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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

#701

Post by akvadrako »

conanbatt wrote: post #697
roenxi wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually a slightly more damning view of the situation here than the moral issues around police safety. The police had complete control over how they approached this. Why then are they even in a position where they feel threatened? When we look at the outcome here, they just killed some dude for no reason. If this is acceptable to the police force; why not have them call out to the room with a megaphone? Wha…

You are reading too deep into it. The situation is that the cops have too little downside and too high an upside: since they never get convicted for these crimes, you need little to nothing to convince you that deadly force is fine. Cops need to go to jail for this. Its as simple as that. And they will find the way to not shoot like that anymore.

It really does seem that simple. Most people will behave similarly in similar situations and American cops have so many perverse incentives.

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

#702

Post by conanbatt »

znfi wrote: post #197

One thing with all of this which puzzles me as a non-American, how does the "acceptance" of people getting killed by the police fit together with the whole anti-gorvernment thing which seems fairly common in the US as well? One would think that if one does not like the government, one would be extremely upset about the gouvernment randomly killing people. But for some reason this does not seem to be the case. I guess…

As partially libertarian, I am appalled at the police for this. Even though police is necessary to enforce private property, life and liberty, that doesn't mean they get to do whatever. They have to be responsible. Cops are citizens employees, they are servants for the general public.

In an intuitive sense, the cops can be improved if politicians worked on legal reform for cops. But instead, they squabble over israel, buying new military planes, government shutdown, elections, etc etc etc. The more things the government does, the worse it does all of them.

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

#703

Post by kiallmacinnes »

pizza234 wrote: post #700
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…

The most interesting opinion about this subject I've read comes from a comment, in the popehat blog, by an experienced military: There is plenty of reason to restrict the use of SWAT teams, but not to abolish them. They are needed now and then, when there is an actual hostage situation or an armed gang that tries to shoot it's way out. They should never be used for routine search or arrest warrants. That not only end…

This comment makes a lot of sense to me. SWAT / Armed police aren't inherently a bad thing. There are cases where they are needed, we're just overusing and undertraining officers.

I'm Irish, so while we do have some branches of the police who are armed, most are not. I wonder how the armed Irish Gardi would stack up training wise against armed American cops (ignoring the fact that every state / city would be different..).

Would our limiting of arms to a smaller group result in better training and responses? Or are they just as likely to mis-fire and fail to identify themselves?

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

#704

Post by akvadrako »

anigbrowl wrote: post #482
contravariant wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>given the current political climate of identity politics there is really no reasoning with those people. Can I just point out the irony of saying there's no reasoning with 'those people' because of identity politics.

Actually no, because 'those people' are the set of 'people who have chosen to label others as anti police' and a singular opinion isn't the same as a collective identity. Admittedly people who hold that opinion might adhere to a 'conservative identity' but the gp was specifically describing people who engaged in categorical dismissal of of political proposal, so it's legitimate to say they can't be reasoned with beca…

The wording implies you can't reason with "those people", meaning the anti-anti-police ones. But it kinda misses the mark, because you can't reason with "anybody" active in the identity-politics environment that pervades the US.

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

#705

Post by lb1lf »

valuearb wrote: post #671
lb1lf wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My line of work routinely puts me in the immediate vicinity of equipment which will kill me if I make a mistake. (Huge winches and their associated power systems - some in the megawatt range) I have yet to injure myself; in large part I ascribe this to the fact that I always think and think again about what I am about to do, and how it may conceivably put me at risk, then take the required measures to eliminate that…

Do troy routinely destroy that equipment if you suspect it’s dangerous? Should cops routinely point their weapons at unknown citizens, with safeties off and their fingers on hair triggers?

If I suspect it is dangerous, I do whatever I can to eliminate - or, if not possible, at least mitigate the risk to make it as low as practically possible - then see what can be done to ensure the safety of people within range even with that residual risk present.

Now, I appreciate that my circumstances are not directly comparable to that of a police officer responding to an emergency call; however, the basic methodology should be applicable in both cases.

Police officers are granted a monopoly on applying force on the civilian population; with that privilege comes great responsibility to use that privilege sparingly and proportionate to the situation they are sent to resolve.

I do not expect the police to disarm completely - that wouldn't be realistic - but as a member of the public I do expect them to show restraint and train -and aim for- non-lethal outcomes in encounters with the public. They have, after all, taken an oath to serve us. I hardly think the best way of serving is to assume civilians are hostile until proven otherwise.

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

#706

Post by isostatic »

vidarh wrote: post #685
roenxi wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually a slightly more damning view of the situation here than the moral issues around police safety. The police had complete control over how they approached this. Why then are they even in a position where they feel threatened? When we look at the outcome here, they just killed some dude for no reason. If this is acceptable to the police force; why not have them call out to the room with a megaphone? Wha…

This to me seems to be the big difference between US policing and what we're used to in e.g. most European countries: A focus on quick resolution at all cost rather than peaceful resolution. UK police for example tends to respond with overwhelming force, clear the area if possible, and contain their potential adversary, and if possible often wait the situation out. They will use violence if they have to, but it ends…

"n unarmed man was shot because police worried he might be a terrorist a few years back"

That was 2005, 3 weeks after a successful terrorist attack on the tube, and 1 day after an unsuccessful one. It was news for weeks and resulted in a criminal prosecution for the head of the police force involved.

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

#707

Post by trhway »

j9461701 wrote: post #553
trhway wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You're looking at elephant-stomping-on-you levels of force, and you're trying to say it'll be mitigated somewhat because you have 5 pounds of steel on your chest rather than 2 pounds. You will be a person salsa even if you strapped a kitchen stove to yourself. the momentum conservation means that the 5 pound of steel would be moving with the speed of 18m/s after full momentum transfer from the 45g bullet hitting it…

I don't mean to be rude, but did you not understand what I wrote above? >the momentum conservation means that the 5 pound of steel would be moving with the speed of 18m/s after full momentum transfer from the 45g bullet hitting it at 900m/s. 5lb at 18m/s - is like somebody would hit you with a frying pan. The change in momentum over time is what matters, not the momentum itself. As I said above, think of a car. The m…

>The momentum change over the distance of 2 inches produces a force of about 360,000 Newton

you're right that the force will be huge, and you're dead wrong about the force effect.

lets say we stop the bullet over the distance of 1cm instead of 2 inches - the stopping force to act upon bullet would be even bigger - 1.8M Newtons (30 elephants!). The same value force will be acting upon our 5lb armor plate. This force will be acting until the bullet stops, ie. for about 0.02 milliseconds. During that time the force would accelerate the armor plate to the speed of 16m/s and the armor plate would travel less than 1mm - only starting to compress the padding under the armor plate. So, 0.02 milliseconds after the bullet impact we have a stopped bullet and the armor plate moving with the speed of 16m/s through the first millimeter of the padding - the situation is no different than being hit by a frying pan.

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

#708

Post by borplk »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #236
coldtea wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's more, are those SWAT teams trained policemen or scared little children? Because if they are the latter, why do they go with guns and ammo and equipment enough to equip a small army just to arrest some kid who's selling weed or some guy who threatened their neighbors and such? SWAT teams should be for breaking into Escobar's hideout or stopping angry mobs, not for responding to random phone calls and simple cas…

The overuse of SWAT is ridiculous, but sending them into a shots fired / hostage / bodies on the ground situation is entirely appropriate. And no different from most other developed countries. If you go into a house in Germany, shoot someone, and then threaten to shoot everyone else, do you really think you’re going to get an officer or two casually knocking on the door without weapons at the ready?

No they would send the special forces. But they would not be stupid enough to end it this way.

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

#709

Post by goblins »

fatbird wrote: post #666
goblins wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile you're not putting you life on the line to protect a public who couldn't give two shits about you. The police are is a game of heads they lose tails they don't win; what ever they do. No one wants to hear about the lives they save everyday, no one cares about when a cop is injured or killed doing their job; they deserved it right. It's one of the toughest jobs you can do; and you're damned if you do and dam…

More police are killed in traffic accidents than in violent confrontations. When you factor out traffic accidents in police deaths, being a cop is actually one of the safer jobs in North America. All your bullshit about putting your life on the line is just psyching yourself up to shoot people. Cops don't put their life on the line. They sometimes get killed by people for no reason, but in smaller numbers than civili…

>More police are killed in traffic accidents than in violent confrontations. When you factor out traffic accidents in police deaths, being a cop is actually one of the safer jobs in North America.

Love to see the stats on that. Either way you wouldn't get me doing a cops job in America without a gun, for obvious reasons.

>All your bullshit about putting your life on the line is just psyching yourself up to shoot people. Cops don't put their life on the line. They sometimes get killed by people for no reason, but in smaller numbers than civilians get killed by people with guns for no reason. All your heroic language does is justify cops shooting innocents because they're scared.

Not really worth a response seeing as how this is just trolling, but I can guarantee 2 things that you'll not like hearing because you're obviously convinced all cops are just bad men in uniforms but, 1 yes cops do put their lives on the line, 2 my supposed "bullshit" about putting my life on the line is just not psyching myself up to shoot people. Sorry to disappoint you but you're speaking shite.

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