So Shaq, Matt Damon and Steven Seagal participated in SWAT raids. Is this for celebrities only or anyone can sign up?
Not that I would like to participate though.
“Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
21–30 of 428 posts
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#22To me it seems that there are a lot of issues at play that led to the death of this man, but temporarily ignoring the fact that it seems hypocritical for a state to both punish gamblers while promoting a state lottery, it appears necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for protection. I'm not saying that firearms n…
People have always owned their own weapons, and if anything the percent of households with guns has declined [1]. The burden is on you to show why the increase in police militarization is necessary. What is different now that requires SWAT teams to participate in poker room raids and alcohol regulatory inspections?
What the article posits is that what has changed is not, in fact, the level of danger that police face, but that there has been a combination of mission creep and cops getting away with pushing the boundaries of excessive force. Other commenters have pointed out that there is a monetary aspect as well: departments justify bigger budgets by using personnel and equipment on more and more trivial tasks. What used to be routine enforcement and arrests become full SWAT takedowns.
[1] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/chart-day-gun-...
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#23Is this really the America that America wants?
The article mentions one case where a judge refused to issue a search warrant for a narcotics investigation and instead the police brought representatives from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control and raided the place with a swat team to conduct an alcohol inspection. What did they find?
Two sample bottles of beer that weren't labeled as samples and a bottle of vodka in the office. The fourth circuit court of appeals upheld the search. According to the article: So for now, in the Fourth Circuit, sending a SWAT team to make sure a bar’s beer is labeled correctly is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#24To me it seems that there are a lot of issues at play that led to the death of this man, but temporarily ignoring the fact that it seems hypocritical for a state to both punish gamblers while promoting a state lottery, it appears necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for protection. I'm not saying that firearms n…
This argument is spectacularly stupid because based on the rise of exactly these kinds of incidents, you could justify the production and distribution of automated turrets to negate the use of current SWAT tactics. You can't just stop at the perceived consequences of your supposed equilibrium point, you have to follow it all the way to the logical conclusion.
If this keeps up and/or accelerates, it's only a matter of time before someone acting in the same spirit as defense distributed throws an arduino controlled turret and either sells them on silk road, or open sources the plans and we're living in a much shittier world because of the out of control arms race accepting that the police are going to act like militant home invading thugs will provoke.
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#25It could be a good story but after 3 pop up ads which were almost impossible to close on this device I gave up. What was the story, anyways? The first two paragraphs sounded interesting. I just couldn't get to the rest of the story to read it.
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to take away from your message but you can just say "Native Americans" and leave the "Indian" part off. Otherwise I totally agree with your post.
This comment sums up what Hacker News has become perfectly. Front and center is the sentence correcting some slight, inconsequential anachronism that has nothing to do with the overall point of the comment and only serves to show the perceived intelligence of helpfulness of the commenter. Then there is a short sentence, more of an afterthought, addressing the point of the comment.
thank you for saying this.
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#27The article's photo is from the 2012 RNC in Tampa, FL. Despite an army of police with all the equipment a paramilitary outfit could wish for, there were almost no arrests. In total for the week there were 2, far fewer than there would have been in a normal week.
A year later and they're still riding around in their RNC purchased bicycles, cruising in RNC speed boats and zipping around in RNC bobcats. The high-tech CCTV system is also still in use (and has yet to actually solve a single crime). It's bizarre.
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#28To me it seems that there are a lot of issues at play that led to the death of this man, but temporarily ignoring the fact that it seems hypocritical for a state to both punish gamblers while promoting a state lottery, it appears necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for protection. I'm not saying that firearms n…
If the crime involved is not violent and the suspect has no history of assaulting police officers (or perhaps any history of violent acts), it should basically be a criminal act for the police to initiate the use of force during the apprehension.
You are making a huge leap from the presence of weapons to the use of violence against other people.
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#29Just a side note: certain countries in Europe have much more military style uniformed police force, including police living in barracks. None of them have the track record of armed violence the police in the US have.
I'm just saying, the militarization is at most a symptom (one of many), not the root cause for the US "war against the people".
Re: “Why did you shoot me? I was reading a book”
#30After overhearing the men wagering, Baucum befriended Culosi as a cover to begin investigating him. During the next several months, he talked Culosi into raising the stakes of what Culosi thought were just more fun wagers between friends to make watching sports more interesting.
All the more reason to never speak to the police. Ever. What happened to 'protect AND serve'? The police have made their jobs harder by systematically turning every citizen into a criminal and forcing every person to not trust them. If I were ever to witness a crime I would hesitate to contact the police at this point out of fear that I would somehow be blamed/included/railroaded/etc... I starting to see how in other police states throughout history the citizens did and said nothing.