[jcw]

I'm happy to see that, while he did something wrong, because he was honest and openly remorseful throughout, he ended up not going to prison. The cops even seemed cordial, they let him get breakfast and a smoke.

I wonder how differently things would have played out if he lived in the US.

[podperson]

I think the German police clearly thought he was not going to get justice from the US (hence the remarks about how lucky he was that they got him before he got on the plane) and saved him from falling into the FBI's trap.

[atourgates]

Considering the rash of "OMG the police barged into my house, shot my goldfish and raped my star wars collection" type stories I've been hearing, is it safe to assume that the German police are quite a bit more sensible than their American counterparts?

The whole experience sounds rather civilized. The police let Gembe get dressed, eat breakfast and smoke a cigarette before bringing him down to the station. And when he confessed, his punishment was 2 years in probation.

I somehow doubt his experience with the FBI would have been similar.

[thomasz]

> is it safe to assume that the German police are quite a bit more sensible than their American counterparts?

It depends. Gun ownership isn't nearly as common in the US, so they can safely assume that a 17 year old blackhat won't pull a gun on them.

On the other hand, I've seen a ~4.9 feet tall girl getting knocked unconsciously with a Mp5 during the eviction of a squat. In 2003, a schizophrenic in custody was beaten to death by officers in Cologne. They were sentenced from 12 to 18 months in probation. In 2005, Oury Jalloh burned to death in a holding cell in Dessau while being tied with handcuffs to a fire-proof mattress at his hands and feet. In 2008, Josef Hoss was beaten to a bloody pulp by a special unit after his arrest. He is irreparably crippled. He later recieved 30,000€ for compensation.

[burgerbrain]

The difference between Germany and the US? Those types incidents are uncommon enough that you can remember individual occurrences.

[ars]

Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany.

[psykotic]

> Oh come on, they are quite rare in the US as well, and the US is a LOT larger than Germany.

Yes, if "a LOT larger" means 3.5x larger. Germany has 82 million inhabitants and is the most populous country in Europe.

[Dylanlacey]

ANYWHERE you get people whose jobs are power-over-others based, you'll get fuckwads taking those jobs to feel powerful. Then abusing those jobs for the same reason. It has nothing to do with the nation and everything to do with the nature of people and policework.

[PakG1]

Some of the police brutality comes down to poor decision-making due to poor training and little experience. I never saw it that way until I read Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. There's a chapter where he discusses an incident in New York where cops shot up an innocent guy. The analysis was that in high-pressure situations, the mind ceases to function and focuses purely on survival and sustaining one's self. One becomes essentially autistic in being unable to recognize social signs such as facial expressions, body movements, etc, and the outcomes when weapons are in play are often gruesome.

It was quite an enlightening read, and I think I take it seriously because my own experience in high pressure situations. First was a time when I was taking a walk with my dad and some kids surrounded us. One tried to spray pepper spray in my face from behind, but my dad saw he was doing something so yelled at him, and my dad got sprayed instead. Then they all ran. I was stunned and couldn't process what was going on; really, I was just so focused on the guy in front of me, my decision-making process was paralyzed.

My second was when I was the venue technology manager for Cypress Mountain at the Vancouver Winter Olympics (freestyle skiing and snowboarding). In terms of operational pressure, that was the most difficult thing I ever experienced, and even more so because Cypress was literally the most difficult and complicated venue of the Olympics. There were situations where my brain literally just shut down and I was going 100 miles an hour trying to fix whatever went wrong; there's a word for that, it's called panic. If it weren't for the training I had and some of my more experienced colleagues, I imagine it would have been an utter disaster.

I can only imagine that if I have some guns, batons, or any other type of weapon, and am meant to quell a situation, it could get ugly easily.

edit: One more anecdote, my friend is an immigration officer. He had an incident once where he and another officer were interrogating a guy because some papers or something needed clarification. The guy suddenly made a move, they misinterpreted, and it became an all-out brawl. My friend distinctly remembers yelling at his colleague and his colleague yelling back at him, but they could not hear each other. Their minds were in a zone where they could no longer communicate, they were just subconsciously focused on survival. Later, it all turned out to be a mistake, but in the heat of the moment, it was hard to discern that.

[die_sekte]

Germany neither has a War on Drugs nor a meth problem. There have been highly criticized raids in Germany, but there are fewer raids per capita in Germany, and in Germany police-citizen interaction is less violent (no automatic assumption that that driver that was just pulled over is armed, for example).

[burgerbrain]

"War on Drugs nor a meth problem"

You say that as if the first does not cause the second. America's 'war on drugs' is the cause of the problems, not an excuse.

[billmcneale]

Please. Do we need any more anti-US rhetoric here?

I see no reason to believe that he would have been treated differently by the FBI, and besides, he would probably have been extradited right back to Germany.

[danssig]

You don't appear to be aware of what's going on in the US right now. I would also suggest reading what pg has to say about identity (and keeping it small).

[borism]

link?

[GFischer]

http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

About considering you part of something:

"..There is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you."

[ryandvm]

No kidding. I would love to hear Gabe Newell's take on this article. That kid was a hairbreadth away from spending half a decade in a federal pen. That had to be a hell of a "whew" moment he had in that police station.

[Semiapies]

The cops were "cordial" after rousting him out of bed while pointing automatic weapons at him. In other words, they armed up and stormed the residence of a suspect of a non-violent crime. That sounds pretty standard for the US, and for the same reason indicated by the instruction, "Get out of bed. Do not touch the keyboard".

SWAT-style tactics are rarely about any actual belief that the suspect has weapons and is likely to resist arrest, but about violently (sometimes lethally) subduing a suspect who might destroy evidence and impair the prosecution's case.

And, of course, the overtime pay for SWAT work in many US jurisdictions. Don't know how that works in Germany.

[basugasubaku]

On the reddit thread, the guy says that was inaccurate and they were actually "really nice" in waking him up.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/fpkav/the_boy_who_st...

[Semiapies]

Hmm! I wonder what that's about. Thanks for the information.

[ars]

Things would have been exactly the same in the US.

The stories that get all the publicity are the bad ones which of course leads you to think that's all there is.

But by far most cases end up exactly like this one.

Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops. If you are honest and open with them you get a far milder punishment than someone who won't talk. I've seen it in so many case reports.

Judges are trying to figure out what kind of person you are. If you are open and honest they figure you made a mistake, but are basically a good person and thus don't need much punishment.

On the other hand someone who won't talk is assumed to have a more negative mindset.

I don't mean to suggest that not talking is taken as evidence for guilt - guilt is established separately and is not based on your cooperation. But the punishment for that guilt varies depending on your behavior in court and to the cops.

A lot of the advice on the internet about not talking to cops etc is aimed at avoiding guilt. And it may work. But it utterly ignores the second half, which to me seems almost as important, and that is punishment.

[jessedhillon]

> Judges LOVE honesty, and so do cops.

Traffic tickets are not even in the same league as the kind of offenses that we're talking about here, but if they are any indication then I have to agree. I've gotten out of my last three traffic stops by simply telling the cop exactly what I did: driving in the HOV lane without a passenger, rolling through a stop sign, and doing 40 in a 25.

These people -- law enforcement and the court -- get jerked around all day by people who insult their intelligence with bullshit stories. It must be refreshing to hear someone clearly admit what they did with no attempt to evade responsibility.

[Tomis]

Now you've ruined it.