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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

#181

Post by masklinn »

burntwater wrote: post #152
masklinn wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm honestly not sure what I can do to prevent that. Nothing, it seems. If you find yourself in that situation, it's a roll of the dice whether you're getting a jumpy or stressed-out cop who'll end up shooting you no matter what, and having no hearing issues probably won't help as stumbling, twitching or otherwise being confused by contradictory orders will get you shot anyway. In the long term, probably fighting f…

> wearing a bulletproof vest You joke, but I've considered it. Of course, the vest is probably visible and would be perceived as a threat.

> You joke

Sad as it is, the suggestion was serious, and one of the things I considered if I ever had to live in the US.

> Of course, the vest is probably visible and would be perceived as a threat.

There are concealable vests (for undercover officers) which are significantly less noticeable than the classic "tactical" vest. I don't know how easy it is to access them without being an undercover LEO though, they need to be measured and fitted to your body specs.

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

#182

Post by yosamino »

meri_dian wrote: post #107
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

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 an immediate and present danger.

And that makes sense. There are certainly situations where it's neccessary to subdue everyone in the room and ask questions later.

The problem is here

> when it's clear

The whole subgenre of "SWATing" works, because SWAT teams are being deployed based on dramatic, but unsubstantiated information, on the suspicion of a dangerous situation.

This does not help protect officers saftey. It endangers them, and it makes police officers into the tools of criminals.

That can't be a good system.

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

debaserab2 wrote: post #148
falcolas wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At which point, if you're up against armed individuals, you've lost the element of surprise, and have created a hostage situation at best, and a shootout in a suburban neighborhood at worst. Or, someone walks out and defuses the police, then their compatriots wipe all the police out unopposed.

This mindset is exactly what's wrong with policing in America. Every single part of training seems to be designed for worst case scenarios. There's no room for common sense or judgment.

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by jeffdavis »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

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…

What is the appropriate response in this kind of situation?

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

#185

Post by freedomben »

ivanhoe wrote: post #175
WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #100

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…

They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily. There's also a huge problem with the whole that macho, gun loving, power-tripping culture, it just makes things worse, wrong profile of people gets that kind of job.

> Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily.

What you are asking them to be is super human, indeed even better than a computer could in the same situation. No amount of "proper training" or "discipline" can prepare you to make perfect decisions based on imperfect data (your sensory perception, plus all the data that isn't present such as must be read from the mind of the suspect). Oh and add to this the stress that if you screw up, one of the following is likely:

1. You get killed

2. You wrongly kill and end up in prison

A different approach is needed. I'm not sure what that is, but asking/requiring certain humans to be super human is a sure way to fail.

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

#186

Post by stordoff »

MikkoFinell wrote: post #44
downandout wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was my immediate reaction. My guess is that the blame and punishment will all be laser focused on the caller, in an attempt to avoid a public outcry for the actual shooter’s head. That cop shouldn’t be on administrative leave, he should be in jail for murder.

Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves? What happened was an absolute tragedy, and every measure should be taken to avoid anything like that ever happening again. The shooting was not justified, and cops need better training, non-lethal options must be expanded, penalties for this kind of "prank" must be made harsher. Everyone agrees on that.…

> Should cops have to wait until they are actually being gunned down before they can use force to protect themselves?

If the only information you are operating off is an unconfirmed civilian report, I don't think that's entirely unreasonable. At the very least, they should be 100% certain that the suspect has a weapon - the police should act at a far higher standard than "feared the male pulled a weapon from his waistband".

IMO, the police should be there for the protection of society as a whole, but _sometimes_ (far from all of the time) act as if they are just protecting themselves over and above that/at all costs.

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

#187

Post by tomjakubowski »

qaq wrote: post #154
meri_dian wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let's cut the BS US Military is facing unimaginably more dangerous situations on daily basis yet expected to obey engagements where rule often is do not fire unless fired upon. Police is not even in the top 10 list of dangerous professions in US. Situations that in most countries are handled by few police officers in US are handled by paranoid SWAT teams on armored vehicles with assault rifles in full tactical gear.

Police gunfights are typically at much closer range than the military’s. Soldiers have more armor and are often already in fortified positions when fired upon. The situations aren’t exactly comparable.

Granted, combat troops probably have superior training to police.

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

#188

Post by amptorn »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #132
mmmBacon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but almost all the blame is on the person who pulls the trigger. Swatting is possible because of police militarization. Frankly while the idiot who made the call certainly shares some responsibility, our police policies of shoot first and ask questions later are the problem. When police are trained to respond to citizens, even violent ones, like enemies in war, we get the outcomes of police killings that we hav…

Police militarization makes this man more culpable, not less. He called the police with foreknowledge that doing so would provoke a militarized response likely to end in a death.

Let's split the difference and put both parties in prison.

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

#189

Post by TillE »

dboreham wrote: post #123

I don't see anyone here asking this: how many people are police killing who are not 100% innocent bystanders like in this case, but still didn't need to be killed? I mean, we're all outraged because they shot "some dude in his PJs" but doesn't that imply they must be shooting 10, 100x as many folks where we'd be thinking "well, he shouldn't have had a knife in his hand" or "he shouldn't have been high"? Where I live,…

> "well, he shouldn't have had a knife in his hand"

Right. German cops, for example, are trained to shoot people in the leg in that scenario. It happens quite frequently and successfully.

American cops seem like they're all on a hair trigger to kill at the slightest hint of danger, rather than as a last resort when they're truly threatened.

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

#190

Post by Steeeve »

If this is a potential consequence of online gaming, then I don't want any of my children gaming online.

We all know that the police response to this issue is going to be inadequate. What I'm curious about is the gaming industry and community's response.

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