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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

#511

Post by halter73 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #264
leesalminen wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In this case, the supposed hostage taker was the 911 caller.

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

#512

Post by anigbrowl »

cheschire wrote: post #384
TillE wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "well, he shouldn't have had a knife in his hand" Right. German cops, for example, are trained to shoot people in the leg in that scenario. It happens quite frequently and successfully. American cops seem like they're all on a hair trigger to kill at the slightest hint of danger, rather than as a last resort when they're truly threatened.

American police and military are trained to shoot for the largest target area, center of mass, as this is the least likely area to have unintentional results. Some examples of unintentional results are: 1) Missing. 2) Hitting another person. 3) Maming, or otherwise causing grievous injury such as shooting in the leg and hitting an artery on accident when you didn't intend to kill the target.

The probability of killing someone when you hit them in the center of mass seems a lot higher than that of accidental hits to the femoral artery.

Also, surely you've noticed that when American cops shoot someone they usually go on to cuff them but don't make any attempt to administer first aid, so that quite a few people die from bleeding out. At least if you get shot in the leg you've got some chance of stemming the blood flow, plus it's a lot easier to put a tourniquet on that.

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

#513

Post by eberkund »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #278
cortesoft wrote: post #232

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…

It's possible that the relationship between the number of guns per citizen and gun deaths is non-linear.

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

#514

Post by justaaron »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #44
downandout wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my immediate reaction. My guess is that the blame and punishment will all be laser focused on the caller, in an attempt to avoid a public outcry for the actual shooter’s head. That cop shouldn’t be on administrative leave, he should be in jail for murder.

Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? What happened was an absolute tragedy, and every measure should be taken to avoid anything like that ever happening again. The shooting was not justified, and cops need better training, non-lethal options must be expanded, penalties for this kind of "prank" must be made harsher. Everyone agrees on that.…

yes, they should see a weapon produced and in the process of being aimed for firing. they are already pointing their arms at the "suspect" and all that is required to complete the firing process is to pull the trigger. In America, due a culture of police impunity, (the cop rarely goes to jail or even faces trial, and is often even acquitted in cut-n-dried cases like Shaver.) the police officer has been trained to value their lives as higher than the lives of civilians. this is wrong. yes, i completely expect to see an actual weapon produced before a shooter commences.

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

#515

Post by sedro »

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #257

People do realize that it was a random address, not any of the call of duty players addresses'. A random person was killed over this stupidity. This is so enraging it's not even funny.

To clarify, the arrested individual sells a swatting "service" [1]. One of the CoD players hired him to swat the other over a twitter argument. The other CoD player taunted the swatter and gave him a random address [2]. The police showed up at the address and killed an unrelated person.

No parties involved are without blame.

[1] http://archive.is/Ixezf#selection-6279.0-6288.0 [2] https://i.imgur.com/n3Q53nL.png

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

#516

Post by ryanlol »

qw wrote: post #464
ryanlol wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which year is this for? The Finland numbers don't seem right at all. Neither do the Norway ones. The numbers are in fact so wrong that one has to seriously question the motivations of the author, it seems like this is a propaganda piece with made up numbers designed to make the US appear slightly less terrible.

The number from Norway is from a single mass shooting in 2011 where a man shot children trapped on an island. There have never been anything like that before or later. He killed more people than the total number of murder victims in an average year.

I'm well aware, but they still don't make sense in the context unless this is supposed to be a cherry picked list of worst years for each country.

I'm still not sure which events the Finland one refers to.

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

#517

Post by chrismcb »

r3bl wrote: post #454
Karunamon wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I’m concerned, they’re both equally liable. If this was a case of mistaken identity rather than a malicious call, we’d all be calling for the cop’s head even though it would have been the same error.

A caller just wasted the time of the SWAT unit. A SWAT unit shot an innocent man. It is very difficult for me to place both parties as "equally liable". Sure, there should be a punishment for the caller, but he didn't kill an innocent man and it sure as hell wasn't his intention to. He just didn't think of the possible consequence. In no way, shape or form does that equal to "actually put a bullet in someone innocent…

Felony murder. If someone does in the process of a crime being committed the person committing the crime can be charged with felony murder. I don't know the details of the case, so I can't comment on the SWAT officer. But the person illegally calling for SWAT should be charged.

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

#518

Post by doktrin »

Dove wrote: post #60
burntwater wrote: post #14

I'm glad this person is an adult located in the U.S. Hopefully this makes for swift and severe justice. I'm sad to learn the victim was the father of two children. And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a little threatening. I said yesterday that, as a hearing-impaired person, if I'm ever in a position wher…

> And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a little threatening. I can understand that, but I recommend caution when it comes to judgement. Combat is every bit as technical as system architecture, and I think it requires related experience to judge fairly. Movies prepare you to critique a fighter about as wel…

> most of these tragedies are misunderstandings between good people

In many of these cases, including but definitely not limited the hallway video, the "good person" with the gun failed to communicate with their terrified victim, and failed to handle the situation responsibly. They have the gun, they have the badge, they supposedly have the training, and they have the goddamn responsibility.

Until police - yes, police - get their shit together they will continue to murder civilians across the country, all while apologists who've taken a karate class come in and start lecturing the general public about the nature of violence.

Golf claps to infinity

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

#519

Post by ridgeguy »

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…

It seems that full metal jacket (ball) ammunition was adopted for technical reasons. The 1899 Hague Convention prohibited ammunition that flattened or expanded on impact, but did not require jacketing. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_metal_jacket_bullet

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

#520

Post by seandougall »

dawnerd wrote: post #91
mmmBacon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but almost all the blame is on the person who pulls the trigger. Swatting is possible because of police militarization. Frankly while the idiot who made the call certainly shares some responsibility, our police policies of shoot first and ask questions later are the problem. When police are trained to respond to citizens, even violent ones, like enemies in war, we get the outcomes of police killings that we hav…

Exactly. This could have been avoided by asking the neighbors if there was gunfire or if they called. Seems weird that an “active shooter” would result in a quiet street. Surely they’d get multiple reports. This is where better training needs to come into play.

That, and it sounds like the “hostage situation” narrative should have thoroughly unraveled as soon as he shambled to the door and let them in. I’m not an expert on hostage situations, but I’m led to believe that they typically involve more than one person, not to mention that hostage takers are not known for being immediately compliant.
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