5 ms·

Well, I guess if you‘re in the US it is perfectly reasonable to expect police (even „special tactics“ teams) to just immediately shoot people on the sole base o

by Joe-Z 8y ago

Well, I guess if you‘re in the US it is perfectly reasonable to expect police (even „special tactics“ teams) to just immediately shoot people on the sole base of a phone call and thus all of the responsibility lies on the caller. Remember kids: Don‘t use emergency services, they might get someone killed.

colejohnson66 8y ago
So who do you call when you’re dying?
- mikeyouse 8y ago
  Of course you call emergency services. In a country with 300 million privately owned firearms, if the police receive a call ostensibly from a hostage-taker threatening to murder several people, they're going to respond in a much different manner than if you call for medical assistance. This is why SWATing is so pernicious. We let basically anyone buy seriously dangerous weapons up to and including assault/battle rifles, let all of our police match firepower, and then dramatically underfund mental health services such that murder and hostage-taking is a regular occurrence. Just a stellar combination for internet 'pranksters' to exploit.
gnode 8y ago
I think it's reasonable anywhere to expect an emergency call to result in prejudice, whether that's police being apprehensive with regard to a suspected dangerous person, or firefighters being willing to break into a building they believe someone to be unconscious in. Treating all emergency calls as false until proven otherwise would put lives in danger, be it emergency responders or the public. The danger that hoaxes inherently present, and that ignoring potential hoaxes also presents, means that hoaxers must be deterred.
- Joe-Z 8y ago
  Your comment is of course much more reasonable than mine. I too would expect police to show up or SWAT kick in a door if a terrorism threat was called on someone. Blaming the murder of an innocent person on the hoaxer however seems perverse. This guy is sentenced to 20 years in prison for what he probably perceived as a 'prank call' at the time. That's insane!
  - gnode 8y ago
    As noted in another comment of mine, they didn't blame murder on him, but instead prosecuted more technical, less interpretable crimes. I agree that murder may be an excessive charge given lack of intent, yet in the United States murder is often broadened to include committing a serious crime (felony) where there is a clear danger of killing someone, and it resulted in death. Then again, I would argue that this goes well beyond just a 'prank call' in that there is intent to specifically victimise someone by deceiving armed agents.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    If his idea of a harmless prank involves subjecting someone to that kind of danger then I’m not so sure. Another fun prank: kidnap someone and hang them on a cliff over a lethal fall, with a 80% chance they’ll survive.
    - ryanlol 8y ago
      I rather doubt even 0.1% of swattings result in deaths, how can you compare that to a 80% chance of survival?
      - daniel-cussen 8y ago
        Citation needed. Without going any further SWAT--of what I've read, this was back in 2011--shoots all dogs on sight, as soon as it enters the building, as standard operating procedure.
      - chillacy 8y ago
        Number doesn’t matter so much, I just personally don’t want to be swatted. It sounds horrible and traumatizing.
    - daniel-cussen 8y ago
      Repeatedly threatening someone with death falls under torture.
  - voxl 8y ago
praneshp 8y ago
Weird, are you the same poster as in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607028, or did they copy paste your comment?
- Joe-Z 8y ago
  Looks like he copy-pasted it. I was confused too.
sitkack 8y ago
I had "an incident" with someone who was having a psychological break. He had a phone, but didn't know how to use it, didn't really know where he was. Other folks wanted to immediately call the cops. The cops were the last thing on the list that would have helped anyone and could have in high likelihood made this guys life 100x worse if not over.

by Joe-Z 8y ago

colejohnson66 8y ago

So who do you call when you’re dying?

mikeyouse 8y ago
Of course you call emergency services. In a country with 300 million privately owned firearms, if the police receive a call ostensibly from a hostage-taker threatening to murder several people, they're going to respond in a much different manner than if you call for medical assistance. This is why SWATing is so pernicious. We let basically anyone buy seriously dangerous weapons up to and including assault/battle rifles, let all of our police match firepower, and then dramatically underfund mental health services such that murder and hostage-taking is a regular occurrence. Just a stellar combination for internet 'pranksters' to exploit.

gnode 8y ago

I think it's reasonable anywhere to expect an emergency call to result in prejudice, whether that's police being apprehensive with regard to a suspected dangerous person, or firefighters being willing to break into a building they believe someone to be unconscious in. Treating all emergency calls as false until proven otherwise would put lives in danger, be it emergency responders or the public. The danger that hoaxes inherently present, and that ignoring potential hoaxes also presents, means that hoaxers must be deterred.

Joe-Z 8y ago
Your comment is of course much more reasonable than mine. I too would expect police to show up or SWAT kick in a door if a terrorism threat was called on someone. Blaming the murder of an innocent person on the hoaxer however seems perverse. This guy is sentenced to 20 years in prison for what he probably perceived as a 'prank call' at the time. That's insane!
- gnode 8y ago
  As noted in another comment of mine, they didn't blame murder on him, but instead prosecuted more technical, less interpretable crimes. I agree that murder may be an excessive charge given lack of intent, yet in the United States murder is often broadened to include committing a serious crime (felony) where there is a clear danger of killing someone, and it resulted in death. Then again, I would argue that this goes well beyond just a 'prank call' in that there is intent to specifically victimise someone by deceiving armed agents.
- chillacy 8y ago
  If his idea of a harmless prank involves subjecting someone to that kind of danger then I’m not so sure. Another fun prank: kidnap someone and hang them on a cliff over a lethal fall, with a 80% chance they’ll survive.
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    I rather doubt even 0.1% of swattings result in deaths, how can you compare that to a 80% chance of survival?
    - daniel-cussen 8y ago
      Citation needed. Without going any further SWAT--of what I've read, this was back in 2011--shoots all dogs on sight, as soon as it enters the building, as standard operating procedure.
    - chillacy 8y ago
      Number doesn’t matter so much, I just personally don’t want to be swatted. It sounds horrible and traumatizing.
  - daniel-cussen 8y ago
    Repeatedly threatening someone with death falls under torture.
- voxl 8y ago

praneshp 8y ago

Weird, are you the same poster as in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19607028, or did they copy paste your comment?

Joe-Z 8y ago
Looks like he copy-pasted it. I was confused too.

sitkack 8y ago

I had "an incident" with someone who was having a psychological break. He had a phone, but didn't know how to use it, didn't really know where he was. Other folks wanted to immediately call the cops. The cops were the last thing on the list that would have helped anyone and could have in high likelihood made this guys life 100x worse if not over.