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From a legal perspective, making a false police report could only be considered murder if the caller reasonably expects that the police would kill an innocent p
by jdietrich 9y ago
From a legal perspective, making a false police report could only be considered murder if the caller reasonably expects that the police would kill an innocent person based on their false report.
By calling the swatter a murderer, you're only bringing into sharper focus the grotesque failure of American police to respond to allegations in a lawful and proportionate way. If a swatter is a murderer, then by definition the swat team has ceased to be part of a police department and has become an extrajudicial death squad. A functioning police department is not expected to kill law-abiding citizens on a regular basis.
The law says "innocent until proven guilty", not "innocent until proven guilty, unless the police get nervous, in which case we'll kill you on sight".
Charles Kinsey, a mental health therapist from Miami, was shot by police in 2016. He was lying on his back with his hands raised, begging the police not to shoot the autistic man he was caring for. After he was shot, he was handcuffed and given no first aid until an ambulance arrived 20 minutes later. There is clear evidence that the swat team knew that neither Kinsey nor his patient were armed prior to the shooting. Through pure luck, Kinsey survived the incident.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Charles_Kinsey
We are beyond the point of rationalization, we are beyond excuses. Whether by accident or design, we have created a system where police officers can kill with impunity, where law-abiding citizens live in real fear of killed by the police simply because they live in the wrong neighbourhood, have the wrong skin color or stream video games online. The only humane and rational response is root-and-branch reform of police training, supervision and accountability.
- rrauenza 9y agoThis is an article from 2015 about the expert witness whose research seems to be a foundation for the training: 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...
- sitkack 9y ago"Force Science Institute" makes lots of money giving police agencies cover for trigger happy cops shooting people arbitrarily. We like to talk a lot about training, well these guys got training in exactly how to use excessive force that legally protects the state. Training isn't a scalar, it is vector and definitely isn't fungible.
- mikeash 9y agoYou say that we have created a system where police officers can kill with impunity and law-abiding citizens have real fear of being killed by police. I agree with you. I'd say that this is pretty much common knowledge at this point. Which means that everyone should know that if you get the police to respond to what they think is a life-or-death situation, a killing by the police is a likely outcome. I.e. given what you describe, the caller should reasonably expect that the police would kill an innocent person based on their false report. The correct response here is to prosecute the SWATter for murder, and carry out the police reforms you mention. I don't object to the second in any way, I merely object to the diminishment of responsibility for the guy who made the call.
- jdietrich 9y agoThe swatter is a malicious or crazy individual. The police failures are systematic. We can (and should) punish or treat the former, but it's overwhelmingly more important to fix the latter. Castigating the swatter carries the risk of overlooking the systemic failure; I have no doubt that there are PR people across the country who are working to shape the public discourse in that direction.