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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

#241

Post by enraged_camel »

jeffdavis wrote: post #184
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 is the appropriate response in this kind of situation?

Pray. Even if you aren’t religious.

I’m not religious and I would definitely pray.

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

#242

Post by oh_sigh »

rbetts wrote: post #172
oh_sigh wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of investigation would you suggest take place before hand about a situation where there is supposedly a person with hostages who has already killed one?

A situation that doesn't include the "supposedly" qualification you make. A single anonymous source on a non-911 number without corroborating reports of gunfire is not sufficient cause to shoot a man on his porch. Here's an idea -- fly a drone around the house and look in some windows. Knock on a neighbors door and ask if they heard a gunshot. Establish the identity of the reporter - how does the reporter know what i…

> A single anonymous source on a non-911 number without corroborating reports of gunfire is not sufficient cause to shoot a man on his porch.

No one is arguing that.

> Here's an idea -- fly a drone around the house and look in some windows. Knock on a neighbors door and ask if they heard a gunshot.

That sounds great. Until there is an actual hostage situation, and police waste their time doing this and a hostage is killed, at which point people will be asking why they didn't kick the doors down if they knew someone was being held in there.

> Establish the identity of the reporter - how does the reporter know what is happening? Is the reporter physically proximate to the area?

The reporter claimed to be the person who killed his father and was holding other people hostage. How would you confirm if the reporter was physically in the area? E911 includes location reporting, but this can be spoofed(I don't know if it was in the situation)

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

#243

Post by bonzini »

matt-attack wrote: post #237
bonzini wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or is it whoever (edit: in the Wichita police) dispatched them without checking the details of the call, or adequately briefing them that the details were not clear? Because the guy who shot made a huge and deadly mistake, but the fact that you can call 911 and have someone SWATted is a big problem on its own.

SWATing should just lead to a bit of wasted time, and a “sorry to bother you sir”. With proper response procedure it should be a complete non-issue. Placing blame on anyone but the cops is completely discounting the problem.

I am saying it should be placed on the cops' boss.

I agree with you that those should have been the consequences---i.e., none. Though, in a country where SWATting is a thing, whoever placed the call is very much responsible too, because he must have known the possible effect of his prank.

All in all, the cops (while responsible) don't have the largest slice of responsibility.

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

#244

Post by StavrosK »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #211
StavrosK wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the person most at fault here is the one who lied and called in SWAT in the first place. It completely mystifies me how people can think that people with guns were justified in fatally shooting someone with no guns . That kind of thing should just never happen, either subdue them or let them get away, why are you shooting them? What could they possibly have done, short of ran to the kitchen to get a knife and t…

The obvious answer is: because you think they ARE armed, and if you wait until they start shooting at you, it’s too late.

And if it turns out they weren't armed, you were way, way too early.

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

#245

Post by freedomben »

vitalurk wrote: post #231
freedomben wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily. What you are asking them to be is super human, indeed even better than a computer could in the same situation. No amount of "proper training" or "discipline" can prepare you to make perfect decisions based on imperfect data (your sensory perception, plus all the data that isn't present such as must be read from…

As an Infantry soldier who deployed to Afghanistan, I received more training on how to handle this type of situation than most cops seem to ever get. If we require soldiers to be better, why not require cops. Soldiers get to face more stress than cops.

I also received military training. I don't think it enabled me to make perfect decisions. In fact I saw several poor decisions made by my fellows-in-arms. If you didn't, then you were probably lucky enough to have not been placed in those difficult situations.

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

#246

Post by StavrosK »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #217
StavrosK wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the person most at fault here is the one who lied and called in SWAT in the first place. It completely mystifies me how people can think that people with guns were justified in fatally shooting someone with no guns . That kind of thing should just never happen, either subdue them or let them get away, why are you shooting them? What could they possibly have done, short of ran to the kitchen to get a knife and t…

It mystifies me why you believe anyone thinks the shooting was justified. Literally NO ONE has said that. Please try to engage with the actual debate instead of making up strawmen to attack.

The grandparent said that the person most at fault was the person who called it in. I disagree, the people most at fault were the police, by far.

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

#247

Post by scarface74 »

cwbrandsma wrote: post #227
username223 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you are a cop in this situation, not the lead officer, a grunt among other grunts. You are told the basic situation is that shots have been fired and women and children are in danger...as are you and your team. There is an ARMED individual in the house. Your police training also tells you there is a split second between you and one of your team getting killed as well. Your team members are also husbands and father…

They signed up to put themselves in danger. I as a civilian never signed up for it. If anyone should accept an increased risk, it's not me or my family that were peacefully minding our own business.

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

#248

Post by varjag »

masklinn wrote: post #105
tuna-piano wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a side note, because you’re from Norway, that may be surprising to some. The US is #1 with 1.01 guns per capita, and Norway is #9 with .31 guns per capita. In any case, i don’t think the number of guns per capita explains the difference in gun crime rates between the two. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per...

> Just a side note, because you’re from Norway, that may be surprising to some. The US is #1 with 1.01 guns per capita, and Norway is #9 with .31 guns per capita. Being from #10 on that list, the type, quality and "outings" of guns matters a lot. In France, "owned guns" are either sport or hunting weapons, seeing one outside of hunting season basically does not happen and they're regulated: * single-shot (per barrel)…

In Norway, reservists can keep their assault rifles home. Once a guy in our neighbourhood decided to clean his AG-3 on the porch, triggering armed police response in the area. This being Norway of course, no shots were fired and the situation cleared up.

Otherwise, you can buy pretty much anything non-automatic when you have a hunting or sports license. Neither is hard to obtain. The circulation is regulated but still quite simple. You can even sell a gun over post with cash on delivery.

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

#249

Post by oh_sigh »

alkonaut wrote: post #207
oh_sigh wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of investigation would you suggest take place before hand about a situation where there is supposedly a person with hostages who has already killed one?

Could be a simple as calling the suspects phone or knocking doors at neighbors. If the suspect answered the phone and said he was asleep and said he would be happy to show the officers around his house, maybe things would have gone differently.

Did you listen to the audio? The person calling 911 was the supposed suspect he claimed to have killed his father, so I'm not sure how you would contact the suspect without just getting the same 'prankster' again.

Knocking on doors of the neighbors sounds great, but does it give you any useful information if no one heard a gun shot? What if he shot his dad in the basement, or the walls of the house are thick enough to block the sound. You still need to go in and check even if every neighbor said they didn't hear anything. Also, knocking on doors wastes what may be valuable time in a real hostage situation.

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

#250

Post by FireBeyond »

meri_dian wrote: post #106
blhack wrote: post #95

I always grew up thinking that police had to wait until somebody shot at them to shoot back. It seems like "we thought he had a gun and he motioned towards his waist" has now replaced "he shot at us". I really wish that the police had to adhere to the same laws as anybody else does. They are civilians after all. If had a gun (I don't) and pointed it at somebody to intimidate them, even if they were trying to break in…

Police are not you or I in the context of social roles. They fulfill a particular function in society while on duty that you and I don't. They tend to deal with dangerous people. People must do exactly as they're told when dealing with the police to minimize uncertainty and confusion. An officer pulling a gun on someone is not equivalent in any way to a civilian doing the same thing. Officers are empowered by society…

> If it's clear that someone presents an immediate mortal danger to others

Yeah, and that's where your argument hits a brick wall. Yes, if someone presents an immediate mortal danger, then force can be justified. If you see that video, he is reaching for the waistband of his pajamas and following directions.

Even in the event that he had a pistol stashed in the elastic of his pajamas, you have multiple officers who already are in the drawn position, ready to fire, whereas he has to pull it out, aim, etc.

You have a far lower bar for "clear presentation of immediate mortal danger" than most people here - and you seem to believe that's our failing, not yours.

> People must do exactly as they're told when dealing with the police to minimize uncertainty and confusion.

You mean like the multiple incidents where we see two police officers yelling contradictory statements? "Hands behind your head, turn around!" "Get on your stomach!" and one of the officers believes he is in mortal danger because the suspect is, in effect, obeying the other officers instruction, and not his?

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