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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

#671

Post by valuearb »

lb1lf wrote: post #415
kbar13 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you worked a job where your life is legitimately at risk then you would know that you prepare for the worst every time.

My line of work routinely puts me in the immediate vicinity of equipment which will kill me if I make a mistake. (Huge winches and their associated power systems - some in the megawatt range) I have yet to injure myself; in large part I ascribe this to the fact that I always think and think again about what I am about to do, and how it may conceivably put me at risk, then take the required measures to eliminate that…

Do troy routinely destroy that equipment if you suspect it’s dangerous? Should cops routinely point their weapons at unknown citizens, with safeties off and their fingers on hair triggers?

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

#672

Post by SilasX »

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…

Your points are valid, but don't apply to this scenario, where the police had his home surrounded and were safe behind their barriers. If he reached for something, they could have remained behind those barriers and observed with a video camera to monitor compliance.

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

#673

Post by pravda »

username223 wrote: post #540
CalChris wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the rest but underpaid, no. For the Oakland Police Department, where I live, the starting salary is $69,912 to $98,088. Retirement starts at 50. This job requires a GED.

Compared to newly-minted coders getting low 6 figures? Well... The world would be a better place if cops and teachers were trained, paid, and respected like doctors. Police officers' jobs are mostly boredom (e.g. manning a radar gun) mixed with occasional stress and quite a bit of dealing with people in their worst moments (e.g. desperate, angry, drunk, or high). If they were paid more, the job might attract enough c…

Police officers in Suffolk County New York get $250K-$350k/year compensation packages.

The former Suffolk County Police Chief is currently in federal prison for attacking a handcuffed citizen. [1]

Sorry, but paying Police Officers as if they were SAP consultants does not improve the quality of their policing.

Oh, and if you're wondering, why didn't the District Attorney protect citizens from the police? Well, he is under federal indictment for covering up police crimes. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/nyregion/james-burke-ex-s...

[2] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Suffolk-County-Distric...

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

#674

Post by NoveltyStiver »

scoot wrote: post #639
nwjtkjn wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That video is sickening. That man was murdered.

Technically not murder, as that requires premeditation. However it is apparent that this is a no-win situation for the victim, the officer is clearly intent on creating a situation for a "justifiable" homicide. What's just as horrifying is that the jury acquitted.

IANAL but I believe it could be classified as second-degree murder (no premeditation required)

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

#675

Post by scoot »

NoveltyStiver wrote: post #674
scoot wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically not murder, as that requires premeditation. However it is apparent that this is a no-win situation for the victim, the officer is clearly intent on creating a situation for a "justifiable" homicide. What's just as horrifying is that the jury acquitted.

IANAL but I believe it could be classified as second-degree murder (no premeditation required)

a bit further, you're absolutely correct; it seems the US has a more nuanced definition of murder, for which any of the three definitions of second degree murder could potentially apply in this case[1]:

  - A killing done impulsively without premeditation, but with malice aforethought
  - A killing that results from an act intended to cause serious bodily harm
  - A killing that results from an act that demonstrates the perpetrators depraved indifference to human life
As for my original point, that just makes the aquittal even more shocking!

[1] http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/second-degree-m...

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

#676

Post by caf »

v64 wrote: post #35
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…

> 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…

How's that apply to the case of Justine Damond?

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

#677

Post by c22 »

antoncohen wrote: post #276
dboreham wrote: post #123

I don't see anyone here asking this: how many people are police killing who are not 100% innocent bystanders like in this case, but still didn't need to be killed? I mean, we're all outraged because they shot "some dude in his PJs" but doesn't that imply they must be shooting 10, 100x as many folks where we'd be thinking "well, he shouldn't have had a knife in his hand" or "he shouldn't have been high"? Where I live,…

Every year in the US cops kill ~1000 people. Of those ~50% are unarmed or armed with something other than a firearm. ~18% are unarmed. Nationwide less than 100 cops are killed every year by some form of assault. ~25 people are executed via death penalty every year. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/... https://www.odmp.org/search/year https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions-year

To add a data point to your numbers, apparently police in the us shoot at 3 times as many people as they kill [https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3jjpa/nonfatal-police-s...]

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

#678

Post by katastic »

motherdearest wrote: post #618
sctb wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we just told you we'd ban the account if you kept breaking the guidelines with unsubstantive comments, we've banned the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll start posting civilly and substantively. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You banned the guy over the wang comment? How is that any less constructive than the other 50 posts here?

I know. They really hate my sourced comments here. This is just an excuse. I have almost 500 upvotes on my account even though I mostly say things people don't want to hear (but with sources)--since I value the truth over politics. So it's not post quality, it's post content, that they find threatening. Check my post history. You'll find a variety of well-written, concise, logical and sourced comments.

It's okay though. If they're willing to kick me out, they're losing more value than I am. It really speaks more about them, than it does me, that they'd get their panties in a bunch over simple, sourced facts in a comment. But anyone who lives in SF, knows that people in SF don't like hearing data that violate their dogma. It's only about "science" until that science says something they don't like.

I'll put my faith in science, over dogma, any day. The truth doesn't change depending on whether people want to hear it.

Have a good new year!

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

#679

Post by eksemplar »

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…

Well, swatting wouldn't be a thing if American police wasn't extremely unprofessional and ultra violent.

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

#680

Post by dragonwriter »

scoot wrote: post #675
NoveltyStiver wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but I believe it could be classified as second-degree murder (no premeditation required)

a bit further, you're absolutely correct; it seems the US has a more nuanced definition of murder, for which any of the three definitions of second degree murder could potentially apply in this case[1]: - A killing done impulsively without premeditation, but with malice aforethought - A killing that results from an act intended to cause serious bodily harm - A killing that results from an act that demonstrates the pe…

Note that the US does not have a single definition of murder; there are loose common guidelines, but each jurisdiction within the U.S. has its own, slightly different, definition of each form of murder. The specific statutes matter a lot in actual cases even if they get ignored in general discussion, as do the actual charges filed. The fact that another form of murder exists that could have been supported based on the trial evidence will not save a conviction on appeal if the appellate court feels the evidence cannot reasonably support a conviction for the specific form of murder actually charged.
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