4 ms·

Yes, but a big contributing factor is that the police in the US have a militarized wing, even in small towns. SWAT teams probably only need to exist in large ci

by trangus_1985 5y ago

Yes, but a big contributing factor is that the police in the US have a militarized wing, even in small towns. SWAT teams probably only need to exist in large cities, and even then, should rarely be utilized.

whimsicalism 5y ago
I don't see how this is a solution. I agree rarely should be utilized, but they certainly should be utilized if someone is being held hostage in their home or something like that. This is what SWATters capitalize on.
- wpietri 5y ago
  The problem is that people are only good at things that they do regularly (and often not even then). There are a lot of stories out there of terrible SWAT incidents or SWAT being deployed to to situations where it isn't warranted. Building up a militarized unit in a place that doesn't have much call for it creates a tendency to unnecessary use of force. Chekov's gunmen, basically.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    So, because police aren't practiced at responding often to hostage incidents - they should just not send anyone at all? Ultimately, you're going to have to have people deal with hostage situations, heavily armed organized crime, etc.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Not at all. If your interpretation of somebody's words yields nonsense, you should probably try for another interpretation.
      - whimsicalism 5y ago
        I'm honestly trying to read between the lines because you are leaving too much unsaid. What are you proposing is done if the police receive a call that seems to be from someone in a house saying there is someone taking their family hostage who says they are going to kill them? How should we address irregular crimes that can require a rapid response?
        wpietri 5y ago
        I'm not proposing anything in particular. I'm saying that treating things like a unverified phone call as requiring a rushed militarized response tends to lead to military outcomes, and this problem is exacerbated when you create militarized units in jurisdictions that don't have enough serious incidents that they can get good at it. We can look in contrast at the British approach to policing where most cops are unarmed. What armed response units they have are highly trained and very closely supervised. The outcome? American cops kill people at 60x the rate English cops do. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ The US has a big problem with "We must do something! And rushing in with heavy force is something!" thinking. It's the same with car chases. For decades reformers have been slowly winding down the car chase because they have heavy collateral damage: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-high-speed-car-chase-deaths.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-h...
        curryst 5y ago
        We should centralize the "heavy response teams" until we hit a level of aggregation where they are being deployed relatively frequently (over a large area) and it makes sense to give them a lot of very specific training on those scenarios. Frankly, the National Guard is a fairly compelling option here for most states. There are already existing bases, they train in hostile shooter scenarios frequently, and they already have access to all the gear SWAT claims they need. National average SWAT response time is an hour. Helicopters fly about 160mph. One military base could provide support for a lot of cities at once.
        wpietri 5y ago
paxys 5y ago
Exactly. Small town police departments, officers with little to no training, fancy military equipment at their disposal that they are itching to use. There's no wonder that so many random routine police encounters are escalated to injury or death.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  It's somewhat tangential since this case didn't involve SWAT or the sheriffs, but I found this picture a bit comical: https://i.redd.it/63q17e7gfmb71.jpg https://i.redd.it/63q17e7gfmb71.jpg The entire county has a population of about 166k.
tptacek 5y ago
That can't be a contributing factor here, since it doesn't appear that a SWAT team responded to this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ngngngng 5y ago
How else are we supposed to arrest people high on Marijuana?

whimsicalism 5y ago

I don't see how this is a solution. I agree rarely should be utilized, but they certainly should be utilized if someone is being held hostage in their home or something like that. This is what SWATters capitalize on.

wpietri 5y ago
The problem is that people are only good at things that they do regularly (and often not even then). There are a lot of stories out there of terrible SWAT incidents or SWAT being deployed to to situations where it isn't warranted. Building up a militarized unit in a place that doesn't have much call for it creates a tendency to unnecessary use of force. Chekov's gunmen, basically.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  So, because police aren't practiced at responding often to hostage incidents - they should just not send anyone at all? Ultimately, you're going to have to have people deal with hostage situations, heavily armed organized crime, etc.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Not at all. If your interpretation of somebody's words yields nonsense, you should probably try for another interpretation.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      I'm honestly trying to read between the lines because you are leaving too much unsaid. What are you proposing is done if the police receive a call that seems to be from someone in a house saying there is someone taking their family hostage who says they are going to kill them? How should we address irregular crimes that can require a rapid response?
      - wpietri 5y ago
        I'm not proposing anything in particular. I'm saying that treating things like a unverified phone call as requiring a rushed militarized response tends to lead to military outcomes, and this problem is exacerbated when you create militarized units in jurisdictions that don't have enough serious incidents that they can get good at it. We can look in contrast at the British approach to policing where most cops are unarmed. What armed response units they have are highly trained and very closely supervised. The outcome? American cops kill people at 60x the rate English cops do. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ The US has a big problem with "We must do something! And rushing in with heavy force is something!" thinking. It's the same with car chases. For decades reformers have been slowly winding down the car chase because they have heavy collateral damage: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-high-speed-car-chase-deaths.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/police-pursuit-h...
      - curryst 5y ago
        We should centralize the "heavy response teams" until we hit a level of aggregation where they are being deployed relatively frequently (over a large area) and it makes sense to give them a lot of very specific training on those scenarios. Frankly, the National Guard is a fairly compelling option here for most states. There are already existing bases, they train in hostile shooter scenarios frequently, and they already have access to all the gear SWAT claims they need. National average SWAT response time is an hour. Helicopters fly about 160mph. One military base could provide support for a lot of cities at once.
        wpietri 5y ago

paxys 5y ago

Exactly. Small town police departments, officers with little to no training, fancy military equipment at their disposal that they are itching to use. There's no wonder that so many random routine police encounters are escalated to injury or death.

threatofrain 5y ago
It's somewhat tangential since this case didn't involve SWAT or the sheriffs, but I found this picture a bit comical: https://i.redd.it/63q17e7gfmb71.jpg https://i.redd.it/63q17e7gfmb71.jpg The entire county has a population of about 166k.

tptacek 5y ago

That can't be a contributing factor here, since it doesn't appear that a SWAT team responded to this.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ngngngng 5y ago

How else are we supposed to arrest people high on Marijuana?