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

• copper_think 9y ago
  Like Brian Krebs said yesterday on his blog -- it seems like the doctrine of felony murder should apply here.
  • qaq 9y ago
    Doctrine of WTF is wrong with the Police should apply here.
    • behringer 9y ago
      Can't you read? They found the real fall guy. I mean guy.
    • IndrekR 9y ago
      Those two are not mutually exclusive.
      • qaq 9y ago
        You can not change the world to get rid of idiots you sure as hell can screen police officers for psychological fitness and train them to apply force in much more reserved fashion.
    • guiambros 9y ago
      > ...WTF is wrong with the Police... WTF is wrong with a full-grown 25-year-old man, who thinks it's funny to waste scarce taxpayer funded resources for his own amusement, because he had a petty argument with a virtual stranger when playing an online game? Of course I'm not defending excessive use of police force, and the officer who fired the shot should be investigated too, but we need harsher penalties for swatting. The fact we have 400 cases per year [1] is unacceptable, and I hope these criminals go to jail for a long time. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/23/4253014/swatting-911-prank-wont-stop-hackers-celebrities https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/23/4253014/swatting-911-pran...
      • qaq 9y ago
        He should got to jail but if any random idiot can get any random person killed by the police that is a Police problem as we can have different training and screening procedures for police officers but we sure as hell can not guarantee that there are no idiots with access to phones.
        • guiambros 9y ago
          My point is: idiots with access to phones that do idiotic things should pay for the consequences of their acts -- regardless of how good or bad the police force is. In this case, an idiot caused the murder of an innocent man, and should pay for it, full stop. There's no ifs or buts. Of course this doesn't precludes police from making honest mistakes - or also doing idiotic things - but hopefully will remove the incentives from idiots-with-phones and their 400 potentially-deadly pranks per year. One thing does not exclude the other. But we can sure as hell eliminate the root cause by making an example of cases like this.
          • Malician 9y ago
            That's not the root cause. The root cause is that if the police show up they might open fire and kill someone. There are always going to be reasons for the police (or SWAT) to show up, especially with the war on drugs. And with the current environment, that means people dying. Of course, since most of the time it wasn't a SWAT call, and the person in question probably did have drugs, it's easier to totally blame the victim.
            • guiambros 9y ago
              > The root cause is that if the police show up they might open fire and kill someone. So how do you reduce the number of times the police shows up randomly at your doorstep? Four hundred times per year, more precisely? That's the definition of "root cause". I get it, this is HN after all, and most here feel outraged by police brutality, particularly in the US - myself included. But instead of putting the blame on police officers - who are trying to decide in a fraction of a second if their lives is at risk or it's just another stupid case of CoD gamers pranking each other - to me the blame should go squarely to the idiots causing it.
  • paganel 9y ago
    And what would that make the US police forces look like? To me, as an European, it makes them look like a weapon, which you can conjure by a simple phone-call. It doesn't have to be like this.
    • _wmd 9y ago
      (As another European) it's hard to see any alternative for regular people whose profession just happens to put their life at almost permanent risk, thanks to the attitude toward guns over there. I'm not sure if in Europe we'd react any different -- if you called the police to report an in-progress shooting, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar trigger-happy result emerged
      • qaq 9y ago
        As a guy originally from Ukraine that as you can imagine has a fairly big problem with availability of weapons at the moment that police officer would go to jail. Having much stricter rules on when and how weapons can be used looks like a good thing.
      • jkestner 9y ago
        Lack of surprise should not mean resignation.
      • jmaygarden 9y ago
        The risk of gun violence against police is completely blown out of proportion. Of the reported police gun deaths each year, the overwhelming majority are suicides. The biggest real risk to police in the US is vehicle accidents from driving recklessly. Being a police officer isn’t even in the top 10 most dangerous professions. On the other hand, over a thousand people are killed by police in the US each year without due process.
    • ethbro 9y ago
      It doesn't, but while it is, at least some safeguards could be put in place.
    • rdtsc 9y ago
• Girlang 9y ago
  Apparently he wasn’t even a gamer. They had the wrong address
• superflyguy 9y ago
  Is the policeman who killed an unarmed man at his house going to be charged? Ideally this wouldn't be a rhetorical question. How long until the police give themselves the right to kill someone annoying by anonymously phoning in a warning then making sure they're amongst the ones who turn up?
  • downandout 9y ago
    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.
    • ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      I’m as upset about police shootings as anyone, but there’s no way you can make this claim with the information available.
      • downandout 9y ago
        An unarmed man was shot and killed in his own doorway. The officer that shot him could not have seen a weapon, because there was no weapon. That is all the information that is necessary to make a determination not only that he should be charged with murder, but convicted of it.
        • ryanwaggoner 9y ago
          I know, why even bother with a trial? We've all read the news accounts, let's string him up! /s So due process is one concern here, but also, my concern here is more about the fucked up system we have. Is it reasonable to create a broken system, heavily arm cops, train them poorly, get them hyped up, and send them off with bad intel into (what they believe is) an incredibly high-stakes / high-stress environment, and then when one of them makes a human mistake that anyone could make in that situation, toss them in jail and throw away the key? EDIT: this is an excellent article on the mentality that I'm talking about: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-gun-shooting-training-ferguson/383681/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-...
• bob_theslob646 9y ago
  Edit: I didn't realize that it takes about 40 minutes for a tranquilizer to take effect, if they hit the target in the right spot. I apologize for my stupidity.
  • CydeWeys 9y ago
    Because you're gonna get killed if you use them against someone who has a gun? No force was called for here. Had force been called for, i.e. if the story about a murder and an armed hostage situation were true, running in with just tranquilizers would have been insufficient and would have led to dead cops.
  • ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Because life isn’t a movie and there aren’t tranquilizers that work reliably fast enough to avoid the other party shooting back?
    • pavel_lishin 9y ago
      Not to mention that the wrong dosage, or an interaction with something else in their system, makes a tranquilizer gun potentially as lethal as a regular handgun or a taser.
    • stordoff 9y ago
      It's mentioned on Wikipedia that this is more or less the reason, FWIW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquillizer_gun#Military_and_police_use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquillizer_gun#Military_and... I'd also add there's the complicating factor of tolerance depending on the agent used (even if it took effect fast enough). Opiates would be a good choice (due to being relatively easily reversible by naloxone), but obviously would have diminished/unpredictable effects on a heavy opiate user. Likewise, benzodiazepines can have a huge range of active doses - a few hundred milligrams of, say, Temazepam could be bad news for a non-user (especially if they've been drinking), but I'm aware of people who have been awake and active despite having double that in their system.
• burntwater 9y ago
  I'm glad this person is an adult located in the U.S. Hopefully this makes for swift and severe justice. I'm sad to learn the victim was the father of two children. And I'm mad that police are shooting people, innocent or not, based on vague gestures that sorta, maybe, if you look at it from the right angle, looks a little threatening. I said yesterday that, as a hearing-impaired person, if I'm ever in a position where police are pointing guns at me and shouting instructions, I expect I will be shot. I'm honestly not sure what I can do to prevent that.
  • TheCondor 9y ago
    As a person with good hearing I’m wondering what you’re supposed to do in a situation like this to avoid getting killed. Anyone know of any stats on the military service experiences of these shooter cops? Possible ptsd? Is this fear the officer had just the result of police training or was he dodging IEDs in Iraq? I’m just curious. And WTF is it with “gamers?”
    • maxerickson 9y ago
      US military people are often quite critical of the rules of engagement employed by US police. Even in potentially more dangerous situations the military typically is much more disciplined and slower to use lethal force.
      • burntwater 9y ago
        Perhaps one answer here is to require military service before becoming a police officer. That potentially could solve two issues; better trained police, and employment for veterans.
        • ThrowawayR2 9y ago
          > Perhaps one answer here is to require military service before becoming a police officer. People will protest even more loudly over "police militarization" and not without some justification. Beyond that, it reduces the supply of police officers to people willing to serve in the military and then become police officers afterward instead of some other career.
• lb1lf 9y ago
  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 goes some way towards explaining their apparent eagerness to shoot first, then ask questions later. However, what puzzles me most is this - if the police around here shot but one innocent, there'd be cries for resignations, perhaps even going all the way to the secretary of justice; we collectively would expect - nah, demand - that the police come up with policies and training which would make it less likely that another, similar incident would ever occur, &c. So - the demonstrations following some police shootings aside, is there any significant push in the US to drive the police towards less lethal encounters with the public it is to serve and protect? Say, requiring better people skills, more use of non-lethal weapons (and, if sufficiently effective non-lethal weapons do not yet exist - to have them developed), more passive safety for police officers (say, if you are wearing body armour which will stop a cal. 50-round, maybe you do not have to fire the first shot) etc?
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • qaq 9y ago
    All good points except for the last one even if you could even theoretically develop practical armor that could stop cal. 50 round it would still be able to kill a person through the impact force damaging internal organs.
    • CydeWeys 9y ago
      Not true at all. If the person firing the round can survive the momentum imparted into their shoulder from the rifle, then the person on the receiving end can survive it if they're wearing armor that spreads out the imparted momentum similarly. Basic Newton's Third Law. Also, there are .50 BMG handguns (and no, I'm not mistakenly referring to .50 AE, I mean .50 BMG). They are stupidly impractical, but they exist. You're making this out to be some mythical projectile when it's really just a bigger bullet. It's not like getting hit by a tank shell. The real flaw with this scenario is that full body armor required to stop .50 BMG would be so bulky and heavy that you wouldn't be able to move. The imparted momentum isn't the problem, it's stopping the penetration of the round. It's also worth pointing out that this conversation is pointlessly academic, as .50 BMG has not been used in a murder once. Ever. In the entire history of the United States. Out of over one million gun murders total. It's ridiculously impractical for that purpose.
• deleted 9y ago
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• tlogan 9y ago
  What if person who made a call is outside of US? Or we are unable to track it? Who are we going to blame then? The "911" seems like an open line for terrorists or some other nation to kill anybody they want... Or terrorize anybody they want...
• clarkevans 9y ago
  The principal issue is: why was an unarmed man shot on his doorstep by the police. This focus conveniently absolves the police of wrong doing; e.g. "if someone didn't call in a problem, no one would be dead".
  • insickness 9y ago
    The excuse used in this case what that it looked like he was pulling a gun from his waistband. It is conveniently difficult to disprove this unless his hands are already high in the air. So basically he was shot on sight.
  • dekhn 9y ago
    Ostensibly because he reached for his waistband instead of immediately putting up his hands.
    • grafporno 9y ago
      Having seen the video, it looked more like he was trying to shield his eyes from the light the police was shining directly at him _from across the street_. I don't know why this isn't reported more accurately, they shot the guy from what looks like a good 20-30 meters away.
      • justherefortart 9y ago
        Because they're already laying the groundwork that it was his fault, not the trigger happy cops.
        • dekhn 9y ago
          Right, I said "ostensibly" above, but the cynic in me thinks, "the police got ahead of the narrative by saying he moved first". I don't really know what happened (other than a person got shot by the police when they absolutely should not have).
      • MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
• clarkevans 9y ago
  "When confronted by a police officer, you must keep your hands up or on the drivers wheel at all times." This seems to be the new reflex we must learn and practice? Perhaps the rule should be codified so that officers know they can't ask you to do anything else with your hands. People have been shot while complying with a request, ie, getting car registration from the glove compartment or moving closer to the officer by crawling. Just because one officer gives a command does not mean that another officer heard it. Since this is a life or death sort of reflex, perhaps we must be teaching/practicing in elementary school and refreshers as part of drivers training.
  • dopamean 9y ago
    You're totally right, however, things get really difficult when the police are barking difficult to follow orders at you. Just watch the Daniel Shaver video. The guy tried his best to comply and then was murdered for no reason.
  • Miner49er 9y ago
    This is actually a conversation many parents have with their kids. They teach to always be polite to police, no matter what they are saying to you, and to always, always, make sure they can see your hands.
• dopamean 9y ago
  I will never, ever be able to accept that it is ok for the police to shoot a person who they do not see carrying a weapon. There is no circumstance in which you can say you feared for your life if you did not see a weapon. And if you legitimately did fear for your life when you didn't see a weapon then maybe you shouldn't be a police officer.
  • wl 9y ago
    It doesn't take a weapon to kill someone. A rather infamous example in recent years is the death of Eric Gardner. Deadly force is deadly force—regardless of the form it comes in.
    • dopamean 9y ago
      It takes a weapon to kill someone from 30+ feet away.
      • anigbrowl 9y ago
        GP means police are sometimes willing to use violence even when they don't suspect a weapon.
      • wl 9y ago
        Well, if we're talking about this specific situation, the officer who did the shooting mistakenly thought he saw a weapon.
• gort 9y ago
  Since we're mostly debating the police action here, there's a short video available now of the fatal moment: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html The victim really does make a fairly unfortunate movement right before he's shot. Still I'm hardly in a position to say how far this mitigates the shooter.
  • Miner49er 9y ago
    The only thing the man could've pulled was a pistol from his waistband. The police were across the streets behind cars already aiming guns at the guy. They should be trained to wait until the person actually raises the pistol to fire before discharging. At that distance and with the cover they had I don't see how the guy could fire a shot and hit a cop before they could. I don't see how anyone can argue the cop was in any danger even if the guy had a pistol. Unfortunately, the cop only has to say he felt threatened and he thought the guy had a gun and he'll get off on any charges.
  • sschueller 9y ago
    Notice how one of the police cars triggers its high beams causing the victim to raise his hands instinctively to cover his eyes.
• sverige 9y ago
  Most of the comments have to do with the police interaction. My question is, what can be done to discourage swatting? My reflex reaction is to give everyone involved long prison sentences, and some aggressive prosecution of other incidents, so that people tempted to engage in swatting are discouraged by some realistic chance of doing real prison time for doing something so reckless and stupid. The guy who made the call was fairly unconcerned about the prospect of real punishment when he was interviewed a few hours before he was arrested.[1] His voice tone during the call was also fairly flat.[2] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHOI39nJPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHOI39nJPM [2] https://scallywagandvagabond.com/2017/12/tyler-raj-barriss-swautistic-gamer-arrest-andrew-finch-swatting-prank/ https://scallywagandvagabond.com/2017/12/tyler-raj-barriss-s...
  • joeax 9y ago
    Normally I'd agree but the US already has the largest prison population in the world. By far. We are obsessed with long and lengthy prison sentences even for the most minuscule non-victim offenses i.e. 20 years for pot possession (meanwhile armed robbers get 3-5 years). Terms like "mandatory minimum" and "zero tolerance" get thrown around by politicians like it's candy to get themselves elected, with little to no regard from the general public on the monetary and psychological costs (although the private prison industry and the cottage industries around it stand to make big bucks). A solution to all of this is to eliminate victimless crimes, hold police accountable when they mess up, and switch to more of a house arrest model for crimes like this. Force the prankster to pay restitution to the victim's family. Make him work it off with 1000s of hours of community service if needed. But let's quit crowding prisons at taxpayer expense.
    • srj 9y ago
      What restitution can there be in this case? Nothing can compensate this person for the loss of their life, or the two children who will grow up without a father. The guy who made the false report had done so previously with a bomb threat, and showed no remorse. How can this person ever be trusted to rejoin society? How can the victims be restored by the justice system? Neither is realistic. Short of a death penalty, the only outcome is to put the guy in jail for a long time.
• mmjaa 9y ago
  At what point does the average citizen look at "SWAT death as an option for what could happen to me today" and think, 'well .. this is okay'? I'm not trying to be inflammatory, but there has to be real moment of respect for the fact that Americans are living in a "dial-a-death" state of existence. This is something that many, many social commentators have warned us of, over the decades: the signs of a Police State. Sure, American. Most likely you are aware of the nature of law enforcement. But for those of us observing things from places where such actions as this are a real, honest, facet of the past history: this shit is scary. Like, come on. A rational society allows this? Please fork, reboot, and continuously deploy these notions of freedom under the protection of violent force. This is a paradox which is delivering injustice, broad and wide, instead of narrow and thin. A moment of disgrace.
  • melling 9y ago
    In what kind of society does someone call 911, pretending to be homocidal, telling them they are pointing a gun at their wife and child, that they poured gasoline throughout the house, and are going to burn it down? The fact is there are people that really do this and someone needs to respond. The other fact is that other people think it’s funny, or a good way to get revenge on someone, by calling in a police force to invade their home.
    • mmjaa 9y ago
      I think there are plenty of societies which would not have responded to this incident with violent force, and would have checked themselves before they wrecked themselves as a consequence of normal, functioning, day-to-day job responsibilities. The officers failed because the event horizon for each and every one of them was set way, way too high. Before you assume the caller was right, you verify. This thing of "arming for the absolute worst that could happen" is a direct consequence of the rest of society, being allowed to actually procure and apply the weapons of mayhem and crime, to other "innocent citizens". A kid died tonight. It was because there was a tool of violence in the hands of another kid.
    • tacomonstrous 9y ago
      Every society has assholes, monsters and others with perverted senses of humor. One very simple objective of a civilized society is to ensure that such people cannot exploit state sponsored violence to hurt people they don't like. The problem here is that the US system is seriously flawed.
• blhack 9y ago
  I always grew up thinking that police had to wait until somebody shot at them to shoot back. It seems like "we thought he had a gun and he motioned towards his waist" has now replaced "he shot at us". I really wish that the police had to adhere to the same laws as anybody else does. They are civilians after all. If had a gun (I don't) and pointed it at somebody to intimidate them, even if they were trying to break into my house, I could get in trouble for "brandishing". Yet civilian police pull their guns out and point them at people all the time. The can't believe that we allow these people can put themselves into a position where they're deciding if they're going to kill you or not, and the mere press of a small lever on their hand KILLS YOU and that this is just considered okay... It's just absolutely ridiculous to me.
  • wl 9y ago
    When it comes to the use of deadly force, the same laws apply to police as everyone else. There has to be a reasonable belief that there is an imminent threat of death or gross bodily injury. If someone is pointing a gun at you, you don't have to let them shoot you first before you can defend yourself.
  • meri_dian 9y ago
    Police are not you or I in the context of social roles. They fulfill a particular function in society while on duty that you and I don't. They tend to deal with dangerous people. People must do exactly as they're told when dealing with the police to minimize uncertainty and confusion. An officer pulling a gun on someone is not equivalent in any way to a civilian doing the same thing. Officers are empowered by society to enforce the law so we don't have to. That necessitates displaying - and sometimes using - force. If it's clear that someone presents an immediate mortal danger to others and refuses to comply with orders given to them then the police are justified in acting with force.
    • FireBeyond 9y ago
      > If it's clear that someone presents an immediate mortal danger to others Yeah, and that's where your argument hits a brick wall. Yes, if someone presents an immediate mortal danger, then force can be justified. If you see that video, he is reaching for the waistband of his pajamas and following directions. Even in the event that he had a pistol stashed in the elastic of his pajamas, you have multiple officers who already are in the drawn position, ready to fire, whereas he has to pull it out, aim, etc. You have a far lower bar for "clear presentation of immediate mortal danger" than most people here - and you seem to believe that's our failing, not yours. > People must do exactly as they're told when dealing with the police to minimize uncertainty and confusion. You mean like the multiple incidents where we see two police officers yelling contradictory statements? "Hands behind your head, turn around!" "Get on your stomach!" and one of the officers believes he is in mortal danger because the suspect is, in effect, obeying the other officers instruction, and not his?
• danpalmer 9y ago
  Having unfortunately seen a police body cam video of an obviously unarmed man being shot, and having read about this one, it seems to be a case of men hitching their trousers up because they aren’t wearing a belt, being mistaken for reaching for a gun. This is a normal thing, it’s an unconscious thing, we do it without thinking so can’t stop when told not to do it. People should not die because they’re wearing loose fitting trousers. Americans need to be doing more about their fellow citizens being murdered by the people supposed to protect them.
  • solotronics 9y ago
    what are we supposed to do exactly?
    • __s 9y ago
      Wear belts
    • tmnvix 9y ago
      Reduce the number of guns in the US. People should still be able to own guns, but they should need a valid reason (such as hunting or farming). Shooting people (this includes self defence) should not qualify as a valid reason. This is how it works in most developed nations with sometimes quite high rates of gun ownership (0.2+ per capita) but without the endemic gun violence of the US. It's worth noting that these sorts of restrictions effectively rule out ownership of handguns - and concealed handguns (real or imagined) seem to play a major role in most police shootings of innocent people in the US.
      • danpalmer 9y ago
        Agreed. If there were far fewer guns, Police wouldn't be assuming a concealed weapon anywhere near as much as they do now. I think Police training needs to be changed significantly as well though. Training Police to de-escalate situations, and to deal with normal people who are scared, in danger, and unpredictable but not malicious - this is the significant majority. Police in America seem to act like soldiers, and forget that the people in front of them deserve protection as much as everyone else, not least because they are innocent until proven guilty in a court.
• WhatIsDukkha 9y ago
  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 police officer with a gun drawn is now a DECIDER they get a dice roll. Every single millisecond, all these dice are rolled simultaneously for the entire arrest process as the "suspect" is ordered around like they haven't been since grade school gym class. This process is designed to have a weapon be discharged.
  • meri_dian 9y ago
    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 bad guys, and refuse to take a balanced view by empathizing with them and the danger they encounter on a daily basis.
    • cjbprime 9y ago
      This claim is obviously untrue. (I suppose you're hedging with "usually", but even that seems unlikely.)
    • y7 9y ago
      > when it's clear there is [...] danger Shouldn't they at least verify for themselves whether there is actual danger?
      • wldcordeiro 9y ago
        Yeah considering that the 911 call mentioned a 1 floor house and the house in the video is 2 floor they should have had some idea it wasn't quite right.
• deleted 9y ago
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• dboreham 9y ago
  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, small town in the middle of the US, to my knowledge the cops have killed at least two people who were no real threat to them in the past few years. If that death density is consistent across the country there must be hundreds of events like this every year. I get the impression somehow we've been brain washed into seeing this like unlucky folks being hit by a drunk driver.
  • CalChris 9y ago
    It's only recently that there has been any tracking of how many people are killed for any reason by police. The Washington Post has a database: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...
  • gscott 9y ago
    http://killedbypolice.net/ http://killedbypolice.net/
  • TillE 9y ago
    > "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.
    • kipari 9y ago
      I remember a tidbit from the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive loading screen saying that the federal GSG-9 group only has fired shots on five missions throughout their existence. Wikipedia seems to back this up with some reportedly true information[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSG_9#Publicly_known_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSG_9#Publicly_known_missions
• sergers 9y ago
  My wife's family house was mistaken for a drug house years ago, it was around the block. Police came in cuffing them and shot the family dog when it got aggressive trying to protect the yard, and noone in family being able to restrain him as they were in cuffs This was in Canada. This happened ~15 years ago, my wife still traumatized and never leaves pets outdoors. Their family has quite the disdain for police overall since.. Over use of police force happens everywhere, and just more known in these communication real-time times. The guy who requested to take the "hit" out, definitely the guy who made the call, and I doubt but also the officer most of all should all be charged. Hope they make an example of the guy making the false reports as he has history of doing it, and blew off the consequences of his joke. I can't believe the police didn't verify the situation before escalating. Even if it was a real situation, the guy who had his life stolen could have been the hostage. Police have made these mistakes without false information... I put the biggest blame on them, also important to not label all police officers the same as some are very upstanding citizens.
  • freedomben 9y ago
    I couldn't agree more, and I'm sorry to hear about your wife's family. Your thesis statement: > Police have made these mistakes without false information... I put the biggest blame on them, also important to not label all police officers the same as some are very upstanding citizens. Is exactly what I wish more people on this forum would read. There's so many people painting every cop with the brush of evil, or either excusing their mistakes/transgressions. The truth is always in between, and our tendency as humans to have knee-jerk reactions is not helpful at all to making real progress. I wish I had more upvotes to give you.
    • mmanfrin 9y ago
      Except that because of the 'Blue Shield', police are rarely ever charged with any misdoing. A cop is never wrong, unless there is more than a mountain of evidence against them, and that makes me see all police as complicit. Those 'very upstanding citizens' are the same ones who sit by silently as hundreds of unarmed Americans are shot each year by police.
• robotcookies 9y ago
  Maybe a naive question, but couldn't they just stay in armored vehicles that are bullet proofed and agree not to fire until they are fired upon?
• lend000 9y ago
  The SWAT team should never be the first line of defense, unless pre-authorized by a warrant. They should only be involved after escalation from a normal police patrol, and should never be involved due to an anonymous tip.
• rdl 9y ago
  I am pretty cynical about humanity, but I don't understand why there aren't hundreds or thousands of swatting incidents per day, given the availability of anonymous communications, payment, and surplus of bad people in the world. It seems like it would be trivial to set up a dark web service to SWAT on demand. For 0.1 Monero or whatever, place a credible spoofed SWAT call. Maybe hold payment in escrow and follow police radio or blotter to confirm they were deployed and then release payment, or just do a reputational system.
  • jokoon 9y ago
    If terrorists were really organized, they would obviously use swatting... I wonder if police units can even detects fake hostage alerts...
    • rdl 9y ago
      Yeah, flooding 911 with legit-seeming calls for weeks would seem to be an effective DoS on the 911 system.
• draw_down 9y ago
  You know, it's really offensive how this person abused the service that allows you to call the police to come to someone's house and kill them.
• Steeeve 9y ago
  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.
• walshemj 9y ago
  Just hope they sent the local SWAT team to make the arrest :-)
• znfi 9y ago
  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 similar things could be said about gun ownership/self-defence argument etc. I guess if one decides to shoot back at the police one is truly screwed?
  • mancerayder 9y ago
    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. It's a good question. As a half-American with something of a background in political science, let me offer the following. The free market liberal ideas, mixed with a sort of pioneer spirit that historically existed here (and still in much of the rural areas of the U.S.), carry with it an arguably consistent ideology: - Independence from government in the realm of strong market regulations, price controls and so forth, particularly property rights. - A government whose role is to minimize taxation but to protect said property rights. It's a logical fact that you can't protect property rights without violence, due to the unequal nature of property ownership and the class system that comes from it. Historically, police start to make an appearance in such societies, as it makes more sense to have the State perform this activity than have each individual hire or join their own private militias or pay protection money to some organization. That's the best way I can think to explain this discrepancy, which to a European sounds totally contradictory. You say you don't like the State's influence, but when the State does the worst it can do, kill citizens, you do nothing? It has to do with free market capitalism not existing without a state having basic functions: protection from external threats at the national level, and enforcement of property rights via a legal system and an enforcer of this legal system. I.e. Police.
  • r00fus 9y ago
• menacingly 9y ago
  I think of a lot of the replies here miss the point of why the police are in "such a hurry". Usually, they believe that the person has hostages that are in imminent danger. I'm sure there is a big component of macho gun buzz, but the fact that they're in a rush is an understandable component of the situation. That's why they don't sit in the car and try to have a chat with the "hostage taker". Obviously, the fact that a random person can essentially order a taxpayer-funded death squad to an arbitrary home is a huge problem, and the people actually making those calls are only a small part of the problem. The fact that these death squads are on the payroll sitting around bored waiting for "action" is an issue too. However, I don't think it's as clear-cut as "don't kill anyone". I'd hate to be the guy with my life threatened while they cautiously announce their presence to my attacker. What's missing is some basic "is there really a hostage situation going on here" step that I don't have the law enforcement knowledge to define.
  • FireBeyond 9y ago
    > but the fact that they're in a rush is an understandable component of the situation Eh. If I'm taking my engine company to a structure fire, we walk, we don't run. If it's a rescue situation, I still do a 360 around the structure to identify additional hazards (while my crew is setting up). That's a situation with people in verified imminent threat to life danger. We work a patient in cardiac arrest. We have checklists. Even with this imminent threat to the patient's life, we will still at pertinent times, stop, and review those lists. Charging in gung ho causes more problems than it solves. If the hostage (if they existed) is going to be dead 10 seconds later, they're probably going to be dead the first time the suspect hears SWAT enter. Similar to a fire or MVA - "you getting there 10 seconds or 30 seconds earlier is going to save a life on so few occasions, if ever, for a much greater risk".
    • menacingly 9y ago
      Great take. So, I'm a relatively smart guy who tries to be fair to all parties. I think it's unlikely that I'm the only person who has this misunderstanding about these situations. I wonder how you make this dialog scale? Also, I wonder how much the "another man is the enemy" component adds to it? I wonder if you take the type of person drawn to law enforcement (or even worse, SWAT) and add the lizard brain fuel of "this is a life or death competition with another man", how many of these outcomes are even the result of conscious decisions. How much of the wisdom from those restrictive high speed pursuit laws could be re-applied here? They seem to have figured out that the officer will choose the competitive course in the moment instead of the right course, at too high a cost.
• jeffdavis 9y ago
  The immediate reaction seems to be that the police are too militarized or not disciplined enough, but it's not clear to me that these claims apply in this situation. Police militarization is a real problem when it happens for non-violent crimes. But this was thought to be a serious hostage situation, and I'm not sure there were a lot of good options here.
• dsego 9y ago
  Do the police have to shoot to kill? Is it possible to aim somewhere else? Or shoot into the air? Also, I think in my country they are obligated to shout out "stop, I will shoot" or something to that effect.
  • alkonaut 9y ago
    Handguns are (perhaps surprisingly) lethal. Here (Sweden) officers somewhat controversially use hollow point in order to reduce the risk of stray bullets going through walls or suspects. This has the side effect that suspects shot in thighs, nearly anywhere in the abdomen etc are often instantly in critical condition.
    • r00fus 9y ago
      Police using hollow-points sounds insane.
      • grzm 9y ago
        Firearms are deadly force. The decision to use them is the decision to use deadly force. People can disagree with the use of deadly force. If deadly force is allowed, it still makes sense to make its application as precise and limited in scope as possible. Hollow points, compared with full metal jacketed bullets, reduce penetration, reducing shoot-throughs and the potential of injuring those who are not the target. They also increase the likelihood that a lower number of rounds will be needed to be effective. Limiting the number of rounds limits the time of the encounter and the number of rounds that potentially going to be off-target. To be clear, there's a lot that should go into the decision to use deadly force, and it's one that should not be considered likely. People can disagree with when the decision is correctly made. Once it's made however, hollow-points are more effective than fully-jacketed rounds.
        • r00fus 9y ago
          Then why do the militaries still use ball-ammunition? Here's what I was told when I was in the service. The goal is to incapacitate the target, not to kill. From a military standpoint, incapacitation of targets causes additional burden to their sqaud-mates. It also demoralizes the enemy. Weapons are used for many things, not just deadly force. They act as intimidation (warning shot), deterrence (visual presence) as well.
• bob_theslob646 9y ago
  People do realize that it was a random address, not any of the call of duty players addresses'. A random person was killed over this stupidity. This is so enraging it's not even funny.
  • sedro 9y ago
    To clarify, the arrested individual sells a swatting "service" [1]. One of the CoD players hired him to swat the other over a twitter argument. The other CoD player taunted the swatter and gave him a random address [2]. The police showed up at the address and killed an unrelated person. No parties involved are without blame. [1] http://archive.is/Ixezf#selection-6279.0-6288.0 http://archive.is/Ixezf#selection-6279.0-6288.0 [2] https://i.imgur.com/n3Q53nL.png https://i.imgur.com/n3Q53nL.png
    • astronautjones 9y ago
      for $10 and $20!
• scotty79 9y ago
  I'm very sad and ashamed to voice such an evil idea but I think the only way to change US police into something resembling first world country law enforcement agency is to have mass anonymous random swatting campaign with dozens, perhaps hundreds of causalities.
  • anigbrowl 9y ago
    Terrorism-as-object-lesson doesn't work and if anything is likely to have the opposite of the intended effect. Check out Erica Chenoweth's book on the subject (there's a link to the statistical data on this page): http://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/wcrw/ http://www.ericachenoweth.com/research/wcrw/ Now I don't actually agree with her in terms of nonviolence-as-optimal-political method because I feel it fails to account for social cost and essentially encourages organizing around martyrdom which leads to the most vulnerable members of society being used as a punching bag to effect political changes whose primary benefits will flow elsewhere, but that's getting into the weeds. It's still an important work in this field that should be studied carefully.
• superkuh 9y ago
  Swatting exists because it's common knowledge that US SWAT teams are effectively military death squads in terms of both behavior and equipment.
• the_chaconne 9y ago
  Link to video of the shooting: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html Couple things are clear: 1. Police took shelter behind cars, outside of handgun range, but within the range of their own rifles. 2. The victim clearly didn't carry a rifle, or any weapon with a range that can threaten the police 3. The police didn't know if the victim, who was being shouted at and shined at with high beam and confused, was the supposed hostage or hostage taker, and shot him anyways. It's a fuckup, and the police should serve better.
• on_and_off 9y ago
  The USA have a truly messed up culture. I wonder how it can be fixed. Some things seem to be going in the right direction, for example gun ownership is on the decline (from 47 % of households owning gun in 1971 to 31% in 2014 http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun%20Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun... ) . However the number of guns keeps increasing, so it looks like some people are stockpiling. Nonetheless if gun ownership continues to decrease they will be marginalized. At the same time, police is very violent and its militarization is a sad, messed up, joke. And violent deaths in the USA are still an order of magnitude higher than those of other developed countries.
  • peferron 9y ago
    Americans are all about freedom and equality, but having a police force who can almost arbitrarily kill you and with little consequence sounds like neither. In fact, it's not very different from how the Chinese government can disappear or jail you without retribution if you criticize the CCP, although Americans will undoubtedly loathe the comparison. The Chinese system sounds worse because it's lawful evil if you will, but at least there's a simple if degrading mechanism to avoid being a casualty, while the chaotic evilness of the US system means you could be dead tomorrow by no fault of your own just like the father of two—no, sorry, the "male", better term to convey aggression and justify the shooting—in this story. As you said, this is part of the American culture, and part of a circle of violence that includes NRA lobbying, widespread gun ownership, mass incarceration, macho cop culture, politically motivated toughness on crime, the War on Drugs, etc. This will take decades to unravel at best, so I'm not holding my breath, just like I'm not holding my breath for the CCP to allow free speech anytime soon.
• dsego 9y ago
  Swatting should be considered domestic terrorism and not a prank. Just listening to the video describing the events and how many lies the caller provided to convince the police there was a hostage situation is sickening.
  • tlogan 9y ago
    What when ISIS figure out this is the easiest way to terrorize people in US? What are we going to do then? Luckily the ISIS followers are not so smart... But North Korean intelligence might pull something like this on a much larger scale. And target specific individuals.
• deleted 9y ago
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• jmartrican 9y ago
  Stories like this is going to make every encounter with a cop a lot more frightening for me. As a teenager I was once yelled out by undercover cops that came out of no where. They yelled at me to "not put your hands in my pocket" or "put my hands up"... I really do not recall the exact words. I instinctively put my hands in my pocket. I couldn't help it, I do not think I even processed what they said. Luckily they didn't shoot but they were mad and warned that I could have been shot. I really do not understand how they expect people to understand them when they are yelling and surprise the sh!t out of you.
  • c22 9y ago
    One of two times I've had police point their guns at me I was pulled over while driving my father's car. I opened the glove box when asked for license and registration and unbeknownst to me there was a Swiss army knife in there. Both officers unholstered their guns and the one at my window told me to slowly remove the knife from the glove box, but as soon as I touched it the other officer on the passenger side immediately yelled at me to "drop it!" Fortunately there were only two of them and after that they managed to get on the same page and avoid shooting me. The other time I was smoking marijuana from a pipe immediately after surviving a serious collision, I assume the guns were because they were mad they wouldn't be able to prove I was high during the accident (I wasn't).
• marsrover 9y ago
  I see a lot of idealistic opinions about how it should be in regards to police violence but what can we actually do? Is there anything that people of this country can do to change this or is it just a waiting game to see where it's all headed? Why isn't there an EFF for this sort of thing? I know there is the ACLU but at this point I feel like we need something solely for police violence.
  • anigbrowl 9y ago
    You can join/support a radical organization (and you should) but the basic reason there isn't something like an EFF is money. Sure, the EFF goes to bat for consumers against government and giant corporations, but there really aren't that many of them. In contrast, there are a lot of law enforcement agencies, because there are 300 countries, many towns, most college campuses have their own police, most transit system s in cities have their own police, many federal agencies have their own police. The total is estimated to be about 18,000. If you use a narrower definition the total is still about 15,000. That's a huge number for any single organization to keep track of or to hold accountable. Even if you just follow up on every single death with a law enforcement angle that's ~1000 homicides by police annually and ~4000 deaths in jails and prisons. That's a huge amount of data to collect and organize before you even begin to evaluate questions of avoidability or accountability. Say it takes an hour just to receive information of a death, establish the identity of the person involved and the data and location and create a database record or standardized wiki page that can act as a stub for document submission and information collection. With ~100 deaths a week that's a full-time job for 3 people just to produce a barebones list, and I'm being really optimistic with the time estimates. Realistically it's probably 2 or 3 times as much. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/jul/10/charles-ramsey/how-many-police-departments-are-us/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2016/jul/10/... Here's the report mentioned in the article, because it's no longer available at the original doj.gov link: https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p341-pub.pdf https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p341-pub.pdf
• williamscales 9y ago
  What about the guy who gave the false address? It seems that he is culpable too.
• nafizh 9y ago
  It seems like the police is trying to shift the blame 100% on the caller. He might be a terrible human being who deserves punishment, but indeed the sole responsibility lies with the police who pulled the trigger. But yeah, instead of training for more people skills, let us give them more military-grade weapons.
• Pica_soO 9y ago
  Swat teams need unarmed camera drones, who scan the situation ahead of them. Smash some windows for god sakes, but not people.ö
  • sschueller 9y ago
    No, they need proper training. Things like this don't occur all the time in other countries.
    • dredmorbius 9y ago
      That and consequences.
• jrcii 9y ago
  LDAP's central authority is ever-growing
• exabrial 9y ago
  Sad to see this in my home town :(
• dbg31415 9y ago
  > Los Angeles police have arrested a 25-year-old man on suspicion of making the swatting call that ended with a Wichita man being killed by police. What crime are they charging him with? I don't think we have the right crime on the books for this at present. The guy who phoned this in is a scumbag, no doubt. But Andrew Finch's death is 100% on the cops who showed up. As we've seen time and time again, their selection process and training lead them to be hyper-aggressive. Look at stories from just the last year where the cops show up and shoot someone's dog, or shoot the random lady in a nightgown, or shoot the guy running away, or shoot the guy who says he's not armed, or shoot the guy for not getting down on the pavement fast enough, or shoot the guy... It's disturbing that in each of these cases the system protects the cops. At some point, and my preference would be soon, we need to work to dismantle and rebuild this system.
  • arkona 9y ago
    > What crime are they charging him with? Second degree murder seems appropriate
  • mariuolo 9y ago
    > What crime are they charging him with? I don't think we have the right crime on the books for this at present. As I read somewhere, the worst case scenario for him is murder under the rule of transferred intent, since making a false representation of this sort to the police (or other relevant authority) in Kansas is a felony.
• Sephr 9y ago
  If you want to solve the issue of over-militarization of civilian police and SWAT, replace their guns with something safer but still effective at quickly subduing threats. Carfentanil gas smart bullets with auto & manual per-shot dose control (handled by the launcher/gun device) could be equally effective and slightly less dangerous. I imagine that the decrease in medical costs would vastly outweigh the increase in weaponry costs.
• mxxx 9y ago
  I think I posted it here the last time some poor guy got gunned down by a swat team by mistake, but Radley Balko wrote a really good book about the history of how this kind of thing became commonplace in the states; Rise of the Warrior Cop. Fascinating read.
• drtillberg 9y ago
  In the video, police shouted from across the street while the man peeked out from the side of his doorway. It is unclear whether he knew the commands were for him. And did the yeller have lawful authority to order him out of the house? Hope my local department is better than that.
• htormey 9y ago
  Here is an interview with the person who claims to have made the call that prompted the swat: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHOI39nJPM&feature=youtu.be https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cCHOI39nJPM&feature=youtu.be
• solotronics 9y ago
  its looking to me like if you are awakened by the police to strip naked before you go out
• throw7 9y ago
  I'd like to know what the facts on the ground were that led to have an roe of shoot to kill. Something did go wrong with the process leading up to this clusterfuck. I hope it's identified and fixed. There _might_ be some change in wichita, but I'm not hopeful nationally.
• zzzzzzzza 9y ago
  Why not just use a drone to investigate the situation before sending in human police officers?
• Abishek_Muthian 9y ago
  I think a machine learning assisted scene assessment could be more accurate in this scenario. Considering AI is better at image processing than humans, finding whether the subject in the view point is carrying a weapon should be able to give the officers a second opinion when needed under these circumstances.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • borplk 9y ago
    Classic HN. Let's throw some ML & AI & DL at it. Don't forget to take your TensorFlow with you.
    • Abishek_Muthian 9y ago
      Not trying to show any wit here. Considering that a mistake in identifying whether a weapon is held by a person ended in tragedy and that modern force are equipped with displays on their rifles; I asked whether ML based solutions can help.
• grwthckrmstr 9y ago
  Why are cops killing innocent, unarmed people?
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
• borplk 9y ago
  It's so easy to spot American comments in this thread.
• Tempest1981 9y ago
  Some interesting excerpts from https://newrepublic.com/article/126473/american-cops-100-times-deadlier-finnish-police https://newrepublic.com/article/126473/american-cops-100-tim... - By contrast (to the US), national standards in most European countries conform to the European Convention on Human Rights, which impels its 47 signatories to permit only deadly force that is “absolutely necessary” to achieve a lawful purpose. - Killings excused under America’s “reasonable belief” standards often violate Europe’s “absolute necessity” standards. - In Europe, killing is considered unnecessary if alternatives exist. For example, national guidelines in Spain would have prescribed that Wilson incrementally pursue verbal warnings, warning shots, and shots at nonvital parts of the body before resorting to deadly force. - In the US, only eight states require verbal warnings (when possible), while warning and leg shots are typically prohibited.
• rrauenza 9y ago
  This guy is part of the culture / training problem: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-shoot-first-and-he-will-answer-questions-later.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/us/training-officers-to-s... When police officers shoot people under questionable circumstances, Dr. Lewinski is often there to defend their actions. Among the most influential voices on the subject, he has testified in or consulted in nearly 200 cases over the last decade or so and has helped justify countless shootings around the country. His conclusions are consistent: The officer acted appropriately, even when shooting an unarmed person. Even when shooting someone in the back. Even when witness testimony, forensic evidence or video footage contradicts the officer’s story.
• pimmen 9y ago
  When tasers were introduced, isn’t this the exact problem they were here to solve? You use them instead of shooting to disable the suspect to de-escalate the same situations?
• Yizahi 9y ago
  What I don't understand is (or rather do understand) - I know that it is freaking hard to hit anything with a handgun even at best conditions at 25m range, with two hand hold, preparation etc. Here there people are hidden behind cars, with hand rests for steady shooting, very big range for a handgun, in a dark and suspect is blinded with torches and not even in a shooting stance. Police of all people would know that they are 99.99% safe from any shooting he may do. This is pure bullshit from police side and clear abuse of power and it must be prosecuted accordingly. PS: swatter is also an a55hole and a criminal of course (since he admitted doing it already).