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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

#261

Post by alkonaut »

dsego wrote: post #254

Do the police have to shoot to kill? Is it possible to aim somewhere else? Or shoot into the air? Also, I think in my country they are obligated to shout out "stop, I will shoot" or something to that effect.

Handguns are (perhaps surprisingly) lethal.

Here (Sweden) officers somewhat controversially use hollow point in order to reduce the risk of stray bullets going through walls or suspects.

This has the side effect that suspects shot in thighs, nearly anywhere in the abdomen etc are often instantly in critical condition.

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

#262

Post by scotty79 »

I'm very sad and ashamed to voice such an evil idea but I think the only way to change US police into something resembling first world country law enforcement agency is to have mass anonymous random swatting campaign with dozens, perhaps hundreds of causalities.

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

#263

Post by menacingly »

the_chaconne wrote: post #259
menacingly wrote: post #199

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 tha…

The video of the shooting was released, and you can tell from the video that, with the amount of interaction the police had with the victim, they can't really tell if he's the supposed hostage or the hostage taker. So even in the interest of rescue, the police fucked up big time.

This is a good point. In the interest of a constructive way to go forward, I think a "how can we make this better" process will save more lives than outrage. It's the outrage that the unions are so skilled at skirting.

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

#264

Post by oh_sigh »

leesalminen wrote: post #258
oh_sigh wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

I still don’t see how calling a phone number associated with that address and seeing who picks up could hurt anything. This phone call could’ve occurred while SWAT was deploying to the scene. They only could’ve gained by doing this.

If it was real, and the hostage taker picked up, he could say everything was fine. What do you do then? Calling seems like a good idea but I'm not sure it provides any actionable information.

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

#265

Post by j9461701 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #233
j9461701 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Shotgun slugs are a lot less penetrative than .50 BMG though; they're proportionally heavier and travel slower. 12 gauge is .73 inches. You need significantly more thickness of armor just to stop the .50 BMG at all, by which point you've added so much more mass that you've gone much of the towards solving the higher impulse as well.

>Shotgun slugs are a lot less penetrative than .50 BMG though; they're proportionally heavier and travel slower.

What does the word "proportionally" mean in this sentence? Because factually, the slug is about half the weight of the BMG round.

>You need significantly more thickness of armor just to stop the .50 BMG at all, by which point you've added so much more mass that you've gone much of the towards solving the higher impulse as well.

You're looking at elephant-stomping-on-you levels of force, and you're trying to say it'll be mitigated somewhat because you have 5 pounds of steel on your chest rather than 2 pounds. You will be a person salsa even if you strapped a kitchen stove to yourself.

You don't seem to be understanding the magnitude of the forces involved.

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

#266

Post by joshuamorton »

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.

The US military rules of engagement disagree.

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

#267

Post by lostlogin »

freedomben wrote: post #185
ivanhoe wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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…

I broadly agree, but why does the US seem to have a higher frequency of this sort of thing? It isn’t a problem everywhere, so why not do what other places do?

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

#268

Post by joe_the_user »

cortesoft wrote: post #232
varjag wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow police in the rest of developed world are able to resist shooting a great deal of suspects on the spot. Find what's different in America and fix it.

We know what is different but we refuse to address it. I understand that many people feel the second amendment is very important, but we at least have to have the intellectual honesty to admit that shootings like this are a consequence of it. We might decide we are willing, as a society, to accept that risk, but we can’t pretend it isn’t there.

I don't see much of a plausible argument that lack of gun control makes American police more trigger happy. And I say that as someone with no particular stake in gun rights. America doesn't have that high a murder rate, it just has a high rate of killings by cops. Lack of training, poor training and overall problematic police-culture seem to be the main offenders.

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

#269

Post by Xylakant »

FireBeyond wrote: post #215
coldtea wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Right, most of these calls are designed to provoke no-knock forcible entry... "hostages actively being threatened", "domestic violence in progress", etc.

Neither of these situations should trigger no-knock forced entry. The response to most situations should be careful assessment of the situation at hand, the involved actors and the dynamic of the situation, especially since swatting has come up. Police truly need to expect that an anonymous tipster is trying to goad them into action. There’s few situations that should probably trigger an immediate forceful response, active shooter for example and that should be relatively easy to confirm on site.

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

#270

Post by menacingly »

FireBeyond wrote: post #253
menacingly wrote: post #199

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 tha…

> but the fact that they're in a rush is an understandable component of the situation Eh. If I'm taking my engine company to a structure fire, we walk, we don't run. If it's a rescue situation, I still do a 360 around the structure to identify additional hazards (while my crew is setting up). That's a situation with people in verified imminent threat to life danger. We work a patient in cardiac arrest. We have checkl…

Great take. So, I'm a relatively smart guy who tries to be fair to all parties. I think it's unlikely that I'm the only person who has this misunderstanding about these situations. I wonder how you make this dialog scale?

Also, I wonder how much the "another man is the enemy" component adds to it? I wonder if you take the type of person drawn to law enforcement (or even worse, SWAT) and add the lizard brain fuel of "this is a life or death competition with another man", how many of these outcomes are even the result of conscious decisions.

How much of the wisdom from those restrictive high speed pursuit laws could be re-applied here? They seem to have figured out that the officer will choose the competitive course in the moment instead of the right course, at too high a cost.

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