussed this with friends and family, every one had the same experiences.

And yes, you MUST obey commands from the police. PERIOD. Even if they are wrong. Even if they are illegal. Your venue for fighting wrong is in the courts, not in the streets.

>"Non compliance with a police officer is not a capitol crime."

Nobody said it was. Or did I miss something?

>" Every cop who shoots an unarmed suspect should be fired at least and put on trial for murder."

You are not thinking this through. One, you assume the police can have perfect knowledge, they don't and can't. Two, you assume just because someone is "unarmed" makes them not dangerous, which is untrue. Three, a suspect can easily become armed when trying to reach for an officer's gun, even holstered (and there have been numerous police shot in just that way).

Any suspect shot should, and almost always is, taken very seriously by police departments and local authorities and does lead to lengthy investigations and sometimes officer prosecution. As a side-note, "murder" requires malice aforethought. That is rarely applicable in such cases (it is more likely to be manslaughter).

Rare as they are, bad cops absolutely should be rooted out and dealt with very harshly. But overgeneralization is not helpful.

Any such horrible outcomes are too many.

But that is an extreme anecdote which is extraordinarily rare. There there is no question that the police behavior in that incident is horrible. And in no way would I defend it. But it is not representative of the 99.998% of interactions (or whatever extremely high percent of interactions which have the police using drawn weapons), which do not have such outcomes. It doesn't retort my earlier statement that almost all such bad outcomes are due to non-compliance by the suspect.

Multiple things can be true at once. Police do make mistakes with commands and use of force. Suspects do make mistakes with compliance and their actions. But if you objectively examine the totality of such interactions, it is extremely rarely the fault of the police for a bad outcome. And yes, the police should and must be held to a higher standard, and evidence shows that they are.

I totally agree. However, your data completely ignores if the suspects are being compliant or not. And you know, as well as anyone, those injuries are almost always due to the suspects being non-compliant/hostile/violent/dangerous. There are a lot of violent/horrible/nasty people out there.

In this case, at least the second pull-over was completely avoidable, and based on questionable policies. But she also complied with the police and was fine, other than being inconvenienced/embarrassed/upset. And I think that should come with an official apology and some offer of reasonable compensation (like a thousand). Followed-up with a serious review of why the plate was not removed from all databases immediately once the error was discovered, and how that can be avoided.

>"99.999+% of the time the police have a non violent incident like a broken tail light. In this case they had been told they had a murder suspect. That expectation make the stop much more dangerous than the average."

Absolutely agree. In cases of murder or other violent suspects, the police have to be ready for violence thrown their way. And that does raise the stakes. But even then, if a suspect complies, there is very little danger (even if it is much higher than typical). But when a suspect doesn't comply, then it gets very dangerous.

I have seen countless videos of violent attacks on police by suspects who do not comply. With police officers killed or seriously injured by really bad people. But it doesn't mean we should strive to always make systems and procedures better.

Another poster mentioned that one agency/county/city can't clear the mistaken or ended Flock alert entered by another. And that might be what happened in this case, and that seems completely whacked.

>"As I understand from other reading, one law enforcement agency cannot remove or flag the alert of another."

If that is true, then that is, indeed, a stupid flaw. I am sure they have some reason for that, but from my view, it makes no sense. Of course, I think that, by design, these over-present, interconnected cameras extremely hostile to our privacy and civil liberties.

>"It failed QA. Now the real world test, and it happened twice. The company should drop the L from their name"

I hate these cameras for many valid reasons. But they didn't fail. In fact, they worked exactly as designed. And I have no doubt having all those cameras does, indeed, catch more criminals. The questions is do the means justify the ends. (And I think the Flock model is a "no").

The "fault" is the police not clearing the alert. And the other "fault" are the politicians who decided it is OK to install all this stuff.

>"Given she was guilty of Driving While Black"

Race has nothing to do with it. She was pulled over because of the plate alert. But nice try.

>"it's somewhat surprising they didn't shoot her during one stop or the other."

Stop being ridiculous. 99.999+% of the time, if a person complies with the officers (like pulling over immediately and following instructions), the interaction will be reasonable. I am NOT saying non-compliance should result in death, but when people choose to do stupid s*** then bad things are much, much more likely to occur.

There are some 50 MILLION interactions with police per year in the USA. Around 800 result in death. That is 0.0016% And almost all of those are due to non-compliance and/or valid threats made to the police.

I am not a fan of Flock at all. But the mistake had nothing to do with Flock. The police failed to remove a suspected plate from the system. Even without Flock, had a cop spotted the car, they would have reacted. And probably in the same way.

Sex/race is irrelevant. And yes, I think she should be compensated in some reasonable way for the mistake, especially since it happened twice (insane).