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>investigators say the other two men’s efforts to taunt and deceive one another ultimately helped point the gun Huh, so they're going after people who didn't m

>investigators say the other two men’s efforts to taunt and deceive one another ultimately helped point the gun Huh, so they're going after people who didn't make the call and ignoring the biggest culprit that is the police officers? What's the point of having "trained" professionals if they can't distinguish a real threat from a hoax? This reminds me of binary classification algorithms that classify everything as 0 and end up with an accuracy of 90% because of dataset imbalance.

weberc2 8y ago
How much training is required to effectively distinguish between a real threat and a hoax? Do police even get this training or is Swatting a relatively recent phenomenon that hasn’t made it into police training curriculum yet? “Evil police” is a nice pat answer, but rarely are such answers correct.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  Swatting is just a new twist on the long-standing pattern of high-strung police officers getting jumpy and killing people who were never a threat. There's even a famous Richard Pryor bit about it.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    Earnest question: is this perception based on data or is it biased by media reporting? (not your perception specifically, but the general perception)
- soared 8y ago
  If you assume it was not a hoax, the police response was still to shoot without being provoked. Hardly seems like whether its a hoax or not is op's point.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    I was responding to this: > What's the point of having "trained" professionals if they can't distinguish a real threat from a hoax? I don't know how you can read that and think "whether it's a hoax or not is not the OP's point"
    - abiox 8y ago
      > I don't know how you can read that and think "whether it's a hoax or not is not the OP's point" the op's point seemed more about training and response/behavior, and the hoax bit was just the matter of the present circumstance.
casefields 8y ago
Felony-murder rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule
- jmull 8y ago
  They aren't being charged with murder. Here's what the story says: Barriss is charged with multiple counts of making false information and hoaxes; cyberstalking; threatening to kill another or damage property by fire; interstate threats, conspiracy; and wire fraud. Viner and Gaskill were both charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
kbenson 8y ago
> Huh, so they're going after people who didn't make the call and ignoring the biggest culprit that is the police officers? First, while we can all agree that the police didn't act well in this matter, I would certainly not classify them as anywhere near the biggest culprit. If you job is to sometimes exert force, possibly even lethal force, to enforce the law and protect people, if you aer primed for an encounter with someone who has already "killed their father and is holding someone hostage", it's easy to see many ways this meeting could have gone wrong, and it did. Second, regarding "people who didn't make the call", read the article if you haven't. I had the same initial thought, but then you quickly realize, from the actual chat logs of the accudes which are included in the article, that the person being swatted first boasted he wasn't scared of being swatted, and then when challenged on it asked them to swat him and then supplied to fake address (actually, his prior address, which his family still owned and rented to the family of the victim). As for the third person, he's the person that actaully requested the SWAT call. From his own chat statements: Defendant VINER: I literally said you’re gonna be swatted, and the guy who swatted him can easily say I convinced him or something when I said hey can you swat this guy and then gave him the address and he said yes and then said he’d do it for free because I said he doesn’t think anything will happen They all contributed to make a very unsafe situation, which then culminated in the death of an innocent. They all have some culpability in this.
maxlybbert 8y ago
It’s been illegal for a long time, with very harsh penalties, to make false reports. Obviously that hasn’t stopped everyone from making them, but I’m not surprised that the people involved are being prosecuted and face jail time. I would also like the police department (and other departments) to learn from their response.
- maxlybbert 8y ago
  It’s too late to edit the original comment: the person who actually made the call is probably facing charges of making a false report (and evidence tampering, for asking the other guys to delete their chat logs). The others are probably facing charges of conspiracy to make a false report ( https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/conspiracy.html https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/conspiracy.htm... ). There may be an argument that encouraging somebody to commit a crime, by way of a bet, isn’t the same thing as helping someone plan to commit a crime. I’m sure sure this wouldn’t be the first time for that argument to come up. Also, if they said anything like “just make a call and say ...,” that defense won’t work.

weberc2 8y ago

How much training is required to effectively distinguish between a real threat and a hoax? Do police even get this training or is Swatting a relatively recent phenomenon that hasn’t made it into police training curriculum yet? “Evil police” is a nice pat answer, but rarely are such answers correct.

bunderbunder 8y ago
Swatting is just a new twist on the long-standing pattern of high-strung police officers getting jumpy and killing people who were never a threat. There's even a famous Richard Pryor bit about it.
- weberc2 8y ago
  Earnest question: is this perception based on data or is it biased by media reporting? (not your perception specifically, but the general perception)
soared 8y ago
If you assume it was not a hoax, the police response was still to shoot without being provoked. Hardly seems like whether its a hoax or not is op's point.
- weberc2 8y ago
  I was responding to this: > What's the point of having "trained" professionals if they can't distinguish a real threat from a hoax? I don't know how you can read that and think "whether it's a hoax or not is not the OP's point"
  - abiox 8y ago
    > I don't know how you can read that and think "whether it's a hoax or not is not the OP's point" the op's point seemed more about training and response/behavior, and the hoax bit was just the matter of the present circumstance.

casefields 8y ago

Felony-murder rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule

jmull 8y ago
They aren't being charged with murder. Here's what the story says: Barriss is charged with multiple counts of making false information and hoaxes; cyberstalking; threatening to kill another or damage property by fire; interstate threats, conspiracy; and wire fraud. Viner and Gaskill were both charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

kbenson 8y ago

> Huh, so they're going after people who didn't make the call and ignoring the biggest culprit that is the police officers? First, while we can all agree that the police didn't act well in this matter, I would certainly not classify them as anywhere near the biggest culprit. If you job is to sometimes exert force, possibly even lethal force, to enforce the law and protect people, if you aer primed for an encounter with someone who has already "killed their father and is holding someone hostage", it's easy to see many ways this meeting could have gone wrong, and it did. Second, regarding "people who didn't make the call", read the article if you haven't. I had the same initial thought, but then you quickly realize, from the actual chat logs of the accudes which are included in the article, that the person being swatted first boasted he wasn't scared of being swatted, and then when challenged on it asked them to swat him and then supplied to fake address (actually, his prior address, which his family still owned and rented to the family of the victim). As for the third person, he's the person that actaully requested the SWAT call. From his own chat statements: Defendant VINER: I literally said you’re gonna be swatted, and the guy who swatted him can easily say I convinced him or something when I said hey can you swat this guy and then gave him the address and he said yes and then said he’d do it for free because I said he doesn’t think anything will happen They all contributed to make a very unsafe situation, which then culminated in the death of an innocent. They all have some culpability in this.

maxlybbert 8y ago

It’s been illegal for a long time, with very harsh penalties, to make false reports. Obviously that hasn’t stopped everyone from making them, but I’m not surprised that the people involved are being prosecuted and face jail time. I would also like the police department (and other departments) to learn from their response.

maxlybbert 8y ago
It’s too late to edit the original comment: the person who actually made the call is probably facing charges of making a false report (and evidence tampering, for asking the other guys to delete their chat logs). The others are probably facing charges of conspiracy to make a false report ( https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/conspiracy.html https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/conspiracy.htm... ). There may be an argument that encouraging somebody to commit a crime, by way of a bet, isn’t the same thing as helping someone plan to commit a crime. I’m sure sure this wouldn’t be the first time for that argument to come up. Also, if they said anything like “just make a call and say ...,” that defense won’t work.