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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

#581

Post by merb »

danso wrote: post #378
dingbat wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and being woken in the middle of the night, wearing boxers or pajamas with hands in the air, better pray that they don't happen to slip down causing you to instinctively "reach for your waistband" in order to hitch them up

This seems to me to be what happened in the Daniel Shaver case, who was drunk and in his pajamas when police (responding to a report of a brandished gun being spotted in his motel room window) confronted him. He was facedown and yelled at for ~4 minutes before being shot when officers mistook him pulling up his waistband for reaching for a weapon: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/police-shooting-vid... The of…

I also don't get why they said he should move to them. instead another police officer could've just came from the back and searched him for potential weapons. but well the video shows that the police basically was harmful.

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

#582

Post by qaq »

goblins wrote: post #470
dclowd9901 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, plenty of people go into the military. I call bullshit. And frankly the only people I want wearing the badge are ones who are willing to sacrifice themselves, even if it’s a much smaller number of officers being paid much more and are much more skilled.

I call bullshit on this. These cops have to be willing to consider their lives less important that everyone else's. Bullshit. Yes plenty of people go into the military. For myself it was because I could not get a better job. Was I willing to die for my country, yes, but I sure as hell wasn't of the opinion I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to make sure I wasn't. I was just reading the other thread on here ab…

Because this idiot in some other situation can be seating in some other country. So to take out some high value US target say someone from US intelligence the only thing they have to do is to make a believable sounding call over VOIP line and they are golden especially considering the target would likely have a gun on him which will make it that much easier.

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

#583

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

That's why they don't sit in the car and try to have a chat with the "hostage taker".

I dunno, it seems to work pretty well in a lot of other contexts. Interestingly enough, in a context where they're very sure about the danger/loss of life, police are just as likely to slow things down. When a terrorist shot up the Pulse Nightclub in Florida and killed a bunch of people police showed up and exchanged fire with him, but then when SWAT arrived they turned it into a hostage situation and spent >3 hours and carried on 3 phone calls with the guy, along with a number of failed entry attempts. Realistically several of the ~50 victims probably died while waiting on the police (I'd have to check all the autopsy reports to be sure, but it'd be pretty unlikely for them all to have died instantly at the time they were shot).

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

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

#584

Post by [deleted] »

dingbat wrote: post #159
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

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…

and being woken in the middle of the night, wearing boxers or pajamas with hands in the air, better pray that they don't happen to slip down causing you to instinctively "reach for your waistband" in order to hitch them up

[deleted]

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

#585

Post by servantleader »

goblins wrote: post #470
dclowd9901 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, plenty of people go into the military. I call bullshit. And frankly the only people I want wearing the badge are ones who are willing to sacrifice themselves, even if it’s a much smaller number of officers being paid much more and are much more skilled.

I call bullshit on this. These cops have to be willing to consider their lives less important that everyone else's. Bullshit. Yes plenty of people go into the military. For myself it was because I could not get a better job. Was I willing to die for my country, yes, but I sure as hell wasn't of the opinion I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to make sure I wasn't. I was just reading the other thread on here ab…

It's called being a "Public Servant" for a reason.

Meanwhile, the rest of us don't get any cushy pensions or any of forms of guaranteed stable government benefits like police do.

Not trying to say they should consider themselves "less-than", more that they should be fucking servants.

Police aren't the point! They are a necessary fixture to enable the real point- SAFE, LIVE CITIZENS.

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

#586

Post by tmnvix »

solotronics wrote: post #535
danpalmer wrote: post #99

Having unfortunately seen a police body cam video of an obviously unarmed man being shot, and having read about this one, it seems to be a case of men hitching their trousers up because they aren’t wearing a belt, being mistaken for reaching for a gun. This is a normal thing, it’s an unconscious thing, we do it without thinking so can’t stop when told not to do it. People should not die because they’re wearing loose…

what are we supposed to do exactly?

Reduce the number of guns in the US.

People should still be able to own guns, but they should need a valid reason (such as hunting or farming). Shooting people (this includes self defence) should not qualify as a valid reason.

This is how it works in most developed nations with sometimes quite high rates of gun ownership (0.2+ per capita) but without the endemic gun violence of the US. It's worth noting that these sorts of restrictions effectively rule out ownership of handguns - and concealed handguns (real or imagined) seem to play a major role in most police shootings of innocent people in the US.

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

#587

Post by noncoml »

dingbat wrote: post #159
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

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…

and being woken in the middle of the night, wearing boxers or pajamas with hands in the air, better pray that they don't happen to slip down causing you to instinctively "reach for your waistband" in order to hitch them up

The video leaked online. He is not even trying to reach for his pajamas or something. A cop asks him to move towards them and the next second you hear the shot. It's crazy.

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

#588

Post by Dove »

rojoca wrote: post #571
Dove wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really do think teaching people how to be non-threatening would be one of the most effective methods of avoiding tragedy. I know you make light of educating large numbers of people, but there are a lot of things we all know about society in order to be safe. It seems to me that "sudden movements in tense situations provoke violent reaponses" isn't that hard of a thing to learn. Don't we teach people not to run from…

What about mentally ill people? People on medication that make them groggy? People who are drunk in their own home? People who are exhausted from a huge week at work? Children? Elderly? People cannot reasonably be expected to “stay calm” at a moments notice. That is completely unreasonable.

Special cases make bad rules. Seat belts make you safer... but not if your car gets crushed between two semis. That doesn't mean seat belts are pointless, just that they don't work in that case.

Moving deliberately and keeping your hands visible around police, particularly if they seem to think you're dangerous, is a good way to stay as safe as you can, and will put them less on edge in the encounter. You want that. In a dangerous situation, you want everyone as calm as possible.

Will it always work? Of course not. Maybe you're drunk or high. Maybe you're insane. Maybe you panicked in spite of yourself. Whatever. Hopefully in that situation one of the other protections will work for you.

Wear ya damn seatbelt. Not because it always works, but because sometimes it's the only thing that saves your life.

Safety is about tradeoffs and incremental improvements, not perfect solutions. If there really is a murderer in the house, we want police to be aggressive. If it's a hoax, we want them to be cautious. But expecting them to magically know which situation it is isn't a practical solution. Making it really obvious that you aren't a tactical threat is a practical way to make the situation safer. ER!

Obviously the whole situation is super dangerous and the blame rests almost entirely with the hoaxer.

But with that said, I think it is practical and reasonable to talk about the best way to surrender safely and avoid a misunderstanding in a situation like that. It won't work in every case, but it should generally work and could improve the situation.

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

#589

Post by sumeno »

contravariant wrote: post #58
sumeno wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3) Anyone implying that the police need to change is labeled anti police by a large portion of the population because this has become a political issue in the US and given the current political climate of identity politics there is really no reasoning with those people.

>given the current political climate of identity politics there is really no reasoning with those people. Can I just point out the irony of saying there's no reasoning with 'those people' because of identity politics.

There is no reasoning with people about specific issues when they are tied up in identity politics. That is true whether they are a liberal or a conservative.

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

#590

Post by Mtinie »

mindslight wrote: post #557
dba7dba wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up a Youtube channel called PoliceActivity . It is a collection of dashcam/bodycam videos of US police involved in some kind of shooting/assault. They are not edited down to fit a news report so videos usually last 10-30 minutes. Some show cops stealing money/drug from suspects and US media actually showed such clips in news reports. But lots of the videos show actual circumstances leading up to shooting by poli…

Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty . Period. However, this does not justify any of the collateral damage to the ones who are innocent - the scales of justice are not a probability distribution! The entire point of the rule of law is to have a clear dividing line between the acceptable and the unacceptable - every innocent person assaulted by the police…

> Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty. Period.

You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right?

Also, I’d love to see your reference citation(s) to back up this statement.

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