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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

#231

Post by diggan »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #221
diggan wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a vague claim made by the anti policing activists Probably a conclusion people come to when they compare US police looking more like the US military every day, while their local police doesn't go in that direction at all. At least that's true for me as a person living in Spain but sometimes seeing the really crazy equipment US police seems to have.

Having semiautomatic rifles or armored vehicles isn’t militarization. Private citizens can get those too. Police forces don’t have M1 Abrams tanks or F35s or nuclear carriers. This claim that the police are problematic is an entirely emotional activist response to a few incidents. That sentiment then led to hyperbolic claims like militarization.

Doesn't the police in the US frequently end up with hardware the military used to use? I've seen bunch of pictures/videos of police using Humvees and similar stuff, which I thought was originally made for military use, not domestic policing.

It also seems like in 2015 there was limits added that made it so "the military was restricted from transferring some weapons, such as grenade launchers, weaponized vehicles, and bayonets to police". Why was that restriction needed if the police isn't becoming more and more like the military?

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

#232

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

DanHulton wrote: post #218
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Whatever that means Look, if you're not even willing to understand the argument, your refutation of it is toothless at best, worthless at worst. Not to mention, your own claim is vague and without evidence. In point of fact, there's plenty of evidence to the counter. There are ample studies to choose from, but from just this year: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/police-budget-crime-...

Are you willing to understand the argument? What does militarization mean? Because I’ve seen no evidence of police responding to a crime scene with an Apache helicopter or a howitzer. It’s remarkable that completely obviously false claims of militarization are accepted here.

As for your link: the claim made by the “study” is false since it is ignoring virtually every obvious confounding factor to claim that the number of police officers doesn’t affect crime rates. Per capita police count is a measure of how effectively a city can respond to crime. If they can’t respond that means there aren’t consequences. When there aren’t consequences you end up with the disaster of public safety you see in west coast cities like SF, Portland, and Seattle.

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

#233

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

karaterobot wrote: post #207
elzbardico wrote: post #174

The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

The military model is that they are organized into units with training, and obey a central authority. On the whole, it's been an improvement over forming ad hoc posses of farmers and shopkeepers and arming them, or the medieval hue and cry model where someone screams and then everybody in town comes over and beats a stranger to death for having a different accent after dark. I'd love to see some statistics about how…

The "military model" goes so much further than that. They are "officers" and have military ranks as their position/title. They wear military-styled uniforms and headwear. They engage in military-style ceremonies.

> I'd love to see some statistics about how much worse it is now that we have professional police,

How fortunate that they're willing to collect statistics on their own performance for you.

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

#234

Post by sontek »

tomcam wrote: post #19

Not sure why swatting isn’t treated like attempted murder

Ideally sending cops anywhere shouldn't be treated as a murder attempt, no matter the persons intent. They should be trained to recognize if there is true threat or not.

If our legal system started recognizing that sending the police somewhere is equivalent to calling an assassin then we've got larger issues to address.

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

#235

Post by enriquec »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #221
diggan wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a vague claim made by the anti policing activists Probably a conclusion people come to when they compare US police looking more like the US military every day, while their local police doesn't go in that direction at all. At least that's true for me as a person living in Spain but sometimes seeing the really crazy equipment US police seems to have.

Having semiautomatic rifles or armored vehicles isn’t militarization. Private citizens can get those too. Police forces don’t have M1 Abrams tanks or F35s or nuclear carriers. This claim that the police are problematic is an entirely emotional activist response to a few incidents. That sentiment then led to hyperbolic claims like militarization.

> This claim that the police are problematic is an entirely emotional activist response to a few incidents.

Really? Do you realize that the amount of civil asset forfeiture has exceeded burglaries? The militarization of police is absolutely a huge problem. As is mass-incarceration for non-violent crimes, over-criminalization, no-knock raids, etc. They just raided a dudes house for a squirrel.

And no, I don't advocate for the idiocy in CA where they legalized violent crime as a petty response to having their budgets threatened.

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

#236

Post by aliasxneo »

This type of behavior is why I am so adamant about not doxxing myself on the internet. I had a belligerent internet-goer track me down last year through some open profiles. Luckily, they were the non-swatting type, and it allowed me to fix the gaps. It sucks to live in fear of these people.

Also, HN seems to have a bad echo chamber on both policing and gun control.

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

#237

Post by snozolli »

kernal wrote: post #124
stavros wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The only time I’ve seen police use pepper spray or aggression are when the protesters become violent. Do a YouTube search for Antifa protesters and tell me who the violent people are again?

The first thing that came to mind:

https://www.kxan.com/investigations/everything-we-know-about...

I saw countless similar videos of cops violently attacking -- often with permanent, life-altering results -- people who were exercising their constitutional rights or simply minding their own business.

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

#238

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #229
bcdtttt wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> They evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols. Are we still spouting this nonsense? They do come from the mid 1800s. Modeled after the London Metro Police, where there were so many slaves to catch. American cities soon imitated, based on how many slaves were recovered.

> Are we still spouting this nonsense? They do come from the mid 1800s. Modeled after the London Metro Police

All of the above is true. In the US, slavery enforcement evolved into police forces and police forces were modeled after UK police.

Many police forces, many origin stores.

https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/36/3/did-american-pol...

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

#239

Post by graemep »

elzbardico wrote: post #174

The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

> The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

Do you mean for the US, rather than the human race? Some of us live in countries where the only weapons most cops carry are truncheons and tasers.

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

#240

Post by qznc »

bcdtttt wrote: post #179
elzbardico wrote: post #174

The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[flagged]

Accidentally, I read about the Romans recently. They had the Cohortes Vigiles, which was mostly a night time fire watch but it included night watch duties. Daytime was the responsibility of the Praetorian Guard. They were more kind of a part of the army but under the mayor's control (to some degree at least). I think they meet your definition of uniformed, central office, and patrolling.
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