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Seen from Europe, this is ludicrous. Police killed that guy. Swating as a prank is possible in the US because of US police's hysteria. And it's police hysteria

by fab13n 9y ago

Seen from Europe, this is ludicrous. Police killed that guy. Swating as a prank is possible in the US because of US police's hysteria. And it's police hysteria that escalated a nasty prank into homicide--if not murder. [EDIT for clarity]: it's ludicrous that prankster and police officer aren't both charged. Police incompetence is no exoneration of Tyler's responsibility, and conversely, Tyler's criminal actions are no excuse for the police officer's lethal lack of judgement/restraint. Of course Tyler is a criminal, I thought it went without saying.[/EDIT] The core problem is that it's OK for US police to kill US citizens, and it's essential not to shift the blame. By primarily blaming Tyler (who's a super-nasty piece of shit, but that's another issue), medias and justice reinforce bad police officers' sentiment of impunity. In most developed countries, if a cop shoots someone who wasn't actually about to kill someone, he's criminally liable. His career is over, and his freedom in jeopardy. If he wrongly "felt threatened", that's poor judgment and incompetence, certainly not an excuse. And whether the victim was guilty of anything or not isn't a mitigating factor either: it's exclusively up to the justice to say so and to punish. That's why Judge Dredd isn't called Copper Dredd.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
By primarily blaming Tyler (who's a super-nasty piece of shit, but that's another issue No, that is absolutely not another issue. If we don't hold people responsible for misusing these resources, there simply is no remedy here. SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Pranks are generally fucked up shit anyway. Pranks that can turn deadly so easily should not be called pranks. They should be labeled serious crimes and prosecuted accordingly. Furthermore, I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US and that policies that work in their country would obviously work exactly the same here. If your country works better than the US, good for you. That isn't evidence that you know what is best for the US.
- gambiting 9y ago
  >> SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Seeing how often these "pranks" happen, I would say they absolutely have to be prepared that the entire situation is fabricated. I agree with OP - the officers should be charged with murder of an innocent person, the responsibility to identify the situation is 100% on them.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Seeing how often these "pranks" happen That is a good argument for "We clearly aren't adequately discouraging this bullshit and need to do more to convince civilians this is not acceptable." Given how they try to hide the origin of the call, it isn't like they don't know this is bad behavior. They just seem to think it won't really be that big of a deal if they are caught.
    - gambiting 9y ago
      I mean, it's not a "let's punish the prankster OR the police" - we can do both. Charge the officers with actual murder, the prankster with whatever charge is appropriate here. The responsibility lies with both parties, it's just that I think the murder charge should be on the people actually pulling the trigger since it's their whole job to not kill people.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        Since I never suggested otherwise, I have no idea why you are arguing with me. I am only suggesting that not holding the prankster responsible cannot help but increasingly warp things until SWAT teams have an impossible job to do. That doesn't mean their role should not be investigated. It means that it is unreasonable to say the caller is fine and then let this crap get increasingly crazy while only holding the police responsible in a situation where clearly they are equally victims of the caller's bad acts.
  - cornyNetHandle 9y ago
    You can charge them with murder all you like, but while brandishing as control is considered standard police practice, you will find it almost impossible to prove any intent.
- apexalpha 9y ago
  >If we don't hold people responsible for misusing these resources, there simply is no remedy here. but you SHOULD hold this guy responsible for misusing these resources. Just not for the murder. >SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Yes they can. What the fuck? Isn't it American to say "hope for the best, prepare for the worst?". Train shooting, teach restraint.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    My ex was career military, in the infantry. One day when the news was on and talking about the war on drugs and how we should bring in the military to help with the war on drugs, he commented that it isn't what the world wants. The police are trained to wound you and take you alive. The military is trained to shoot to kill and, no, you aren't going to successfully short circuit that training for some short term assignment as a police adjunct unit. A kinder, gentler SWAT team is one not actually prepared for the serious situations they are intended to be called in for. If you think that works, you just have no idea whatsoever what it takes to be both psychologically and logistically prepared for surviving and triumphing when facing genuine deadly force.
    - watwut 9y ago
      Meanwhile, it is perfectly possible for cops in just about any other western country not to routinelly shoot unarmed people. One reason swatting is not done so much in Europe is that cops react in much different way.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        Oh, so, in other words, you are suggesting that part of the reason it happens in the US is precisely because of the possibility that it will turn deadly. That this creates a thrill for the caller lacking in other countries. And somehow in your mind this makes the caller less guilty of the death that results.
        9y ago
- jopsen 9y ago
  > I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US I guess we could try to hide our empathy, after all if it's only Americans killing other Americans, who cares? I don't get the impression that Americans do.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Yes, do that. And while you are it, spare me your sarcasm, superiority complex and contempt. Thank you.
    - jopsen 9y ago
      Will you also stop killing non-americans then? After all, they didn't vote for drone strikes.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        I genuinely don't understand how you can be both so hostile and so certain of your moral superiority. Your so called empathy was abandoned rather rapidly for revealing your true opinion that Americans simply deserve to be wholesale demonized. It isn't like I don't want these problems resolved. I don't believe I go around announcing what is best for other countries. Such behavior does not foster good discussion.
        jopsen 9y ago
        I don't think Americans should be demonized... Having met a lot of you, I know you're not all crazy. So yeah, I'm obviously being a little provocative :) But I do something wonder if you just don't want the problems solved? The solutions seems obvious, and yet you keep getting side tracked, like blaming the prankster. Other than police training and changes in behavior, what real solutions do you see?
        DoreenMichele 9y ago
- fab13n 9y ago
  > SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Yes they should, and they are in the rest of the world. Being a competent police officer is not supposed to be an easy job, and not everyone has what it takes to be trusted amid civilians with deadly weapons. > Pranks [...] should be labelled serious crimes and prosecuted accordingly. That is also true, but not the #1 priority. Most unnecessary uses of deadly force by police aren't triggered by pranks. I sure expect Tyler to rot in jail for quite some time, I'd be mad if he weren't. Ditto for the wannabe Dirty Harry who killed a civilian he swore to serve and protect. The thing is, I'm confident the former will happen, and I fear the latter won't. > I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US What baffles me is that even when a problem is solved in all of the non-US developed world, looking at how it's solved by everyone else isn't considered worth debating in the US. Or as the Onion puts it every few months, when a US mass shooting occurs: https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819580358 https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    looking at how it's solved by everyone else isn't considered worth debating in the US. There is a very big difference between that and some blowhard European acting like they know what is best for the US. I am all for good discussion on such subjects.
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    There isn't a clear set of policies that will put an end to mass shootings, at least not without overhauls in the current interpretation of the US constitution. America Uncovered (same crew as China Uncensored) made a pretty-balanced video on the topic https://youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0
- pjc50 9y ago
  > tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US We've been tired of blow hard Americans imagining they know what is best for Europe for some time, but that doesn't seem to have stopped anyone.
- throwaway-hn123 9y ago
  This right here is why no one wants to hire you, and why you regularly whine about how unfair life is.
- carterehsmith 9y ago
  >> SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Long as it does not happen to you. Now, imagine someone sends a SWAT team to your house, and the SWAT shoots your kids because... they moved? Would you, then, show up on HN telling us that is OK? "Yeah they shot my kids, but... it is A-OK because... "SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared..."?
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    My argument here is that it is not reasonable to let the caller off with a slap on the wrist and then in an environment where prank calls are increasingly the norm, hold the police solely responsible for the outcome. That is a broken model that will only create trouble. Whatever problems the US police force already has, it only gets worse if you say "Totes fine for someone to make prank swatting calls, but fry the police every time they mess up." I cannot fathom why that isn't obvious on the face of it. Setting people up to fail is a thing. How can so many people apparently not see that?
    - carterehsmith 9y ago
      >> Setting people up to fail is a thing. How can so many people apparently not see that? Are you OK with your kids and your spouse and your parents being murdered by police because... some random POS made a phone call, and "set them to fail"?
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        No, of course not. And that isn't a rebuttal of my point that the caller absolutely needs to be held responsible for his actions in this debacle.
        carterehsmith 9y ago
        Yeah that POS needs to be in prison or psychiatric instituton or whatever, we all agree on that. I am more concerned with... killing people. How about... instead of military rifles, we use... tazers, rubber bullets, stun grenades and other non-lethal weapons? That way, we all live, and whoever is accused of crime, can be dealt with judge and jury and so on. In this case, the guy that was murdered by police would be not dead... he may be sore, and also pissed, but that surely beats being dead.
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  well I was with you to the end but then I figured turnabout is fair play, and blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for the internal matters of the US is a couple of magnitudes less than blow hard Americans blowing the other way with often even less knowledge of what they're blowing about. At any rate I believe the parent to your comment is misinformed, in the European countries I'm familiar with if your funny prank leads to a death, especially a foreseeable death, you're probably going to have a bad time in court explaining why you don't have any responsibility.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    TBF, blowhard Americans who think they know what is best for the world when so many of us have hardly set foot outside our own country equally get on my nerves.
stephen_g 9y ago
Sure, the cop should be charged. But why should the caller not be similarly liable? The fake situation called in was so serious (something like being armed and holding hostages, having already murded multiple of them if I recall correctly) that the caller should have reasonably expected a lethal response was possible. The law generally regards getting somebody to kill somebody for you as being the same as pulling the trigger yourself, so at least a manslaughter charge for both would be more than reasonable.
- fab13n 9y ago
  > But why should the caller not be similarly liable? He should, he will, and I never meant to imply that he shouldn't. But the cop should to, yet probably won't. That's a very wrong message to send to the other officers who struggle with accurate situation assessment and cold-headedness. Not to mention trigger-happy sociopaths. > The fake situation called in was so serious It's part of proper police work to assess the actual seriousness of the situation before escalating violence. Hostage-taking is a crime that actually exists, and police must be prepared to face it adequately. But SWATing is also a crime that actually exists, and police must also be prepared to face it adequately. In most other countries, there is a much stronger doctrine of trying to avoid violence escalation, and way fewer people are killed by police: guilty suspects, innocent suspects and collateral damages alike. One could be tempted to see a causality. > at least a manslaughter charge for both would be more than reasonable. Totally agree. And depending on whether the cop felt like "he's about to gun me!" or "I'm unsure, but if I shoot I can get away with it", it's either manslaughter or murder. We'll probably never know beyond reasonable doubt, so it can't go beyond manslaughter in practice.
roel_v 9y ago
"Seen from Europe, this is ludicrous." What? Seen from Europe, by someone with a Dutch law degree, this is perfectly expected and reasonable. I mean, if this surprises you, look up 'eggshell skull' (or 'pantoffelarrest' if you speak Dutch) which, while not the same nor directly applicable here, is a good illustration for how much the nerd concept of 'guilt' deviates from what is under the law seen as 'guilty of creating the circumstances that lead to a certain outcome'.
- fab13n 9y ago
  The ludicrousness isn't about Tyler being charged (and the eggshell skull doctrine would rather be used to exculpate Tyler, although I neither think nor wish that such an argument would fly), it's about the police officer not being also held responsible, at least by the media. As a dubious analogy, if someone schemes to get you alone in an area where a serial rapist is known to operate, in hope that you'll encounter him, and you get raped indeed, of course the schemer is guilty. But the rapist is not exculpated. Here, of course Tyler is guilty, but the officer who pulled the trigger is not exculpated.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Your original framing very much sounds like Tyler should just be let off the hook entirely. That is what I was responding to.
  - roel_v 9y ago
    " it's about the police officer not being also held responsible, at least by the media." Which one of these people, according to you, went into this whole ordeal with the idea "hey you know what, let's get this innocent man shot" : * the guy calling 911 * the police office who ended up shooting ?
    - fab13n 9y ago
      I don't know for sure, but both are likely enough to warrant an investigation. Again, one's guiltiness doesn't make the other one innocent. The only reason I don't insist on falling like a ton of brick on Tyler is that it seems obvious to me, and it looks like everyone already agrees about that part. Moreover, I don't care much about what happens to that individual cop (as long as he's banned from ever carrying a weapon he's proved himself unfit for). The guy is dead, too late. What I care about is exemplarity: I want the next cop in a similar situation to feel like "if I pull the trigger, my career, freedom and reputation are probably over". That seems a proportionate amount of skin in the game, before voluntarily taking a citizen's life.
bryanrasmussen 9y ago
I'm in Europe. It's not ridiculous. It's ridiculous the police officer isn't being charged. But the idiot who caused the incident is also liable.
smcl 9y ago
It's incredible that so many people were so ready to ignore your main point (police shouldn't be able to kill with impunity) and were eager to engage in a discussion about Tyler instead.
DanBC 9y ago
It is ridiculous that US police shoot so many people, kill so many people, and that the US doesn't even count how often this happens. That's baffling to me.
- mcphage 9y ago
  > the US doesn't even count how often this happens The first step in ignoring a problem is deliberately rejecting any attempts to determine how often it occurs. If the police admitted how often it happened, it would just add fuel to those trying to stop it.
tnzn 9y ago
Ulcan, a far right Israeli activist, "swatted" French journalists in past years. So...

by fab13n 9y ago

DoreenMichele 9y ago

By primarily blaming Tyler (who's a super-nasty piece of shit, but that's another issue No, that is absolutely not another issue. If we don't hold people responsible for misusing these resources, there simply is no remedy here. SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Pranks are generally fucked up shit anyway. Pranks that can turn deadly so easily should not be called pranks. They should be labeled serious crimes and prosecuted accordingly. Furthermore, I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US and that policies that work in their country would obviously work exactly the same here. If your country works better than the US, good for you. That isn't evidence that you know what is best for the US.

gambiting 9y ago
>> SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Seeing how often these "pranks" happen, I would say they absolutely have to be prepared that the entire situation is fabricated. I agree with OP - the officers should be charged with murder of an innocent person, the responsibility to identify the situation is 100% on them.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Seeing how often these "pranks" happen That is a good argument for "We clearly aren't adequately discouraging this bullshit and need to do more to convince civilians this is not acceptable." Given how they try to hide the origin of the call, it isn't like they don't know this is bad behavior. They just seem to think it won't really be that big of a deal if they are caught.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    I mean, it's not a "let's punish the prankster OR the police" - we can do both. Charge the officers with actual murder, the prankster with whatever charge is appropriate here. The responsibility lies with both parties, it's just that I think the murder charge should be on the people actually pulling the trigger since it's their whole job to not kill people.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Since I never suggested otherwise, I have no idea why you are arguing with me. I am only suggesting that not holding the prankster responsible cannot help but increasingly warp things until SWAT teams have an impossible job to do. That doesn't mean their role should not be investigated. It means that it is unreasonable to say the caller is fine and then let this crap get increasingly crazy while only holding the police responsible in a situation where clearly they are equally victims of the caller's bad acts.
- cornyNetHandle 9y ago
  You can charge them with murder all you like, but while brandishing as control is considered standard police practice, you will find it almost impossible to prove any intent.
apexalpha 9y ago
>If we don't hold people responsible for misusing these resources, there simply is no remedy here. but you SHOULD hold this guy responsible for misusing these resources. Just not for the murder. >SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Yes they can. What the fuck? Isn't it American to say "hope for the best, prepare for the worst?". Train shooting, teach restraint.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  My ex was career military, in the infantry. One day when the news was on and talking about the war on drugs and how we should bring in the military to help with the war on drugs, he commented that it isn't what the world wants. The police are trained to wound you and take you alive. The military is trained to shoot to kill and, no, you aren't going to successfully short circuit that training for some short term assignment as a police adjunct unit. A kinder, gentler SWAT team is one not actually prepared for the serious situations they are intended to be called in for. If you think that works, you just have no idea whatsoever what it takes to be both psychologically and logistically prepared for surviving and triumphing when facing genuine deadly force.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Meanwhile, it is perfectly possible for cops in just about any other western country not to routinelly shoot unarmed people. One reason swatting is not done so much in Europe is that cops react in much different way.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Oh, so, in other words, you are suggesting that part of the reason it happens in the US is precisely because of the possibility that it will turn deadly. That this creates a thrill for the caller lacking in other countries. And somehow in your mind this makes the caller less guilty of the death that results.
      - 9y ago
jopsen 9y ago
> I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US I guess we could try to hide our empathy, after all if it's only Americans killing other Americans, who cares? I don't get the impression that Americans do.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Yes, do that. And while you are it, spare me your sarcasm, superiority complex and contempt. Thank you.
  - jopsen 9y ago
    Will you also stop killing non-americans then? After all, they didn't vote for drone strikes.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      I genuinely don't understand how you can be both so hostile and so certain of your moral superiority. Your so called empathy was abandoned rather rapidly for revealing your true opinion that Americans simply deserve to be wholesale demonized. It isn't like I don't want these problems resolved. I don't believe I go around announcing what is best for other countries. Such behavior does not foster good discussion.
      - jopsen 9y ago
        I don't think Americans should be demonized... Having met a lot of you, I know you're not all crazy. So yeah, I'm obviously being a little provocative :) But I do something wonder if you just don't want the problems solved? The solutions seems obvious, and yet you keep getting side tracked, like blaming the prankster. Other than police training and changes in behavior, what real solutions do you see?
        DoreenMichele 9y ago
fab13n 9y ago
> SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Yes they should, and they are in the rest of the world. Being a competent police officer is not supposed to be an easy job, and not everyone has what it takes to be trusted amid civilians with deadly weapons. > Pranks [...] should be labelled serious crimes and prosecuted accordingly. That is also true, but not the #1 priority. Most unnecessary uses of deadly force by police aren't triggered by pranks. I sure expect Tyler to rot in jail for quite some time, I'd be mad if he weren't. Ditto for the wannabe Dirty Harry who killed a civilian he swore to serve and protect. The thing is, I'm confident the former will happen, and I fear the latter won't. > I get rather tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US What baffles me is that even when a problem is solved in all of the non-US developed world, looking at how it's solved by everyone else isn't considered worth debating in the US. Or as the Onion puts it every few months, when a US mass shooting occurs: https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819580358 https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  looking at how it's solved by everyone else isn't considered worth debating in the US. There is a very big difference between that and some blowhard European acting like they know what is best for the US. I am all for good discussion on such subjects.
- thisacctforreal 9y ago
  There isn't a clear set of policies that will put an end to mass shootings, at least not without overhauls in the current interpretation of the US constitution. America Uncovered (same crew as China Uncensored) made a pretty-balanced video on the topic https://youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=hAtLnTyimT0
pjc50 9y ago
> tired of blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for internal matters of the US We've been tired of blow hard Americans imagining they know what is best for Europe for some time, but that doesn't seem to have stopped anyone.
throwaway-hn123 9y ago
This right here is why no one wants to hire you, and why you regularly whine about how unfair life is.
carterehsmith 9y ago
>> SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared for both a hostage situation and a so-called prank. Long as it does not happen to you. Now, imagine someone sends a SWAT team to your house, and the SWAT shoots your kids because... they moved? Would you, then, show up on HN telling us that is OK? "Yeah they shot my kids, but... it is A-OK because... "SWAT teams cannot be expected to be fully prepared..."?
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  My argument here is that it is not reasonable to let the caller off with a slap on the wrist and then in an environment where prank calls are increasingly the norm, hold the police solely responsible for the outcome. That is a broken model that will only create trouble. Whatever problems the US police force already has, it only gets worse if you say "Totes fine for someone to make prank swatting calls, but fry the police every time they mess up." I cannot fathom why that isn't obvious on the face of it. Setting people up to fail is a thing. How can so many people apparently not see that?
  - carterehsmith 9y ago
    >> Setting people up to fail is a thing. How can so many people apparently not see that? Are you OK with your kids and your spouse and your parents being murdered by police because... some random POS made a phone call, and "set them to fail"?
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      No, of course not. And that isn't a rebuttal of my point that the caller absolutely needs to be held responsible for his actions in this debacle.
      - carterehsmith 9y ago
        Yeah that POS needs to be in prison or psychiatric instituton or whatever, we all agree on that. I am more concerned with... killing people. How about... instead of military rifles, we use... tazers, rubber bullets, stun grenades and other non-lethal weapons? That way, we all live, and whoever is accused of crime, can be dealt with judge and jury and so on. In this case, the guy that was murdered by police would be not dead... he may be sore, and also pissed, but that surely beats being dead.
bryanrasmussen 9y ago
well I was with you to the end but then I figured turnabout is fair play, and blow hard Europeans imagining they know what is best for the internal matters of the US is a couple of magnitudes less than blow hard Americans blowing the other way with often even less knowledge of what they're blowing about. At any rate I believe the parent to your comment is misinformed, in the European countries I'm familiar with if your funny prank leads to a death, especially a foreseeable death, you're probably going to have a bad time in court explaining why you don't have any responsibility.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  TBF, blowhard Americans who think they know what is best for the world when so many of us have hardly set foot outside our own country equally get on my nerves.

stephen_g 9y ago

Sure, the cop should be charged. But why should the caller not be similarly liable? The fake situation called in was so serious (something like being armed and holding hostages, having already murded multiple of them if I recall correctly) that the caller should have reasonably expected a lethal response was possible. The law generally regards getting somebody to kill somebody for you as being the same as pulling the trigger yourself, so at least a manslaughter charge for both would be more than reasonable.

fab13n 9y ago
> But why should the caller not be similarly liable? He should, he will, and I never meant to imply that he shouldn't. But the cop should to, yet probably won't. That's a very wrong message to send to the other officers who struggle with accurate situation assessment and cold-headedness. Not to mention trigger-happy sociopaths. > The fake situation called in was so serious It's part of proper police work to assess the actual seriousness of the situation before escalating violence. Hostage-taking is a crime that actually exists, and police must be prepared to face it adequately. But SWATing is also a crime that actually exists, and police must also be prepared to face it adequately. In most other countries, there is a much stronger doctrine of trying to avoid violence escalation, and way fewer people are killed by police: guilty suspects, innocent suspects and collateral damages alike. One could be tempted to see a causality. > at least a manslaughter charge for both would be more than reasonable. Totally agree. And depending on whether the cop felt like "he's about to gun me!" or "I'm unsure, but if I shoot I can get away with it", it's either manslaughter or murder. We'll probably never know beyond reasonable doubt, so it can't go beyond manslaughter in practice.

roel_v 9y ago

"Seen from Europe, this is ludicrous." What? Seen from Europe, by someone with a Dutch law degree, this is perfectly expected and reasonable. I mean, if this surprises you, look up 'eggshell skull' (or 'pantoffelarrest' if you speak Dutch) which, while not the same nor directly applicable here, is a good illustration for how much the nerd concept of 'guilt' deviates from what is under the law seen as 'guilty of creating the circumstances that lead to a certain outcome'.

fab13n 9y ago
The ludicrousness isn't about Tyler being charged (and the eggshell skull doctrine would rather be used to exculpate Tyler, although I neither think nor wish that such an argument would fly), it's about the police officer not being also held responsible, at least by the media. As a dubious analogy, if someone schemes to get you alone in an area where a serial rapist is known to operate, in hope that you'll encounter him, and you get raped indeed, of course the schemer is guilty. But the rapist is not exculpated. Here, of course Tyler is guilty, but the officer who pulled the trigger is not exculpated.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Your original framing very much sounds like Tyler should just be let off the hook entirely. That is what I was responding to.
- roel_v 9y ago
  " it's about the police officer not being also held responsible, at least by the media." Which one of these people, according to you, went into this whole ordeal with the idea "hey you know what, let's get this innocent man shot" : * the guy calling 911 * the police office who ended up shooting ?
  - fab13n 9y ago
    I don't know for sure, but both are likely enough to warrant an investigation. Again, one's guiltiness doesn't make the other one innocent. The only reason I don't insist on falling like a ton of brick on Tyler is that it seems obvious to me, and it looks like everyone already agrees about that part. Moreover, I don't care much about what happens to that individual cop (as long as he's banned from ever carrying a weapon he's proved himself unfit for). The guy is dead, too late. What I care about is exemplarity: I want the next cop in a similar situation to feel like "if I pull the trigger, my career, freedom and reputation are probably over". That seems a proportionate amount of skin in the game, before voluntarily taking a citizen's life.

bryanrasmussen 9y ago

I'm in Europe. It's not ridiculous. It's ridiculous the police officer isn't being charged. But the idiot who caused the incident is also liable.

smcl 9y ago

It's incredible that so many people were so ready to ignore your main point (police shouldn't be able to kill with impunity) and were eager to engage in a discussion about Tyler instead.

DanBC 9y ago

It is ridiculous that US police shoot so many people, kill so many people, and that the US doesn't even count how often this happens. That's baffling to me.

mcphage 9y ago
> the US doesn't even count how often this happens The first step in ignoring a problem is deliberately rejecting any attempts to determine how often it occurs. If the police admitted how often it happened, it would just add fuel to those trying to stop it.

tnzn 9y ago

Ulcan, a far right Israeli activist, "swatted" French journalists in past years. So...