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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

#191

Post by hackerbob »

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…

The way things are going if a SWAT team rolled up to my house ( I know this is going to sound silly). I'd call 911 and have them on speaker phone coaching me through it.

Most people are not trained to handled these situations properly and they will be nervous and start slipping up which a not well trained or inexperienced officer may wrongly interpret as suspicious/dangerous.

If I am truly innocent then perhaps I am the one that needs the hostage negotiator from the threat on the other side of the door.

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

#192

Post by jeffdavis »

ivanhoe wrote: post #175
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…

They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily. There's also a huge problem with the whole that macho, gun loving, power-tripping culture, it just makes things worse, wrong profile of people gets that kind of job.

That's not fair -- we don't know what kind of training the officer had, or what his attitude is.

Maybe it's just really hard to train for this situation?

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

#193

Post by mmjaa »

masklinn wrote: post #130
mmjaa wrote: post #90

At what point does the average citizen look at "SWAT death as an option for what could happen to me today" and think, 'well .. this is okay'? I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but there has to be real moment of respect for the fact that Americans are living in a "dial-a-death" state of existence. This is something that many, many social commentators have warned us of, over the decades: the signs of a Police State. S…

> At what point does the average citizen look at "SWAT death as an option for what could happen to me today" and think, 'well .. this is okay'? The average citizen saw 20 1st-graders being shot 5 years and 2 weeks ago and decided it was OK with that. Citizens weaponising police (I have a hard time calling that law enforcement) against other citizens barely even ranks.

So you are saying the event horizon for police brutality is closer than that of the citizens willingness to move the goalpost for how violent things should/could/can be?

Yeah, the point is, we are really, really beyond the point where something legitimately real, and not just apathetic, should be done about this shit.

Citizens need to start asking for disarmament: of themselves, and others. We do not need a society which puts the implements of death and destruction above .. well .. themselves.

Nothing we can do on HN will change this. But wouldn't it be an interesting thought experiment to find some real, rational, applicable means of reducing these kinds of incidents?

To me, as a technologist, this is a problem that can be solved, "can" being the key word.

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

#195

Post by Chathamization »

nitrogen wrote: post #157
Chathamization wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So - the demonstrations following some police shootings aside, is there any significant push in the US to drive the police towards less lethal encounters with the public it is to serve and protect? Keep in mind that most people in the U.S. care about issues like this in an abstract way. They think that improvements should be made, but when, say, the time comes to vote they won't bother taking 10 minutes to see wher…

They think that improvements should be made, but when, say, the time comes to vote they won't bother taking 10 minutes to see where their representatives stand on this issue and vote accordingly. IMO this is backward. Representatives should choose their issues by the voice of the people, or people should vote on issues and the appropriate candidate suggested automatically. We will always get suboptimal results when p…

In places that allow ballot initiatives you can target specific issues. That's how marijuana legalization has been happening. There are places where majority of the people support it, but they vote in politicians who don't bother to legalize it, so activists take the issue directly to the voters.

Even still, though, it's a small number of people who bother collecting the signatures and informing people about the initiative. The vast majority of people are extremely disengaged and won't bother working on changing things.

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

#196

Post by stordoff »

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…

> But then, when they guy is trying to comply with everything, almost crying and obviously confused, instead of trying to calm him, they keep scaring him.

This is partially why one of the emphases of British policing is de-escalation (even backing away if you have to), which I will grant is _far_ easier when neither side is likely to have firearms (though the same principles are used by firearms officers). Backing your suspect into a corner, or unduly pressuring them, helps neither side.

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

#197

Post by znfi »

One thing with all of this which puzzles me as a non-American, how does the "acceptance" of people getting killed by the police fit together with the whole anti-gorvernment thing which seems fairly common in the US as well?

One would think that if one does not like the government, one would be extremely upset about the gouvernment randomly killing people. But for some reason this does not seem to be the case.

I guess similar things could be said about gun ownership/self-defence argument etc. I guess if one decides to shoot back at the police one is truly screwed?

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

#198

Post by coldtea »

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…

What's more, are those SWAT teams trained policemen or scared little children?

Because if they are the latter, why do they go with guns and ammo and equipment enough to equip a small army just to arrest some kid who's selling weed or some guy who threatened their neighbors and such?

SWAT teams should be for breaking into Escobar's hideout or stopping angry mobs, not for responding to random phone calls and simple cases.

Aren't they men enough to just send 1-3 people with their fucking guns in their holsters?

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

#199

Post by menacingly »

I think of a lot of the replies here miss the point of why the police are in "such a hurry". Usually, they believe that the person has hostages that are in imminent danger. I'm sure there is a big component of macho gun buzz, but the fact that they're in a rush is an understandable component of the situation. That's why they don't sit in the car and try to have a chat with the "hostage taker".

Obviously, the fact that a random person can essentially order a taxpayer-funded death squad to an arbitrary home is a huge problem, and the people actually making those calls are only a small part of the problem.

The fact that these death squads are on the payroll sitting around bored waiting for "action" is an issue too.

However, I don't think it's as clear-cut as "don't kill anyone". I'd hate to be the guy with my life threatened while they cautiously announce their presence to my attacker.

What's missing is some basic "is there really a hostage situation going on here" step that I don't have the law enforcement knowledge to define.

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

#200

Post by coldtea »

hackerbob wrote: post #191
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…

The way things are going if a SWAT team rolled up to my house ( I know this is going to sound silly). I'd call 911 and have them on speaker phone coaching me through it. Most people are not trained to handled these situations properly and they will be nervous and start slipping up which a not well trained or inexperienced officer may wrongly interpret as suspicious/dangerous. If I am truly innocent then perhaps I am…

>The way things are going if a SWAT team rolled up to my house ( I know this is going to sound silly). I'd call 911 and have them on speaker phone coaching me through it.

Who said you're going to get any chance to call anybody? They could just as easily break into your house shouting and pointing guns...

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