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The Human Toll of Flashbangs
61–70 of 262 posts
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing their lawyers have told them not to apologize (show apathy), as it may actually be worse for them in the civil suit.
FYI you wrote apathy when you likely meant empathy .
Apathy fits there if you take the parenthetical to be clarifying "not apologize" instead of just "apologize".
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#63I don't live in the US, so I am maybe missing something but, if the police wants to arrest someone, wouldn't be easier to wait until this person leaves the house, grab him on the street and tell him: "Hi mate, we are the police and now you are under arrest". I don't see the need of assaulting a home.
Yeah, but that's less fun and would require patience.
Who has time for patience?
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#64I don't live in the US, so I am maybe missing something but, if the police wants to arrest someone, wouldn't be easier to wait until this person leaves the house, grab him on the street and tell him: "Hi mate, we are the police and now you are under arrest". I don't see the need of assaulting a home.
As I understand it, this is part of the war-on-drugs mindset. Since possession of even minor quantities of drugs can result in severe sentences, they assume offenders will be as violent as anyone receiving such sentences.
Yep. As long as enough of the population continues to buy into this nonsense they will have "legitimacy" to act this way.
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has a tendency to export its bad ideas along with its good ones, so readers elsewhere might still have reason to be concerned about what happens there. These weapons are already used by some police in other places, like in Canada where a protesting student was seriously injured [1]. French police used flash bangs in the recent hostage situation in a grocery store [2]. [1]: http://rabble.ca/news/2012/03/police-…
Using them in a raid against a terrorist who had taken hostages is completely reasonable. Throwing them into a crowd of people is not. Like any dangerous tool, if you use it carelessly bad things will happen.
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Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#66There seems to be a some demand for safer flashbangs (perhaps something with really bright LEDs and really loud speakers). This[0] seems to at least address the brightness aspect of it. I mean, if the point of flashbang use by LEOs is supposedly to disorient/confuse/distract a suspect during arrest, this seems to be better-suited to that role. And better yet, if they're electronic, they should be (at least hypothetic…
Home invasion will never be safe, regardless of the tools they use.
If law enforcement's answer to tragedies like this is, "We'll train our people in use of less dangerous tools", then the wrong questions are being asked. The question should be, "What the hell were you doing breaking into someone's home in the middle of the night?"
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's most amazing is how smug and unapologetic the involved LEOs are when they've been interviewed on camera about this incident. One can only hope that the video is accepted as evidence in the civil case and will add a significant multiplier to the damages awarded.
The officers involved most likely were following both their training and their department's policy here. That something terrible happened as a result doesn't necessarily mean they did something wrong from a legal and professional standpoint. Police work is full of situations that are ugly, even when well-thought out policy is followed to the T. Of course, the wisdom of ever using flash bangs in policing outside of ex…
Which is of course the problem with departmental policy. We routinely see SWAT teams investigating themselves and finding that everything they did was in line with departmental policy.
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#68There seems to be some room for innovation here. The police are throwing these things blind. Evidence? Well, I refuse to believe anyone, no matter how debased, would intentionally throw a flashbang into a baby's crib. What's needed is a flashbang that either won't go off if in close proximity to a living being (e.g. perhaps add an IR sensor) or a flashbang that is triggered remotely, so it can be thrown, spotted, and…
Isn't that just a band-air for the real problem, which is the general culture of infalibility at many police departments and the shocking lack of training in light of the fact that they've been given military grade toys?
Yes, but we can always try to solve the inconviences of our world in multiple venues. Let's try politics and simultaneously use the ingenuity we have to solve the problem while politics resolves.
I'd bet by stopping the water supply (out), disabling wifi and power, we can solve the destruction of evidence issue which could warrant the police actions.
Additionally, we could send a robot in place to search for unsafe conditions prior to the entry by armed police.
What other issues do we need to solve make this not happen while we wait for politics to catch up?
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#69> “If she hadn’t been selling illegal items out of the home, no warrant would have been served,” he said. “What you call extreme, we call safe.” Disgusting. The militarisation of police is a blight on our societies progress. And now where I live is succumbing to it too, albeit far more slowly than what those in the US have to deal with. The fact that SWAT teams are using flash bangs and automatic weaponry to raid a w…
That's either a lie, or just poor record-keeping. I would find the poor record-keeping entirely believable, but besides the point: even if they _had_ been trained to use flashbangs, then they we not trained properly or the shouldn't have been used at all. Just because something is standard procedure doesn't make it the correct procedure.
Next time the IRS calls I will just tell them not worry, "It was just poor record keeping."
Re: The Human Toll of Flashbangs
#70> “If she hadn’t been selling illegal items out of the home, no warrant would have been served,” he said. “What you call extreme, we call safe.” Disgusting. The militarisation of police is a blight on our societies progress. And now where I live is succumbing to it too, albeit far more slowly than what those in the US have to deal with. The fact that SWAT teams are using flash bangs and automatic weaponry to raid a w…
That's either a lie, or just poor record-keeping. I would find the poor record-keeping entirely believable, but besides the point: even if they _had_ been trained to use flashbangs, then they we not trained properly or the shouldn't have been used at all. Just because something is standard procedure doesn't make it the correct procedure.
I'd be more inclined to believe it was poor record keeping if there wasn't a decades long history of police lying to cover for each other. Fool me a thousand times...