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Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

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Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#111

Post by monetus »

jdietrich wrote: post #102
jrmg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the word to call it ‘regular’. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison for all sorts of reasons, but England and Wales has a population of about 60 million and averages about 3 fatal police shootings per year. From that perspective, 'regular' sounds like something of an understatement. Swatting just isn't a thing here - our armed officers are trained completely differently and held to much stricter standards regarding the use of force. American polic…

Can I ask you about the political power of police? Is there an equivalent to our police union? My mayor is downright afraid of them.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#113

Post by Rebelgecko »

jrmg wrote: post #79
ClassyJacket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the word to call it ‘regular’. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

That stat includes all shootings, not just murders

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#114

Post by kyralis »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #89
ClassyJacket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is a mischaracterization of what actually happens in the us. Using sensationalism doesn't help, instead let's focus on the actual numbers and be constructive on how to decrease them. In 2023 it's estimated police killed around 1,248 people. Notice I said killed vs Murdered as words matter. Out of that only 104 were unarmed. Now without looking at each case or example here, you can still account for the mass majo…

If police kill an unarmed individual every 3 days, I would actually say that they do, in fact, regularly murder people.

And that's ignoring any of the armed individuals who are not, in fact, threatening anyone or committing a crime.

And the people for whom a crime may be being committed, but for which "death" is not an appropriate punishment - even ignoring the police being judge, jury, and executioner in a society where we presume innocence and require conviction by a jury of our peers.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#115

Post by Rebelgecko »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #105
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a mischaracterization of what actually happens in the us. Using sensationalism doesn't help, instead let's focus on the actual numbers and be constructive on how to decrease them. In 2023 it's estimated police killed around 1,248 people. Notice I said killed vs Murdered as words matter. Out of that only 104 were unarmed. Now without looking at each case or example here, you can still account for the mass majo…

> In 2023 it's estimated police killed around 1,248 people. Notice I said killed vs Murdered as words matter. Out of that only 104 were unarmed. Now without looking at each case or example here, you can still account for the mass majority of police interactions ending in a death, the civilian was armed at a minimum. Does the Second Amendment not exist? Which other constitutional rights do you think we should use to j…

The 2nd Amendment doesn't give you the right to brandish at cops (or anyone else, outside of limited situations like self defense)

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#116

Post by tptacek »

hereforcomments wrote: post #96

In Europe this would have been a completely different story. It's highly unlikely (compared to the US) that a SWAT team equivalent would kill anyone. The guy could have got away with 5-7 years max. I know it's a museum, but I prefer to live here.

That's probably about what he'll get here.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#117

Post by bruce511 »

kyralis wrote: post #114
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a mischaracterization of what actually happens in the us. Using sensationalism doesn't help, instead let's focus on the actual numbers and be constructive on how to decrease them. In 2023 it's estimated police killed around 1,248 people. Notice I said killed vs Murdered as words matter. Out of that only 104 were unarmed. Now without looking at each case or example here, you can still account for the mass majo…

If police kill an unarmed individual every 3 days, I would actually say that they do, in fact, regularly murder people. And that's ignoring any of the armed individuals who are not, in fact, threatening anyone or committing a crime. And the people for whom a crime may be being committed, but for which "death" is not an appropriate punishment - even ignoring the police being judge, jury, and executioner in a society w…

I'd add that "armed" doesn't mean necessarily a firearm. I don't know what threshold is used in after-action reports (written by those involved or others), but presumably finding a pocket knife on someone counts as "armed".

Would personal protection devices (mace, batons etc) count as armed.

Call me a cynic, but 104 people being 'unarmed' makes me think the reports in those cases simply lack creativity in defining "arms" and, (again cynically) I expect some number of the other cases the individuals were either helpfully discovered to be armed after the fact. (And in some cases actually provided with arms after the fact.)

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#118

Post by ThrowawayTestr »

stavros wrote: post #51
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #41

I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked. Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if - Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy - First response training that's even moderately appropriate - Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties - Empathy for all humans - Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by…

It's a US cultural thing to either avoid blaming the police for anything, or make excuses for them. Brutal police behavior is seen as either acceptable, or what even desirable . I've seen reddit posts where a protester slightly taunts the police and gets pepper sprayed in the face, and all the commenters were gleefully saying things like "fuck around and find out", without even thinking that maybe there wasn't enough…

I've also seen reddit posts where the cop did everything right and people still criticized.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#119

Post by bruce511 »

Nursie wrote: post #70
hipadev23 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Disagree - community moderated quality floats to the top under such systems, exposing the better posts to more eyes and downregulating low-quality shitposting. It can certainly lead to echo-chamber mentality, but without it we'd see more low-effort, low quality posts drowning out discourse.

You're assuming that down-votes are used to assess the quality of the post, and not agreement with the content.

I would suggest that both appear here. Personally I would prefer votes to be on quality of post rather than popularity of position as that leads to the possibility of examining an issue from multiple viewpoints.

(When responding to a post that has been thought out, but down voted, I feel the need to point out that although I disagree, I'm not the one downvoting.)

I do think that voting improves the quality overall. But a better system might be separate options for 'agree/disagree' vs 'quality / pithy' posts. (I also thinkbthis would be horrible UI, so meh)

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#120

Post by hipadev23 »

bruce511 wrote: post #119
Nursie wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree - community moderated quality floats to the top under such systems, exposing the better posts to more eyes and downregulating low-quality shitposting. It can certainly lead to echo-chamber mentality, but without it we'd see more low-effort, low quality posts drowning out discourse.

You're assuming that down-votes are used to assess the quality of the post, and not agreement with the content. I would suggest that both appear here. Personally I would prefer votes to be on quality of post rather than popularity of position as that leads to the possibility of examining an issue from multiple viewpoints. (When responding to a post that has been thought out, but down voted, I feel the need to point o…

Yep exactly. I’d argue they create echo chambers far more than we’d like to admit. It’s also not simply voting but also algorithmic of sorting content by likes, and implicitly excluding anything under a certain threshold.

I’ve felt this way for nearly twenty years now, coinciding with the rise of reddit, twitter, and facebook alongside the decline of forums, blogs, and rss.

On any topic with even slight amount of contention, you very quickly see people aligning toward the one-true-belief because they observe and react to the crowd supporting that opinion.

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