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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

#141

Post by CalChris »

meri_dian wrote: post #107
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

In this case there was no immediate and present danger yet SWAT was called in. There was a report which turned out to be false. The SWAT team also was under no danger when they shot this guy.

I should add that being a police officer is not a particularly dangerous job. A telephone lineman has a dangerous job. A garbage man has a dangerous job.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-dangerous-jobs/

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

#142

Post by masklinn »

burntwater wrote: post #14

I'm glad this person is an adult located in the U.S. Hopefully this makes for swift and severe justice. I'm sad to learn the victim was the father of two children. And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a little threatening. I said yesterday that, as a hearing-impaired person, if I'm ever in a position wher…

> I'm honestly not sure what I can do to prevent that.

Nothing, it seems. If you find yourself in that situation, it's a roll of the dice whether you're getting a jumpy or stressed-out cop who'll end up shooting you no matter what, and having no hearing issues probably won't help as stumbling, twitching or otherwise being confused by contradictory orders will get you shot anyway.

In the long term, probably fighting for the demilitarisation of your local precinct and the shutdown of all these bullshit "SWAT units", in the short term… wearing a bulletproof vest when answering the door?

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

#143

Post by rdl »

I am pretty cynical about humanity, but I don't understand why there aren't hundreds or thousands of swatting incidents per day, given the availability of anonymous communications, payment, and surplus of bad people in the world.

It seems like it would be trivial to set up a dark web service to SWAT on demand. For 0.1 Monero or whatever, place a credible spoofed SWAT call. Maybe hold payment in escrow and follow police radio or blotter to confirm they were deployed and then release payment, or just do a reputational system.

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

#144

Post by gscott »

dboreham wrote: post #123

I don't see anyone here asking this: how many people are police killing who are not 100% innocent bystanders like in this case, but still didn't need to be killed? I mean, we're all outraged because they shot "some dude in his PJs" but doesn't that imply they must be shooting 10, 100x as many folks where we'd be thinking "well, he shouldn't have had a knife in his hand" or "he shouldn't have been high"? Where I live,…

http://killedbypolice.net/

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

#145

Post by meri_dian »

grey-area wrote: post #124
meri_dian wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. That is demonstrably false. For reference, start with this case.

Police were responding, in this case, to a call made by someone claiming to be armed and holding his family hostage. You do not assume a call is fraudulent in a situation like that. You assume the worst.

What happened to the civilian is a tragedy. He should not have been killed. But the person most at fault here is the one who lied and called in SWAT in the first place.

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

#146

Post by lb1lf »

bastijn wrote: post #108
api wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame can be placed on both. The person who faked a police report is guilty of homicide, but this was made possible by an overly trigger happy police force.

Here we have the exact opposite and police are often prosecuted for firing their weapon. Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service). Why? Because "police needs to know better and accept it as part of their job". Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the sta…

> You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.

-The problem, at least in some cases, is that you may get confusing, if not direct contradictory orders.

Say, if one officer yells 'Put your hands up' whereas another yells 'Get down, get down' - sure, keeping your wits about you, you could get your hands up, then kneel and get down - however, you are probably stressed as hell (being at gunpoint hopefully not being an everyday occurrence), and stressed people make mistakes.

Being frightened is NOT a condition which carries the death penalty. Police officers are the professional party in encounters like this. They should act like it - and receive training in how Joe Q. Public is likely to react when having a gun pointed at him.

(Heck, it might even be justified to have a masked instructor crash a class at the police academy and holding them at gunpoint for a few seconds (better make it a class where the cadets are not armed!) - with any luck, the brighter ones will remember how scared they were and cut civilians they encounter later a little slack for being scared s--tless.

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

#147

Post by username223 »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

> This process is designed to have a weapon be discharged.

Unfortunately, as a US civilian you need to be smart about de-escalating encounters with underpaid rage-monster cops with something close to legal immunity. Your goal should be to avoid injury or death until you can get to a lawyer.

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

#148

Post by debaserab2 »

falcolas wrote: post #128
hungerstrike wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not make sure that there is some danger first instead of just going off of an anonymous phone call? Seems pretty simple, just stand outside the house with the megaphone and say “hey what’s going on in there”?

At which point, if you're up against armed individuals, you've lost the element of surprise, and have created a hostage situation at best, and a shootout in a suburban neighborhood at worst. Or, someone walks out and defuses the police, then their compatriots wipe all the police out unopposed.

This mindset is exactly what's wrong with policing in America. Every single part of training seems to be designed for worst case scenarios. There's no room for common sense or judgment.

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

#149

Post by burntwater »

RobertoG wrote: post #54
burntwater wrote: post #14

I'm glad this person is an adult located in the U.S. Hopefully this makes for swift and severe justice. I'm sad to learn the victim was the father of two children. And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a little threatening. I said yesterday that, as a hearing-impaired person, if I'm ever in a position wher…

>" I'm honestly not sure what I can do to prevent that." Watching the video of the shooting in the hotel hallway a few days ago, I think that the answer is just go to the floor with your hands visible and don't move, never mind what they say. I think there is a training problem. For instance, in that video, they control the situation using fear, that it's, I think, the correct thing to do. But then, when they guy is…

That video, among all that I've had the misfortune of viewing, is the one that has most resonated - and scared - me, because it's one I can so easily see myself being in. White. Drunk. In a hotel. Throughly confused and scared. That's me.

Yes, I can get on the floor and not move. But I have absolutely no faith that "do nothing" won't also get me killed for, as the other person mentioned, disobeying orders.

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

#150

Post by jokoon »

rdl wrote: post #143

I am pretty cynical about humanity, but I don't understand why there aren't hundreds or thousands of swatting incidents per day, given the availability of anonymous communications, payment, and surplus of bad people in the world. It seems like it would be trivial to set up a dark web service to SWAT on demand. For 0.1 Monero or whatever, place a credible spoofed SWAT call. Maybe hold payment in escrow and follow poli…

If terrorists were really organized, they would obviously use swatting... I wonder if police units can even detects fake hostage alerts...
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