Comments

1

Why should months old bike fender bender story or a pleasant police officer graciously cleaning up graffiti be important enough to make the news?

2

@1 because it fits Matt's hatred of cars and police. No other reason.

And Matt? I'll stop driving when you stop being sanctimonious. k?

3

Sanctimonious - That's the word I've been looking for! Nice work @2.

5

Drivers killing people? Cops killing people? Guess what, libs? Lawsuits! Problem solved.

That's what makes America great.

9

@4:

No, the reason the cop hit the cyclist is because he was a dumbass. He couldn't possibly have NOT seen the cyclist whom he would have had to overtaken on his right before turning into the garage entrance. So, he either assumed he could make the turn - around a blind barrier not knowing if there were pedestrians on the other side of it - before the cyclist came level to the front of his vehicle; which would have been a pretty stupid assumption given their relative speeds, or else he assumed the cyclist would suddenly stop (which the cyclist would not have been under any obligation to do, since they had the right-of-way), I guess, because everyone stops for cops? Or else he just didn't give a flying fuck.

Any one of those scenarios indicates a lack of both environmental awareness and just good, old, run-of-the-mill common sense; things one would think should be basic requirements for someone in his position.

10

Matt lives in Seattle because Seattle is totally gay. If that bothers you, move the fuck away.

14

@10: Quite an assortment of American cities are sufficiently (if not totally) gay including Kansas City speaking from experience. Matt lives in Seattle, I assume, because he enjoys the city for its multitude of attributes like I do. The gay culture is tangential.

But perhaps he'll chime in and clarify.

16

@15: I suppose you're extrapolating crowed control measures that every city uses throughout the world into a blank check to murder civilians.

18

@17: Pardon me. My hype parsing skills are getting rusty.

19

@15/17 you're hyperbole is on point today! Becoming a police officer requires a bit more than a driver's license and a pulse. You can argue the requirements should be more stringent especially psychologically however it currently has one of the highest requirement levels of any public service position as it should. Also, "raining bullets"? you're better than that.

20

Being gay should be the least interesting thing about someone. Except in Mr. Baume's case, obviously.

22

@19:

Passing the Basic Law Enforcement Academy training takes about 4 - 4 1/2 months (720 hours - https://www.seattle.gov/police/frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=The%20Basic%20Law%20Enforcement%20Academy,responsible%20for%20their%20own%20housing.).

By way of comparison, to become a dental hygienist, one needs an associates degree, which takes about 2 years - about the same time as for an auto mechanic or carpenter's assistant; for an optometrists assistant it's about six months; a paralegal requires about 20 months training to earn an associates degree. Hell, it takes about three years to earn a law degree. In other words, it takes EIGHT TIMES as long to learn how to interpret the law as it does to learn how to enforce it.

I could go on, but the point is, there are many, many entry-level jobs that require far more hours of skills training than your average cop.

28

@23:

Except these are cops, people whose specific job is to uphold and enforce the law. Why should they get off with civil liability when they engage in activities that would put the rest of us in jail and in front of a judge and jury, especially when they're supposed to have been trained to know better?

@25:

Or just take away all their military LARPing toys, limit overtime pay, and eliminate qualified immunity and them pay pay civil and/or criminal penalties out of their own pockets. Those adjustments alone should be more than sufficient to pay for additional (read: minimally adequate) training.

31

Hey Matt, hold your horses. That bit of video depicts a collision, but does not provide enough information to establish proximate cause. What I could see was that both the bicyclist and patrol vehicle were initially traveling eastbound on Pine St. What you can't see is what occurred during the seconds that led up to impact. A collision reconstructionist would want to see images of Pine street from all directions, particularly on the other side of the Jersey barriers, in addition to scale diagram of the entire roadway. Where did the bicyclist come from? What were their relative speeds prior to impact? Had the bicyclist been seriously injured or killed, the roadway would have been closed down and a complete collision investigation would have been conducted. (Don't worry, in addition to SPD's investigation, the grieving family would have hired a private reconstructionist to review and or dispute SPD's findings. They would have utilized SPD's photographs, diagrams, witness statements, free of charge.) Was this snippet of video all that was available, or was it edited? Maybe it was the cops fault, maybe it wasn't. You surely don't have the training or experience to make that call. You see Matt, when you make it up as you go along, you can say whatever you want. In the real world, where grown-ups are involved, it's not that simple.

32

@31 That would require Matt to be an objective reporter.... a true and valiant seeker after truth.

By now, it should be very clear that The Stranger has an agenda... but sadly "truth" has been driven from it ... blind, naked and destitute... supplanted by ignorance, arrogance and anger.

The Stranger was another perspective or view point...when supported by fact, and moral justice...but now it has been relegated to little more than a soap box for a discredited agenda.

And that is very sad to see after all these years.... its simply lost its way and is now a wasteland to the disenfranchised crack pots of the far left.

33

Yes, I too remember the glory days of The Stranger, Seattle's lefty alt-weekly, when it was known for its objective, hard hitting journalism with no discernible political agenda or bias. Where is the MORAL JUSTICE?!! Kids these days.

34

Indeed, I long for the days when The Stranger was free of bias and Dan Savage's advice was based solely on his personal piety and biblical scripture.

38

+1 for Coway air filters. Expensive, but worth it.

40

@36. Who, exactly, appointed you as the arbiter of what or what does not deserve to be posted in these comments? Yourself? Unless you are a secret account for a Stranger employee, it doesn't make a lot of sense for you to get SO ANGRY at any dissenting opinion.

I perused your comment history. 98% is you not adding to the conversation, but rather attacking other posters who(m) you do not agree with. Seldom shall be heard a discouraging word while Prof H is on the beat!

You attack-- yes ATTACK -- other posters with projected character flaws and profane insults (apparently heap/pile of dog shit is your current jam) if they don't agree completely with whatever the topic might be. There is no room for dissent. And you have the gall to call others fascists.

As for your "If you don't like it, go somewhere else" the same could be said for you, or more importantly the Stranger writers who rag on KOMO (I'm no fan) or whomever else you perceive to be your ideological enemies. Why? Why do people post dissenting opinions here? Why don't they "go somewhere else"? Because the Stranger represents an 'alternative' media that represents Seattle, and it makes those of us who generally agree with the ideology look like shit when poorly written articles that ignore easily verifiable fact or omit inconvenient truths are posted every single weekday here. Garbage is garbage.

And you project SO MUCH. 'I'm up in your head'! You are the one that posts late at night, on weekends when normals are having a real life, and again -- nothing new except: 'You're a pile of dogshit, here are 5 links I copied to prove it!'

You bring ABSOULUTELY NOTHING to the conversation, but try to hijack it by flooding the zone with shit. And for what? Soon it will just be you and Blip jerking each other off. Congrats! You 'won'.

41

@1. It's not old news to Matt, because it combines the three things he despises most in life, and so he probably watches it over and over. The three:

1) The police
2) Cars
3) Seattle

42

@9 - Oh, for Pete's sake, sometimes an accident is just an accident an not a sign of something more sinister. Cops are behind the wheel A LOT and they do have accidents; I've had accidents in my career, most non-preventable and none with injuries but still.

My mother, who like all good mothers, is kind and gentle hit a cyclist in much the same way a few years ago, and he sustained minor injuries. That was purely an unintentional accident that she felt horrible about. She absolutely gives a flying fuck, and she's not a dumbass. Accidents happen.

All that said, it's kind of ironic that cops enforce distracted driving statutes, given that they themselves may well be the most distracted drivers out there. The need to monitor the police radio, the mobile data terminal and telephone, all of which are constantly chirping with alerts, rings, messages, etc.. Oh, sometimes moving radar, chip tracking devices and Lojack are also crammed into the rest of their onboard equipment. All this "stuff" creates a huge distraction all the time.

Cops drive with one hand only all the time because of the necessity of using all this gear, even during pursuits. It was a problem we were concerned about even more than 10 years ago; I suspect it's even worse now with the addition of even more tech into patrol vehicles.

As to training, the wide, wide disparity in training from one agency to another in this country is a problem, in my opinion, but I guess that's what comes with having no national police force. Dallas PD has a 36-week academy and about 8 months of field training. It takes 62 weeks to be able to work alone there. In contrast, small towns around me now require 10 weeks in a regional academy and much less field training time.

I hear everyone demanding college degrees for police work, but police agencies have been struggling to fill their ranks for years now with less than 1% of them requiring degrees. In fact, many of those few that did have college requirements are backing away from them amidst this recruiting shortage. Dallas used to require 60 semester hours (in anything), but now accepts 2 years police experience elsewhere or 2 years military in lieu of that...and that's been a common adjustment among police agencies that required college. Some have dropped college requirements altogether in the face of historic recruiting shortages.

So, given those realities, where are we going to get all these college graduates, and how do we get them to join the ranks of the cops?

44

shouldda been some kinda
Warning Sign in the Bike
Lane: Turning Po-po
heads the Fuck Up

no one couldda An-
ticipated such a
turn I suppose
meh they're
just cyclists

@42 -- speaking of Distractions
coming into Darrington all the Civilization
caught my eye and there was plenty to see
even at twenty-five. when I saw the two cops
parked just off the intersection of a four-way stop
I'd glanced away just Long enough to not notice a
STOP sign on my right where Thank God there was
no oncoming motorist as I cruised on thru... Amazingly
they didn't happen to Notice me either.

LIGHT IT UP Darrington.

Cars are fucking
Dangerous.

45

into Darrington
from the E. Wa

46

@26 - I object. As a cyclist I've been run completely off the pavement by Metro drivers 3 times. In every case I had the clear right of way. (one pulled into the bike lane on Ravenna without signalling to go around a stalled car, and another changed lanes while making a left turn. When I called the second one on it, he said (a direct quote) "Fuck you!". They are a fucking menace.

48

@Hossenfeffer Blistery
et al

when a few peeps
possess enough Stocks
and Bonds they can buy 'our'
Legislators and bonus ALL the
FREE $PEECH they wanna. When
did 'we' decide that's what We the Peeps
Wanted? sometimes peeps just Take tf Over.

49

from desolation to
Civilization in just
a few short blocks
w/Mtns in between
& then there you Are
trusting your Car to take
good Care of you cocooned up
heated leather w/Sweedish Massage
and a footbath... Who's got the Wheel?

50

'scuze me
chilled Corinthian
Leather. what was I thinking

51

@21 you know for someone that claims to have banned me from their feed and scoffs at the notion they read anything I have to say you certainly have a compulsion to constantly reply. Well while I got your attention let me just say unequivocally that you are clown. Not even a notable clown like the one from IT or Krusty just a sad, sack of shit type clown. I won't even spend time running through your post because as usual you take one thing and go to the extremest position to somehow "prove" your point that you are so superior. The SPD is not the most highly trained police force in the world? Oh my fucking gosh, you so got me there. The funniest part is when you tell Comte how I'm going to cherry pick my response and then you proceed to cherry pick your own data. I see @40 already called you out for today anyway so doesn't seem there is much more to say.

@30 Blip sorry if I jumped to conclusions. You're right that went right over my head. I'm used to responding to asshats like 21. My bad. Have a good night.

52

@42:

If all that multitasking is too much for them, if it distracts them from being able to execute even the most rudimentary driving maneuvers in a safe manner like the rest of us are expected to do, then perhaps they should consider another line of work, one that's less mentally demanding of their attention. And yes, accidents will happen, but in this particular instance it was easily avoidable IF the driver had been paying attention to his immediate surroundings. As I said above, given the relative speeds of both vehicles and the adjacency of that driveway to the intersection (I know it well, been through it a thousand times myself) if the copy DIDN'T see the cyclist right next to him then he simply wasn't paying attention. Accidents don't negate culpability, and in this case there's no fucking way the driver wasn't egregiously at fault.

53

Shorter @51:

"I don't have a decent argument to counter PF, so instead I'll just spend the next ten minutes - which I COULD have used to formulate a counter-argument, but "won't even spend the time" - composing a long, rambling screed comprised of mostly ad hominem attacks."

And he thinks the Professor is a clown...

54

@52 - I was simply saying that attacking the driver's character and presumed intelligence is unduly harsh given that kind and considerate people who may actually be pretty smart have had much the same kind of accident...and will continue to do so as long as cars, bikes and pedestrians share the road. Of course, he...and countless others...should have paid more attention, but no one is perfect, and accidents happen as a result.

You've never had a wreck that was your fault?

As to the distraction in cop cars, well, you should give one a whirl for a while! You have to pay attention to the road, but you also have to pay attention to many pieces of comm and monitoring equipment at the same time, and as I said, that shit is constantly going off. Anyone would be distracted...at least when working alone. Having a second officer in the car relieves the driver of monitoring duties. A Heads-Up display might help. Both of those cost money, tho, and the first reduces police visibility on the street, something police agencies don't like to do.

55

@53 Why respond to his comment or "defend" myself when it had nothing to do with what I wrote? In no way did I ever say or imply the SPD is one of the most highly trained forces in the world. It's like seeing a fresh pile of shit on the lawn and thinking hmmm I'll just step right in that rather than walk around. I have no problems replying to people when we are having an actual debate.

56

@54 -- that's why the
Po-po need an Assistant
mayhaps like the taxi driver
in Blade Runner. someone Helpful

maybe Ask
Jeff or Alexi


Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.