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LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

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Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#71

Post by [deleted] »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #44
downandout wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my immediate reaction. My guess is that the blame and punishment will all be laser focused on the caller, in an attempt to avoid a public outcry for the actual shooter’s head. That cop shouldn’t be on administrative leave, he should be in jail for murder.

Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? What happened was an absolute tragedy, and every measure should be taken to avoid anything like that ever happening again. The shooting was not justified, and cops need better training, non-lethal options must be expanded, penalties for this kind of "prank" must be made harsher. Everyone agrees on that.…

[deleted]

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#72

Post by guiambros »

qaq wrote: post #41
guiambros wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...WTF is wrong with the Police... WTF is wrong with a full-grown 25-year-old man , who thinks it's funny to waste scarce taxpayer funded resources for his own amusement, because he had a petty argument with a virtual stranger when playing an online game? Of course I'm not defending excessive use of police force, and the officer who fired the shot should be investigated too, but we need harsher penalties for swatti…

He should got to jail but if any random idiot can get any random person killed by the police that is a Police problem as we can have different training and screening procedures for police officers but we sure as hell can not guarantee that there are no idiots with access to phones.

My point is: idiots with access to phones that do idiotic things should pay for the consequences of their acts -- regardless of how good or bad the police force is. In this case, an idiot caused the murder of an innocent man, and should pay for it, full stop. There's no ifs or buts.

Of course this doesn't precludes police from making honest mistakes - or also doing idiotic things - but hopefully will remove the incentives from idiots-with-phones and their 400 potentially-deadly pranks per year.

One thing does not exclude the other. But we can sure as hell eliminate the root cause by making an example of cases like this.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#73

Post by sverige »

Most of the comments have to do with the police interaction. My question is, what can be done to discourage swatting?

My reflex reaction is to give everyone involved long prison sentences, and some aggressive prosecution of other incidents, so that people tempted to engage in swatting are discouraged by some realistic chance of doing real prison time for doing something so reckless and stupid.

The guy who made the call was fairly unconcerned about the prospect of real punishment when he was interviewed a few hours before he was arrested.[1] His voice tone during the call was also fairly flat.[2]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHOI39nJPM [2] https://scallywagandvagabond.com/2017/12/tyler-raj-barriss-s...

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#74

Post by CydeWeys »

j9461701 wrote: post #57
CydeWeys wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true at all. If the person firing the round can survive the momentum imparted into their shoulder from the rifle, then the person on the receiving end can survive it if they're wearing armor that spreads out the imparted momentum similarly. Basic Newton's Third Law. Also, there are .50 BMG handguns (and no, I'm not mistakenly referring to .50 AE, I mean .50 BMG). They are stupidly impractical, but they exist. You…

The killer is not the momentum, but the impulse. Let's do some simple kinematics: The M82 has a barrel length of 20 inches (51 cm, .051 meters) and fires a 45 gram bullet that, at the end of that time, is going 900 m/s. Meaning the bullet goes from having zero momentum to 41 Newton-seconds in 1.13 milliseconds. Meaning the shooter feels over that 1.13 millisecond period of ~36,000 Newtons of force on his shoulder. Th…

A typical body armor plate has much more surface area in contact with the body than a rifle butt does though -- we're talking roughly an entire square foot. Said body armor plate, if it's to stop a .50 BMG round, also will be thick enough to weigh as much as an M82. This makes up for the fact that the acceleration happens over a reduced distance. Also keep in mind that a rifle needs to be comfortable enough for many repeated shots, while body armor only needs to be survivable.

Note that you're at ~80 pounds from wearing just two plates to protect most of your chest and back; you'll collapse under the weight by the time you've armored your entire body.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#75

Post by sjg007 »

lb1lf wrote: post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

There is no viable feedback loop at this time. The FBI will get involved if there is a consent decree. This provides oversight, but that requires a Justice department that will investigate police departments. You see this happen after a litany of civil rights violations. But Sessions and Trump have made it clear that that won't happen. Maybe Congress will get involved after the midterms if things change or if there are mass protests. However, since police departments are local you might be able to put pressure on city councils and the mayor / maybe governor to make some progress.

But there should be better training but that will probably only happen if juries start to decide that "being fearful for your life" is not a sufficient defense.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#76

Post by dmitrygr »

Dove wrote: post #70
lb1lf wrote: post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

I don't think it's reasonable or effective to entirely expect police to solve this problem. Here is the account from the article: Livingston said when the door opened, officers gave Finch commands to put his hands up and walk toward them. He complied for a "very short time" and put his hands back down. He raised them again, and then lowered them for a second time, Livingston said. "The male then turned towards the of…

They accept that risk by signing on the dotted line and picking up their badge. Cops should have a policy of never shooting first unless someone who isn't a cop is in immediate clear danger. That's what we pay them for. Any bozo can shoot first and ask questions later. A trained, well-paid professional's job is precisely not doing that.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#77

Post by j9461701 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #74
j9461701 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The killer is not the momentum, but the impulse. Let's do some simple kinematics: The M82 has a barrel length of 20 inches (51 cm, .051 meters) and fires a 45 gram bullet that, at the end of that time, is going 900 m/s. Meaning the bullet goes from having zero momentum to 41 Newton-seconds in 1.13 milliseconds. Meaning the shooter feels over that 1.13 millisecond period of ~36,000 Newtons of force on his shoulder. Th…

A typical body armor plate has much more surface area in contact with the body than a rifle butt does though -- we're talking roughly an entire square foot. Said body armor plate, if it's to stop a .50 BMG round, also will be thick enough to weigh as much as an M82. This makes up for the fact that the acceleration happens over a reduced distance. Also keep in mind that a rifle needs to be comfortable enough for many…

For point of reference, shotgun slugs can be stopped by modern armor. It still cracks people's ribs through sheer impulse. A 50 BMG has 5 times the kinetic energy and 3 times the momentum of that.

It's simply not enough to stop the bullet at these kinds of impulses, you need something to distribute the force over time as well as space. Cars use crumple zones for this purpose - the time it takes the front to deform is extra seconds over which the momentum change takes place, thereby decreasing the impulse.

Even if we could develop some sort of powered armor that let you carry absurd amounts of armour I don't see how you could really solve this problem. The suit is still going to push back into the wearer's body with the same impulse, and crack bones when it does.

Ultimately, the truth is human beings are just too squishy. #BringOnTheRobots

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#78

Post by Malician »

guiambros wrote: post #72
qaq wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He should got to jail but if any random idiot can get any random person killed by the police that is a Police problem as we can have different training and screening procedures for police officers but we sure as hell can not guarantee that there are no idiots with access to phones.

My point is: idiots with access to phones that do idiotic things should pay for the consequences of their acts -- regardless of how good or bad the police force is. In this case, an idiot caused the murder of an innocent man, and should pay for it, full stop. There's no ifs or buts. Of course this doesn't precludes police from making honest mistakes - or also doing idiotic things - but hopefully will remove the incen…

That's not the root cause. The root cause is that if the police show up they might open fire and kill someone. There are always going to be reasons for the police (or SWAT) to show up, especially with the war on drugs. And with the current environment, that means people dying. Of course, since most of the time it wasn't a SWAT call, and the person in question probably did have drugs, it's easier to totally blame the victim.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#79

Post by Miner49er »

Dove wrote: post #70
lb1lf wrote: post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

I don't think it's reasonable or effective to entirely expect police to solve this problem. Here is the account from the article: Livingston said when the door opened, officers gave Finch commands to put his hands up and walk toward them. He complied for a "very short time" and put his hands back down. He raised them again, and then lowered them for a second time, Livingston said. "The male then turned towards the of…

Have you watched the video? It looks far less threatening when you watch the video. This was straight up murder.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#80

Post by Miner49er »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #44
downandout wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my immediate reaction. My guess is that the blame and punishment will all be laser focused on the caller, in an attempt to avoid a public outcry for the actual shooter’s head. That cop shouldn’t be on administrative leave, he should be in jail for murder.

Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? What happened was an absolute tragedy, and every measure should be taken to avoid anything like that ever happening again. The shooting was not justified, and cops need better training, non-lethal options must be expanded, penalties for this kind of "prank" must be made harsher. Everyone agrees on that.…

Did you watch the video? There is no way a cop should have felt threatened.
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