Swat teams need unarmed camera drones, who scan the situation ahead of them. Smash some windows for god sakes, but not people.ö
No, they need proper training.
Things like this don't occur all the time in other countries.
LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
421–430 of 864 posts
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#422Earlier 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? I'm from the southern US, which is historically more conservative than the rest of the country. I'm not in any way claiming that the following viewpoints are universal and accepted in this region, but a large enough port…
>1) Anyone who gets shot by cops must have done something to warrant being shot. Done something like being poor, minority or both? I've recently read a nice piece (Vox IIRC) on authoritarian personalities and I think this is the new norm. A decade ago I would have just written that type of comment as trolling, but now it's a different world. People genuinely hold this cryptofascist beliefs.
They held them a decade ago too. None of this is new. You just didn't know or didn't believe.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
Police using hollow-points sounds insane.
Firearms are deadly force. The decision to use them is the decision to use deadly force. People can disagree with the use of deadly force. If deadly force is allowed, it still makes sense to make its application as precise and limited in scope as possible. Hollow points, compared with full metal jacketed bullets, reduce penetration, reducing shoot-throughs and the potential of injuring those who are not the target. T…
Then why do the militaries still use ball-ammunition?
Here's what I was told when I was in the service. The goal is to incapacitate the target, not to kill. From a military standpoint, incapacitation of targets causes additional burden to their sqaud-mates. It also demoralizes the enemy.
Weapons are used for many things, not just deadly force. They act as intimidation (warning shot), deterrence (visual presence) as well.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I know, why even bother with a trial? We've all read the news accounts, let's string him up! They have the weapon he fired, police body cam footage, the bullet, and the fact that there was no weapon on the victim, which means the cop did not see a weapon. So he just fired because the guy put his hands down and then obeyed commands to put them back up, which last I heard was not on the list of causes for justifiable…
Yeah, that’s not how due process works. You don’t know what happened or what the evidence is. And from your responses, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you have no law enforcement experience or training. Sorry, but the outrage you feel upon reading a few news stories online is vastly insufficient to imprison another human. You’re talking about simple mob justice, that’s all.
The issue is that the officer is not facing a trial. No chance for due process because the people are not bringing a case, so it doesn't matter what the evidence is.
He is on administrative leave.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#425Earlier 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.
Find what's different in America and fix it The average American spends several hours a week watching TV and movies where the rule-breaking shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later cop is the hero. Probably most people who join the police see themselves in that role. Here in the UK our cop shows are like Midsomer Murders. Most episodes don’t even feature a gun...
>Here in the UK our cop shows are like Midsomer Murders. Most episodes don’t even feature a gun...
Midsomer Murders is a murder mystery show, not really a cop show. There are plenty of action oriented Brotish Cop shows.
I love Midsomer Murders by the way.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
The worst case scenario? I’m pretty sure that is the scenario that played out. Police should be prepared to die wearing the badge, with civilian casualty being an absolute last resort. It works this way for the military. I can’t fathom why it doesn’t work this way with police.
Try finding enough people willing to do that. I'm not willing to die with the badge on, so I will never be a police officer. But I suspect that if you ask police officers the same question, many of them are also not truly willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. I'm not really sure what to do about this. Surely many of those who are willing to make that sacrifice are already police officers or other first responders.
It's not, or shouldn't be, "willing to die". It's "willing to accept a heightened risk of death or injury" that every cop should be ok saying "yes, that's my job."
Because time and again when you look at SWAT tactics or other situations where a cop kills someone, they were being pre-emptive. They were taking no risk at all of being hurt or killed. They pulled the trigger at the first ambiguous sign of threat, resistance, or something going wrong. They've created and valorized a mindset of taking no risk, of making sure they go home at night, of winning every encounter that always has death lurking somewhere.
They've made cops chickenshit, is what they've done. Some of that is internal cop culture, "warrior cop" mentality, etc. Some of that is us having built up a lot of drama around policing and police deaths making us all think that it's a terribly dangerous job. And some of it is just a refusal to hold police accountable for mistakes, which makes erring on the side of a dead civilian preferable.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shouldn't they prepare for the most likely scenarios, i.e. it's a bogus call or misrepresented whats happening, or that the perp just wants to surrender? How often do these calls turn out to be actually dangerous? One in a dozen? A hundred? Should cops wearing body armor use sniper rifles to shoot someone on their porch several hundred feet away just on the off chance they might have a pistol in their waistband?
if you worked a job where your life is legitimately at risk then you would know that you prepare for the worst every time.
Perhaps this is the problem. When you go into every encounter prepared for the worst, you'll probably find the worst more often than otherwise. Perhaps if they went into every encounter thinking that it could one a hundred different ways, they'd valorize keeping their wits about them, rather than pulling the trigger the first time "the worst" seems like it's about to happen.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
So? In 2015, there were 51,548 assaults against law enforcement officers, resulting in 14,453 injuries.
Yes, and postal workers had 32,213 injuries in 2012 with only 630,000 workers. https://www.gao.gov/assets/660/658174.pdf
Weak logic there. The injuries listed were from assaults; if accidental injuries were added, the number for police would undoubtedly be even higher.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Police using hollow-points sounds insane.
Hollow points are designed to stay in the person you're shooting and stop the threat without over penetrating and hitting an innocent person behind the target. I understand they sound scary to people not familiar with guns but they are the safest option for everyone else around the person you are shooting.
Not using hollow points for defensive/police purposes would be insane.
Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police
#430> Los Angeles police have arrested a 25-year-old man on suspicion of making the swatting call that ended with a Wichita man being killed by police.
What crime are they charging him with? I don't think we have the right crime on the books for this at present.
The guy who phoned this in is a scumbag, no doubt.
But Andrew Finch's death is 100% on the cops who showed up. As we've seen time and time again, their selection process and training lead them to be hyper-aggressive.
Look at stories from just the last year where the cops show up and shoot someone's dog, or shoot the random lady in a nightgown, or shoot the guy running away, or shoot the guy who says he's not armed, or shoot the guy for not getting down on the pavement fast enough, or shoot the guy...
It's disturbing that in each of these cases the system protects the cops. At some point, and my preference would be soon, we need to work to dismantle and rebuild this system.