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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

#471

Post by grzm »

r00fus wrote: post #423
grzm wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

You're right that firearms (weapons) can be used for many things. In the context of police work (or self defense), they are used for deadly force. The reason militaries use ball ammunition is (among other reasons such as those you mention) due to international conventions. For what it's worth, there are fully-jacketed rounds made to abide by these conventions yet still have many of the characteristics of hallow-point rounds. And you're right about incapacitation on the field of battle. You've pointed out a distinct difference between police work and self defense, and (some) military tactics.

Considerations like additional burden and demoralization are battle-field considerations: they're different from what police are typically involved in, where you want to remove an imminent or active threat to the public. (Just to reiterate, there are a lot of decisions that people can disagree about leading up to the decision to use deadly force in police work and whether that use was justified in any particular situation. That's not the discussion at hand here.)

Your examples of intimidation and deterrence are both indications that deadly force is available and willing to be applied. From the standpoint of brandishing, it doesn't matter what types of rounds are used. I'm not clear as to how often police actually fire warning shots, but if this is this case, they would be also be interested in ensuring the shot does not shoot through the intended target. (Shooting into the air is incredibly reckless and I can't imagine that's something police would be trained to do.)

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

#472

Post by Hasz »

rdiddly wrote: post #351
Hasz wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a huge conflict in my mind. I am a firm believer is due process and equal protection under the law for all. What you are suggesting is far from it, and a far cry from the ideal. SWAT teams, as heavily armored as they are, are still police, serving under the motto of protect and serve. If armor and automatic weapons are necessary to fulfill that goal, so be it. But SWAT teams are fundamentally not an extrajudic…

Actually I agree, and I think most cops would agree with that too. One thing hindering that ideal is how police officers are trained to have a chickenshit mentality where no risk to an officer's safety is tolerated ever . In that philosophy the balance is tilted too far in favor of officer safety and away from public safety. Scour the news for any "hero" story. A hero never displays concern for his own safety, he act…

>if the police show up anywhere, be it an Occupy protest or a carjacking, there is likely to be mayhem and bloodshed.

If you grew up in the US (I can't speak for other countries), I think most people, despite the media coverage, would say otherwise. There's way too many cops for this to even make sense. If even 1% of police interaction ended in a death, there would be literally millions of people dead by cop every year.

>chickenshit mentality where no risk to an officer's safety is tolerated ever.

Again, I'm not sure this is true. Are cops selfless superhuman crime fighting machines, charging heedlessly into danger? Of course not, and it's unreasonable to expect them to be. I would go so far as to argue we don't want heros. Heros are a band-aid fix, a substitute for good training and careful decisions made possible by always selfless, often reckless, decisions. We shouldn't be putting officers in a situation where they need to step up to become a hero.

Of course, there is the unpredictable event that necessitates a hero, but we should be working to reduces these edge cases.

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

#473

Post by mxxx »

I think I posted it here the last time some poor guy got gunned down by a swat team by mistake, but Radley Balko wrote a really good book about the history of how this kind of thing became commonplace in the states; Rise of the Warrior Cop. Fascinating read.

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

#474

Post by learc83 »

gaius wrote: post #442
learc83 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Well, so is NCIS then, and they love guns and rule-breaking...

NCIS is a federal investigative and intelligence service--much like MI5, which leads us to Spooks that also has quite a bit of guns and rule breaking.

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

#475

Post by moogly »

lb1lf wrote: post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

> is there any significant push It'll be business as per usual: "shit happens", "thoughts & prayers" etc. Just another one of the "periodic plagues from the gods" [paraphrased] that you can't do anything about.

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

#476

Post by avar »

marktangotango wrote: post #29
lb1lf wrote: post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

Non US'ers should understand that Europe, and Scandinavian countries in particular, is a different world than the US. No social safety net, lack of public transportation, exorbitant health care costs, tragically ineffective 'war on drugs', guns, violent crime, poverty. Honestly, the US really kinda sucks now, for most people living here.

Iceland has even shittier public transportation than the US and is culturally Scandinavian. Let's not confuse different issues here.

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

#477

Post by avar »

glenstein wrote: post #350
adrianN wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are only "less lethal" weapons. People can very well die from being tasered for example.

And in special circumstances a butter knife could probably kill someone. But I don't think getting trapped in a continuum fallacy represents forward motion in this kind of conversation. Maybe a tazer should count as lethal and should be excluded. Let's draw the line somewhere, most definitely. But I'm not any closer to understanding whether you merely object to that example or the principle itself, and the latter is…

It's not the lethality of the weapon, but the police response that's the problem.

In most (northern) European countries the response to somebody brandishing a knife would be to set up a perimeter around that person, rather than directly engage them. Only as a last resort would you resort to violence. Instead you try to tire them out.

By comparison, the American police response would be to immediately subdue the person with any force necessary.

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

#478

Post by anigbrowl »

bastijn wrote: post #108
api wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame can be placed on both. The person who faked a police report is guilty of homicide, but this was made possible by an overly trigger happy police force.

Here we have the exact opposite and police are often prosecuted for firing their weapon. Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service). Why? Because "police needs to know better and accept it as part of their job". Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the sta…

vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds

Oh no, children saying rude things? So long civilization, it was good while it lasted.

If we're talking about the Dutch police, they actually seem to do a pretty great job with patience and professionalism from what I remember when I lived there (for about 2 years).

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

#479

Post by bsder »

falcolas wrote: post #128
hungerstrike wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not make sure that there is some danger first instead of just going off of an anonymous phone call? Seems pretty simple, just stand outside the house with the megaphone and say “hey what’s going on in there”?

At which point, if you're up against armed individuals, you've lost the element of surprise, and have created a hostage situation at best, and a shootout in a suburban neighborhood at worst. Or, someone walks out and defuses the police, then their compatriots wipe all the police out unopposed.

Why in the hell do you need "the element of surprise" unless your goal going in is "shoot the shit out of somebody?"

If you are genuinely trying to deescalate a situation, you need to talk to the people involved. If we're genuinely that worried about people getting shot, why aren't we rolling "Officer Robot" up to the front door to say hello?

Even if there IS a hostage situation, these SWAT events demonstrate that the hostage is probably in more danger from the SWAT team than the hostage taker.

"Element of surprise" implies shoot first, ask questions later. And that NEEDS to change.

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

#480

Post by [deleted] »

Analemma_ wrote: post #388
dba7dba wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police should be prepared to die wearing the badge, with civilian casualty being an absolute last resort. I disagree. No one should be prepared to die while working a job, a job that one will have all his life.

Then pick a different job. People aren't required to be police officers.

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