71–80 of 112 posts
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I feel like occasions where the police react too slowly and hostages get killed would make it into the news. Instead we have stories about swatting. Any policy needs to weigh the harm to actual hostages against the harm to victims of swatting and right now it seems like swatting victims are bearing the brunt of police action. It is just my hunch that Hollywood has made us believe that crazy dangerous hostage situatio…
That's a very silly thing to believe. Real hostage situations happen all the time, you just never noticed because "angry drunk waves gun around while wife and kids cower in the corner" is not exactly national news.
A very quick Googling turned up an article that said that 85-90% of hostage situations are resolved nonviolently.
Another article said that police in the US receive something like 100,000,000 non-emergency calls (including pranks calls) in a year, so we’re probably talking at least tens of thousands of prank calls (not just swatting though, obviously).
Based on admittedly sensational news stories, violence seems to happen more often when people get swatted than it should and it doesn’t seem silly to think that overreacting to elaborate prank calls isn’t capable of causing harm that’s greater than the harm caused by underreacting to real calls.
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What happens when an unverified threat isn't considered quick enough, and the hostages are killed while the police are standing around outside taking a wait and see approach?
I feel like occasions where the police react too slowly and hostages get killed would make it into the news. Instead we have stories about swatting. Any policy needs to weigh the harm to actual hostages against the harm to victims of swatting and right now it seems like swatting victims are bearing the brunt of police action. It is just my hunch that Hollywood has made us believe that crazy dangerous hostage situatio…
Here you go
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/03/15/pa...
I'm pretty sure that an experienced police easily recognizes when it is a serious dangerous stuff like the above, and when it is just a safe, for police, swatting where you can just go in with all guns blazing.
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According to a police statement regarding the 2017 Wichita Swatting event: "Officers gave [the victim] several verbal commands to put his hands up and walk towards them. The male complied for a very short time and then put his hands back down to his waist. The officers continued to give him verbal commands to put his hands up, and he lowered them again." [1] I'm not well informed on the subject, but wouldn't equippin…
This is just the audio of the swatter though, right? I don't think there's any video of the actual incident is there? Maybe the dude didn't understand what the big deal was and kept dropping his hands? Someone probably jumped the gun? I wonder if that team had non-lethal weapons and just didn't get them out. If he didn't have a firearm, a beanbag rifle could have ended this much differently.
Several things need to be done. These idiots should be charged with something along the lines of conspiracy to commit murder. The phone system needs to be updated to prevent apoofing of numbers. I know it jas its reasons for corporate exchanges and whatnot, but safety outweighs that. A Telco should be able to uniquely identify precisely who made a call. Along the way: no blocked numbers on caller ID. I dont answer a…
I think the threat of getting 25 years in prison, as one of the guys got, ought to be enough of a deterrent to prevent this kind of stuff.
The main perpetrator whom gave up his friends Tyler Rai Barriss actually did cause the death of someone in Kansas by "Swatting" them. He then was completely unapologetic. These new indictments are after he accepted a plea deal for 20-25 years in federal prison. Here is his twitter: https://twitter.com/goredtutor36?lang=en . He boasted about swatting people and somehow got internet access in prison and posted his late…
According to a police statement regarding the 2017 Wichita Swatting event: "Officers gave [the victim] several verbal commands to put his hands up and walk towards them. The male complied for a very short time and then put his hands back down to his waist. The officers continued to give him verbal commands to put his hands up, and he lowered them again." [1] I'm not well informed on the subject, but wouldn't equippin…
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... which is presumably at least one reason you’re not a prosecutor
Well that's a pretty snarky response but it is also devoid of substance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to a police statement regarding the 2017 Wichita Swatting event: "Officers gave [the victim] several verbal commands to put his hands up and walk towards them. The male complied for a very short time and then put his hands back down to his waist. The officers continued to give him verbal commands to put his hands up, and he lowered them again." [1] I'm not well informed on the subject, but wouldn't equippin…
This is just the audio of the swatter though, right? I don't think there's any video of the actual incident is there? Maybe the dude didn't understand what the big deal was and kept dropping his hands? Someone probably jumped the gun? I wonder if that team had non-lethal weapons and just didn't get them out. If he didn't have a firearm, a beanbag rifle could have ended this much differently.
We have enough evidence accumulated over the years to make it abundantly clear that police reports are primarily about constructing a narrative that absolves police of culpability and secondarily about describing the true nature of an event.
Police reports read individually all sound individually reasonable but read as a collective describe a world that is fantastical. For example, the number of young black men who were "reaching towards their waistbands" at the moment they get shot even though they were carrying no weapons simply beggars any rational explanation. Similarly, "put his hands back down to his waist" is another police magic phrase that is conveniently unfalsifiable and also absolves the shooting officer of any liability.
The main perpetrator whom gave up his friends Tyler Rai Barriss actually did cause the death of someone in Kansas by "Swatting" them. He then was completely unapologetic. These new indictments are after he accepted a plea deal for 20-25 years in federal prison. Here is his twitter: https://twitter.com/goredtutor36?lang=en . He boasted about swatting people and somehow got internet access in prison and posted his late…
If a prank call can get people killed, blame the people kicking down the doors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to a police statement regarding the 2017 Wichita Swatting event: "Officers gave [the victim] several verbal commands to put his hands up and walk towards them. The male complied for a very short time and then put his hands back down to his waist. The officers continued to give him verbal commands to put his hands up, and he lowered them again." [1] I'm not well informed on the subject, but wouldn't equippin…
There is a Use of Force Contiuuum, but reaching for one’s waistband can be a short circuit directly to the top. Police usually say it is too dangerous to wait until they’re sure you’re actually retrieving a gun. This comes up pretty frequently when police kill people (typically young black men) who turn out to have been unarmed.
There is indeed a continuum, but this particular case was at the low end of the band.