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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

#331

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…

It’s almost as if the USA isn’t the only country on earth and other developed countries manage to have police forces that don’t murder their own citizens regularly.

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

#332

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…

Yea this answer is total and utter crap. We aren't asking law enforcement to be super human, we want them to be educated and competent. The fact that the U.S is both lacking in training and competence is a well established fact. Law enforcement in the United States has proven itself to lack training and discipline by firing on innocent unarmed citizens many many times. I don't believe any other country in the world h…

Actual solution or alternative: You and tons more people like you, should apply for jobs in law enforcement, work your way up into leadership, and change policy.

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

#333
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because if you consider average case scenarios, logic will inevitably force you to make a choice: what percentage of cops should die during their career? The police chiefs decided the answer is zero. That leads to extreme aggressive tactics. Too bad the owners of mines, oil rigs, logging operations, etc. don't share a similar concern for their employees' lives.

Most cops never get shot at their entire career.

Cops are far more likely to die of heart-attacks, cancer, and a dozen other causes than to be killed in the line of duty.

Being a cop isn't much more dangerous than the average jobs.

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do we know what it is? You seem quite confident. Americans have 101 guns per 100 citizens. Finns have 34.2 guns per 100 citizens. Icelanders have 30.3 guns per 100 citizens. America has 110x the murder rate than Finland has. America has 13,000x the murder rate Iceland has. Whatever the cause is, 3x the guns ≠ 110x the murder rate (or 13,000x the murder rate). A more interesting comparison might be to examine countrie…

As dukeflukem said below, Iceland and Finland probably have very different aspects driving up gun ownership (rural populations hunting, vs self-defense).

An issue with the provided list is that these countries are all relatively poor. As for something that stood out for this list for me: inequality. i.e.: with the exception of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, all the Gini coefficients are above 35% (with the US (41%) being most similar to Turkey/Turkmenistan/Ukraine (41%/43%/41%). Compare that to Iceland and Finland (26%, 27%)

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

#335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

>The response to most situations should be careful assessment of the situation at hand

This is not the forte of the SWAT teams whose adventures we read in the news. Idiotic cowboy cops given heavy arms to play with is more descriptive.

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

#336

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.

Hate to break it to you, but America IS a macho, gun-loving, power-tripping culture. What macho, gun-loving, power-tripping game were two man-children playing that got one of them so pissed at the other that he SWATted him?

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

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any rando can call in a 'dangerous situation', then yes, they should be more circumspect. There is just no excuse for killing an innocent civilian. It's outrageous. Response to the parent's edit: These are supposedly trained officers who acted with absolute incompetence leading to a completely needless death. How is one supposed to empathise with this? It's a complete and utter fuck-up.

Someone here is trying to increase the consequences for killing suspects and they had a rep from the police union arguing against it because it could have unintended consequences like “people dying”. I ended up yelling at my radio, “PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DYING!” What the rep meant was cops dying. But the statement, as worded, makes it sound like cops don’t consider the rest of us to be people. Which is exactly the thing…

Too many cops see the people they interact with as criminals. They know that they interact with innocent people sometimes, but they are heavily biased towards thinking that by the time they are interacting with you, it is very likely that you're a criminal. And it's their job to protect "society" from "the criminals."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_blue_line

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

#338
Stories like this is going to make every encounter with a cop a lot more frightening for me.

As a teenager I was once yelled out by undercover cops that came out of no where. They yelled at me to "not put your hands in my pocket" or "put my hands up"... I really do not recall the exact words. I instinctively put my hands in my pocket. I couldn't help it, I do not think I even processed what they said. Luckily they didn't shoot but they were mad and warned that I could have been shot. I really do not understand how they expect people to understand them when they are yelling and surprise the sh!t out of you.

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

#339

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...

Of course there are scenarios out of our control. In this one particularly the victim walked out of the house and then was shot after he slipped up on one of the commands. Not to blame the victim, but his mistake lead to their over reaction. My point is even us citizens aren't experienced these situations and some guidance could help.

>In this one particularly the victim walked out of the house and then was shot after he slipped up on one of the commands.

In what other first world country a person would just be shot if they merely "walked out of house" and "slipped up on one of the commands"? Even if they had a gun on them, unless they actually fired, they still might not be shot by one of the actually competent police forces -- they'd tried to talk them down first.

Then again, in what other first world country a person can be shot if they walk out of their car after they have been stopped by the police?

Heck, unless he has been messy with their wives and they just found out, nobody in a first world country would shoot an unarmed man sitting on the floor and BEGGING not to be shot:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/daniel-shav...

And it's the people that need better schooling?

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

#340

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.

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