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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

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> They evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols. This is not accurate. The timeframe is not wrong; it is true that the concept of the modern police, at least in the US, was largely based on the Peelian model created in London in the 1820s. But saying it evolved from "warehouse guards and slave patrols" is ahistorical. Most modern police forces modeled after London's Metropolitan Police replaced night watch s…

Can you tell me more or more about where I should look? What did people do about crimes like robberies etc?

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

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the warehouse guards, to summarize, you're saying that night watchmen and city watchmen were de facto warehouse guards before the formation of professional police forces? That seems a far cry from "evolved out of warehouse guards". Police still put resources into protecting property, but this does not make them "warehouse guards" any more than resources put on petty crime make them "cutpurse chasers" unless you'r…

> For the slave patrol point, I would appreciate a single example of this phenomenon Potter, Gary "The History of Policing in the United States"[1] references Platt, Tony, "Crime and Punishment in the United States: Immediate and Long-Term Reforms from a Marxist Perspective, Crime and Social Justice 18" 1. https://www.academia.edu/30504361/The_History_of_Policing_in...

Did you read Platt? Its a mistake to grant any assertion as valid, especially given what we now know about academic fraud. The Platt article is freely available and does not reference slavery in any way that I can see from searching (the bad OCR) and quickly reading through the paragraphs.

Potter: The genesis of the modern police organization in the South is the “Slave Patrol” (Platt 1982).

Potter: Platt, Tony, “Crime and Punishment in the United States: Immediate and Long-Term Reforms from a Marxist Perspective, Crime and Social Justice 18 (1982).

  "CRIME AND PUNISHMENT IN THE UNITED STATES: IMMEDIATE AND LONG-TERM REFORMS FROM A MARXIST PERSPECTIVE"
  Tony Platt
  Crime and Social Justice, No. 18, REMAKING JUSTICE (Winter 1982), pp. 38-45 (8 pages)
1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/29766165

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

#323
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the acab is kind of rough, I'm absolutely with you on police accountability. If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police. The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Training only goes so far. After that, you're investigating mistakes versus violent intent. I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm cer…

> Training only goes so far Compared to other countries American cops aren't really trained at all. In Germany the training period for a police officer is 2 to 3 years, in the US it's usually less then 6 months.

It's not quite that bad.

That US 6 month number excludes field training (typically 1 year) whereas the 2-3 year German number includes it (6 months I believe).

This largely stems from a difference in how academies work. In many countries, field training is required to graduate. In the US, field training is required after you graduate in order to get a permanent job. This skews the total training time numbers.

That said, American police are still undertrained by comparison.

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

#324

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.

FYI this is a reference to the opening statement of the Unabomber Manifesto "Industrial Society and its Future". Don't think OP meant anything by the distinction of US/humans

> The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

https://ia600300.us.archive.org/30/items/the-ted-k-archive-t...

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

#325
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. It’s good that law enforcement have the tools to deal with serious threats. You’re just throwing around a fear word. The big guns are hidden from sight anyway, and only brought out when need be. We don’t need any Oct 7th type attacks happening on home soil.

> We don’t need any Oct 7th type attacks happening on home soil. Well homegrown attacks happen DAILY. "Averaging almost 50,000 deaths from firearms annually". But no, once they're not on the news like the Oct 7th attacks where, it's fine I guess. https://www.statista.com/topics/10904/gun-violence-in-the-un...

So you want police to deal with 10k+ gun related homicides using only batons and pepper spray?

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

#326
post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Humvees (HMMWV) aren't anything special. They were sold new for a while on the US civilian market. It's just another truck. The military surplus ones didn't come with weapons. Lots of other countries also sell off military surplus trucks, I've seen regular people in Europe driving comparable vehicles like a Unimog.

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

#327
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's probably not facing anything resembling 20 years. Charged as an adult under the fact patterns we know about, I get something like 15 years. But he's being charged as a juvenile.

It seems like he was a child when he made most of these calls. Regardless, this is unlikely to be much of a deterrent. The police need to be held accountable at some point.

The police didn't hurt anybody in this case, despite this person's attempt to make them do so. What are you holding them accountable for?

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

#328
post #320
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not just the weapons. In parts of Europe you can get arrested for posting the wrong kind of meme online. As a side note, when trying to research this you'll see weird double speak fact checks like below: > Fact Check: 11-year-old arrested on suspicion of violent disorder after riots, not ‘mean tweets’ > Sending grossly offensive, obscene, indecent, or menacing messages on public electronic communication networks…

> But then the authors don't write what 'violent disorder' is. "Violent Disorder" is a specific offence listed in the Public Order Act. > Then they try to further confuse the matter by talking about a completely unrealted 11 year old boy that was arrested for suspicion of arson The way it reads doesn't seem like it's "completely unrelated" at all.

> "Violent Disorder" is a specific offence listed in the Public Order Act.

So the article should explain it.

> The way it reads doesn't seem like it's "completely unrelated" at all.

How is this related apart from the person sharing the same age and the town being the same? One is suspected of arson and the other of Violent Disorder? Does this add value to the fact check?

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

#329
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a genetic fallacy. Police might have been former slave patrollers at one time in some places. That doesn’t mean all US police are the same or have anything in common with them. I’m not sure what it means for US police to have “evolved out of” slave patrols in places that never had slaves, like New York City (northern states didn’t want to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act), or even in places like Hawaii…

Specifically, SWAT teams didn’t exist until the 1960s. I’d wager their escalated use against civilians in their homes likely coincided with the War on Drugs in the 1980s.

The story I’ve heard is the North Hollywood shootout led to increased militarization when police were outgunned by two bank robbers.

https://www.policemag.com/weapons/article/15348048/how-the-n...

Of course, there must have been many other causes. It wasn’t the first time in US history that police were outgunned.

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

#330
post #150
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty light sentence for 375 murder attempts and threats.

It's only attempted murder because American SWAT is trigger happy, equipped literally like an army and shoots before asking questions or establishing context, that's hardly his fault.

My response is in the context of the parent comment saying that it should be treated like attempted murder, and then the response citing the 20 years of sentence reading to me like it was implying that the crimes were being treated seriously enough. The premise you seem to disagree with was established by previous comments and isn't something I proposed myself.
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