A few weeks ago i was walking my dog around 11pm, and a driver jokingly did a brake torque as we were crossing the street. He was maybe 3 feet away from us.
After yelling at each other, he threatened to kill me and my dog the next time he saw us. As I pulled my camera he peeled out and hurled a racial comment my way. Sadly, there was so much movement i couldnt get the plate, and i didnt get anything that happened before that on camera.
So I got a body cam to wear for all my walks. Unfortunately, this is not the only time people have been racist and threatened my life so I’m just tired of it and hoping it might encourage people to behave. Feels lame, but it does provide some comfort. Does anyone else do the same?
What body cam do you use btw? I might want one since the political climate in my country is kinda horrifying. (USA btw)
I’ve never used one, but was always interested.
I mean, cops all have it, why shouldn’t civillians have it too? If everyone had one, it would prevent both crimes and police brutality/misconduct. We should really normalize it. And its all local storage, so there no privacy risk.
If you feel like you need it, continue using it. It not “lame”, its un-common, but just imagine yourself as a popular youtuber and you are vlogging or whatever.
I imagine a future where EVERYONE has one and every home, bussiness, apartment building, all have cameras, BUT they all use local storage and not connected to the cloud. If nothing happens, it gets overwritten, but if something happens, there’s evidence to prosecute evildoers.
If I see someone with a body camera, my first throught is possibly an undercover cop, or a youtuber.
No, as that would be illegal in many situations in my country. I also don’t want cameras pointed at me constantly, so I don’t do that to other people either.
Can you not have dash cams?
That sucks that it’s got to the point you feel like you need it but to be honest even just as a deterrent (even if you or others think it looks goofy to wear one) would be WELL worth it to wear one. I don’t think it requires outside validation for that.
Yea, I’m not super young but definitely not old, but this makes probably the 15th or 16th time I’ve dealt with such incidences. If people were more likely to be vocal about it and reprimand their behavior publicly, I’d feel safer. But no one ever has. And many of those incidences have involved stated death threats. This doesn’t include aggressions when I’m in a group of peers either. Of course when I’m with them, they all have my back. But alone? Nah.
I wish i could say this was all just my time in the bible belt, but this has happened in large, blue cities where I’d hoped I’d have more community support. This last incident was one of those cities.
Yeah, if you have a habit of confronting people in public when they’ve been assholes (and make no mistake, he was an asshole who deserves a beating), it probably would be a good idea. Or if you live in an area where these sorts of things regularly occur to you.
What possible outcome could you possibly expect from contronting someone who had done that? Just keep walking man. It sucks, but it’s not like you’re ever getting an apology.
I disagree. Not confronting them just encourages them to continue to keep it up.
And honestly, i do have a habit of confronting people (now) since others are often so likely to just not say anything against the bad behavior while others resort to victim shaming.
You’re right though. Something could happen, and now I think I will take the precautions to ensure I’m prepared for such moments.
Seems sort of insane for daily wear, but I think having a camera for walks or jogs isn’t the worst idea if you’ve got the money. I’d make sure the security and privacy of the camera and recorder are tip-top though
This is crazy - where does this happen that it sounds so normalized? How terrible it must be to live in an environment that allows this
My wife isn’t white. She gets slurs thrown at her all the time just out of the blue.
A camera’s cool, but you should probably also carry a weapon. Yes, even when you’re just walking the dog. What starts as a threat today can become an attack tomorrow.
Not sure I would call it a weapon, but I carry pepper spray when I take my dog on walks. It’s mainly in case any other dogs decide to mess with us, but it’s something.
Carrying a gun increases your own chance of getting shot.
Correlation is not causation.
Objectives. We investigated the possible relationship between being shot in an assault and possession of a gun at the time.
Methods. We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia, PA, from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables.
Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).
Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures.
This study asserts a statistical correlation, not a causal relationship:
We also did not account for the potential of reverse causation between gun possession and gun assault. Although our long list of confounders may have served to reduce some of the problems posed by reverse causation, future case–control studies of guns and assault should consider instrumental variables techniques to explore the effects of reverse causation. It is worth noting, however, that the probability of success with these techniques is low.
It does not successfully account for confounding factors. Perhaps people who were shot while carrying a gun weren’t shot because they were carrying a gun, but rather were carrying a gun in (apparently justified) fear they would be shot and hoped to have at least some chance to resist. In other words, people might be carrying a gun because they’re already at elevated risk for being shot, introducing the possibility of a strong selection bias. It’s like saying “black people are more likely to be arrested.” It’s true, but fails to account for a wide variety of confounding factors including and especially systemic racism in the police force that confound the implicit explanatory power of that simple statement.
The study makes a lot of, in my opinion, unwarranted assumptions. They assume that a person may be shot anywhere in philly at any time day or night, and this assumption is justified because “guns are mobile, potentially concealable items and the bullets they fire can pass through obstacles and travel long distances.” Which is undoubtedly true, but raises the question in my mind at least- what does a bullet passing through obstacles after traveling a long distance have to do with the victim’s carrying a gun themself? It’s a true assumption but one that should be considered as a confounding factor that needed to be controlled for rather than included in the statistical analysis. It is certain that a victim sitting at their desk who got shot through a wall had nothing to do with the shooting whether they were carrying a gun or not. This methodology tends to inflate the numerator, inappropriately in my opinion.
They also chose not to include self-inflicted, unintentional shootings, police shootings, and underage carriers (which they describe, without justification, as being somehow different from an adult being shot while carrying a gun). If carrying a gun truly increases your chance of getting shot, then the effect should manifest whether one is being shot by the police or as a juvenile delinquent or by a stray bullet from an accidental discharge. If not, then the thesis statement needs to be adjusted. The correlation does not imply causation- Having possession of a gun doesn’t increase your chance to commit suicide, it allows for the possibility of suicide by gun in those who already had suicidal impulses. It’s just there’s more ways for suicide to complete with a gun than with many other attempted methods, introducing survivorship bias in the results. Incidentally, I’m not convinced whether or not excluding self-inflicted shootings was appropriate. Overall, these methodological choices tend to deflate the denominator, inappropriately in my opinion.
Also, on a moral level the conclusion is flawed because it victim blames- ‘look what they were wearing’ type reasoning in the conclusion statement. It tends to suggest the person carrying a firearm bears the responsibility for not getting shot, rather than the responsibility to shoot or not shoot.
We coded case participants as in possession if 1 or more guns were determined to have been with them and readily available at the time of the shooting. We coded control participants as in possession if they reported any guns in a holster they were wearing, in a pocket or waistband, in a nearby vehicle, or in another place, quickly available and ready to fire at the time of their matched case’s shooting.
They used a different definition of possession for their control vs their case studies. I don’t need to read further. The methodology is flawed- a textbook case of information bias. This is shoddy work.
I do not deny that there does seem to be a consensus in the correlation between carrying a gun and being shot. Having said all that, there may be practical considerations. If you’re considering carrying a gun out of fear you might be shot at and would like to assert your right of reply, it might be more practical to avoid the source of that fear than to confront it with lethal violence. To OP, while the dog still needs to be walked and you can’t change the color of your skin, you might be able to take a different route on your walk, or even move entirely. Often discretion is the better part of valor. On the other hand, solutions like that might just not be possible: maybe either direction you choose to walk down the street from your home presents danger. Maybe you’re too impoverished or have powerful ties to the community. What are you supposed to do then, hope the people harassing you don’t escalate? Has that been your experience of harassment, SatansMaggotyCumFart, that people tend to deescalate their harassment if you just ignore and/or comply with them?
You wanna have a conversation about justified fear vs paranoia, civilian arms races, or the tragic nature of the situation I just described, I’m here for it. Miss me with this cooked-p-value dressing up flawed methodology and victim blaming as serious research.
Was I supposed to get this entire essay out of your original comment of ‘Correlation is not causation.’?
You were supposed to get it in response to a much, much larger study which I bothered to actually read.
Which study is that?
I must have missed it.
Doesn’t have to be a gun.
What, carry a knife do you can stab a car?
Knife, pepper spray, taser, air gun, brass knuckles, monkey fist… There’s lots of options if you can’t or don’t want to carry a gun. But you unless you can fight, you shouldn’t go unarmed.
This is assuming OP is in the US. Right now they should be taking any racially-charged threats very seriously, as fascists are becoming more and more emboldened. If OP’s aggressor decides to escalate things and get physical, camera isn’t going to do much when the police and the courts are on the other side, anyway. Other than make for a really depressing snuff film.
Unless OP lives in a civilized country. In which case, maybe keep a really good flashlight with you on your walks, too.
If the police and courts are stacked against you having a weapon is just going to increase your jail sentence.
Ask any minority in the US about that.
But if its either prison or getting lynched by a white supremacist, you shouldn’t go down without a fight.
Violence is never the answer.
Wear*
Don’t downvote someone correcting spelling. They did it with no apparent snark.
On the other hand, there’s probably also almost no reason to upvote it. OP will see it, there’s no need for it to be the top comment.
It’s completely unnecessary. It’s clear what OP meant, the typo doesn’t change anything so pointing it out is simply petty pedantree.
Querying or correcting errors is only worth doing when the error causes uncertainty, such when there’s reason to believe they’ve missed a “not”.
Pedantry*
I appreciate when people correct me or point out a mistake. I then edit my post to reflect the update, noting that an edit has occurred. If you’re too fragile to accept well-intended feedback, that’s a you thing.
I can kind of understand, but I’m utterly disgusted of people who record public spaces like random streets. let us have some privacy!
at the same time it’s sad that this is needed
Like I said, it feels lame, but in all the incidences that I’ve been in (whether or not I’ve responded), no one in the community ever reprimands the other or even stays to confirm the circumstances to the cops. Their lack of action just serves as motivation for these guys to continue b/c no one will call them out for their behavior.
So there’s this, or something even more extreme, which I’m not ruling out at this point. I live in america after all.
Sort of. I wear a camera while cycling because there are a lot of angry people in cars that have some weird hatred towards people using a bicycle.
What’s a brake torque?
To answer your question, if this is a regular thing for you I’d say it was worth it. Although if you’re in the USA it’s probably just gonna lead to you getting shot.
A brake torque is something you can do while driving a car. You keep one foot on the brake, hit the gas with the other foot, and take your foot off the brake. Oftentimes, this results in propelling your car forward while squealing your tires.
A kind person would refrain from doing these at night or near neighborhoods.
Us olds call this a burnout.
If it’s not an obvious camera then a driver probably wouldn’t notice it
In addition to the camera (of which I would recommend one of those camera glasses, so it’s always pointing where you’re looking), start carrying a visible brick, too. While crossing the street, make it SUPER visible that you have one. It’s not illegal to carry a brick, but it informs wanker motorists that you can, and will, use it. I have a mate in New York that does this, and taxis stopped cutting him off while he was crossing the street. He still gets slurs thrown his way, but sticks and stones and all that.
