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This article really hits me as the sort of “propaganda” writers create through blindly accepting the story of their culture rather than thinking about things cr

This article really hits me as the sort of “propaganda” writers create through blindly accepting the story of their culture rather than thinking about things critically. By that I mean the real story here is that the police dispatched a sniper to execute someone without a trial. Blew them away as soon as he opened the door. That shit is still the news! The facts of what happened here do not make sense in our idea of America. Yet Wired doesnt even make a passing reference to it. Feels similar to the way the media reports on “identity theft” as if your identity was the thing that was stolen, not that the bank had a security breach and they're forcing you to pay for it- completely looking at the situation backwards

watty 8y ago
> Blew them away as soon as they opened the door. Source? My point was that "as soon as they opened the door" and "seconds later" are not the same thing. Go watch the body cam or do some research. There were 7-10 seconds with commands being issued to Andrew and he did not comply. Absolutely not his fault, I'm sure it was a very confusing situation. I'm simply pointing out that if we are going to talk about it, let's face the facts and not make bullshit up.
- jakelazaroff 8y ago
  From literally the second paragraph in the article: > When the cops showed up in force, 28-year-old Andrew Finch opened his front door to see what the commotion was about; seconds later he was dead, shot by a police sniper across the street
- drb91 8y ago
  ...it’s in the linked article, fairly obviously.
- breakingcups 8y ago
  "When the cops showed up in force, 28-year-old Andrew Finch opened his front door to see what the commotion was about; seconds later he was dead, shot by a police sniper across the street." From the article.
- nkrisc 8y ago
  Here's a description of the events, including bodycam footage. Interpret as you will. But he was shot within seconds of opening the door, that is not disputed. https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html EDIT: I will add that I am not endorsing the comment that he was "blown away" as soon as he opened the door, which has a very specific connotation.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mitchdoogle 8y ago
  I just watched the body cam footage. There is no effort on the part of the police to be judicious. I think the phrasing "blew them away as soon as they opened the door" is a fairly accurate description of what happened.
sillyquiet 8y ago
I am a pretty pro-police person. I gladly support law enforcement, because they have a tough tough job. I am in complete agreement here, and I see agreement with this kind of libertarian sentiment even in the conservative circles I sometimes travel in. The police in the United States are over-militarized, under-trained, and way way too eager to engage in gun fire. SWAT 'deployment' (even that is a military term) should be a last resort, not the immediate reaction, especially to an unverified phone call.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- microcolonel 8y ago
  I don't particularly think they're "over-militarized" in the ways people say. I see a lot of emotional outpourings by people about how the police shouldn't have armored vehicles or even rifles. The point of these things is kinda to prevent close quarters conflicts. The problem, I think, is that they are being asked to do these rapid entries when a) they have no idea what is actually going on in these buildings and b) they are not trained like Yamam and importantly c) most reports of this nature are not false, so when they show up to these scenes they want to save the innocent and live to tell about it, not die in the line of fire and watch the innocent die with them, and occasionally d) some get into this line of work with a deranged mindset, and just want to feel what a "justified killing" feels like (and it seems like weeding these people out is never a perfect science). I think as long as people are sitting around complaining that the police sometimes use rifles (something I've seen even in Canadian cities), nobody's getting anywhere on actually solving the problems involved. The fact that the police rely on the trustworthiness of reports like this is why false & malicious reports are criminal. The police are generally not able to validate your claims, so they either go in and risk making a horrible mistake, or they do nothing and wait for the situation to "mature".
- baybal2 8y ago
  That's not a tough job at all. Actual "enforcement" part in "law enforcement" does not constitute even 1% of their work even in so called "warzone" cities. No way to dismiss this argument. Even in an armed to the teeth nation of America, there is no real need for an ordinary patrol officers to be armed at all. They can call the job taught when they would be doing policing in actual war zones. Even with "below the sea level" standards of police professionalism you have in US, there are no way to deny that it doesn't meet even that. No matter how you evaluate the performance of American police, it is simply terrible. I have no idea how anybody can spin that in any other way than this.
pc86 8y ago
> By that I mean the real story here is that the police dispatched a sniper to execute someone without a trial. Blew them away as soon as they opened the door. This isn't even propaganda, it's just wrong. The victim opened the door and was told to freeze. He started to reach for his pants (presumably to adjust the waist or pull them up) was told to stop, and didn't. So I don't know if you're intentionally lying about the facts or just ignorant to them, but regardless your description of events is 100% wrong.
- drb91 8y ago
  I find it disgusting that anyone would consider not obeying a cop’s orders to be a justification for an execution.
  - watty 8y ago
    To be fair he's just pointing out a fact. If we're going to talk about this then let's get the facts straight. I do not think he was justified in shooting but I also don't think the cop should face jail time or anything. We need to change our process in handling dangerous events due to swatting. It's the reality we live in.
    - drb91 8y ago
      > “just pointing out a fact” No he’s not, it’s an authoritarian dog whistle. Stop supporting this crap.
    - happytoexplain 8y ago
      In the context of conversations and the reasons people have them, "just" pointing out a fact (i.e. identifying an objective untruth for no other reason than to eliminate untruths from the domain of conversation) is vanishingly rare. In this case, the GP was offering another perspective an a subjective event by way of criticising the curt nature of the GGP's description - he was not just correcting an untruth. As for the subject of the conversation, I think (not without years of pains of consideration for the two-sided complexities of the problem) that the officer's behavior, whether a result only of his personal decisions or of standard training, and the lack of repercussions for that behavior, is outside the boundaries of scenarios that are excusable by the danger of the profession, and is emblematic of one of the most devastating humiliations of human rights that the citizens of the United States continue to suffer.
gameswithgo 8y ago
came here to post more or less exactly this reply. How many charges are the police being charged with for murder?
- throwaway080383 8y ago
  From https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html District Attorney Marc Bennett said the Wichita police officer who fired the shot that killed Andrew Finch after a swatting call will not face charges.
  - rasz 8y ago
    I am really surprised by not a single known case of vigilante retaliation on confirmed Police murderers.
    - howlgram 8y ago
      it would be veeeeryyy upsetting if this comment gave someone any ideas
mitchdoogle 8y ago
They do make somewhat of a reference at the end of the article by mentioning the victim's mother who is suing the Police Department

watty 8y ago

> Blew them away as soon as they opened the door. Source? My point was that "as soon as they opened the door" and "seconds later" are not the same thing. Go watch the body cam or do some research. There were 7-10 seconds with commands being issued to Andrew and he did not comply. Absolutely not his fault, I'm sure it was a very confusing situation. I'm simply pointing out that if we are going to talk about it, let's face the facts and not make bullshit up.

jakelazaroff 8y ago
From literally the second paragraph in the article: > When the cops showed up in force, 28-year-old Andrew Finch opened his front door to see what the commotion was about; seconds later he was dead, shot by a police sniper across the street
drb91 8y ago
...it’s in the linked article, fairly obviously.
breakingcups 8y ago
"When the cops showed up in force, 28-year-old Andrew Finch opened his front door to see what the commotion was about; seconds later he was dead, shot by a police sniper across the street." From the article.
nkrisc 8y ago
Here's a description of the events, including bodycam footage. Interpret as you will. But he was shot within seconds of opening the door, that is not disputed. https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html EDIT: I will add that I am not endorsing the comment that he was "blown away" as soon as he opened the door, which has a very specific connotation.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
mitchdoogle 8y ago
I just watched the body cam footage. There is no effort on the part of the police to be judicious. I think the phrasing "blew them away as soon as they opened the door" is a fairly accurate description of what happened.

sillyquiet 8y ago

I am a pretty pro-police person. I gladly support law enforcement, because they have a tough tough job. I am in complete agreement here, and I see agreement with this kind of libertarian sentiment even in the conservative circles I sometimes travel in. The police in the United States are over-militarized, under-trained, and way way too eager to engage in gun fire. SWAT 'deployment' (even that is a military term) should be a last resort, not the immediate reaction, especially to an unverified phone call.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
microcolonel 8y ago
I don't particularly think they're "over-militarized" in the ways people say. I see a lot of emotional outpourings by people about how the police shouldn't have armored vehicles or even rifles. The point of these things is kinda to prevent close quarters conflicts. The problem, I think, is that they are being asked to do these rapid entries when a) they have no idea what is actually going on in these buildings and b) they are not trained like Yamam and importantly c) most reports of this nature are not false, so when they show up to these scenes they want to save the innocent and live to tell about it, not die in the line of fire and watch the innocent die with them, and occasionally d) some get into this line of work with a deranged mindset, and just want to feel what a "justified killing" feels like (and it seems like weeding these people out is never a perfect science). I think as long as people are sitting around complaining that the police sometimes use rifles (something I've seen even in Canadian cities), nobody's getting anywhere on actually solving the problems involved. The fact that the police rely on the trustworthiness of reports like this is why false & malicious reports are criminal. The police are generally not able to validate your claims, so they either go in and risk making a horrible mistake, or they do nothing and wait for the situation to "mature".
baybal2 8y ago
That's not a tough job at all. Actual "enforcement" part in "law enforcement" does not constitute even 1% of their work even in so called "warzone" cities. No way to dismiss this argument. Even in an armed to the teeth nation of America, there is no real need for an ordinary patrol officers to be armed at all. They can call the job taught when they would be doing policing in actual war zones. Even with "below the sea level" standards of police professionalism you have in US, there are no way to deny that it doesn't meet even that. No matter how you evaluate the performance of American police, it is simply terrible. I have no idea how anybody can spin that in any other way than this.

pc86 8y ago

> By that I mean the real story here is that the police dispatched a sniper to execute someone without a trial. Blew them away as soon as they opened the door. This isn't even propaganda, it's just wrong. The victim opened the door and was told to freeze. He started to reach for his pants (presumably to adjust the waist or pull them up) was told to stop, and didn't. So I don't know if you're intentionally lying about the facts or just ignorant to them, but regardless your description of events is 100% wrong.

drb91 8y ago
I find it disgusting that anyone would consider not obeying a cop’s orders to be a justification for an execution.
- watty 8y ago
  To be fair he's just pointing out a fact. If we're going to talk about this then let's get the facts straight. I do not think he was justified in shooting but I also don't think the cop should face jail time or anything. We need to change our process in handling dangerous events due to swatting. It's the reality we live in.
  - drb91 8y ago
    > “just pointing out a fact” No he’s not, it’s an authoritarian dog whistle. Stop supporting this crap.
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    In the context of conversations and the reasons people have them, "just" pointing out a fact (i.e. identifying an objective untruth for no other reason than to eliminate untruths from the domain of conversation) is vanishingly rare. In this case, the GP was offering another perspective an a subjective event by way of criticising the curt nature of the GGP's description - he was not just correcting an untruth. As for the subject of the conversation, I think (not without years of pains of consideration for the two-sided complexities of the problem) that the officer's behavior, whether a result only of his personal decisions or of standard training, and the lack of repercussions for that behavior, is outside the boundaries of scenarios that are excusable by the danger of the profession, and is emblematic of one of the most devastating humiliations of human rights that the citizens of the United States continue to suffer.

gameswithgo 8y ago

came here to post more or less exactly this reply. How many charges are the police being charged with for murder?

throwaway080383 8y ago
From https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html https://www.kansas.com/news/local/article208812519.html District Attorney Marc Bennett said the Wichita police officer who fired the shot that killed Andrew Finch after a swatting call will not face charges.
- rasz 8y ago
  I am really surprised by not a single known case of vigilante retaliation on confirmed Police murderers.
  - howlgram 8y ago
    it would be veeeeryyy upsetting if this comment gave someone any ideas

mitchdoogle 8y ago

They do make somewhat of a reference at the end of the article by mentioning the victim's mother who is suing the Police Department