alt Hacker NewsPart 2's corruption and civil rights violations makes Part 1 look irrelevant. A lot of the coverage on this is still about the $200k and the lego sets.
Fun part to mention is the officer that takes the subpoena to the would-be defendant is the part of the 3rd set of cops that were sent to Ben's non-moving car that is on public property. The cop's bodycam discussion with the would-be defendant is also fully redacted, for some reason.
After telling Ben that the defendant doesn't accept the subpoena (can you even refuse being served like that?), the 3rd set of cops leave and a 4th set of cops shows up, make a phone call to verify that it's a real lawsuit they are trying to serve, question him further, and then after all that Ben is still arrested.
Ben also shows how the body cams are being redacted in ways that they should not be. Due to sloppy redacting, he gives an example where the content of the redacted audio is one cop telling the other that Ben is basically annoying but the thing he's doing that they got called over for is not illegal.
> After telling Ben that the defendant doesn't accept the subpoena (can you even refuse being served like that?)
They can't, and I'm surprised the officer wasn't aware of that. Confirm the person's ID, hand them the papers or sit them somewhere and tell them, they have been served. Process-wise, all that matters is confirmation to the court that the person is aware of and was given possession of the documents. If they don't like it and set them on fire, that's not the court or the server's problem.
I think there's also generally a process for someone avoiding being served. Ie if you can prove they're trying to avoid being served, that is per se evidence that they are aware they are being served and can be considered as served. Iirc, it's not preferred because it's way, way cleaner for the court to have a signed document but they can and will do it.
Legalities aside, this is why you'd normal hire someone to do this. The cops don't want to be involved, and especially so for YouTube drama. Hire someone completely unrelated who can show up, be completely emotionally detached and do the "I'm just trying to do my job, man" schtick. They're also much better for contested servings. If one party says the other got papers and the other denies it, there's a "he said, she said". If you hire a professional who doesn't care about the outcome of the case then it carries a lot more credibility.