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I know this is a stale take at this point, but seems like part of the problem is the eagerness of US police agencies to respond with full SWAT units on the basi
by sneed_chucker 3y ago
I know this is a stale take at this point, but seems like part of the problem is the eagerness of US police agencies to respond with full SWAT units on the basis of a single phone call
- dmonitor 3y agothe amount of property damage and risk of death that comes from just a single phone call is honestly terrifying.
- Supermancho 3y agoThe alternative is a dystopian slippery slope. ie Please press 4 if you think they have a weapon.
- rdlw 3y agoThe current situation is literally the BOTTOM of a slippery slope.
- pessimizer 3y ago"Make an anonymous phone call if you would like the state to murder someone!" Of course totalitarians want to solve it by making sure no one can make an anonymous phone call.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dymk 3y agoCrazy opinion, but I don't think someone should be able to call in an emergency where a SWAT team might show up, without having that be tracked back to you. This isn't the state proactively keeping tabs on its citizens, it's asking for traceability when somebody initiates an action that might put lives at risk.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoit's clearly an "anything but reducing cop presence and power" strategy and cover
- zirgs 3y agoIt's possible to call emergency numbers without a SIM card. So the caller could use a disposable dumb phone that he bought on a flea market or whatever. The best info the cops could get would be the approximate location of the caller. Good luck with that.
- dymk 3y agoGood luck with what? If a call can’t be authenticated, don’t send deadly force.
- Supermancho 3y agoThe expectation that an emergency can be signaled from a single phone call is reasonable (barely one step up from shouting "help"). Objecting the resulting behavior of the emergency response is not relevant to the predictably effective practice.
- mike_hock 3y agoReport burglary in progress > Sign in with Google > Sign in with Facebook > Create an account
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoWhen SWAT was first instituted, the idea was that it would only be used for high-stakes situations. The Grubulanese Liberation Army has taken 33 hostages at the First Asshole Bank, and are threatening to kill one every 10 minutes until their demands are met. Now SWAT teams are used to serve warrants in residential neighborhoods.
- krustyburger 3y agoThe funny thing is even in that sort of hostage scenario, they’re much better off sending Jack Slater in instead of a SWAT team.
- Vecr 3y agoWho's that? Obviously the Hostage Rescue Team exists, but most hostage situations don't last for days and getting a specific group of people across the country to the scene is harder than getting a team there that's already in the city.
- dylan604 3y agoAre they really sending in the actual SWAT, or are the regular cops just now so well armed and body armored up they look like SWAT to civies?
- themitigating 3y agoWhat's the difference?
- dylan604 3y agoa whole lot of difference, and it's sad you even have to ask. actual cops dressed up don't actually have the training SWAT does. everyone forgets the And Tactics part of the acronym and just focuses on special weapons part, but street cops aren't going to have those tactics. they're just going to have big gun with armor and giant egos and possibly scared shitless and prone to make mistakes.
- pessimizer 3y agoCops don't kill people, phone calls kill people.
- wahnfrieden 3y agothe police who enter homes and shoot, are each individual humans carrying out the act
- throw_m239339 3y agoThis is why Swatting is a crime that should severely punished, like attempted murder or harsher. I know it's not going to solve how the police handles interventions like these, and people lost their lives as the result of these actions but it's clearly people trying to murder others via cops... these aren't pranks. But yeah, we need to rethink certain police protocols as well...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoI think this misses the point entirely. If the police can be used to commit a crime akin to murder, maybe it's not the criminal we should be worried about so much as the police.
- throw_m239339 3y ago> I think this misses the point entirely. No it doesn't miss any point entirey. I said > But yeah, we need to rethink certain police protocols as well...
- ttyprintk 3y agoI think the article misses that point. Somewhere toward the middle, more mental health professionals to understand the swatter. No thanks, not on my dime. Send the mental health professionals to the swatted house where they can relaxedly see nothing is wrong.
- hackerlight 3y agoIf someone hires a hitman to pull the trigger, that someone is an integral part of the chain of causality leading to the murder, and that should be criminal.
- CyberDildonics 3y agoWhy are the police synonymous with "hitmen" ?
- 3y ago
- biofunsf 3y agoImagine a 911 operator gets a phone call that goes like this: - 911, what is your emergency? - Help me oh god! ... My husband he's going crazy he got a shotgun and is threatening to shoot my kids he... - [garble garble] - [Distant voice of a man] "get the fuck off that phone" - [Loud bang] - [Line clicks and goes silent] The 911 operator can try to call back to get confirmation, but a lack of response just underscores the seriousness of the situation. If the police didn't rush over in full SWAT gear, ready to save the lives of children, they'd be the ones l̶i̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ berated in the media for not taking a clear imminent threat to life seriously. Though I doubt fake swatting calls are so well produced. edit: In this situation, whether real or not, obviously the police shouldn't murder people. If this was real, they should first exhaust their non-lethal options for keeping the crazy husband from murdering children. If it's a fake swatting call or the wrong address, they should discover that and especially not murder people. But in response to the parent's point about the police being eager to rush over from a single phone call, this seems like a 20 second phone call where they have no ethical choice but to rush over. How they behave when they arrive is a different topic from what I'm responding to.
- pessimizer 3y agoThey don't have to murder people with no physical corroboration of the phone call at all. That's on them. What if it were a legitimate anonymous phone call with a transposition of the numbers of an address, or if the cops just accidentally went down the wrong street? Should people die then, or should we think that's a problem?
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoThe have only called 911 twice, once when a neighbor was waving a pistol around yelling at his wife (cops came, de-escalated things a little, then left - better than shooting someone clearly, if not exactly perfect). The other time I saw smoke pouring out from under the eaves of the house across the street - in that case, the firefighters roared up, jumped out, and busted in my front door (in spite of the fact there wasn't any smoke or flames) so I clearly see why people are worried about first responders charging in without understanding the situation.
- chongli 3y agoThe phone calls that lead to a SWAT team response typically involve a claim that a person has a gun and is holding their partner hostage inside the house/apartment. Asking police to not take such calls extremely seriously is not a solution. It’s like asking the fire department not to show up every time someone pulls a fire alarm in a building. Even if it’s some misbehaving kid who loves pulling the fire alarm, they still have to show up because if they ignore it even once and it happens to be a real fire then people will die.
- sciolist 3y agoWhat's missing from your example is that the firefighters would sometimes respond to a false alarm but set the house on fire. That's what people are concerned about.
- Sohcahtoa82 3y agoIt's a DANGEROUS take. The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. I think the real solution is that SWAT teams need to be especially trained on the fact that swatting is a thing, and to try to recognize when they're in a swatting incident.
- slotrans 3y ago> The alternative is that police come into a scenario potentially unequipped to handle an actual violent situation. Police are now trained to treat EVERY situation as potentially violent, no matter how innocuous or factually safe. They assume everyone they interact with is a lethal threat. > I think the real solution is that SWAT teams need to be especially trained on the fact that swatting is a thing, and to try to recognize when they're in a swatting incident. That would require humility, which police don't have, because again they are trained to immediately escalate and use violence to control every situation.
- jfengel 3y agoThey have to treat every situation as violent. On average, every American owns a gun. There is no encounter with the police that doesn't run a genuine risk of becoming deadly in seconds. The rest of the civilized world has decided that this isn't a good way to live. But here in America we want to be 100% certain George III isn't coming back, and if the cost of that is unarmed people occasionally murdered by the people assigned to protect them, that's just the way it is.
- senojsitruc 3y agoThis is a hysterical take when every interaction with a cop involves interacting with someone who has a gun, but clearly that’s okay…? Because cops are always peaceful and judicious?
- jfengel 3y agoThat's the point. Cops have guns because we have guns. Other countries don't arm every cop all the time, so every encounter isn't a potential standoff. We face every cop knowing that he is jumpy and checking your every move.
- dmbche 3y agoI don't know the contents of the calls, but if the call is talking about someone armed keeping someone in the house, or someone barricading themselves, swat is the correct response. I think this is just a symptom of having so many weapons around, getting calls about dangerous gun owners is routine and resorting to swat is more "routine" than anywhere else.