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LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

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Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#111

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

This claim is obviously untrue. (I suppose you're hedging with "usually", but even that seems unlikely.)

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#112

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

> when it's clear there is [...] danger

Shouldn't they at least verify for themselves whether there is actual danger?

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a side note, because you’re from Norway, that may be surprising to some. The US is #1 with 1.01 guns per capita, and Norway is #9 with .31 guns per capita. In any case, i don’t think the number of guns per capita explains the difference in gun crime rates between the two. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per...

You're absolutely right. The difference is that we are a more violent society. Violence is something we value here. Just look at entertainment for children. You're way more likely to find parents more amenable to letting their children watch scenes of people being hurt than people making love. One gets a pass and the other is considered obscene.

I don't think that's uniquely American. As a child I consumed plenty of violent media (mostly American, in fact!) but in my country very few people get shot.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#114

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

Simple question - what % of SWAT encounters should an INNOCENT person be able to survive?

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#115
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blame can be placed on both. The person who faked a police report is guilty of homicide, but this was made possible by an overly trigger happy police force.

Here we have the exact opposite and police are often prosecuted for firing their weapon. Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service). Why? Because "police needs to know better and accept it as part of their job". Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the sta…

Where is “here”?

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#116

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

Why not make sure that there is some danger first instead of just going off of an anonymous phone call?

Seems pretty simple, just stand outside the house with the megaphone and say “hey what’s going on in there”?

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#117

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

If any rando can call in a 'dangerous situation', then yes, they should be more circumspect. There is just no excuse for killing an innocent civilian. It's outrageous.

Response to the parent's edit: These are supposedly trained officers who acted with absolute incompetence leading to a completely needless death. How is one supposed to empathise with this? It's a complete and utter fuck-up.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#118
post #70
post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

I don't think it's reasonable or effective to entirely expect police to solve this problem. Here is the account from the article: Livingston said when the door opened, officers gave Finch commands to put his hands up and walk toward them. He complied for a "very short time" and put his hands back down. He raised them again, and then lowered them for a second time, Livingston said. "The male then turned towards the of…

> But that doesn't change the fact that it's a genuinely threatening thing to do.

A bunch of police showed up at his house and pointed guns at him, and his behaviour is threatening?

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#119
post #18

Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards. Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely…

To your point about non-lethal weapons: it seems to me that we haven't yet claimed the low-hanging fruit in the US when it comes to this problem. Why not indulge the most base impulses of both silicon valley and police militarization with high tech, non lethal weapons? It will probably introduce new problems, such as even more unnecessary use of force. It addresses absolutely none of the cultural or institutional pro…

There are only "less lethal" weapons. People can very well die from being tasered for example.

Re: LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police

#120

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced. You are a cop with 5+ other cops. You all pull your guns. Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police. They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence. We now begin the dice rolling process. Since every pol…

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune? Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the b…

Sure, but you’re assuming that the clarity has been established. That threshold needs to be met, and it certainly didn’t happen in this case.
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