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Man Who Hired Deadly Swatting Gets 15 Months

56 points by hsnewman 7y ago

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
And the cop who shot a man who was no threat gets what? At the very, very least it's a gross failure to do his job the way he's paid to do it and his employment should be up for review. Don't get me wrong, swatting is bad for a bunch of obvious reasons and the swatter is the one with the malicious intent here but if we had a more professional police force (you'd think the swat team, supposedly the most highly trained cops, would have a little more restraint with the trigger finger) it would end this way a lot less often. Cops showing up expecting something where there is nothing should not result in anybody dying, it should result in confused cops and little more. This is very much a two part problem. If the cops didn't have an itchy trigger finger swatting wouldn't lead to outcomes like this.
- almost_usual 7y ago
  I had a friend whose dad took a shotgun blast to the face entering a home serving a search warrant. It's not uncommon. The officer is acting on the facts that are presented to them. This isn't a domestic violence call or an assault call. It's a call instructing the police that someone is armed and a threat to those around them.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    The fact that it's a "serious call" doesn't excuse shooting him on sight. Shooting people on sight is totally inappropriate ROE for a civilian police force in any situation.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Was it a no knock raid? Context matters. If you break into someones home then it's perfect legal for them to shoot you in most states. It doesn't matter if you're a police officer or not.
  - webkike 7y ago
    Sure, but it seems weird to prioritize the life of the police officer over the people they are sworn to protect. Policing is inherently dangerous. Sitting at home playing video games should not
    - happytoexplain 7y ago
      This is one of the most important points to me, and I rarely see it discussed. Defenders of killings by police usually point to the officer's feelings of safety and right to defend themselves using what seem to be the same standards as any average civilian. If you gave me a gun and put me in a dangerous situation I might pull the trigger when I didn't absolutely need to out of fear, and it might be totally reasonable for me to do that. That's why I'm not a police officer. We have a profession where part of the job description involves the possibility of shooting civilians to death, and we are somehow unable or unwilling to get tough and establish a bar of professionalism commensurate with such an extraordinary job description.
    - almost_usual 7y ago
      >Sure, but it seems weird to prioritize the life of the police officer over the people they are sworn to protect. If the officer doesn't engage out of caution and an innocent person in the residence (non officer) dies is that still ok?
      - webkike 7y ago
        How often does that happen? I can make the same argument about killing literally anyone because they might kill other people.
        almost_usual 7y ago
        >I can make the same argument about killing literally anyone because they might kill other people. This feels like a slippery slope fallacy.
        7y ago
  - weego 7y ago
    It's actually far less common than the various narratives would lead you to assume.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - fucking_tragedy 7y ago
    If soldiers in an active war zone can follow their rules of engagement and resist shooting civilians even though they're scared, so can cops.
    - rmrfrmrf 7y ago
      is there evidence that soldiers follow their rules of engagement?
      - jacobush 7y ago
        This is what I've always heard. I am sure the amount of violations is higher in absolute numbers, given that it's war and a lot of things. Anecdotally I've also heard former military police officers are the best de-escalators.
        jacobush 7y ago
        ... and thinking about it, I think the difference is this: "At home", the police already has control over the land. They have "won" almost by default. No opponent can challenge them, or have any interest in seriously taking them on. The military, on the other hand often operates where they are instructed to "win the hearts and minds" and if they don't get local support, things can go very badly for them. Which gives, it's unfortunate police not more often tries to "win hearts and minds".
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    To me it seems that the police who killed the civilian is not any better than the one who killed the father of your friend. (In fact, he seems worse because at least the dude that killed your friend's father could use the "castle doctrine" defence)
  - inscionent 7y ago
    Knowing a situation is dangerous is not an excuse for opening fire on an unidentified target.
- mcny 7y ago
  > Cops showing up expecting something where there is nothing should not result in anybody dying, it should result in confused cops and little more. I completely agree. I also think the man who "hired deadly swatting" should be immediately released with an apology from the society.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    The person who did this clearly did something that they knew was wrong, and that ended in somebody dying.
    - mcny 7y ago
      > The person who did this clearly did something that they knew was wrong, and that ended in somebody dying. Whether they did it knowingly or not does not matter in this case. I still think this exposes a systemic problem that we need to address at a systems level. This feels like monkey patching if (x !== null) {} to "fix" a null pointer exception on something that should never have been null in the first place. In this case. there should have been no shots fired at all. I am not even saying the officer who shot should go to prison. I am just saying maybe the officer who shot shouldn't have had a gun or been there in the first place. They clearly didn't have proper training. Sending the person who made the phone call to prison solves nothing. We have blameless postmortems for us. Why can't we have blameless postmortems in these cases which are more life and death? We don't live in an "eye for an eye" society, do we?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        > We don't live in an "eye for an eye" society, do we? I disagree strongly with your characterization of this. The caller clearly knew what he was doing wrong (we can argue whether it was reasonable to assume that it would be responded to with lethal force, but that is not what you’re discussing). Likewise, the reaction of the police officer in this situation may have been a problem, but again it’s not relevant to the issue of willfully lying about a hostage situation to, at the minimum, waste the time of law enforcement and the SWATed person. Consider, for example, a residential street where the speed limit is 5 mph: it’s pretty hard for anyone to get seriously injured in an accident if vehicles follow the rules. But if a car decides to barrel down the road at highway speeds, I’m not off the hook if I push you in front of the it. I can’t just say “I’m innocent, because you couldn’t have died if everyone followed the rules” and get out of it. I’d probably still be liable if I didn’t see the car coming. Just because someone may have done something illegally that made my actions worse does not absolve me from wrongdoing; it just makes it so there are two problems to deal with.
dsr_ 7y ago
Remind me what the sentence was for the police officer in Wichita who murdered Andrew Finch? When the police are trained to de-escalate first instead of shoot first, swatting will stop.
- davidw 7y ago
  There's tons of room to improve the police. However, in a country with so many weapons, they're always going to be a bit more quick to fire due to a fear for their own safety. You can downvote all you want, but the statistics are that police are much more likely to face someone with a weapon in the US.
  - ergothus 7y ago
    > the statistics are that police are much more likely to face someone with a weapon in the US. Absolutely. And one reason we're supposed to respect the police is that they take these risks. If they instead start shooting people first, they aren't taking the risks, they are creating them. Being a police officer interacting with citizens is more dangerous than being a citizen...but is it more dangerous than being a citizen interacting with the police?
    - davidw 7y ago
      A swat call is someone telling the police that there's an armed and dangerous person on the other side of the door. That's not one of the instances of police, say, choking a guy selling cigarettes to death. It's a situation where even someone courageous is going to be pretty amped up.
      - Miner49er 7y ago
        Have you even watched the video of the shooting? Being amped up wasn't an excuse here. There was multiple cops aiming rifles at this guy, who was raising his hands when he was shot. The officer that shot him said he saw him move his hands at that's why he shot him. Even if the guy had a gun, there was no way he would've had time to raise it, aim it accurately (at cops who were behind cover) and take a shot without police being able to fire at him first after clearly seeing it was a gun. Plus, at that distance, he wasn't likely to hit a cop who was behind cover with a pistol anyway, even if he was able to shoot many shots.
psychometry 7y ago
Great. When do we lock up the cop who shot an innocent, unarmed man?
- Bootwizard 7y ago
  Which cop?
  - rwmurrayVT 7y ago
    We don't know because they won't release his name now that they declined to press charges! Evidently after they declined to release his name he testified in the case. Name below is correct. Justin Rapp. Coincidentally, there's a videographer in the search results for the name. The blurb below the URL says "About Me Justin Rapp 2019-05-16T13:29:49-07:00. BORN TO SHOOT THE WORLD AROUND ME" Bad luck there bud...
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Justin Rapp
- umvi 7y ago
  As soon as we lock up programmers who pushed code that made apps more addictive which, spread over millions of users, led to depression and suicide.
  - taxidump 7y ago
    That's quite a conclusion. This relationship between a programmer and a man who was shot during a swatting seems off. Would it be the gas station's fault who provided gas to the police vehicle en-route? A police officer using deadly force without any potential to be harmed himself is where the failure lies.
    - moate 7y ago
      His point is that guns don't kill people, people don't kill people, people telling people to tell people that there's people killing people are who kill people. It is a very weak point to make.
geddy 7y ago
This doesn't feel like enough to discourage others from doing this, so what's even the point? Accessory to murder is 15 months now? Someone died from this! Also, what about the cop who shot him?
- wetpaws 7y ago
  The right question is not why it was punished so lightly, but rather why it was even possible in a first place.
  - RalfWausE 7y ago
    It was possible because some humans are ugly creatures who like to make the life of others miserable
- c0nducktr 7y ago
  Yeah, the police officer should really be facing some sort of punishment as well. They were responding to what they thought was a hostage situation, and shot the first person to walk out of the house. Even if it was a real hostage situation, why assume the first person out is the hostage taker, and not a hostage?
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Also, must you always shoot the hostage taker at first sight? 1) if possible, shouldn't the court mete out the death sentence, instead of Judge Dredd, I mean, the police. 2) even from a completely tactical viewpoint, if you are dealing with more than one hostage taker, and you shot one of them, wouldn't you suspect the remaining hostage takers could get a little spooked?
    - c0nducktr 7y ago
      Yeah, pretty much every part of this was mishandled. With all the blame being placed on the person who placed the call, I don't have any faith that this same situation won't be repeated in the future either.
rwmurrayVT 7y ago
12 months 3 weeks after good time and probably 2-4 months in a halfway house. If he's been without bail then he will get time served and go from there. Otherwise he'll be out in less than a year from when he self-surrenders to federal prison.
- jacobush 7y ago
  That part is actually a good thing, you should encourage things that reduces recidivism. Edit: I meant getting out before the full sentence is served, is a good thing. (I don't know anything about federal halfway houses.)
  - rwmurrayVT 7y ago
    I am in a federal halfway house. Nothing about federal prison reduces recidivism.
hi41 7y ago
The victim is a father of two. Oh my God. What a terrible tragedy.
mnm1 7y ago
I expect cops to not shoot unarmed, innocent men but clearly that's too much to expect and I live in a fantasy world. How come this doesn't happen in other countries despite their police also carrying guns? Are US police that evil? Stupid? Scared? Scum? Or all of the above? Because there is no excuse for this officer doing what he did nor for the prosecutor not prosecuting. This is what we call justice in America?
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  This happens in every country. Its rate varies.
  - mnm1 7y ago
    Yeah but the rate is what matters. The US kills more people in days than some other countries do in years. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...
seamyb88 7y ago
This is a lot of America's problems in one story.
kempbellt 7y ago
Does anyone have any suggestions for how we should actually handle situations like these? Kids playing video games and getting very angry at other players online, is going to happen. Is there something that can be done at this level? I remember hearing things back in my high-school COD days. Kids are brutal, and terrible at coping with their emotions. Saying things like "I'll stab you! You ....", at the drop of a hat. I always wrote off these types of threats as a form of venting. But then again, I never shared any personal information with people online. So I wasn't worried. Swatting... This has been going on for quite some time now. Maybe we can start here? Train responders to be aware of these potential scenarios - that the whole thing _could be_ BS, and you should approach the situation open-mindedly, rather than expecting a battle. De-escalation training, etc. Why are police not showing up and assessing the situation first hand these days? Before taking a 911 caller's word as gospel. Assess the situation, on-site. Giving some kid more prison time will not dissuade others. There's a lot of research done to show that negative reinforcement like this doesn't work.
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago
  > Does anyone have any suggestions for how we should actually handle situations like these? You shouldn't be able to call in a hit on someone by calling the cops on them.
- Kenji 7y ago
  It's very simple. Swatting is not a thing in most other countries. Where I live, I'm pretty sure the police would survey the situation and first seek verbal contact (via phone, through the door, through a window, etc.) before storming in. Maybe they'd even nicely knock and ask what's going on. The problem really is the US police. The US police needs to be demilitarised and trained in deescalation. That's all there is to it. The man who died in the case referred in this article was shot for no reason at all except that someone was a bit too trigger happy. No policeman was in any danger at all.
- tastroder 7y ago
  > Does anyone have any suggestions for how we should actually handle situations like these? Mandatory country wide minimal training standards for all LEOs, automatic investigation when a shot is fired, demilitarization, getting rid of trigger happy or clearly racist officers, lowering qualified immunity to a remotely sensible level, it's not like there wouldn't be approaches that work in other countries. Oh and of course doing something about America's gun culture on the other side would be another good start but that's never going to happen either. The best response in the US so far seems to be registering on potential victims lists like in Seattle (https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-stop-swatting-before-it-happens-seattle/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-stop-swatting-before-it-h... - HN discussions exist if you're interested).
makecheck 7y ago
Given the way SWAT currently seems to work, you should know that a fake SWAT call is going to cause serious harm up to and including death, in which case 15 months is far too little. It is up there with “lock someone in a cage with a lion”; sure, technically you didn’t kill them but you knew they would die because of your actions so what is the difference? Also, let us take a serious look at every other charge in existence in cases like this. If 15 months is the sentence for something resulting in death, every other lesser offence should be capped at 15 months. Illegally voted? Caught with drugs? Why are those things “5 years” then? Finally, clearly SWAT itself needs reform. If you’re going to pack a dozen armed guys in a truck and drive over to somebody’s house to blast down the door, YOU NEED a system of double-checks and triple-checks to assess the damned situation first! Given such checks, it should be literally impossible to assault someone that is not actually a threat.
- donclark 7y ago
  This. Is there a lawsuit against the SWAT team? And if not, why?
- me_me_me 7y ago
  Being devils advocate here. > it should be literally impossible to assault someone that is not actually a threat. The swatting person usually claims that there is armed person with intent to kill. The SWAT guys come in quick and into potentially very serious situation with no time for 'surveillance'. But that's not really all that strong of argument. edit: layout
mgraczyk 7y ago
Another noteworthy but unmentioned fact is that the victim's niece recently committed suicide, an event which the family claims was caused by her witnessing the shooting.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  More context: she had been living with the victim since 2002. So they likely knew each other well at least.
_edo 7y ago
The anti-cop sentiment in this thread is disturbing. I live in a bad neighborhood where gunshots are common. Since I've lived here there have probably been dozens of homicides within a .5 mile radius. Living here has changed my perception of officer involved shootings. People don't realize how quickly things go from a slightly weird situation to bullets in the air. It goes from somebody standing funny, maybe they have a hand behind their back or they're holding a towel in a weird way, then bullets. Fast. A quarter of a second separates "that's weird" from "oh no somebody's shooting." If you've ever dropped your phone and had to figure out what to do before it hits the ground that's about as much time as police have to make these life-and-death decisions. In this particular situation, the police believed they were arriving to a hostage situation where somebody had already been killed. What happened is tragic. If you've ever dug into this story it's heartbreaking. At the same time I don't think the anger at police lines up with what happened here at all.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  While there are people who think all cops are bad (ACAB group), most people are upset that most departments are using military gear simple because they can. A hostage doesn’t require a SWAT team most of the time.
- sunburned 7y ago
  Game wardens routinely interact with (write tickets, arrest) heavily-armed males in the middle of the woods with no witnesses and no backup, and they do it day in and day out without shooting an innocent.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  You clearly didn't watch the video of the shooting. You really think a police officer was in danger in that situation, even if the guy did have a pistol?
  - _edo 7y ago

56 points by hsnewman 7y ago

And the cop who shot a man who was no threat gets what? At the very, very least it's a gross failure to do his job the way he's paid to do it and his employment should be up for review. Don't get me wrong, swatting is bad for a bunch of obvious reasons and the swatter is the one with the malicious intent here but if we had a more professional police force (you'd think the swat team, supposedly the most highly trained cops, would have a little more restraint with the trigger finger) it would end this way a lot less often. Cops showing up expecting something where there is nothing should not result in anybody dying, it should result in confused cops and little more. This is very much a two part problem. If the cops didn't have an itchy trigger finger swatting wouldn't lead to outcomes like this.

almost_usual 7y ago
I had a friend whose dad took a shotgun blast to the face entering a home serving a search warrant. It's not uncommon. The officer is acting on the facts that are presented to them. This isn't a domestic violence call or an assault call. It's a call instructing the police that someone is armed and a threat to those around them.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  The fact that it's a "serious call" doesn't excuse shooting him on sight. Shooting people on sight is totally inappropriate ROE for a civilian police force in any situation.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Was it a no knock raid? Context matters. If you break into someones home then it's perfect legal for them to shoot you in most states. It doesn't matter if you're a police officer or not.
- webkike 7y ago
  Sure, but it seems weird to prioritize the life of the police officer over the people they are sworn to protect. Policing is inherently dangerous. Sitting at home playing video games should not
  - happytoexplain 7y ago
    This is one of the most important points to me, and I rarely see it discussed. Defenders of killings by police usually point to the officer's feelings of safety and right to defend themselves using what seem to be the same standards as any average civilian. If you gave me a gun and put me in a dangerous situation I might pull the trigger when I didn't absolutely need to out of fear, and it might be totally reasonable for me to do that. That's why I'm not a police officer. We have a profession where part of the job description involves the possibility of shooting civilians to death, and we are somehow unable or unwilling to get tough and establish a bar of professionalism commensurate with such an extraordinary job description.
  - almost_usual 7y ago
    >Sure, but it seems weird to prioritize the life of the police officer over the people they are sworn to protect. If the officer doesn't engage out of caution and an innocent person in the residence (non officer) dies is that still ok?
    - webkike 7y ago
      How often does that happen? I can make the same argument about killing literally anyone because they might kill other people.
      - almost_usual 7y ago
        >I can make the same argument about killing literally anyone because they might kill other people. This feels like a slippery slope fallacy.
        7y ago
- weego 7y ago
  It's actually far less common than the various narratives would lead you to assume.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- fucking_tragedy 7y ago
  If soldiers in an active war zone can follow their rules of engagement and resist shooting civilians even though they're scared, so can cops.
  - rmrfrmrf 7y ago
    is there evidence that soldiers follow their rules of engagement?
    - jacobush 7y ago
      This is what I've always heard. I am sure the amount of violations is higher in absolute numbers, given that it's war and a lot of things. Anecdotally I've also heard former military police officers are the best de-escalators.
      - jacobush 7y ago
        ... and thinking about it, I think the difference is this: "At home", the police already has control over the land. They have "won" almost by default. No opponent can challenge them, or have any interest in seriously taking them on. The military, on the other hand often operates where they are instructed to "win the hearts and minds" and if they don't get local support, things can go very badly for them. Which gives, it's unfortunate police not more often tries to "win hearts and minds".
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  To me it seems that the police who killed the civilian is not any better than the one who killed the father of your friend. (In fact, he seems worse because at least the dude that killed your friend's father could use the "castle doctrine" defence)
- inscionent 7y ago
  Knowing a situation is dangerous is not an excuse for opening fire on an unidentified target.
mcny 7y ago
> Cops showing up expecting something where there is nothing should not result in anybody dying, it should result in confused cops and little more. I completely agree. I also think the man who "hired deadly swatting" should be immediately released with an apology from the society.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  The person who did this clearly did something that they knew was wrong, and that ended in somebody dying.
  - mcny 7y ago
    > The person who did this clearly did something that they knew was wrong, and that ended in somebody dying. Whether they did it knowingly or not does not matter in this case. I still think this exposes a systemic problem that we need to address at a systems level. This feels like monkey patching if (x !== null) {} to "fix" a null pointer exception on something that should never have been null in the first place. In this case. there should have been no shots fired at all. I am not even saying the officer who shot should go to prison. I am just saying maybe the officer who shot shouldn't have had a gun or been there in the first place. They clearly didn't have proper training. Sending the person who made the phone call to prison solves nothing. We have blameless postmortems for us. Why can't we have blameless postmortems in these cases which are more life and death? We don't live in an "eye for an eye" society, do we?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      > We don't live in an "eye for an eye" society, do we? I disagree strongly with your characterization of this. The caller clearly knew what he was doing wrong (we can argue whether it was reasonable to assume that it would be responded to with lethal force, but that is not what you’re discussing). Likewise, the reaction of the police officer in this situation may have been a problem, but again it’s not relevant to the issue of willfully lying about a hostage situation to, at the minimum, waste the time of law enforcement and the SWATed person. Consider, for example, a residential street where the speed limit is 5 mph: it’s pretty hard for anyone to get seriously injured in an accident if vehicles follow the rules. But if a car decides to barrel down the road at highway speeds, I’m not off the hook if I push you in front of the it. I can’t just say “I’m innocent, because you couldn’t have died if everyone followed the rules” and get out of it. I’d probably still be liable if I didn’t see the car coming. Just because someone may have done something illegally that made my actions worse does not absolve me from wrongdoing; it just makes it so there are two problems to deal with.

dsr_ 7y ago

Remind me what the sentence was for the police officer in Wichita who murdered Andrew Finch? When the police are trained to de-escalate first instead of shoot first, swatting will stop.

davidw 7y ago
There's tons of room to improve the police. However, in a country with so many weapons, they're always going to be a bit more quick to fire due to a fear for their own safety. You can downvote all you want, but the statistics are that police are much more likely to face someone with a weapon in the US.
- ergothus 7y ago
  > the statistics are that police are much more likely to face someone with a weapon in the US. Absolutely. And one reason we're supposed to respect the police is that they take these risks. If they instead start shooting people first, they aren't taking the risks, they are creating them. Being a police officer interacting with citizens is more dangerous than being a citizen...but is it more dangerous than being a citizen interacting with the police?
  - davidw 7y ago
    A swat call is someone telling the police that there's an armed and dangerous person on the other side of the door. That's not one of the instances of police, say, choking a guy selling cigarettes to death. It's a situation where even someone courageous is going to be pretty amped up.
    - Miner49er 7y ago
      Have you even watched the video of the shooting? Being amped up wasn't an excuse here. There was multiple cops aiming rifles at this guy, who was raising his hands when he was shot. The officer that shot him said he saw him move his hands at that's why he shot him. Even if the guy had a gun, there was no way he would've had time to raise it, aim it accurately (at cops who were behind cover) and take a shot without police being able to fire at him first after clearly seeing it was a gun. Plus, at that distance, he wasn't likely to hit a cop who was behind cover with a pistol anyway, even if he was able to shoot many shots.

psychometry 7y ago

Great. When do we lock up the cop who shot an innocent, unarmed man?

Bootwizard 7y ago
Which cop?
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  We don't know because they won't release his name now that they declined to press charges! Evidently after they declined to release his name he testified in the case. Name below is correct. Justin Rapp. Coincidentally, there's a videographer in the search results for the name. The blurb below the URL says "About Me Justin Rapp 2019-05-16T13:29:49-07:00. BORN TO SHOOT THE WORLD AROUND ME" Bad luck there bud...
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Justin Rapp
umvi 7y ago
As soon as we lock up programmers who pushed code that made apps more addictive which, spread over millions of users, led to depression and suicide.
- taxidump 7y ago
  That's quite a conclusion. This relationship between a programmer and a man who was shot during a swatting seems off. Would it be the gas station's fault who provided gas to the police vehicle en-route? A police officer using deadly force without any potential to be harmed himself is where the failure lies.
  - moate 7y ago
    His point is that guns don't kill people, people don't kill people, people telling people to tell people that there's people killing people are who kill people. It is a very weak point to make.

geddy 7y ago

This doesn't feel like enough to discourage others from doing this, so what's even the point? Accessory to murder is 15 months now? Someone died from this! Also, what about the cop who shot him?

wetpaws 7y ago
The right question is not why it was punished so lightly, but rather why it was even possible in a first place.
- RalfWausE 7y ago
  It was possible because some humans are ugly creatures who like to make the life of others miserable
c0nducktr 7y ago
Yeah, the police officer should really be facing some sort of punishment as well. They were responding to what they thought was a hostage situation, and shot the first person to walk out of the house. Even if it was a real hostage situation, why assume the first person out is the hostage taker, and not a hostage?
- jacobush 7y ago
  Also, must you always shoot the hostage taker at first sight? 1) if possible, shouldn't the court mete out the death sentence, instead of Judge Dredd, I mean, the police. 2) even from a completely tactical viewpoint, if you are dealing with more than one hostage taker, and you shot one of them, wouldn't you suspect the remaining hostage takers could get a little spooked?
  - c0nducktr 7y ago
    Yeah, pretty much every part of this was mishandled. With all the blame being placed on the person who placed the call, I don't have any faith that this same situation won't be repeated in the future either.

rwmurrayVT 7y ago

12 months 3 weeks after good time and probably 2-4 months in a halfway house. If he's been without bail then he will get time served and go from there. Otherwise he'll be out in less than a year from when he self-surrenders to federal prison.

jacobush 7y ago
That part is actually a good thing, you should encourage things that reduces recidivism. Edit: I meant getting out before the full sentence is served, is a good thing. (I don't know anything about federal halfway houses.)
- rwmurrayVT 7y ago
  I am in a federal halfway house. Nothing about federal prison reduces recidivism.

hi41 7y ago

The victim is a father of two. Oh my God. What a terrible tragedy.

mnm1 7y ago

I expect cops to not shoot unarmed, innocent men but clearly that's too much to expect and I live in a fantasy world. How come this doesn't happen in other countries despite their police also carrying guns? Are US police that evil? Stupid? Scared? Scum? Or all of the above? Because there is no excuse for this officer doing what he did nor for the prosecutor not prosecuting. This is what we call justice in America?

marcosdumay 7y ago
This happens in every country. Its rate varies.
- mnm1 7y ago
  Yeah but the rate is what matters. The US kills more people in days than some other countries do in years. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-...

seamyb88 7y ago

This is a lot of America's problems in one story.

kempbellt 7y ago

Does anyone have any suggestions for how we should actually handle situations like these? Kids playing video games and getting very angry at other players online, is going to happen. Is there something that can be done at this level? I remember hearing things back in my high-school COD days. Kids are brutal, and terrible at coping with their emotions. Saying things like "I'll stab you! You ....", at the drop of a hat. I always wrote off these types of threats as a form of venting. But then again, I never shared any personal information with people online. So I wasn't worried. Swatting... This has been going on for quite some time now. Maybe we can start here? Train responders to be aware of these potential scenarios - that the whole thing _could be_ BS, and you should approach the situation open-mindedly, rather than expecting a battle. De-escalation training, etc. Why are police not showing up and assessing the situation first hand these days? Before taking a 911 caller's word as gospel. Assess the situation, on-site. Giving some kid more prison time will not dissuade others. There's a lot of research done to show that negative reinforcement like this doesn't work.

fucking_tragedy 7y ago
> Does anyone have any suggestions for how we should actually handle situations like these? You shouldn't be able to call in a hit on someone by calling the cops on them.
Kenji 7y ago
It's very simple. Swatting is not a thing in most other countries. Where I live, I'm pretty sure the police would survey the situation and first seek verbal contact (via phone, through the door, through a window, etc.) before storming in. Maybe they'd even nicely knock and ask what's going on. The problem really is the US police. The US police needs to be demilitarised and trained in deescalation. That's all there is to it. The man who died in the case referred in this article was shot for no reason at all except that someone was a bit too trigger happy. No policeman was in any danger at all.
tastroder 7y ago
> Does anyone have any suggestions for how we should actually handle situations like these? Mandatory country wide minimal training standards for all LEOs, automatic investigation when a shot is fired, demilitarization, getting rid of trigger happy or clearly racist officers, lowering qualified immunity to a remotely sensible level, it's not like there wouldn't be approaches that work in other countries. Oh and of course doing something about America's gun culture on the other side would be another good start but that's never going to happen either. The best response in the US so far seems to be registering on potential victims lists like in Seattle (https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-stop-swatting-before-it-happens-seattle/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-stop-swatting-before-it-h... - HN discussions exist if you're interested).

makecheck 7y ago

Given the way SWAT currently seems to work, you should know that a fake SWAT call is going to cause serious harm up to and including death, in which case 15 months is far too little. It is up there with “lock someone in a cage with a lion”; sure, technically you didn’t kill them but you knew they would die because of your actions so what is the difference? Also, let us take a serious look at every other charge in existence in cases like this. If 15 months is the sentence for something resulting in death, every other lesser offence should be capped at 15 months. Illegally voted? Caught with drugs? Why are those things “5 years” then? Finally, clearly SWAT itself needs reform. If you’re going to pack a dozen armed guys in a truck and drive over to somebody’s house to blast down the door, YOU NEED a system of double-checks and triple-checks to assess the damned situation first! Given such checks, it should be literally impossible to assault someone that is not actually a threat.

donclark 7y ago
This. Is there a lawsuit against the SWAT team? And if not, why?
me_me_me 7y ago
Being devils advocate here. > it should be literally impossible to assault someone that is not actually a threat. The swatting person usually claims that there is armed person with intent to kill. The SWAT guys come in quick and into potentially very serious situation with no time for 'surveillance'. But that's not really all that strong of argument. edit: layout

mgraczyk 7y ago

Another noteworthy but unmentioned fact is that the victim's niece recently committed suicide, an event which the family claims was caused by her witnessing the shooting.

Miner49er 7y ago
More context: she had been living with the victim since 2002. So they likely knew each other well at least.

_edo 7y ago

The anti-cop sentiment in this thread is disturbing. I live in a bad neighborhood where gunshots are common. Since I've lived here there have probably been dozens of homicides within a .5 mile radius. Living here has changed my perception of officer involved shootings. People don't realize how quickly things go from a slightly weird situation to bullets in the air. It goes from somebody standing funny, maybe they have a hand behind their back or they're holding a towel in a weird way, then bullets. Fast. A quarter of a second separates "that's weird" from "oh no somebody's shooting." If you've ever dropped your phone and had to figure out what to do before it hits the ground that's about as much time as police have to make these life-and-death decisions. In this particular situation, the police believed they were arriving to a hostage situation where somebody had already been killed. What happened is tragic. If you've ever dug into this story it's heartbreaking. At the same time I don't think the anger at police lines up with what happened here at all.

deleted 7y ago
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colejohnson66 7y ago
While there are people who think all cops are bad (ACAB group), most people are upset that most departments are using military gear simple because they can. A hostage doesn’t require a SWAT team most of the time.
sunburned 7y ago
Game wardens routinely interact with (write tickets, arrest) heavily-armed males in the middle of the woods with no witnesses and no backup, and they do it day in and day out without shooting an innocent.
Miner49er 7y ago
You clearly didn't watch the video of the shooting. You really think a police officer was in danger in that situation, even if the guy did have a pistol?
- _edo 7y ago