Slashdot Mirror
Drone Drops Drugs Onto Ohio Prison Yard
Okian Warrior sends a report from CNN about an incident last week at a prison in Mansfield, Ohio, where a brawl broke out after a drone dropped a package of drugs into the prison yard. Prison staff had no idea at the time what caused ~75 inmates to gather and fight, but surveillance tapes clearly showed a drone hovering over the yard and dropping a package that turned out to contain tobacco, marijuana, and heroin. A spokesperson for the prison said this was not the first time they've had an incident involving a drone, but they wouldn't go into specifics.
Even with the relatively high value of the cargo, it is still hard to see how the person who delivered it could reasonably expect to be paid for it.
Doesn't have to be a payment. "Deliver this package into the jail, and we don't hurt your wife / children / etc". Coercion can be a wonderful motivator, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I wonder how long it will be before someone tries to fly a private drone into North Korea. No doubt they will try to shoot that sucker down, but this somehow made me think of that situation.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
it is still hard to see how the person who delivered it could reasonably expect to be paid for it
Friends on the outside. It's not as though people in prison are completely isolated.
"Coercion can be a wonderful motivator"
Absolutely. Prisons are full of gangsters and organized crime members. It is very common for them to threaten or coerce employees to smuggle drugs inside.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Amazon delivers all kinds of stuff now to just about anywhere.
You don't watch many movies, do you? Or missed the whole thing where the Mexican cartel guy had a tunnel excavated under the prison and "nobody noticed"?
As much as it sounds like a Hollywood fantasy, it's not like people in prison have no contact with the outside world, and don't have a lot of time on their hands to come up with new ways to work around the system.
Hell, you could do a Tarantino plot about the shit you could drop into a prison yard to create unrest.
Hell, have one drone drop in a bag of weapons and have another with a long zoom televise the the gladiatorial games which ensue.
It really was only a matter of time until drugs and other stuff started getting dropped into prisons. People have been doing low tech versions of this for decades, if not centuries.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Think of more malicious use cases, like biological agents.
Must be a test run of Amazon's new delivery service. I hope that the home service delivers to the door and not drop packages willy-nilly in the yard.
...calling hobby kit remote controlled planes 'drones?'
Please?
I have been to prison. The payment occurs other ways. Could be mailed.. could be visiting room hand off. Could be a guard taking the money out for a cut. Very rare is extortion of someone on the outside. This ain't hollywood.
Silence is a state of mime.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
Drop small packets of heroin all over the yard. From 30 different drones. All at once.
Just for the LOLz.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Even with the relatively high value of the cargo, it is still hard to see how the person who delivered it could reasonably expect to be paid for it.
Perhaps the operator never expected payment and is just some psychopath performing an experiment on the prison inmates and guards to observe what would happen. Round one was some drugs, perhaps round two will be a few knives or even a firearm.
If your goal is to instigate mayhem and destruction, a $600 quadcopter could offer a pretty high return on investment (but unfortunately to the detriment of others using them for benign purposes).
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I wonder what else could be dropped into a prison yard by drone just to cause unrest?
Hostess cupcakes.
I believe in prison Twinkies are more popular
They can't even keep drugs out of the prisons WITHOUT drone delivery. The entire war on drugs has cost the U.S. untold billions of dollars and what do we have to show for it? We'd be much better off as a country if everything was legalized and the money currently spent on drug war law enforcement/court system/prison system was spent on drug rehab for those who actually developed a problem.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
AKA the U.S. prison system. Where you get free drugs, healthcare, lodging, education, food, and sometimes internet. Where crime does pay.
Might be interesting to watch if pieces of a firearm are dropped-in individually, either over time or else in multiple portions of the yard to different competing gangs. Even funnier if something critical that couldn't be readily made from supplies on-hand was omitted.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Drones are everywhere, being used for everything! Before I die, my estimate is that I will need to destroy some with a crowbar...
And with that, you then just call the cops.... if someone is actually capable of hurting your wife and children if you don't do what they say, they are also capable of doing so even if you do... The reality is that in that situation, you are completely powerless to determine your family's future, as much as one might wish it to be otherwise, and the smartest thing you can do is get help, if you can summon it. If someone is willing to be so morally bankrupt as to do such a thing in the first place, why would you think they should be somehow morally obligated to be telling you the truth about not hurting your family if you do what they tell you?
I realize that the emotional pressure in such a situation can be enormous, but in actuality, maintaining a clear and rational mind in such circumstances is still ultimately your best course of action.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Or far more worryingly, the possibility that explosives might be dropped on public events or something similar. A co-ordinated attack could do a lot of damage.
Right, and a drone dropping drugs into the prison yard is in no way like something out of a movie.
Honestly, the world is a screwed up place, and this entire incident is meta enough to seem like something out of Hollywood.
Life imitating art and all that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Is it possible to fashion an 'EMP gun' to at least direct the majority of the pulse at a target? Maybe just a jammer to interrupt either the GPS signal (or more likely) the remote control signal. Have to add it to the guard tower arsenals.
Obviously a wise policy because it's clearly working great.
That's my primary Xanatos gambit, honestly.
Fix education and solve poverty; repeal minimum wage; end all government intervention in education above the K-12 school level. End of homelessness causes major upheaval of market systems, as individuals no longer face starvation and death in the streets as counterpoint to low wage slave job, completely changing our culture. This allows repeal of minimum wage, which can be used as a published standard to make low wage values seem fair to the employee (strong diplomacy tool), thus leaving the employer negotiating with a stubborn candidate who won't settle for less than he believes he's worth. Without public access to individually-affordable college, businesses suffer unless they train their own workforce, making workforce development the only survivable business strategy (your competitors who do so will overtake you and throw you out of the market if you don't); they'll also risk loss of value if skilled employees quit, and so must create a workplace which makes the employee feel valued. Combined result? Every single individual employee now has the negotiating power of a trade union.
Fail? We continue on current welfare system, and with current broad education plans. Eventually, high minimum wages cause rapid overtake of automation, unemploying 47% of laborers. This cuts about half the consumer goods market, unemploying half of who is left, giving us around 70%-80% unemployment. Economy collapses. Food becomes scarce due to purely economic factors. America looks like France pre-French-revolution. Riots break out. Attempts to fix the economy by government force only increase production costs and make it impossible to provide enough goods (fuzzy projection; I have the converse theory, but it doesn't exactly apply here). Cities burn. Congress is executed. Union is dissolved, America is no more, weak states are consumed by larger states, and North America starts looking like Europe sans EU.
Both of these are utter chaos. One takes the path of making the economy more fluid and the laborer more powerful, causing rapid wealth growth, causing rapid technological development and rapid cultural changes; the other takes the path of letting the overweight system trip and fall and collapse into a flaming heap. Either way, I'll live in interesting times, not the stagnant and boring world I was born into (okay that's not fair: I was born into a world of rapid technological growth due to information management creating an economic bottleneck that computers opened up; now I'm trying to replicate that world by permanently widening the wealth channel, simultaneously protecting us from an economic collapse caused by mass labor displacement in already-stagnant markets. I didn't grow up in this boring world; I moved here against my will, and I intend to make it radical once more).
Support my political activism on Patreon.
They always seem to find some in comphrehensive sweeps. Smaller old flip phones hide better. Getting them charged can be an issue in some prisons. So I presume outside communication is universal.
I remember a wardens petitioning the FCC for a jam-zone. But the FCC universally denes such requests, Plus the legal workers like using their phones anywhere.
I can verify that! Well, actually it was the school lunchroom, but then nowadays school isn't that much different, is it?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Hypothetically: Does anyone, when push comes to shove, trust the police to protect their family from those with the power to actually perform that kind of coercion?
Between drones and cell phones, we are going to have to start allowing prisons to jam radio frequencies around their immediate area to prevent this. The technology is too cheap and widespread to think that they can keep an eye out for drones and smuggled cell phones.
Heck, I'm surprised prisons haven't started putting up nets to prevent this. Especially after a helicopter (full size) was forced to land in the middle of a prison yard in Quebec so two inmates can escape.
The first few drops are drugs and other goodies. The last drop is a grenade inside a bag of flour.
Just like the Internet, they're a wonderful, innovative, imaginative idea originally developed by inspired, educated minds, created with the full intention of being something helpful to mankind.. and just like the Internet, are now being twisted and perverted into something to aid and abet acts of stupidity and criminal activity.
I like these precise little drones, I think they're pretty damned cool, really, especially since I saw the earlier videos of whole fleets of them, flying in complex, dynamic, ever-changing formations, like some aerial court dance; it made me wonder what incredible things can we do with this? But then people had to get their hands on them, and do stupid things with them, and now criminal things with them. Now they're going to be on a downward slide towards being illegal for the average person to own, or at least so highly regulated that you may as well not bothers. Nice going, people, great job fucking up something cool for 99.99% of us yet again.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Honestly, I assume for every new thing you put into stop one thing it just creates another class of problem for you.
I also assume there's nothing so far fetched it hasn't been tried.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I wonder what else could be dropped into a prison yard by drone just to cause unrest?
The ultimate contraband....a 3d printer!
And I'm not disagreeing with that, not even a little.
I'm saying it isn't possible to make up something and say "but that could only happen in a movie". Sometimes you see stuff in movies and go "yeah, no way" only to find it has a basis in truth.
I'm not saying the convicts watched a movie and said "hey, let's try that". I'm saying never underestimate the motivation of people who don't want to be there, and have lots of time on their hands.
So when someone says "this isn't Hollywood", I think "nope, we wouldn't believe it if Hollywood did it".
If it's physically possible, it's probably likely been tried, or will be if someone figures out how.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I wonder if anyone bothered to check at Skybox Packaging, right next door to the prison.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
They don't claim to offer drone drops to the prison.
Indeed. There are plenty of lower-tech ways that drugs get into prisons. For example, here's a good example caught right on camera (yet officials are still scratching their heads as to where this stuff comes from).
sure. go to the FBI with that story: "Some guys I never met before, and don't have a picture of or know their name, came to my house and threatened to kill my family if I don't do this illegal task. I want witness relocation".
your savings will run out before you get it. and you probably will die [either of natural or unnatural causes] before you get it.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I always assumed payment was easy, you have friends who aren't in prison who pay on your behalf. An escrow economy.
Or far more worryingly, the possibility that explosives might be dropped on public events or something similar.
The good news there is that the weight capacity of consumer class drones is still pretty low. A pound of heroin is a lot. A pound of explosives really isn't. You could kill a few people in a crowd. But if your goal is a large scale terrorist attack, that's not a very effective method.
I told my local newspaper printer the same thing. He didn't care. Do you think slashdot does?
What a stupid idea to use a drone. you can EASILY use a trebuchet or other setup to lob them into the yard from a distance. hell you can set up a nice big slingshot to do it without attracting any attention.
Unlike a slow moving device that is obvious as hell as it sounds like a large hive of angry bees.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Absolutely. Prisons are full of gangsters and organized crime members. It is very common for them to threaten or coerce employees to smuggle drugs inside.
Or maybe those people involved with organized crimes, I don't know organized it?
Assuming they have the ability to carry out such a threat, they are equally as capable of harming your family if you do what they say as they would be if you don't, so all you are doing by following directions that you wouldn't otherwise do for them is surrendering your own agency to them on nothing more than the *hope* that they won't carry out their threat. Can you honestly say you would trust such people to not harm your family regardless of what you do more than you'd trust the police to do everything in their ability to at least do their best to help?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Next step - drone drops cutters to cut through the nets, or something to burn them. How long before people start sticking guns on drones to take pot shots at the guards? If done from enough altitude so that the drone or muzzle flash isn't easily spotted the thing is going to be invincible to anything short of radar-guided AAA (which might just be radar-driven shotguns, but still).
a viable use for drones.
It is what it is.
Any drone capable of handling the kickback from a gun is going to be easily spotted.
assassinated by them than by prison yard drops.
I thought this sounded familiar.
(not "Kill Chain" or "Twilight", I'm thinking the one where a drone bird (a toy, pretty much) was used to drop something into the yard of a Federal slam and McGee has a play with the retrieved vehicle, much to the amusement of DiNozzo).
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
So you'd actually rather blindly choose to cling to what must be the tiniest shred of *hope* that people who would threaten your family's well being might somehow actually not hurt you or your family if you just do what they tell you before you'd trust the police to help? Wow... a true skeptic. I'd dare say that your mistrust is founded more on emotion than reason, however.
Of course, the police might not be able to save your family... I can't refute that possibility remains, but that's entirely outside of your control.... And there's certainly no small chance that the people who threatened your family would continue to blackmail you again and again, and in actuality even doing what they say doesn't remove your family from danger at all, so in actuality nothing you can possibly do in such a circumstance can give you any *real* control over the outcome, the most rational course of action in such a circumstance is to get help.
And that's not even considering the fact that having the police act on such a circumstance actually *IS* actually acting to protect the society, because if they threaten one person's family, they can threaten others... and keep on going through people's families, since the police supposedly wouldn't take any action to protect them (they protect society and not individuals after all, right?), until there's no society left.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And yet, this'll make your hair stand on end, an M67 hand grenade weighs less than a pound and has an effective kill radius of five meters and casualty radius of about 15 meters.
Now imagine someone buying a dozen drones and wiring them to work on a preprogrammed flight path over a busy sporting event.
If someone is willing to be so morally bankrupt as to do such a thing in the first place, why would you think they should be somehow morally obligated to be telling you the truth about not hurting your family if you do what they tell you?
The answer is contained within what you already said. If there is no trust in the person being coerced and the coercer, then the coerced really will have nothing to lose by going to law enforcement.
One easy way to destroy this trust is to do very things that you seem to be suggesting they will actually do (e.g. killing wives and kids despite cooperation, and/or not killing wives and kids despite lack of cooperation)
And no, criminals are not very reliable. But it doesn't take a lot of trust. Even a 50% chance or a 10% chance or a 1% chance of saving your wife and kids can be enough trust to foster cooperation.
Long story short, it is not in the interest of the criminal to punish people that cooperate. Whether ti's the actual government justice system, or a criminal pseudo justice system, the best way to incentivize behavior is clear and consistent enforcement.
Some people love their families enough to try to save them, even if they are not 100% certain that the criminals they are dealing with are trustworthy.
I sure hope I am not related you.
A guy in Quebec got boosted from prison by a helicopter coming to pick him up. A *Helicopter*. Drones are cheaper and an easy way to get stuff in.
The end result will be prisons will likely be given permission to shoot down drones within a geofenced area.
Any drone capable of handling the kickback from a gun is going to be easily spotted.
Recoilless rifles have been around since WW2. Most of them are big, but the design could be scaled down to fit on a drone. They not only eliminate the recoil, but are lighter than a same-caliber standard weapon.
And with that, you then just call the cops.... if someone is actually capable of hurting your wife and children if you don't do what they say, they are also capable of doing so even if you do...
But, as an organised criminal, why go to all that trouble?
People put under pressure react in strange and unpredictable ways. Why do all of that when you dont need to. You just set up the drone and let it work automatically. Not as if there aren't enough people who have the knowledge and lack of scruples who wont set all of this up for money. Hell, they've probably got a few who are part of the organisation.
As for payment, the people on the inside have already paid for it, some with money, others with services (erm. as in cell block strongman, not escort).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
"Deliver this package into the jail, and we don't hurt your wife / children / etc"
Or they could just call up this delivery to settle an existing debt, OR make a deal with someone to deliver the package in exchange for some benefit or favor.
Coercion is harder and riskier.
Right. Two weeks later, the rest of the crew show up and wipe out your family.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Eh, yes and no. I mean, would that work on YOU? You're some guy, you have a drone, some mafia dude comes up and starts making threats. Would you go ahead and commit a felony on his behalf?
Much more likely is, your neighbor down the street runs into some trouble, his friend knows a guy, helps him out of a tough spot. He's mostly paid back, then he gets a visit. He can't go to the cops without screwing over his friends and himself, and he can focus more on the small carrot instead of the big stick. I don't think the threat would need to be said or honestly even implied.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Not surprising... Emotions tend to cloud rational judgement. Are you familiar with the sunk costs fallacy?
Yes I am familiar with the sunk costs fallacy which has nothing to do with what I am saying.
And yes emotions can cloud judgement, but it is also the basis for our values. If you value you're family, it is not irrational to consider the possibility that criminals may in fact keep their word.
What would be irrational is to prematurely count your family as a sunk cost, simply because you don't feel comfortable dealing with criminals who *might* intend to kill them regardless.
For example, people are often able to recover their loved ones from terrorists for ransom. If these people love their family members, it is irrational to simply give up on them simply because the people holding their loved ones are bad people.
I feel like I am trying to explain love to a robot or something. Humans value other humans through an emotion called love, not unlike how your kind values properly formatted data files.
Why not just give them as much heroin and weed (and other downers) as they can consume? The police confiscate plenty that would otherwise just be destroyed.
Keep the prisoners chilled out to the max.
Hypothetically: Does anyone, when push comes to shove, trust the police to protect their family from those with the power to actually perform that kind of coercion?
I'd trust the armed, trained police with massive resources much more than myself alone.
Just because you own lots of guns (if you're in the US), it doesn't mean that you are on a level playing field with a ruthless gangster organisation.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Complete BS! Without any proof the FBI will just hang up and tell you good luck! I know so, I've called them a few times and have gotten the same response. No proof = good luck and have a nice day.
They could probably tell it was a thirteen year old having a giggle.
It's only in the movies that cops dismiss complaints out of hand, and thus force the plucky heroine to solve the case herself..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
That is precisely the kind of situation in which responsible gun ownership would stop the problem in the beginning. Someone comes into my home and threatens to kill my family, well, then he wins a free facelift courtesy of my 12 guage. Then call the cops to clean up the mess. Self defense is a right.
Yeah, there's no possible way they could phone, text, email or Facebook message you. They would definitely come to your house in person, and shout out the threat from the street, giving you sufficient time to find your shotgun and blast them when you opened the door.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Constitutional law cases argued up to the supreme court say the work of the police is to maintain order in society, NOT to protect individuals.
So there is nothing hypothetical about this: No.
All the courts have said is that you can't sue the police for failing in your individual case. It doesn't mean that they won't even try, you idiot.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
In such a circumstance, they've already said they intend to harm them if I don't do what they say anyways, so it's obvious that they have no compunction about harming my family in the first place. The notion that they wouldn't harm them if I do what they say because the penalties would be harsher for them if they did is one to be highly skeptical of because, again, they have already said they are willing to do such a thing if I don't do what they say, indicating an indifference towards how severe the punishment for harming them as opposed to kidnapping them is liable to be. In fact, if there *IS* any validity to the notion that harsher penalties would keep them from harming my family, then that would apply just as much to either buying me or the police some time to actually rescue them, so the most rational course of action is for me to at least *try*. Is there any reason that I *should* take them at their word beyond clinging to an entirely blind hope that they might actually be honest criminals? Sure, it's *POSSIBLE* that they might not harm my family if I do what they say, but that's not really up to me... my family's fate lies not in *my* hands, but in those of criminals. It's not that my family itself that is a sunk cost at that time, but unfortunately any feelings I possess for them are, because those feelings are not going to help them.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I agree, however . . .
The same thing applies to law enforcement and they are under no obligation to help you in any way even if they caused the situation.
The notion that they wouldn't harm them if I do what they say because the penalties would be harsher for them if they did is one to be highly skeptical of
I never said anything about penalties.
Is there any reason that I *should* take them at their word beyond clinging to an entirely blind hope that they might actually be honest criminals? Sure, it's *POSSIBLE* that they might not harm my family if I do what they say, but that's not really up to me... my family's fate lies not in *my* hands, but in those of criminals. It's not that my family itself that is a sunk cost at that time, but unfortunately any feelings I possess for them are, because those feelings are not going to help them.
So if there is a 1% chance of saving them, you'd say "Fuck it, there already dead", it's not even worth trying to deal with these criminals. I'm not willing to spend any more time, energy or money to get my family back, the expected value of the payoff is just not high enough."
If this is your attitude I'd say that you just don't value your family very much. Or at the very least, you don;t value them as much as you value other things in your life such as your time effort and money.
If my family were kidnapped by criminals I would do whatever was most likely to get them back, whether that was to go to the police, or not go to the police, or trust untrustworthy people, or not trust them, or try to raid their compound myself, etc.
My point is that it is irrational to assume that the criminals are irrational. They could be. But they could also be rationally self interested and a mutually beneficial arrangement could be found where I get my family back and they get whatever they want.
As I said, this is a pretty common scenario with kidnappers and ransom. Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it doesn't. But to say that dealing with kidnappers never yields a desirable result is just false.
On the contrary, I love my family dearly, and value them greatly, but I do not assume that everything that I am presented with is necessarily within the jurisdiction of my direct control. Rather than follow the directives of someone who clearly means my family harm, the most productive thing I can do at this point is attempt to secure a rescue without giving the people I am dealing with any further advantage by cooperating with them. I have ZERO assurance from them that they won't harm my family regardless, and even though it might seem like I would have nothing to lose by cooperating with them, in the end, doing what they say would still leave them with more of an advantage than they would have had otherwise, so in actuality, by *NOT* cooperating, I am actually maximizing my ability to subvert them.
I'm not saying it never yields a desirable result.... only that overall, it has the best chance of yielding the most desirable result.
It's not terribly unlike it how it is statistically better to switch doors when Monty Hall gives you a choice to do so after opening one of the prize doors that you didn't pick.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Law enforcement is presumably better equipped than I am to handle such people... so no, the same thing does not apply to them.
Also, they do have an obligation to help, just as certain as a fire department has an obligation to put out a fire even if you have not paid the applicable annual fees for emergency service to your home (although you would get billed quite heavily afterwards if that were the case), because to leave the situation unchecked can result in a much bigger problems if it should escalate beyond just the isolated incident,
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
1. That anyone who kidnaps your family and threatens to harm your family has the ultimate goal of harming your family. Obviously there is no point in cooperating with anyone whose ultimate goal is to hurt your family, but why assume that? If anything it's probably safe to assume the opposite is true.
2. Only having "direct control" over a situation warrants any sort of decision making. (e.g. what is the point in applying for a job, since you have no direct control over whether you will be hired).
the most productive thing I can do at this point is attempt to secure a rescue without giving the people I am dealing with any further advantage by cooperating with them.
Plenty of people in this exact situation cooperate with the perpetrators, and end up getting their family members back. In fact getting them back through a rescue attempt is far more likely to result in their death. It is not blind hope that people decide to cooperate with kidnappers, it is based on evidence of previous success.
. I have ZERO assurance from them that they won't harm my family regardless, and even though it might seem like I would have nothing to lose by cooperating with them
You absolutely have something to lose by cooperating with them. You also have something to gain (your family). And if they are good at what they do, they will make that abundantly clear.
in the end, doing what they say would still leave them with more of an advantage than they would have had otherwise,
Sure if you do it wrong. Why do any kidnapping victims ever get let go? Why don't the captors *always* just keep them even after ransom has been paid?
, so in actuality, by *NOT* cooperating, I am actually maximizing my ability to subvert them.
False assumptions lead to often lead to false conclusions.
I'm not saying it never yields a desirable result.... only that overall, it has the best chance of yielding the most desirable result.
That is also not true. I am saying that every situation should be analyzed, and you are saying it doesn't matter what the situation is, the best solution is to not cooperate in all situations.
It's not terribly unlike it how it is statistically better to switch doors when Monty Hall gives you a choice to do so after opening one of the prize doors that you didn't pick.
It is nothing like the Monty Hall problem other than the applicability of "probability". The Monty Hall problem is a 1 player game.
This if anything is like game theory where there are more than 2 players. You can both win, you can both lose, you can win and they can lose, you can lose and they can win, and society as a whole can win or lose.
The goal of the kidnapper is to get the ransom payer on their side to the detriment of society. The kidnapper wants the money or drugs or whatever. The kidnapper usually doesn't care that much if the victim lives or dies (but may). The ransom payer wants their loved one back (and so does the loved one). Society wants the kidnapper to be caught 1st, and the victim to live second.
They have no obligation to help:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Wrong. In fact, you couldn't be more wrong.
Here, try reading the following:
Warren v DC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Gonzalez v City of Castle Rock: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
DeShaney v Winnebego County Department of Social Services: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The above are only three examples, among many, that help show just how flawed you logic(or lack thereof) is. I am an ex-law enforcement officer(which I wish to point out that, just as I thought myself to accurately and effectively use all types of firearms, which my father began when I was very young, I also took it upon myself to learn the portions of US laws, Georgia law(O.C.G.A.), and local ordinances that applied to my career, how it could and would affect me, etc. 10 to 12 weeks, and up six months, at the most, leave little time for much real training), and I can also state with direct knowledge that "law enforcement" and "training" is almost as big of a joke, and a fallacy, as anyone thinking law enforcement exists to provide personal security, or any services, to any one citizen, or any group of citizens. That applies equally to all areas and functions of government, at the federal, local, and/or state level(s).
Pursuant to the precedents you've mentioned, it is true that they have no obligation to protect private individuals who are not in any immediate danger.... if, however, your family has already been kidnapped and such a threat is made against you, then the only justification the police might have to not investigate is if they did not believe that you were telling the truth, in which case they would then be obligated to arrest *YOU* for filing a false police report. They would, of course, need to have some basis for such a conclusion, and in practice, they would probably take such a claim quite seriously.
If your family is not in any immediate danger, then there is every reason to think that the people making a threat wouldn't be able to carry out their intentions on your family in the first place, particularly since you have been made aware of someone's intention to do so, and can take precautions of your own. You may, however, still go to the police... not so much for any protection in that case as much as to make them aware of the situation, which may equip them better to deal with a larger scale problem.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There were other court decisions that I left out. Even immediate danger does not create any obligation. Absent statutory law saying otherwise, only a "special relationship" confers any duty to protect. The case I remember is one where detectives were staking out a business like a liqueur store and did nothing while observing a robbery get out of hand.
Kidnapping is a separate issue (and crime) which law enforcement tends to take seriously if they believe you which is not always the case.