Man Updates His Facebook Status During Hostage Stand-Off

36-year-old Jason Valdez wouldn't let a little thing like a SWAT team keep him from updating his Facebook status. During a 16 hour hostage stand-off in an Utah motel, Valdez made sure to update his Facebook page with things like, "Got a cute 'Hostage' huh?" He even got help from friends who posted the location of SWAT members outside.

Comments

Obstruction?

[LordStormes]

Love to see the "helpful" comment-leavers charged with obstruction of justice. Had this guy been a little more deranged, he could have easily picked off said cops given the positions given out by his buddies.

Re:Obstruction?

[swanzilla]

Easily pick off a SWAT cop? Body armor, assault rifles, and shotguns may beg to differ.

Re:Obstruction?

[jdpars]

You haven't played the latest Call of Duty? Tells you just how to do it.

Re:Obstruction?

[caerwyn]

He fired shots during the standoff, as he reported in one of the status updates.

Re:Obstruction?

[Dogtanian]

Easily pick off a SWAT cop? Body armor, assault rifles, and shotguns may beg to differ.

You haven't played the latest Call of Duty? Tells you just how to do it.

Because video games are *such* an excellent guide to real life combat.

It's not Call of Duty this guy has been using to train, it's *this* hostage/kidnap simulator.

Re:Obstruction?

[MBGMorden]

The question is whether those shots were directed at the police, or were just warning shots over their heads.

"Warning shots" still count as a shot towards the individual, and are NEVER justified. Even for a person legally carrying a firearm and acting in self defense, if it comes time to shoot, you're supposed to aim to hit. Warning shots even in such a situation will, at best, tend to draw an "Illegal discharge of a firearm." charge. Simple reason being that those bullets go somewhere. You are responsible for them. If you're not shooting at a specified target with intentions to hit it then you have no damned business putting those bullets into motion in the first place, as you've just upped the possibility greatly of striking an innocent bystander.

Re:Obstruction?

[PickyH3D]

You don't get to fire warning shorts toward someone and say it's something other than firing at them. To be a warning shot, it must have been shot in their direction. The danger with shooting a gun, in any direction, in a motel really shouldn't need to be explained to anyone.

Re:Obstruction?

[gman003]

Correction: Body armor rarely stops rifle rounds. Most body armor will protect against pistol bullets, shotgun pellets, or artillery/grenade fragments. Even most military body armor is relatively useless against rifle rounds - police armor, definitely not. SWAT, perhaps, has armor that can stop an AK47 round (a rather slow-moving round for a rifle), but a common 5.56mm or 5.45mm will go right through it. And you can forget about any of the heavier rounds - there is NOTHING that will save you from a (civilian-legal in the US) .50BMG round, save being somewhere else while the shooting is going on.

Body armor's not magic. It can save you from a lot of stuff, the kind of stuff police and armies commonly encounter. Pistols - lightweight bullets, at relatively low velocity, and often designed to fragment on impact - are common and easy to protect from, since they have such low momentum to stop. Artillery kills mainly by fragments, which are also easily stopped. Same for grenades - movies and games massively understate the range on them: a fragmentation grenade can often kill someone half a football field away, if the tiny shards of metal fly in the right direction. But rifles? The most common light rifle round, 5.56x45mm, has 1800 joules of energy. The most common pistol round, 9x19mm, has 570-700 J, depending on make. That's a whole lot more energy to stop, and it's concentrated into a much smaller area (24mm^2 instead of 63mm^2).

Re:Obstruction?

[chaboud]

I dunno. Then we start charging people for saying "hey, the police are trying to bust you" or "hey, there's a speed trap up ahead."

Sharing tactical information that can be publicly seen should *not* be a crime. It quickly turns into a complete police state (if it hasn't already). Disclosing the positions of police officers with no malice aforethought does not attempted murder make.

Re:Obstruction?

[Cederic]

I dunno. Then we start charging people for saying "hey, the police are trying to bust you" or "hey, there's a speed trap up ahead."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343959/Driver-flashed-headlights-warn-motorists-speed-trap-fined.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4569124.stm

Re:Obstruction?

[x6060]

Hello, There are some good information and bad information in your post. 1. SOFT body armor will not stop rifle rounds. Kevlar is virtually worthless (alone) against rifle rounds. Soft armor (assuming Level IIIA here) will stop most rounds up to and including .44 Magnum (Excluding a few rounds like 5.7mm and 7.62x25) rounds that are FMJ or JHP and of normal velocities. They will NOT stop anything steel cored. 2. SWAT and the military both employ Hard armor as well as soft armor. These are typically either steel plates or ceramic plates. They will either be rated for single impact or multiple impact and whether they are assisted panels or not (If they need to be assisted it means you HAVE to have a soft vest on under the plate or it will NOT stop a rifle round). These plates tend to ONLY cover a small portion of your body though, usually just your vitals as the plates are typically only 10x8 inches in size. (and youll typically have one in front and back) 3. A 7.62x39 round (The round used in the AK47) is actually MUCH harder to stop then your typical 5.56x45 (assuming it is an XM193 round [not steel cored]) round. It is a heavier round that does NOT fragment, however the wounding characteristics are not that great. The majority of the US military uses a XM193 round that fragments on impact making it easier to stop. The Russian 5.45 round is kind of weird and not a very effective round as its wounding method is to yaw inside its target, which means the temporary and permanent crush cavities are not spectacular, though it is decent at penetrating armor. 4. Grenades and Artillery actually try to kill with the concussive force (thats why the range is stated as being shorter) and fragmentation is the secondary wounding method. (If its going to throw chunks of deadly metal everywhere then you might as well capitalize on it.)

Re:Obstruction?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

You don't even need to go all the way up to the .50BMG, any standard full power hunting round will do. Think things like .30-06, .308, .303, 7.62x54r, 300 Winchester magnum. Regular police body armor won't stop things like the .223 (5.56x45), 7.62x39, or .30-30 which are all fairly common hunting round for things up to white tail deer. Even S.W.A.T. armor would have issues with some of those especially with multiple shots fired. Add to the mix shotgun slugs which even if they are stopped by the armor (very unlikely if sabots are being used) will still cause serious damage. With this about all body armor is good against is are the common handgun rounds. The big handgun rounds offer power close to that of a rifle and would be almost* a hard for body armor to deal with. Luckily for law enforcement most criminals use handguns that are .38acp, 9mm, or .45acp as these are common for a semi auto pistol.

Re:Obstruction?

[NineSprings]

Correction -- XM193 denotes a QC rejected M193 round, which is a 55 grain 5.56mm FMJ ball round. It is no longer issued in the majority of brnaches/units The most common 5.56 round now is the M855 green tip -- 62 grain FMJ round with a steel core. Now sounds like M855A1 is the next large scale (minor gain) switch.

Re:Obstruction?

[Matheus]

And this post (and parent) are *exactly why i like to read /.

In every situation you'll get a wonderful combination of crazy ranting lunatics AND people who actually know what they are talking about. About literally every topic, this is true.

Re:Obstruction?

[x6060]

Yes, those rounds would be good against soft armor. But a Level IV ceramic plate could stop any of those rounds (with the exception of the .50 round)

My plates are rated to stop anything up to and including a 30.06 steel core (most people call it Armor Piercing, but that isnt technically correct) multiple times.

Re:Obstruction?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

This is why I hate the whole concept of warning shots, or brandishing a weapon. It is a great way to get someone hurt or killed.

I try to explain to people who don't know much about guns that I don't believe in accidental shooting in 99.99% of cases because is actually negligence. The remaining few are truly accidental shooting even once I had a firearm accidentally discharge, but because it is pointed down nothing bad happened other than the dirt got shot. The way it happened was some friends and I were shooting empty pop cans up north and ran the SKS out of ammo. When empty the bold is automatically held open so you can put more ammo in using a stripper clip. I put the safety on, reloaded, and pulled the bold back to close it. We the bolt closed it chambered a round (like it should), but because we had freezing rain (it was only about 25F out side) the firing pin froze forward and struck the primer discharging the round even with the safety on. This only proves why you should only point firearms at things you intend to shoot (or in this case a safe direction).

Re:Obstruction?

[nschubach]

The world at your finger tips and you're too stupid and lazy to use it.

Prove it!

(sorry)

Re:Obstruction?

[gman003]

I didn't want to get into the hunting cartridges, mainly because it makes the math more complicated.

PS: Most common round used by criminals in the US? .22LR. Because it's dirt-cheap (both the guns and the ammo), and generally easy to conceal.

Re:Obstruction?

[FCAdcock]

Just googled them, they cost less than $400. SAPI plates run about 290, and the newer polyethelene ones cost between 400 and 600. You can get the full package (plates, with lv III-a vest) for around 700 online.

Also, small towns don't usually have swat teams, and those that do, have swat team members who wear ceramic plates. Would YOU spend $800 on plates for your vest if it meant the difference between coming home at night or dying in someone's front yard? Most cops aren't as stupid as you think, and the ones who have been around long enough to make their way on to a swat team are even less stupid. They know what bullets do to people, and they do their best to avoid first hand experience. You study computers, doctors study anatomy, swat studies violence...

When you say that it's used "almost exclusively" you're missing some key facts. There are hundreds of millions of soldiers on the planet who wear body armor. There are probably less than 200k SWAT team members world-wide. So yes, the military outnumbers police usage by far, but that's not saying that cops don't have access to them. Hell, assuming that you live in a country that has the word "liberty" in it's constitution, YOU have access to them. They aren't restricted, just expensive considering that they only last 5 years (or until shot).

It's a metaphor.

[blair1q]

Isn't that what we're all doing by posting to /. from work?

Nothing new here.

[Verteiron]

AFK, hostage.

So much for shutting off power.

[sethstorm]

Looks like batteries and internet got around the cops.

Then again, will a hostage situation also require that phone networks go down too?

Re:So much for shutting off power.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I am not a LEO (but work with them), I can say that this is something they all thing about. Now, they don't often cut the power anymore, but they do run what the LEO's I work with call a "Trap and Trace" (I know, wrong term, but that's what they call it), which kills the data/SMS connections and forwards all outbound calls to a special hostage negotiator phone number. It works pretty damn well all things considered. At one convention I attended a vendor demoed a local-area cell jammer, which the FBI rep in the room quickly pointed out wasn't permitted by Local and State LEO's to use, and that only the FBI had permission to use cellular jammers. So... most likely, the Hostage Negotiations team will use the fact that there are cell phones in the room to the advantage, and are really happy when a hostage dials 911 from their phone and leaves an open channel for the Negotiations team to listen in to the room.

Again, Posting AC because I like my friends.

Attempted "suicide by police?" - the next FB feat

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The "if I don't make it out of here alive" comment, the use of such a public forum, shooting at the cops and the eventual self-inflicted shot to the chest make me think he was trying "suicide by police".

$100 says that Facebook will shortly come out with an "emergency channel" that police and other emergency crews can use to "break in" and talk to anyone, regardless of friend status.

Re:Attempted "suicide by police?" - the next FB fe

[Shoten]

Suicide by cop is almost always done without an effective (as in real, or loaded) weapon. And more to the point, people who choose that route get the cops to shoot them, rather than shooting themselves; that's the whole point of it. So this is a little more of a case of really bad project planning and failing to do one's requirements analysis up front.

Re:When friends trust you more than the police...

[Dahamma]

This guy is no righteous vigilante, he's been convicted of domestic violence and assault, and was holding a woman at gunpoint.

Hopefully his friends get charged and convicted of obstruction. And if his hostage had been killed, they should have been charged with accessory to murder. Morons.

Re:Prison updates

[LanMan04]

"I've got a cute boyfriend"

"Yesterday I dropped the soap in the shower. A heads up to everyone out there, don't pick up the soap if you drop it. Oh by the way I have a new boyfriend"

Rape isn't funny or justified. Ever.

Re:my lawn

[djdanlib]

The Javascript will still be just as awful, though.

Re:Prison updates

[chaboud]

Except when it's implicitly part of any prison sentence, generally accepted by the public, and completely disregarded by the courts and prison systems. Then it's *halrious!*

I, for one, love that we pack our prisons with non-violent offenders, sprinkle in some 25-to-lifers, lock the cage doors, and let animal dominance rule the day. What could possibly go wrong?

/stupidity

Re:When friends trust you more than the police...

[Seedy2]

Disclosing information that is publicly available publicly is one thing; giving someone, in the process of committing a crime, information to help them, is a crime.

what i love

[circletimessquare]

are the comments by people with a grudge to settle against the police (probably for their own bad behavior they won't own up to) try to use cases like this as a proxy for their grudge: the hostage taker is an innocent lamb whose actions are perfectly understandable, caused by the police, and the police are vicious thugs out to shoot random people any chance they get

Re:When friends trust you more than the police...

[Seedy2]

That's the problem with the law -- you cannot qualify "...in the process of committing a crime" because that implies intent (and someone could claim that they were misconstrued). So, the law would effectively framed such that giving someone information to help them is a crime, qualifying the nature of the information (but never the situation). And then, you're screwed.

are you some kind of lawyer?

I grant that some crimes are not apparent; but some crimes are blatantly obvious.
Obviously you should not be able to get convicted of helping in a crime if the person committing the crime is not convicted, but if the person is convicted of a crime and you helped them in carrying out the crime, then you should go to jail too.

i.e.If someone tells a man coming out of the back door of a bank carrying a large sack, "hey don't go that way, there are cops there" when he starts to leave, he is guilty of aiding the criminal.

I can see that posting on YOUR Facebook page shouldn't be actionable; but if you post information to a CRIMINAL's Facebook page or messages them information to help them in a crime they boast about on the same page as being in the act of committing, that should get them a nice cell next to the guy they helped.

Helping criminals commit crimes is a crime.

There is a difference between helping and not hindering. I am under no legal obligation to hinder a criminal, afaik.

It's up to the courts to determine the facts of the matter, the police should just arrest folks who appear to have broken the law.

p.s. do you understand there is a difference between "guilty of a crime" and "convicted of a crime".