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

Expect to see more of this with the systematic destruction of the 4th amendment.<p>The U.S. domestic policing agencies have become militarized in both tactics and weaponry. There is no middle ground anymore. Either they are in full battle-rattle complete with assault vehicles, automatic weapons and drones or undercover in plainclothes. Any reasonable person in her situation would be confused and scared beyond their wits, not even considering the imprisonment aspect.<p>It&#x27;s pretty GD scary - how are we supposed to identify the good guys?

I know this has been beaten to death here, but I am starting to see a disturbing trend coming out of US policing&#x2F;justice system. That trend is the laying on of multiple charges when someone pisses off the authorities.<p>It&#x27;s one thing when the federal prosecutors do it (Swartz, Brown et al) and now even low level enforcers are doing it.<p>Is this what I have to look forward to if I ever return to the country of my birth? I cross the road at the wrong time, the arresting officer takes a dislike to me and adds 3 extra charges to the jaywalking charge which ends up with me spending 3 years in prison because I was running late for an appointment?<p>I&#x27;ve tried to stay out of these HN NSA and other political stories, but there is one thing I&#x27;ve noticed as a business consultant: the attitude and beliefs of top management always end up filtering down to the rank and file employees.<p>Is this what is happening to the US justice system? Will you one day walk into the local DMV get into an argument and end up with 15 (technically correct) charges against you, bankrupt and in prison?

Why do you pull a gun on an underage person buying beer? (Especially when she&#x27;s not even buying beer?)

This is just wrong. No public apology? There should be a lawsuit. And the damages should come out of the paychecks and pensions of the &quot;agents&quot; not public funds.

how would they have known she was underage, yet not known that it was bottled water not alcohol? Why would it be appropriate in any situation to pull a weapon for a possible underage drinking charge? There is too much about this that doesn&#x27;t add up - there should be an investigation.

I liked Hacker News better when it was a place for sharing and discussing start-up based news.<p>Not to say that these other types of articles are not worthy of reading and sharing. But I can get them elsewhere.

Tommy from cityswig.com here - been dealing with Virginia ABC for about 2 years now, and their uncooperative behavior and insane bureaucracy essentially killed any chance we had to survive as a company. Not only that - but stories like this are the norm in Virginia. They&#x27;re in constant over-reach mode.

I wish we had &quot;https&quot; for real life, a way to know someone really is who they say they are. Not so much personally, but more an immediately verifiable organizational identification for a person.<p>I always thought badges were a weird way for police to self-identify, considering a thug could make something that passes as a badge, especially in a dark in-your-face encounter like this. And you&#x27;re supposed to do exactly what they say without regard to protecting yourself or fleeing, for fear of being charged with felonies (or worse). That just seems like a system that wasn&#x27;t well thought out.<p>The article said these women called 911 to verify these guys really were cops; that to me is an extremely smart move given the amount of terror they must have been going through.

Bunch of fucking amateurs. You have six plainclothes officers &quot;on patrol&quot; for minors in possession of alcohol. That&#x27;s absurd. I go to college in a city where the cops understand that underage drinking is a thing and won&#x27;t hassle you unless you&#x27;re asking for it.

Would a retaliatory lawsuit be out of the question here? Much as I dislike the idea of suing police officers for doing their jobs, she should at least be able to sue the state.

I wonder what this has to do with technology or start-ups. It&#x27;s a valuable read, but it belongs elsewhere.

I thought it was yet another of those articles with an inflammatory but ultimately misleading headline designed to get on Buzzfeed and Reddit. Boy, was I wrong. The story was actually worse than the headline.

Police our out of control.

At least they dropped the charges. Whatever misgivings I have about how the whole thing went down, at least they dropped the charges once things were straightened out.<p>She probably was, technically, guilty of eluding police and such, but I&#x27;m glad they did not go through with that. I&#x27;m sure she&#x27;s not happy about spending a night in jail, but just as I give her credit for mistakes in the heat of the moment, I&#x27;ll give the police the same.