Man Pleads Guilty To Swatting Attack That Led To Death of Kansas Man (arstechnica.com)

Federal prosecutors in Kansas announced Tuesday that a 25-year-old Californian has admitted that he caused a Wichita man to be killed at the hands of local police during a swatting attack late last year. Ars Technica reports: According to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Kansas, Tyler Barriss pleaded guilty to making a false report resulting in a death, cyberstalking, and conspiracy. He also admitted that he was part of "dozens of similar crimes in which no one was injured." In May 2018, Barriss was indicted on county charges (manslaughter) and federal charges, which include cyberstalking and wire fraud, among many others. U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a Tuesday statement that Barriss would be sentenced to at least 20 years in prison. Barriss also was involved in calling in a bomb threat to the Federal Communications Commission in December 2017 to disrupt a vote on net neutrality rules. The 25-year-old Californian is scheduled to be sentenced on January 30, 2019, in federal court in Wichita.

Comments

The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

just made it very clear to the children of this civilization: DON'T SWAT PEOPLE

That is all.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[gravewax]

Just wait and watch. You will see an inundation of posts defending this guy and how he didn't do anything wrong and it is all the swat teams fault. The reality is if you arrange for loaded guns to be pointed at people eventually something WILL go disastrously wrong.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The kid's most critical mistake was to assume the SWAT team would be pros. But they were just amateurs out for blood...

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

wait, so the cops have no brains, they can't assess a situation and all it takes is one freaking call and they will come and shoot the guy?
How in the world is it NOT their fault?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Alypius]

Not from me. The douche deserves no sympathy and every hour he gets in prison.This isn't the first time he's done this and he refuses to learn. The man-child is 25. Lock him up and the rest of us will move on with our lives.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[ShanghaiBill]

You will see an inundation of posts defending this guy and how he didn't do anything wrong and it is all the swat teams fault.

Nobody is defending him. What he did was clearly wrong.

But what the SWAT team did was also clearly wrong. They gunned down an innocent person based on nothing but an anonymous phone call.

The prank caller isn't the only one who should be going to prison.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

They were not the swat team. The swat team did not arrive yet. The cop who killed the man shot from across the street. He was positioned there because he had the biggest gun.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Your.Master]

It can be more than one person's fault.

This guy who plead guilty is unquestionably at fault of "making a false report resulting in a death", and definitely was at fault for causing the death. And yet I see slashdot posts question it. He sent armed people to another man's house to harass him (although harassed the wrong man too). Accidents happen and it's criminally unreasonable to assume that this is a harmless prank.

The guy who took the shot also has some implication, and a mitigating circumstance. There should be a criminal investigation into him and maybe he gets off on the circumstance. But even if innocent he absolutely should not be allowed to have a job where he points guns at people anymore without a truly extraordinary reason, since he's proven to be incapable of doing it without accidentally killing innocents.

Then the training and hiring should at least be reviewed. Can we make systemic changes that reduces the risk of this? Eg. training of the shooter, hiring of the shooter, training of the dispatcher, etc.. Is this truly, tragically impossible to avoid / impractical to do so without vastly increasing the risk to other innocents?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Kokuyo]

I have absolutely no sympathy for this man, however I still would want the SWAT team investigated.

From what little info reached me, it does seem someone had a nervous trigger finger and that cannot be left to go on.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

If you throw a baby out into the roadway and it gets hit by a car, is this the driver's fault, or yours?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

you AMERICANS are the LAUGHING STOCK of the WORLD. really. yesterday also with the police killing that one black who took down 'a bad guy'

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Hognoxious]

It's definitely the thrower's.

But if the driver was impaired, speeding or whatever and that caused him to be unable to avoid it then it's the driver's fault too.

It's not either/or.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

OK but remember that you then still live in world where you or your family can be shot because of an anonymous phone call by some random dickhead.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you scream "fire" in a crowded place and people get injured or killed in the ensuing panic, then it's totally not your fault?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the police he was gunned down because he did a suspicious move - a move he was ordered not to do.
Unless you can prove the police were lying there is no reason to suspend or arrest anyone else as this is the standard MO, if there is a potential threat shoot to kill. If you don't like it try to change it but then you'd have to change that as a general rule and not just in this case.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Police ALWAYS lie. Everyone knows it.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[houghi]

To me, the caller should not go to prison. Sure it is bad, but sending prank callers to prison? Really?
Let him do 500 hours of community service.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Let him stay in jail. He knew what could happen. It's been known to happen before. He didn't care about the possible result. So now hey gets to think long and hard about responsible behaviour and irresponsible behaviour and the difference between them. It sounds like he needs the time.

Nevertheless the officer that shot the victim needs to sit right next to him.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen video where someone does everything the police says but then twitches while lying prone on the ground and gets blown away. These guys are so scared of the citizens they're supposed to protect they are completely irrational.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tinkerton]

The reality is if you arrange for loaded guns to be pointed at people eventually something WILL go disastrously wrong.

Not sure you ment it that way but I fully agree with that!
There are. 50000 SWAT raids per year in the US. That's 50000 cases of terror and violence. A society with those statistics has deep systemic problems and is very close to fascism.

The point is not defending this guy, the problem is that there the system is structurally arranged to point loaded guns at people for the slightest reason and yeah this guy is an easy fall guy because he clearly did something wrong. But it's a diversion from the real problem.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[91degrees]

That doesn't strike me as sufficient justification. Most western countries, this would be considered murder. Killing someone because of a small chance that they might be a danger rather than it being probably is insufficient grounds for lethal force. He was reaching for his waistband. Sure, there was a possibility that he had a gun, but until this is confirmed there is no justification to fire.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[meerling]

He has intentionally, and multiple times, sent armed men with a penchant for shooting first to go and invade some innocent persons home EXPECTING to find violent criminals!

So if someone throws molotov cocktails into peoples windows and somebody dies of smoke inhilation or is burned to death, or just maimed by fire (If you've seen what the scars from 3rd degree burns are like you'd understand why survivors of them are considered maimed) you think they should just have a few hundred hours of community service?

He was knowingly and intentionally putting many peoples lives at severe risk!

It's not like it's any secret that the police prefer to shoot first and lie about it later whenever they think their target has so much as a rubber band.

That scum is getting off light in my opinion.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the police he was gunned down because he did a suspicious move - a move he was ordered not to do.

The cost was his life. That's a huge price to pay. So, you have to wonder why an innocent man would gamble on paying that price for no reason. There are a few possibilities. One is that the police are simply lying about how it went down: they went in amped up and scared for their own lives and someone took a shot before assessing the situation. One is that the guy just happened to be suicidal or a nihilist and didn't care about living or dying, so just decided to take the opportunity to die... this one seems to be pretty unlikely. Another is that the police barged in, guns drawn, with multiple officers screaming and yelling incomprehensibly and the guy didn't know what to do and, while one officer was yelling at him to stand still, and another was telling him to get against the wall, he got shot by whichever one of them he didn't obey. The next is similar, but rather than just failing to obey, he failed to understand that the black clad commandos bursting into his home with guns were police because their muffled screaming was, once again, incomprehensible in the very brief time he had to react, so he tried to run, or ask what was going on, or hide under something, or maybe even to to find a weapon to defend himself. I would say that one of the last two is very likely it.

The simple fact is that failure to obey a police officer is nonsense. Have you ever watched them try to direct traffic? When it's anything complex, it's generally a disaster. Partly because people just don't understand their signals all the time often because the hand signals get pretty lazy and vague after a while. I've seen plenty of raging cops screaming at people in cars who clearly simply couldn't understand their directions. I've been in the situation of not knowing what to do when a police officer stepped up next to my car (when it was already moving at about twenty five miles an hour) to give a hand signal that looked like maybe a stop. I didn't know if he meant me or just the traffic behind me. So, I stopped, but I couldn't stop instantaneously, so I ended up about thirty feet ahead of him with him standing behind my car, giving me a patented police officer death stare in the mirror. No signals, no words, no approaching my car, or turning to the traffic behind him, just standing there death glaring, apparently expecting me to understand what he was trying to communicate, if anything. After about thirty seconds I tried a little gas to see what he would do, and he just stood there staring. So I went ahead and drove off. But anyway, this seems to be how police officers communicate. They expect you to be telepathic and to know their commands even if they don't actually give them. One order over a scratching megaphone that no-one in a crowd can understand, and the order has been given, and they can start firing teargas if the crowd doesn't comply. For that matter, when they give an order to a crowd that's half a mile wide from the edge, they'll hold everyone in the crowd accountable for following the order that's been given. Give a public order at 5 PM, someone who didn't even arrive until six gets their head cracked for not obeying.

That's one of the fundamentals of the authoritarian viewpoint. It's self-centered. It's not just that their word is law. It's natural law. Once given, it's a force of nature that all matter must bend to. Everyone must have heard and understood, because only the authoritarians ego is real and everyone else is just an extension of that. This is a little hyperbolic, but seems like the only way to understand how incidents where the police are claiming that an innocent person decided to just throw their life away and disobey the orders of someone who is prepared to kill them if they do. If you'll recall, another popular refrain of the authoritarian set is that harsher and harsher punishments are required to make people compliant to the law. If they truly believe that h

Re:The adults of this civilization

[meerling]

He's not an easy fall guy, he's the guy who decided to use a seriously flawed system to knowingly put innocent lives in extreme risk for pocket change and giggles.
Both are messed up, and for different reasons.
By the way, the cop that murdered the guy got off scott free.
So as many people have pointed out, there's more than one person guilty, and that in no way reduces the culpability of anyone involved in this travesty, but of course, cops are almost never punished at all, even when you have the video evidence that they lied and murdered a harmless and innocent person. Too bad we don't have the video evidence for this, not that it would likely help obtain justice.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[JaredOfEuropa]

Not just that; I'd say that in face of potential but not immediately apparent lethal danger, a police offers has less justification than an ordinary citizen to use lethal force, not more. They are there to "serve and protect", and the public comes first. Including potential suspects, if they are not presenting a clear danger.

But with that said: if firing on suspects who reach for something when told not to is indeed the standard MO, and if this is what officers are told and trained to do, then you can not fault them for following standard police procedure. In that case, you will have to change that procedure first.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen video where nlggers rob convenience stores. Everyone sknows all nlggers are born criminals and should all be locked up.

Wassat? Oh, NOW stereotyping is wrong? I see.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

You're fucked

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

If one of the people pulls out an assault rifle and shoots his way through then no, it's not your fault that he killed them.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like it's any secret that nlggers prefer to shoot first and brag about it after. You should never call a nlgger and tell him to come over to someone's house.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Kiuas]

if there is a potential threat shoot to kill.

But that's the thing, there was no potential threat. They had a phone call that falsely claimed there was a hostage situation going on, and they had a guy ho voluntarily came to open the door who they immediately pointed guns at and then opened fire when he twitched a little bit (unsurprisingly people are kinda nervous when they've done nothing wrong and go to open the door only to be faced with a squad of armed cops pointing guns and yelling orders). They hadn't done any kind of work to verify that the information given to them on the phone was accurate. Hell, even if it was accurate information they had no idea at that point if the guy who came to open the door was the perpetrator, and not a hostage that the perp made to open the door at gunpoint.They lacked any and all information to make the determination that this guy is a legitimate threat and not a civilian, yet they immediately and without any cause assumed him to be both armed and dangerous. That's not how competent police officers respond to a threat situation like this.

I can actually give some contrast, because over a decade ago here in Finland our (extended) family was the target of an attempted swatting by our then mentally unstable (an alcoholic and a schizophrenic off his meds) neighbor who called the cops during a large family party telling them that one of us had pointed a gun at them and threatened to kill them (none of us even owns a firearm). We had maybe 20 people around, including plenty of kids, I was around 17 at the time and was sitting in my room playing on the computer when I saw a couple of armed cops run past my window. I went to the backyard to see what the hell was going on and saw a handful of cops in tactical gear with weapons out but not pointed at anyone talking to my dad who had been barbecuing with our cousins. The female lead-officer told dad about the call, and also told him that they had been monitoring us for the past 30 minutes (I don't know where, but there's a large bridge crossing the railroad tracks a couple hundred meters from the house, I think they had guys up there with binoculars, or maybe just dudes in bushes on the other side of the street, maybe both) and that they'd come to the conclusion that we were not a threat and it was likely a prank call. Dad told them that the neighbor had a mental history and would occasionally yell stuff and insults at us, though he's never been violent, and also said that we don't have guns in the house but that the cops can come inside if they want to look for the gun that they will not find there. The lead officer responded with: 'there's no need sir, you have little kids in the house and there's no need to scare the.' They then checked the IDs of the adults around and left, but not before knocking on the neighbor's door and having a long talk with him about what this will mean for him. He eventually got a hefty fine for causing such a massive police operation (my brothers had went out as the cops were leaving and counted at least 6 cop cars (with 2 officers each) at a nearby parking lot, they'd come in fully prepared for a potential fire fight). I mean look at it from the cops' perspective: they knew none of us had a criminal record and there was no licensed firearm registered to anyone. They look at what's going on and they see a bunch of guys casually sipping on some beers, grilling and listening to music and a few smaller kids playing soccer in the yard. To top it all of, the neighbor who made the call was sitting on his porch (apparently wanting to witness us getting arrested and/or shot). It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that this is not the kind of sight you'd expect to see after someone had supposedly been pointing a firearm at someone and angrily shouting death threats.

That's how you're supposed to handle a situation of this magnitude. You don't just go in an point the guns and then open fire at whichever guy you happen to see first because h

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

your "analogy" is incredibly stupid and has nothing in common with the case discussed

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

You will see an inundation of posts defending this guy and how he didn't do anything wrong and it is all the swat teams fault.

That has never happened. As crazy as people on the internet are I've never seen anyone actually defend the caller.

What I have seen is people saying that the SWAT team also were in the wrong and that it is wrong that they aren't also put to trial so that at least they get a slap on the wrist and get told that they didn't do their job the way they should.

In this case the guy making the call was caught because he was just a stupid prank caller.
But if you want someone dead then this opens up very risk-free method where you can just steal a phone, make the call and throw away the phone.
With some luck the SWAT team kills the guy for you. They aren't investigated and you aren't caught.

The risk moment is when you steal the phone but if you drop it and run you will probably not be followed and if you are caught you will probably not be very harshly punished.
Organized pickpocketer who got caught stealing 50+ phones on a concert got three years in jail for it so for a single phone it will probably be a couple of weeks or probation.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

You act as though the means of death is relevant. If someone dies from getting shot or trampled, it makes no difference.

But people like you will always find some excuse to shirk personal responsibility.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Zocalo]

This, but equally I don't think that the SWAT team or local PD in general should get a pass either. Swatting is a thing, they should have been aware of that and started on getting as much due diligence done as possible from the moment the dispatcher decided to send a unit (not even SWAT, any armed unit) to try and avoid this kind of thing. SWAT does not arrive on site instantly, and that gives at least some time to think whether or not things feel right.

Anonymous call? Long distance call? Caller seems to know details that they shouldn't have? No proven history of priors for the address? No proven history of priors for the resident(s), if known? Kids in the house? Is it Stupid O'clock meaning people might not be thinking too clearly, let alone when someone hammers on their front door with guns? If the answer to any of those kind of questions are "yes" (and AFAIK in this case *all* of the above were except maybe the two on priors), then the responders need to act with a little more discretion than just assuming any vague switch they don't like is a justification to unload a weapon on centre mass. In this specific case you can maybe blame lack of training/poor information and cut them a *little* slack for that, but that horse has now bolted and the publicity here should have both prompted a review of police procedures and given potential swatters food for thought lest they become the next Tyler Barriss. The next time this happens (and I'm pretty sure it will), then it it shouldn't just be the swatter that gets the face the courts; those that mistakenly pulled the trigger *and* those responsible for the training that led them to do so need their time in court/jail as well.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Applehu Akbar]

The death is the SWAT team's fault, but if you invoke SWAT activity for no reason, the chances increase that one of the teams is going the bunch of amateur idiots who were called upon in Wichita.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[GNious]

It can be more than one person's fault.

Not quite able to put my finger on it, but something tells me you're not American.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tinkerton]

If it's for giggles then it does not necessarily make him messed up, but stupid and reckless. That does not justify a long prison sentence. Was the target a friend? In no way am I going to put his fault at equal footing of that of the SWAT team and the whole organisation behind it. If you just get freshly introduced to the subject and the fact sheet shows heavy militarization of police and massive incarceration rates you know the system is in deep shit. You don't have to know the name of the country for that.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

It's roughly the same as dropping rocks off an overpass. You didn't throw the rock, gravity did. You don't kill someone every time but eventually you will.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Applehu Akbar]

You're fucked

Sorry folks, but the Brailsford case caused me lose every scrap of respect I once had for the police.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Calydor]

I can put my finger on it. It's the idea that one event can have more than one cause. Americans are generally unable to grasp that concept.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about fences? If you had fences installed this wouldn't happen, so it's the states fault right?

If I am driving 56 mph it is also partly my fault right?

If my car isn't in perfect mechanical shape it's partly my fault?

Why didn't I swerve out of the way, so again partly my fault.

Did I need to be driving that day? Again, partly my fault.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

its our god damned american right to not be accountable for our actions. fuck off.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Police ALWAYS lie. Everyone knows it.

Why is this marked -1? It is true. Cops have been literally caugh by their bodycams planting drugs on peoples property and been convicted for it!

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on a recent anonymous letter, the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice was almost blocked. Remember we couldn't question this letter, because it must have been difficult to write.

Now, you want to question anonymous phone calls (but only if the caller is a man I guess)?

Seems legit.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

> all it takes is one freaking call and they will come and shoot the guy?

Yes. Next question.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[ZorroXXX]

So what you are saying is that if someone disables the breaks on your car as a "prank", and you get killed because of that, they should not have to go to jail because it was just a prank, right?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[stealth_finger]

just made it very clear to the children of this civilization: DON'T SWAT PEOPLE

That is all.

And this particular adult made it clear to the children that they won't ever learn anything. DON'T MURDER, RAPE OR ROB PEOPLE either but those are still abundant so what're you gonna do?

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, the caller should not go to prison. Sure it is bad, but sending prank callers to prison? Really?

He is not getting sent for making a "prank call" just like a gun murderer is not getting sent to prison for bending his index finger. He is getting sent to prison for the intended consequences of his act. This is not the first "prank call" he has made and he has honed his skills in order to raise the likelihood of someone getting killed. Until someone did get killed.

And he received payment for doing so.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

A fool just like you then.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[stealth_finger]

all the swat teams fault.

They are the ones that pulled the trigger. I doubt that they will be looked at though. No doubt they wouldn't have been there if this guy hadn't called but you've got to look at the situation when they can be called and basically have a shoot first and ask questions later policy.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[stealth_finger]

I can put my finger on it. It's the idea that one event can have more than one cause. Americans are generally unable to grasp that concept.

Oh no, they can grasp that. What they can't grasp is that anything could be their fault.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[stealth_finger]

According to the police he was gunned down because he did a suspicious move - a move he was ordered not to do.

Unless that move involved lifting a gun of his own in a threatening manner then why shoot. Do you really think its ok for police to be able to murder anything they deem a POTENTIAL threat and then have to do no more than say that they felt threatened?

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

THERE GOES TGEBFIRST AMENDMENT! What about freedom of speech! Thanks TrumPutin!!!!! libtards!!!!!

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

(Same AC) That's a fair answer.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Interfacer]

Actually, if you think that something like that (causing terror and potential life threatening harm) is for giggles, then yes, that makes you messed up.
'what does this button do' type of things are stupid and reckless.
'I know it is dangerous and traumatizing to the targets, but I really don't give a damn.' is messed up

And if it then results in death, then a long prison sentence IS warranted because he knew fully well what the end result of a swatting can be. It is really no different from playing Russian roulette with someone else's head. And he knew it.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I need to be driving that day? Again, partly my fault.

You're being snarky but actually, at least where I live, drivers get a non-zero portion of the blame for any traffic incident just for being there.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Spread it around eh ... the responsibility like .... Gawdsakes ya need yo face busted

Re:The adults of this civilization

[TomBauserman]

I'm American and I don't understand it. It's something that's come about in the last 20-25 years. People don't know how, or don't understand how anything can be their fault. It's always somebody elses fault. I just want to knock these people upside the head with a 2x4 and say take responsibility for your own damn actions.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[TomBauserman]

There is actually a ticket. "Failed to reduce speed in order to avoid an accident" Which covers everything.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[TomBauserman]

There's a lawyer who teaches at some college (I don't remember his name) that does a great video series on this. It all amounts to keep your fucking mouth shut don't say a work to the police, because the police lie and will twist your words to make you look guilty.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[hjf]

The problem is that, by the look of things, anyone can "arrange for loaded guns to be pointed at people". AMERICA, FUCK YEAH

Re:The adults of this civilization

[crypticedge]

It's both the officers and this guys fault. This guy deliberately set up the conflict, using false information that placed the officers in a state of heightened alert leading to them being overly sensitive to any changing factors.

That heightened sensitivity lead to them reacting to a situation in a way that if it were not for the call initiator they would have not reacted to, or even been present for. Therefore, this guy carries the majority of fault as he created the situation deliberately and with malice.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The baby's. Should have learned to walk faster

CAPTCHA: Sparta

Re: The adults of this civilization

[crypticedge]

It's not a prank call. It's filing a false police report with malicious intent to cause harm.

A prank call is asking someone if their refrigerator is running.

This guy made multiple bomb threats and tried to use the swat team to attack someone over being beaten in a video game. He deserves the prison time, and if anything 20 years is too low for the criminal maliciousness that he's displayed.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[crypticedge]

Sending armed invaders into anothers home over being beaten in a game isn't "for giggles", it's an act of terrorism.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[crypticedge]

There's several people in this thread doing exactly that. It's disgusting.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a point... but no. Again... No. I don't see you sticking your ass out there on the line every day when these officers come face to face day after day with the worst of people that would rather pull a gun than to talk sensibly. That still doesn't mean that you should shoot first ask questions later. But, 9 times out of 10 when these officers are facing someone with same or near same firepower as the officers have, that someone is trying to unload their weapon first center mass.

Get your ass out there for one day or night and tell me after that one night that you will still write the same words.

Captcha: unarmed

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

A prank is putting cling film over a toilet. This would be more akin to mounting a stick of dynamite to a toilet and rigging it to detonate whenever someone lifts the seat.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[SCVonSteroids]

That scum is getting off light in my opinion.

I always thought that "slow time" torture mechanism from Black Mirror was the most effective way to punish.
There's a reason people stuck in their heads sometimes commit suicide. Imagine not even being able to do that, for what seems like forever.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Antique Geekmeister]

I've come to know several SWAT personnel for other, professional reasons. Most of them train frequently, and killing an innocent bystander is normally the end of their career, as much as it might be for ordinary officers.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Just do what the cops ask you to do. You'll never win against them on the streets, but you could win against them later on in court.

So many of these idiots who claim they "din du nuffin" are full of shit. In every single case you'll see that they weren't cooperative with the cops.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Nidi62]

On top of that, the cops already have their guns out and aimed. Unless the guy is a quick draw expert (and those people train for precise distances and angles), they have plenty of time to verify he is actually pulling a firearm and then shoot him before he can get a shot off in their direction. At best (worst), he gets a shot off that goes right into the ground.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Carrying weapons above certain clibers or ROFs should immediately qualify you as a military unit. Let's see the police pull their guns out when they get charged with war crimes.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[DNS-and-BIND]

For if you examine the press you will find that there is almost no set of people - certainly no political party or organized body of any kind - which has not been denounced as Fascist during the past ten years. Here I am not speaking of the verbal use of the term 'Fascist'. I am speaking of what I have seen in print. I have seen the words 'Fascist in sympathy', or 'of Fascist tendency', or just plain 'Fascist', applied in all seriousness to the following bodies of people:

Click here to continue. Note the author. Calling people fascists was bullshit back then and it's just as bullshit today.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

If he'd called the police asking for Seymour Butts, yes.
He's "prank" was designed to put the victim in a life threatening position.

Do you also believe hiring someone to kill someone else is only punishable by community service because the would-be killer should know better too?

Re: The adults of this civilization

[f3rret]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently replayed Watch Dogs 2 (Initial release date: November 15, 2016), and I noticed that there's a swatting mission that's part of the main story line.

Maybe Ubisoft deserves some of the blame for the death caused by this moron?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[datavirtue]

It's called narcissism and it is an incredibly powerful tool for keeping your mind chipper in the face of repeated failure. It is the bedrock of every success story in American history. I am clinically narcissistic and it has brought nothing but good things to my life. You don't get to be president by drolling over your failures and attributing them to your own lack of talent. You brute force blame someone else. If you are intelligent and well liked (Obama for example) you can pull it off in every situation. Its baked into the soul.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a situation of damned if you do, damned if you don't, because if someone called in a terrorist attack and Barney Fife showed up, there would be a different hell to pay. Maybe not by you (or me), but others.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[datavirtue]

The DA is never going to create bad blood by going after a member of the force unless the force casts them out first. They have to work with them every day. Its politics.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. They were just following training, protocols, orders. I've heard this excuse before, did not stand up in a real court of law then. Not sure when United States Courts became kangaroo courts.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

But what the SWAT team did was also clearly wrong. They gunned down an innocent person based on nothing but an anonymous phone call.

The prank caller isn't the only one who should be going to prison.

I've come to the conclusion that here in the USA we'll almost never see police held accountable for this kind of thing. There was an episode of South Park where there were major hunting restrictions so to get around them, Jimbo and Ned said "It's coming right at us!" and shot any animal they wanted to. Cops can unfortunately do the same thing. All they have to do is say "I was scared for my life" in court and it seems like about 90% of the time they walk. I can promise you if the police in this case ever go to trial - and I said "if" - that they will just say they were scared and they'll probably walk. There's nothing I can do about juries. They seem inclined to just let the cops kill anybody they want to if they say they were scared.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy that was shot was clearly white and therefore a supporter of National Socialism. We should shoot NAZIs in a caring peace loving society. On the other hand this Burress guy looks much more ethnic. I can therefore conclude that you anti-Buress hatred is motivated by racism

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that would be fucking hilarious. We need more of that behaviour. We already have some of it, when you have game wardens going around shooting a family's pet deer. The justification was that it could have been carrying disease.

Lets ramp it up 10x. Anything that could be a potential threat needs to be shot. Kill strong people with big arms. Kill people are carrying potentially life threatening diseases. Think how interesting the news will be. We won't be worrying about gender discrimination anymore, we will be worried about the army of government employees going around killing everything because it might be harmful.

Definitely the way to go

Re:The adults of this civilization

[JaredOfEuropa]

did not stand up in a real court of law then

It has stood up in court countless times. Following orders is not an excuse when, in the eyes of the court, the accused should have known his actions were highly immoral, or in clear violation of the law or human rights. When things are a little less clear, "only following orders" most certainly weighs in on the court's decision. There is some room between "clearly permissible" and "nazi war crimes", you know.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that enough?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

I've come to know several SWAT personnel for other, professional reasons. Most of them train frequently, and killing an innocent bystander is normally the end of their career, as much as it might be for ordinary officers.

The end of their career? That's all? If a regular citizen did anything of the sort that would be life in prison at minimum.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[kingbilly]

My respect has been shaken on two similar occasions. Twice while my sister has been driving, the police have straight up lied about smelling alcohol after pulling us over.

The first time was in a small town, on a sunny afternoon. Probably only 4 PM. My sister rarely drinks (maybe a wedding?). And I was young and poor and just didn't have money to keep a nice bottle of bourbon or anything, so it was a completely sober day. We get pulled over while she is driving and the officer comes up and tells us she could "smell alcohol". She made my sister do a sobriety test, which she passed, then sent us on our way.

The second time we were coming back from a club at night. Everyone but myself were underage, so only I drank. The car was full with 5 people, with me in the back middle seat. We get pulled over on a US highway. Two officers get out but only one comes up to the window. This time she says, "I could smell the alcohol from back here". BULL SHIT. I was the only person who drank, 2 drinks, and it had been 2 hours since I finished the last drink! How can you smell anything from our car, on a busy US highway which probably smells like fuel and rubber to begin with. And before someone says they smelled the club, it was underage night so the other 4 were only surrounded by people dancing, and smoking cigs (right on the dance floor, kinda weird but whatever).

I knew after that second time that I could not trust the police. They will blatantly lie and make up situations that didn't even happen. Either that, or female police officers have genetically fucked up sense of smell.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Swatting isn't a "prank".

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple fact is that failure to obey a police officer is nonsense. Have you ever watched them try to direct traffic?

You mean when they stand in the dark wearing dark clothing waving a mini maglite around in random patterns? Yeah, seen that one a few times. Need to get these guys a lantern and teach them some old school railroad lantern signals.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is the police have to assume it is a valid call. Consider the headline if the result was
"911 call not considered reliable, so victim died at the hands of the assailant because SWAT could not verify it was a real assault".
The reality is you cannot win. As long as AHoles like this kid do this kind of stuff, you cannot win. So the correct social response is to drop the hammer hard on this kid as if he pulled the trigger. Then the next kid will be properly trained not to do this. Just like SWAT officers are trained, so should members of the society to act like a member of the society. Act like an AHole, society withdraws your membership.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. As a kid I did some of this, and have felt bad about it for decades after.

This form of lunacy seems to be a right of passage to many young males.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[thegarbz]

is normally the end of their career, as much as it might be for ordinary officers.

So not at all in America given the arguement that everyone is a threat and out to get you.

Interesting phrasing though. If I killed an innocent bystander it wouldn't be my career that would be on the line.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Swatting is a thing, they should have been aware of that and started on getting as much due diligence done as possible from the moment the dispatcher decided to send a unit (not even SWAT, any armed unit) to try and avoid this kind of thing.

Think of the children.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[BringsApples]

I've generally had a distaste for "cops" in my area. These are the street officers that stumble around trying to "be a cop", and end up just being unreasonable people. However there are other police officers that do more skilled work, investigative work. Most of them are reasonable people. And when it comes to specially trained officers, like S.W.A.T., they're always a little bit cocky, but have an overall respect for all human life, and are very reasonable people.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

The reality is if you arrange for loaded guns to be pointed at people eventually something WILL go disastrously wrong.

Yes. And that's what the police in the USA are all about. It's all about arranging for loaded guns to be pointed at people. The very first time I got pulled over, literally for nothing (I was driving a cheap car late at night in Santa Cruz which is expensive and therefore I was suspicious!) two cops both pointed their guns right at my head, fingers on triggers. I was looking down two barrels before I was even 18.

SWATting doesn't happen in other developed nations because they don't have a shoot first attitude. It is literally only dangerous because of the shitty cops we put on the street after two years of community college, and onto the SWAT team after only a couple more years. In fact, I've been personally arrested by a SWAT team member named Gene McGraw in Lakeport, CA — this time, I mimed punching a sign. This was a ~3" thick wooden sign in Library Park, with plexiglass on both sides of it to protect it from vandalism. They claimed that I broke the wood of the sign, somehow without breaking the plexiglass, by punching it. Cuffed my hands behind my back and put me in the FRONT of the shitty little Chevy Malibu cop car, with my head on the dashboard where it was also against the passenger-side airbag so that I could be killed instantly by it if there was a front-end collision. Well, ol' Gene turned out to be a multiple statutory rapist who was stealing drugs from evidence and giving them to underage girls in exchange for sex — in fact, a friend of mine (one of the local Pomo people) knows one of the girls personally. After the third or fourth time they caught him they finally fired him, and he eventually died of diabetic complications in a moldy single-wide. Too good for him by more than half.

So yeah, the COPS are arranging "for loaded guns to be pointed at people" and yeah, things go disastrously wrong. And you probably think it's a few bad cops who make them all look bad, but the simple fact is that no cop covering for a bad cop is a good cop.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

He was knowingly and intentionally putting many peoples lives at severe risk!

Right, because the cops are trigger happy. That's the only reason SWATting is inherently dangerous.

It's not like it's any secret that the police prefer to shoot first and lie about it later whenever they think their target has so much as a rubber band.

And you don't see that as the biggest problem here? Just living a life where that is true is a horrible stressor and itself contributes to the likelihood that someone would attempt something like this.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron. Reviewing safety protocols and being better trained professionals is not the same as indicting the cops.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

My buddies and I used water balloons, and once outran a furious fat truck driver. Good times.

Rocks are for fags though!

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

According to the police he was gunned down because he did a suspicious move - a move he was ordered not to do.

The man was in his own dwelling, and the cops were stationed where he was in shadow and they couldn't see him clearly. There was no immediate danger since they were in cover and body armor.

Unless you can prove the police were lying

I can prove it right now, from here. The cops said the victim was where they couldn't see him clearly. You should never shoot anything you can't see, because of the danger of shooting something you're not intending to shoot — mostly, someone. Therefore, the cop who fired acted improperly.

Anyone who has even played a tacops game would know enough to station a sniper on an opposing roof (or in a window, etc.) where they could clearly see into the doorway using their optics, and keep everyone else under effectively impenetrable cover until they understood the situation. That a SWAT team can't figure out what some preteen gamers could is beyond pathetic.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

The DA is never going to create bad blood by going after a member of the force unless the force casts them out first. They have to work with them every day. Its politics.

And that's why the DAs are as much at fault for the state of justice in America as the police themselves. Lots of people are forgetting to hold them accountable. Thanks for the reminder.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[mcvos]

Many US cops are absolutely far too trigger-happy. However, if you intentionally make use of that in order to get someone killed, you're still intentionally trying to get someone killed. Cop and swatter are both at fault, but the cop committed manslaughter at worst, while the swatter committed murder.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

And when it comes to specially trained officers, like S.W.A.T., they're always a little bit cocky, but have an overall respect for all human life, and are very reasonable people.

I have personal counter-evidence from a SWAT member (he had the little pin on his collar) who arrested me on false charges of vandalism, cuffed my hands behind my back and put me in the front of his cop car with my head against the airbag... which has enough force to break bones. Like necks. He was a multiple statutory rapist (who stole drugs from evidence and traded them for sex with underage girls) who had a very, very long history of abuse. He would regularly accuse suspects of resisting arrest so that he could beat them up.

I only have a sample size of 1, but it proves to me that a SWAT team member can also be a total piece of shit.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

So how does this work the cops take a call from out side the state and take it seriously?
Why the fuck is it always a swat team are there no such thing as patrol cops who check shit out any more?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, here is the body cam video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0l6kwbglA4

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

I lost all respect for the cops in third grade, I can still remember. During show and tell a girl told us the story of how the cops pulled her dad over for speeding while other people were literally going by him and told him "you were easier to catch". On average cops don't give one tenth of one fuck about doing their job well, they just want to get paid and go home. That's what you get when the bar to becoming a cop is so low.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[anegg]

Not quite able to put my finger on it, but something tells me you're not American.

I don't think you were trolling, and I'm interested in understanding why you would think that someone from the United States would have trouble believing an unfortunate consequence could have more than one person at fault. What is the context of your understanding that leads to this remark?

My experience is that Americans understand that multiple people can be at fault. The idea of "contributory negligence" is certainly at work in the United States. Lawsuits frequently include multiple parties with the idea that someone with deep pockets who is only partially at fault (and not even most at fault) should still pay. Root cause analysis, another activity practiced widely within the United States, always looks for multiple causal factors. (Although, to be fair, the emphasis in root cause analysis is usually not towards placing blame on people, but finding problems with training, testing, procedures, etc.. Having said this, it is not impossible for a failure to be mostly an individual's fault to execute their duties/responsibilities correctly.)

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Jhon]

"The guy who took the shot also has some implication, and a mitigating circumstance. There should be a criminal investigation into him and maybe he gets off on the circumstance. But even if innocent he absolutely should not be allowed to have a job where he points guns at people anymore without a truly extraordinary reason, since he's proven to be incapable of doing it without accidentally killing innocents."

Did you see the video? The cop did his job. The guy at the door, on camera, LOOKED like he was pointing something (possibly a gun) after being instructed to walk forward towards an obvious police presence.

  Did you listen to the asshole's 911 call pretending to be in the house holding his family hostage and getting ready to kill them? After killing his Dad? That's the information the police had. No question it was a horrific tragedy, but the cops are no more responsible than a bus driver who hits and kills a pedestrian who was pushed out on the road by some OTHER asshole who thought it would be FUNNY.

This really is ALL on the asshole.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[mcvos]

And then there was that officer who was fired for not shooting someone he suspected was unarmed. I'm pretty sure the system is a big part of the problem.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Zero__Kelvin]

... or maybe a voice of reason will say that there is plenty of fault to go around, and that this guy is guilty *and* the worthless fascist fucks that sit around salivating about the chance to kill people with their "toys" are actually more in the wrong.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are one stupid motherfucker.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[mcvos]

A deadly prank that got someone killed. Intentionally. He didn't send some actors dressed as cops, he sent real cops with guns and reason to believe they would have to shoot someone. That is murder. It doesn't matter that someone else was holding the gun. Hiring a hitman as a prank is also going to get you sent to prison.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Zero__Kelvin]

If that were true you would provide links .. and I don't mean to the AC comments you are about to post.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[mcvos]

Right, because the cops are trigger happy. That's the only reason SWATting is inherently dangerous.

The cops are absolutely at fault. Or arguably the entire law enforcement system. But the caller knew that very well, and intentionally sent trigger-happy thugs to an innocent person's house. He is absolutely culpable.

And you don't see that as the biggest problem here? Just living a life where that is true is a horrible stressor and itself contributes to the likelihood that someone would attempt something like this.

Of course, and that needs to get fixed. But that doesn't mean that it's somehow okay to abuse the broken system to get some people shot.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[mcvos]

That too is a problem. Maybe there needs to be an independent DA for this sort of thing. Or it needs to be handled by a federal prosecutor.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[BringsApples]

Yikes! I'm sorry to hear that. Obviously not all SWAT guys are as I said previously.

Maybe I should have just stated that I respect my local SWAT guys more than my local street cops.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[DNS-and-BIND]

You neither addressed nor refuted anything I had to say. You just used the logical fallacy of ad hominem. You lose sir, good day, sir.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

Of course, and that needs to get fixed. But that doesn't mean that it's somehow okay to abuse the broken system to get some people shot.

I absolutely do not wish to absolve the caller of his responsibility for attempted murder by SWAT team. I only wish to hold the culpable parts of the system responsible for their actions, up to and including the shooter themself.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Zero__Kelvin]

Shut the fuck up you ignorant douche. I've learned from repeated attempts at showing you why you are a moron that you are far too much of a moron to understand why you are a moron. FOAD.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[cyberchondriac]

How is that close to fascism? This has to be one of the most overused and misunderstood words in past years.
If anything, the number of raids means we have a serious crime problem.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[tehcyder]

Police ALWAYS lie. Everyone knows it.

Why is this marked -1? It is true. Cops have been literally caugh by their bodycams planting drugs on peoples property and been convicted for it!

Some of A are X, therefore all of A are X, right?

You might want to take a basic logic course.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tehcyder]

She made my sister do a sobriety test, which she passed, then sent us on our way.

That cop was, like, literally Hitler.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[myth24601]

Would it be a good analogy to compare it to putting a 2 ton boulder randomly on an interstate highway. Sure, it is the drivers fault that they ran into a 2 ton rock but creating such a dangerous situation should carry a heavy burden for the outcome.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tehcyder]

That doesn't strike me as sufficient justification. Most western countries, this would be considered murder. Killing someone because of a small chance that they might be a danger rather than it being probably is insufficient grounds for lethal force. He was reaching for his waistband. Sure, there was a possibility that he had a gun, but until this is confirmed there is no justification to fire.

Whether you think it's a good thing or not, I'd say the chances of someone in the US having a gun is much higher than in most western countries.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[DNS-and-BIND]

Please, throw more of your alt-left verbal diarrhea at me so everyone can get a good look at what someone with a decayed soul looks like.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[ArylAkamov]

Or you could just watch the video.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wait and watch. You will see an inundation of posts defending this guy and how he didn't do anything wrong and it is all the swat teams fault. The reality is if you arrange for loaded guns to be pointed at people eventually something WILL go disastrously wrong.

It's both faults. This guy wouldn't have been able to commit his evil if he had suspected that the SWAT team wouldn't have shot first and asked questions later.
Just like the security guard shot recently in Chicago, the police in this nation have been trained to shoot at the slightest hint of danger. They've been turned into frightened wussies, pulling triggers before engaging their brains.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

How would anybody acquit a cop of putting several bullets in an unarmed, scared guy on all fours?

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

There are plenty of other contributing factors, but I would point to:

1. Corruption of the American Dream.

"Don't just work for a comfortable life with financial security for your family, work until you can afford to ditch those parasites and party like the millionare you deserve to be."

"Don't settle for just being rich, you deserve to be famous too." (thanks Hollywood)

"Fuck your neighbors, before they fuck you. And never talk to them or make eye contact, they're enemies waiting to happen."

2. Public schools (MOST schools, apparently) ditching Logic.

I was home schooled. We did years of analogy studies (like the ones that were on the SATs, about twenty years ago) from third grade on. That was used as a foundation for critical reading, critical thinking, and diagnosis (nurse mom ftw). I don't see much focus on such things in contemporary curriculum.

Those aren't the only two factors, but I I'm pretty sure they contribute.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

It was called private prosecution. Where anyone can file criminal charges just like civil claims. Since the early 80's this right has be taken from us. Its way to inconvenient for the war on drugs to let the citizens hold police accountable.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't that this guy will be "defended." It is that he could be put away for just as long without the manslaughter charge that masks the culpability of the idiot, homicidal police.

Just wait and watch. You will see some moron spew a post criticizing people who will try to point out that the "justice system" is making loud noise about the caller while completely ignoring the grossly irresponsible actions of the police that killed the victim.

The manslaughter charge belongs on the police. There is plenty to convict and sentence this guy without that grossly unjust transfer of responsibility by charging him with manslaughter.

This is not defending anyone. The caller committed many crimes and should be convicted. This is about the whitewash that ignores the behavior of the police where they showed less restraint than a mad dog.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Testosterone is a hell of a drug.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The victim was speaking to the police by the door and pointed to the yard outside the door. There was no trying to get a weapon evident at all. There was no belligerence evident at all. The man just pointed to all the commotion outside his house. Hardly a fatal flaw in judgement if the police had at least a shred of respect for human life and a lawful, decent community.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you have issues.

    Even without the manslaughter charge the caller could be sentenced to a great deal of time. Making false statements to police in order to create a dangerous situation is what he did and can result in a very substantial sentence. The caller did not toss Molotov cocktails at anyone. The caller could have gotten the same sentence without the manslaughter charge. The manslaughter charge is just a way to mask the police misconduct.

But you obviously have anger issues which is the most notable thing communicated in your post.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

If a regular citizen had done the same thing, they would have been operating as a vigilante. That's why police officers are deputized citizens, under oath and held accountable. It's possible to give them TOO much leeway, but your position seems a tad shortsighted.

No acrimony intended, here. Police should be held accountable, and police unions have degraded that accountability with their "thin blue line of silence." They also deserve at least the benefit of doubt.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

> Sorry folks, but the Brailsford case caused me lose every scrap of respect I once had for the police.

Do you ever question blaming a whole class of people for the worst examples of the class?

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Holi]

Thankfully the law has a different opinion, it's called depraved indifference, when your actions have a high probability of causing harm, you should be held accountable for the harm they caused regardless of how much effort it took.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Not attempted, it was murder. 2nd degree depraved indifference

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

That kind of behavior is why American police have the reputation they do, and the blind eyes that are turned to it in 'solidarity' are why it persists. Good policing starts in your own station, in your own locker room. The fact that Internal Affairs is regarded with such hatred is a bellweather of a rotten department. EVERY officer should want criminal activity stopped, no matter who's doing it. Keeping the Peace begins with keeping the Public Trust.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Holi]

Just because YOU couldn't read the letter does not make it anonymous.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Your ability to analyze a situation is stunning. People look dimly upon argument by analogy not because analogy has some innate flaw. It is that some people are idiots and just can't bring themselves to create a reasonable analogy. It's like their brains are a car and the brakes of reason don't work.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[dgatwood]

I'm American and I don't understand it. It's something that's come about in the last 20-25 years. People don't know how, or don't understand how anything can be their fault. It's always somebody elses fault. I just want to knock these people upside the head with a 2x4 and say take responsibility for your own damn actions.

Well, yes, people should take responsibility for their part in a catastrophe, but that still doesn't mean that there can't be more than one person at fault.

Consider the following scenario: A store owner in a bad neighborhood keeps a shotgun behind the counter, just in case of a holdup. A parent lets his or her kid run wild in the store without supervision. The kid sneaks behind the counter and steals the gun and shoots someone. Who is at fault?

• The kid is partially at fault for shooting someone, but the kid probably isn't old enough to have known what he or she was doing, so that fault is something we excuse.
• The parent is partially at fault for not supervising his or her kid.
• The store owner is partially at fault for not supervising his or her gun.

From a legal perspective, all three are partially at fault, because had any one of those people not taken or failed to take a particular action, the person would not have gotten shot.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[zugmeister]

While he certainly shares some responsibility as initiator of a chain of events that ended in the loss of life, I'm curious about something...
Who actually pointed a weapon at an innocent person and fired it, killing that person?
Do you think the one who actually pulled the trigger bears any responsibility at all?

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a toxic, macho thing going on with some police. On the other hand, the police are also being militarized by the Feds and howled at to stop all crimes, before they happen, by a fearful and reactionary populous.

Sadly, the legal system is so mired in red tape and political gamesmanship that we're increasingly turning to the court of public opinion. Which means that getting justice in a situation like this is uncertain, regardless of where you turn.

Accountability, transparency, and personal integrity (as in, holding your own self accountable) are requirements for a free and just society.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[crypticedge]

I suggest you read the thread yourself.

Also - Not me. https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...
Not me either - terrible person minimizing the realities of it - https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

Maybe before you accuse people of writing them, or the posts not existing, you should try not being illiterate and actually use your eyes.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Your.Master]

That would be the mitigating circumstance, dude. That's why I hesitate to call him a murderer or manslaughterer. But keep in mind, nobody else shot the man. There were other cops. The victim was innocent n matter what it looked like he was doing. It's not acceptable to kill innocent people, even by mistake. I guarantee this situation will happen again and we should do what is in our power to prevent it.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

This wasn't a "SWAT" team - this was normal police. Most police precincts in the United States do not have SWAT.
There are almost 800,000 police officers, across 18,000 law enforcement organizations. Of those, less than half have a SWAT unit. Of SWAT "members", 96% are primarily normal officers who serve in SWAT only during emergencies.

In other words, there are 32,000 SWAT officers in the entire country - most of them employed by big cities. Rural places *might* have a half dozen people that pick up a rifle once a year during qualification training. They don't have "snipers" and certainly don't have "tactics".

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Applehu Akbar]

That would be a good argument if I were commenting about, say, an ethnicity. But this is about the standards practiced by people in an occupation, as shown by numerous recent examples of unprofessional behavior which have been covered up by their peers on the job and in many cases protected by local prosecutors. I'm not bitching about traffic tickets, either, but about case after case of unnecessary civilian deaths. It's a systemic problem.

To earn back the respect of the public, basic reforms will be needed.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[zeugma-amp]

There's nothing I can do about juries. They seem inclined to just let the cops kill anybody they want to if they say they were scared.

The only thing you can do about juries is to serve on them. If called, do not attempt to get out of jury duty. Try to be presentable and get selected to serve. This is the only way you can be sure that your point of view will be represented on the jury.

I always seem to get struck during selection. However, if I were on a jury for any case, I'd give no more weight to police (or any other government representative) than I would for any other citizen. If it's the defendant's word against a cop's word, the cop loses due to the presumption of innocence as far as I'm concerned. As for cops involved in shootings, I would look at it exactly the same way I would for any ordinary citizen in the same situation. Actually, given the powers given to police, and the fact that they are allegedly trained for these situations, a cop would have a harder time than Joe Sixpack if I were judging the facts of the case.

Serving in a jury is one of the most important things you can do as a citizen. We should treat the opportunity to serve appropriately.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Who actually pointed a weapon at an innocent person and fired it, killing that person?
Do you think the one who actually pulled the trigger bears any responsibility at all?

That's all depending on situations. It's obvious that you don't put yourself on others shoes before you ask these questions. I'm not saying that all enforcement people are good, but some basic understanding should be given.

When you are in a team that is going to face a possible dangerous person who may be armed, you wouldn't be thinking that you are going to walk in a candy store, would you? Instead, you would be very suspicious of what the person would be doing. You would be pessimistic of whatever move of the other person does in front of you. This is not a movie but real life. If you are shot, you will be injured and could die. That's the difference between you who are in the situation and you who are bystander.

To me, the guy who initiates it is at fault. If he didn't initiate the situation, the innocent person wouldn't be pointed gun at. The innocent person wouldn't be shot dead.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[LazarusQLong]

he isn't a 'kid' he is a damn adult!

Re:The adults of this civilization

[LazarusQLong]

did you read this, he is 25 years old, not a 'kid' at all. Just an asshole.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a really tough issue. Really, he did exactly what he was trained to do in exactly that kind of situation. Obviously it wasn't the right course of action, but when police are told there are guns involved, they by default assume a SWAT team posture, even if they aren't an actual SWAT team.

That began with Columbine when the police got plastered by the media for waiting to enter the school before the actual SWAT team arrived, while many students were being killed.

Nowadays, the typical training is to bring a sharpshooter if the call involves a gun at all, and if they determine that it's an active shooter situation, then they don't wait for a SWAT team. Instead, they get at least four officers, and then they enter the building as if they were a "diet SWAT team." They don't have all of the right equipment (though most uniformed beat cops now carry an M4 with them in their car, rather than just a Glock) and they don't spend their days doing all tactical training (they have to do regular police work instead) but they at least have the capacity to pursue an active shooter.

So yeah, amateur SWAT is correct, but it has to be that way, unfortunately, especially given Columbine has inspired many copycats. (Prior to Columbine, mass shootings were quite rare, and there was no more gun control then than now. Obviously the culture has changed in such a way that some people would rather kill many others than simply off themselves as they probably would have in the past.)

I personally have been in a situation back in 2013, where somebody else in my house (who didn't have a gun) made a vague reference to stand your ground when in an argument with a neighbor (who had egged our house at about 1:00AM.) We had no landline, and my mobile was the only number associated with the address. They woke me up by calling me and asked me to come outside, with me having no clue what was going on. I walked outside and only saw one female officer near it, who asked me to come over. After I got over there, they had me interlock my fingers behind my head and frisked me, but didn't cuff me, and told me I wasn't under arrest. However, when I was behind the row of cars on the other side of the street I noticed a cop was lying prone behind a neighbor's car with an M4 on a bipod, trained directly towards the house, and I imagine my head was downrange of live ammunition and in the crosshairs of what appeared to be a night vision scope attached. They moved me around the street corner, where I then saw about 10 cop cars lined up with their lights all off. A few hours later, the actual SWAT team came, and I was told several days later that they put snipers on the rooves of several neighbors houses. No actual crime was committed by any party. (No idea why, but the police weren't at all interested in the egging of our house, and they said it was our word against the neighbors, even though there were eggshells everywhere.) I'm sure the whole incident (which also involved a police helicopter) wasn't cheap, probably cost in the range of $200,000.

As for why the Wichita incident wasn't done that way, presumably it was because there was a report indicating that somebody had already been shot. They saw an adult male come out, and they presumed that he was the shooter, so he was already considered both armed AND dangerous (namely, he could just begin shooting out of nowhere.) Working under that assumption, police are going to demand that the suspect make their hands visible and keep them that way. If they think the suspect is going to reach for a weapon, then they open fire.

This might change their posture a bit though. Perhaps in a situation where they haven't done anything at all to confirm whether the person walking out the door is even aware of what's happening, they'll make sure to have more vantage points so that they can fully determine whether the person is actually armed if they don't keep their hands up. The sniper couldn't see both sides of the guy, but what he saw was that the guy appeared to move his hands towards his

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, blaming the cop is too close to blaming the gun. Too close to gun control and for some people the barriers go up.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

I like my cops to not be scared little pussies. They need to man the fuck up.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they will need to pay me more than ten goddamned dollars a day.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose fault is it that you can't read?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[desdinova 216]

because the person who called it in spoofed the caller ID information, much like "Rachel from Card Services" or "Dave from Windows Support".

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Jhon]

" It's not acceptable to kill innocent people, even by mistake. I guarantee this situation will happen again and we should do what is in our power to prevent it."

You can't base punishment based on time-travel evidence. Hindsight is 20-20. This is why he wasn't charged, 'dude'.

"But keep in mind, nobody else shot the man. There were other cops."

Yes -- and the video was reviewed from each body-cam. Many of the officers had a different vantage point and didn't shoot because it wasn't clear what he was doing -- maybe pulling up his pants. The one officer who shot, along with a few other officers at a different location (and confirmed by their body cam footage), it APPEARED he was pulling and aiming a gun.

https://www.kansas.com/news/lo...

""This shooting should not have happened," he said. "But this officer’s decision was made in the context of the false call.""

"The officer who fired the shot, along with some others, thought Finch was reaching for a gun, Bennett said."

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

your analogy is very much on-target and has obviously touched a nerve

TFTFY.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

The "logic" of ["Some cops have lied" -> "Cops always lie"] is only full of holes big enough to drive a SWAT van through...

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

even pros make mistakes. Any fuckwit that assumes pointing a loaded gun at someone even when done by a pro can't have negative consequences needs to be locked up away from society ASAP.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen videos of criminals pulling guns on cops, therefore this gun must have pulled a gun and deserved to be shot.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[RespekMyAthorati]

Note that Bariss did all this while on parole for a prior conviction for various computer crimes.
He even hacked into private networks while in prison, even though he was supposed to not have any access to a computer.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck off ivan

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tinkerton]

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless.

  He said 'as used'. While in fact fascism - and things related - was very much on his mind.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/...
i shouldn't have used the word fascism, but is that because it has no meaning in common speech or because I'm exaggerating?
I'm not exaggerating but I counted factors I'm not mentioning.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tinkerton]

Maybe in this case you were right. I didn't look into that because I don't care. Firstly, I think you underestimate how stupid and reckless people can be without malice or not much malice. Secondly, even if the guy is as malicious as you can imagine, it diverts attention from the real problem. 50000 SWAT raids per year means the threshold for using them is low and on top of that their threshold for violence is also low. Why doesn't it occur to you that this specific SWAT raid is not far from the norm?

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tinkerton]

50000 acts of SWAT terrorism per year.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[tinkerton]

That is not what it means.
It's true I shouldn't have used the word fascism. And then again I should. I read this recently and it looks appropriate: https://www.truthdig.com/artic...
Trump then is 'a close call' which to most came out of the blue but is a symptom , not an anomaly. Obviously those who believe 'it's the russians' won't look beyond that.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drinkypoo]

In other words, there are 32,000 SWAT officers in the entire country - most of them employed by big cities. Rural places *might* have a half dozen people that pick up a rifle once a year during qualification training.

I've personally been the subject of a false arrest by a SWAT cop in a town in the sticks of California, so I know they've got at least some of them out there. But the general lack of trained police in this country is very much part of the problem. The bar to becoming a cop is far too low.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[drewlake2000]

If that class of people are self selecting and have a long standing record of lying to protect members the worst examples of that class, it's fine. Once the police stand up for law and order and clear out root and branch the criminals in uniform, they don't automatically get respect from me. Once they have earned respect, they'll get it.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe bystanders. It's much harder to spin a bystander as an agressor, unlike a scared homeowner murdered in their bed during a no-knock raid. They give SWAT awards for those killings.

Re: The adults of this civilization

[Agripa]

... and held accountable.

The good faith exception and qualified immunity sure help with that.

Re:The adults of this civilization

[Agripa]

> Sorry folks, but the Brailsford case caused me lose every scrap of respect I once had for the police.

Do you ever question blaming a whole class of people for the worst examples of the class?

I did not after the not worst examples of the class, politicians, judges, and prosecutors covered and supported the worst apples of the class.

US

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this just a US thing?

Re:US

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I am aware, yes. I have heard of a few attempts in Europe, but since they don't have similar issues with gun culture and proliferation as the US, police just send a regular patrol to knock on the door and check that everything is OK. It's hard to get a fad going when the result is cops having tea and biscuits instead of knocking down the door.

Re:US

[ledow]

Other country's police forces don't just charge in, weapons drawn and start shooting people, no matter what the situation.

Hence, there's no real "fun" (if that's why people do it) in SWATting people in other countries. All that will happen is the person you "SWAT" will be investigated, then they'll trace the call back and an unarmed officer will be slapping you in handcuffs for trying to do it.

Seriously, the problem here is training of the person behind the gun. Every country in the world has armed police officers available. They are the ones that respond to armed incidents (or, even, the nearest unarmed officer gets there and assesses what they can before the cavalry arrive). They don't just go shooting people for no reason, and they don't get close enough that they feel at risk from the slightest flinch of the suspect.

Honestly, people in America should watch our equivalent of Cops and see quite how you do things. Literally, guys coming at officers with hammers and you still don't just gun them down. It's not "weakness". It takes a lot bigger man to just stand there, take abuse, risk physical injury and try to calm a guy down than to just pull a trigger "because you were a bit uncomfortable".

Death by policeman is rare outside the US.

Seriously:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

These countries are no different to the US in the incidents of nutters. The difference is in how many ordinary people are armed (and in some countries, everybody carries a weapon because they were all compulsarily conscripted), and how they are dealt with.

Seriously... the UK. 70 million people. NOT ONE DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY by shooting in 2012/13/14, despite 6000 armed officers, 10,000 incidents in that year. "Incidents where firearms were discharged"... 3 / 4 / 5.

Re:US

[Interfacer]

Actually, a HUGE difference between the US and my country is that normal police do not have to consider that every traffic stop or intervention could result in being shot at. Cops in the US are on a hair trigger because getting shot at is a very real possibility. In most Western european countries for example, cops do not walk up to a situation expecting to be shot at.

Re:US

[ledow]

Switzerland and Finland have almost as high gun-ownership, no problem.

And, again, if the problem is that even the police are too scared of everyone having weapons, maybe it's time to stop being the most heavily-armed-citizens country by introducing some fecking gun control.

And you might also want to ask "Why are police at risk of people shooting them, when they just charge in and start shooting innocent people for no good reason and then get away with it?"

Re:US

[Anonymous Coward]

The combined population of Switzerland and Finland is 13 million.

The US is 330 million.

Finland and Switzerland are all european white. The US has a mix.

The problem is scale. Of course if you asked that question first, you might find the answer rather than coming across as the typical idiot European.

Re: US

[Zero__Kelvin]

Bullshit. There is a far greater chance of an innocent US citizen being shot by a cop than there is of a cop being shot during a traffic stop. Even gang bangers don't go from "this cop is about to write me a ticket" to "shoot this motherfucker" without good reason provided by the motherfucker.

Re:US

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland and Finland have almost as high gun-ownership, no problem.

But they don't have the same gun culture.

In popular culture in the US guns are consistently shown as useful tools and problem-solvers.
If you have a gun in a culture like that you will be way more prone to use it when you shouldn't.

Re:US

[Anonymous Coward]

That's true. Why have you chosen to make your country like that?

Re: US

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit right back at you. Numerous cops have been shot **as they approached** the vehicle or just sitting inside.

Re: US

[Zero__Kelvin]

Good luck learning how math works!

Re:US

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland and Finland are extremely homogeneous, both ethnically and culturally. They have very low crime rates in general, compared to the US. This means that there is very little reason for an officer to fear being assaulted by a criminal.

The US has always had a higher crime rate than European nations, even back before gun-control laws were a thing. The problem comes from many causes, but major cultural differences between population subgroups is one of the largest. When there are major population subgroups where the majority of males have a criminal record by age 25, the police have legitimate reason to fear violence.

Just not as much as they do, and no reason to respond as quickly as they do.

Re:US

[Anonymous Coward]

If we made our country vastly whiter like the places in europe we are compared to then our crime problems would significantly decline too.

Flood Finland with n1ggers to make it look like Chicago or New Orleans and you'll be singing a different tune.

Re:US

[ledow]

And the combined population of Europe is 741m (we passed 330m in 1916), pretty much has no border whatsoever (you could class the UK Channel as one of the only real "borders" as you know them... everywhere else you can literally just walk or drive between countries, unchallenged, at 70mph without stopping) and literally only two countries come anywhere close to having your gun ownership, yet NOT ONE OF THEM is within two orders of magnitude of your police-killing rates. Your point is?

Europe is certainly not all "European white" (hey, nice blaming the other races, well done! But European was the scene of some of the largest racial tensions in world history, if you don't remember that), is one of the most diverse continents, and is literally still splitting itself into pieces over immigration and other problems.

Lecture me when you can make a non-racist, non-bollocks statement about why your police are shooting and killing thousands more people each year than any other police force in the entire world (even when you combine an entire CONTINENT of police forces) - including places like South Africa.

That's great but...

[Lord Kano]

why in the hell aren't the police facing the same charges?

They are the ones who pulled the trigger(s) and ended this person's life.

LK

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the fuck up, you whining worthless cock-gobbling piece of subhuman waste.

Re:That's great but...

[NicknameUnavailable]

Mod parent up insightful.

Re:That's great but...

[kamapuaa]

Parent should be modded +1 insightful.

Re: That's great but...

[astrofurter]

"why in the hell aren't the police facing the same charges?"

Because cops are above the law, obviously.

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

But if the guy *had* been a hostage taker, you'd be praising the cops for their quick response, amirite?

Re:That's great but...

[meerling]

No.
A person that has just murdered someone and has a hostage is not going to casually answer the door in the first place. That cop would have just shot dead the hostage.

Re: That's great but...

[meerling]

Because of the "Blue Shield".
In short, cops protect cops, and the prosecutors who decide what cases to prosecute are complicit in this conspiracy due to their working closely with the police and seeing them as their allies and aids.
After who's going to arrest the cops?

Re:That's great but...

[Opportunist]

No, I'd ask why they shot the first confused guy that opened the door, because if I was a hostage taker I'd send the hostage to answer the door.

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for signing that with "LK".
Really improves your post.

Re:That's great but...

[dwillden]

They were responding to a report of a dangerous armed individual. They went in ready for action. They have to. They go in half-assed and they die. Their job isn't to die, it's to deal with a supposedly armed and dangerous person who had as per the call, already killed someone. Also at the time SWATTING was still a new phenomenon, police depts. didn't have protocols in place to even assume it might be a hoax. This incident and a couple others have changed that. But at the time they had no reason to not believe the caller and had to treat the threat as very real.

Thus to protect their lives and the lives of innocents living around the home in question they had to go in ready to fire without hesitation. This is fully and entirely on the person who called in the report. The officer, by the very nature of the job had to be ready to fire in an instant, without hesitation. Unfortunately the victim did something that caused the offer's finger to move. The officer has to live with knowing it was an innocent man. But the blame is not on the officer who was just doing what he had to do based on the situation as he then knew it.

We frequently make the mistake of judging the actions of police officers based on information found out after the event. We fail to recognize that the officer isn't operating on our hyper-focused 20/20 look back after the facts have all been investigated. He's there on a call of a dangerous man who has already killed others. That's really all he has to go on, he has to be ready to react to that situation and that situation alone. If he goes in assuming anything else and the situation is exactly as reported, his hesitation could get other innocents killed.

ALL of the Blame and Guilt rests on the hoax caller, who based on his record of such calls should be facing far more than 20 years. Every call he made had this potential outcome, every single one. He deserves 20 for this one and 10 for every other call where the victim managed to not do something to draw fire.

Re: That's great but...

[dwillden]

No, it's because the officers had no reason to believe the situation was not what the caller said. They had to be ready to act in an instant to stop a madman bent on killing others. If the situation was as reported and they hesitate at the wrong moment innocents die. Their job is to try to stop that from happening and that requires split second decisions and reactions based on what was only determined AFTER THE FACT to be a false report.

The Officer will live with this guilt for the rest of his life. He didn't take the job to kill an innocent man, but to serve and protect the innocent. But he had to act on the information he had and the reactions of the real victim were such that he felt he needed to fire.

Blame the caller, he's the one at fault. He and only he is truly guilty in this tragic death.

Re:That's great but...

[ledow]

You can't interview a dead suspect... you have no idea of his motivation, whether you have the full story, etc.

The US is one of the few countries that thinks that's a good thing.

With police-firearm-incidents rates something like double that of South Africa, it's not really surprising.

Re: That's great but...

[astrofurter]

There's enough blame to go around. Surely the trigger happy cop, who shot an unarmed civilian in his own home without provocation, is at least as much at fault a dumb punk kid who made a prank call.

I sure don't want a dangerous nut like that "protecting" my city. Police must be held to a higher standard than civilians. When cops literally get away with murder, no one is safe.

Re: That's great but...

[astrofurter]

"who's going to arrest the cops?"

The National Guard, if necessary.

Re:That's great but...

[Calydor]

So what you're saying is you're a cop?

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's because the officers had no reason to believe the situation was not what the caller said. They had to be ready to act in an instant to stop a madman bent on killing others. If the situation was as reported and they hesitate at the wrong moment innocents die. Their job is to try to stop that from happening and that requires split second decisions and reactions based on what was only determined AFTER THE FACT to be a false report.

The Officer will live with this guilt for the rest of his life. He didn't take the job to kill an innocent man, but to serve and protect the innocent. But he had to act on the information he had and the reactions of the real victim were such that he felt he needed to fire.

Blame the caller, he's the one at fault. He and only he is truly guilty in this tragic death.

Thats just a complete croc of shit, in any other country the cops would be going to prison.

That kind of behavior on part of the law enforcement is absolutely not correct.

Re:That's great but...

[stealth_finger]

Didn't you hear? If you want to shoot people with impunity join a US police force. Just don't forget to say you felt threatened and you can kill anyone you want.

Re: That's great but...

[stealth_finger]

No, it's because the officers had no reason to believe the situation was not what the caller said. They had to be ready to act in an instant to stop a madman bent on killing others. If the situation was as reported and they hesitate at the wrong moment innocents die. Their job is to try to stop that from happening and that requires split second decisions and reactions based on what was only determined AFTER THE FACT to be a false report.

Do you really think shoot first ask questions later is appropriate tactic for a police force?

Re: That's great but...

[hjf]

SPECIAL TACTICS for that matter. SWAT is supposed to be trained for things normal cops aren't.

Re:That's great but...

[hjf]

OH SHUT THE FUCK UP. A megaphone is way more than enough to get things sorted out.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and they hesitate at the wrong moment innocents die.

Let's make it clear, INNOCENT died because of dead brain police officer, that think that everybody is a threat. By the way, if he really was an hostage is will also be dead.

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

They investigated themselves and found they did nothing wrong.

Re: That's great but...

[geek]

Because of the "Blue Shield".
In short, cops protect cops, and the prosecutors who decide what cases to prosecute are complicit in this conspiracy due to their working closely with the police and seeing them as their allies and aids.
After who's going to arrest the cops?

Of course cops protect cops. No one else will. They literally have no one else but each other to protect them. That badge isn't just a badge, it's also a target. People target them in every way imaginable, from financially to personally to criminally. Some cops are dbags, some don't deserve to be cops, but what people like you seem to want is open season on the people who selflessly defend us.

I've known my share of asshole cops over the years but that doesn't stop me from understanding that without being there in that moment, it's nearly impossible to understand fully the judgement calls made. This is why we're forcing body cams because that's the closest we can get and even then you can miss a lot of context because the cams only shoot in a frontal cone, missing everything else in the periphery.

Cops have unions for the same reason teachers do. Not just to get bargaining power on wages but to protect them from the public. Parents are vicious when it comes to kids and attack teachers for giving their little snowflakes a C on a test. Just imagine that sort of attack amped up several orders of magnitude when you go to arrest them.

The knee jerk bullshit against cops is getting old. Blame the cop first doesn't fucking work anymore. It's petty and makes you look ignorant.

Re: That's great but...

[angel'o'sphere]

They had to be ready to act in an instant to stop a madman bent on killing others.
So while a cop rang the bell, and a few of them greeted the guy who opened the door, some other cop, 30m away, shot the guy who opened the door ... justice!!

The Officer will live with this guilt for the rest of his life. He didn't take the job to kill an innocent man, but to serve and protect the innocent.
You are well aware that from the outside view of things like this: only people who want to have the legal right to shoot other people join the cops. Right? You realize this? If not ... goood luuuck!

Blame the caller, he's the one at fault. He and only he is truly guilty in this tragic death.
No, the only one at fault is the guy who pulled the trigger.

Re:That's great but...

[maxbuzz]

why in the hell aren't the police facing the same charges?

They are the ones who pulled the trigger(s) and ended this person's life.

LK

The police wouldn't have been there to kill someone if the bogus phone call hadn't been made in the first place.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the only one at fault is the guy who pulled the trigger.

That's just as stupid as 'only blame the caller' post that you're replying to.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Officer will live with this guilt for the rest of his life."

So do drunk drivers after they murder someone. And even when they're up for parole, showing remorse doesn't get them a pass.

The officer can live with the guilt for the rest of his life in prison like anyone else. Oh, I forgot about the blue shield. It's like in Halo, it protects you from just about anything, once. And then you just have to go hide for a bit while it recharges.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with this reasoning is that the cops went to the wrong house. If they had a responsibility to blindly follow the instructions of dispatch and kill first, ask questions later it's a tragedy that they failed to go to the correct address.

I'd still say charge the caller with attempted manslaughter, even if the person that swat killed was a murderer with prostitutes chained up in his basement because that wasn't the "right address".

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some noble points, if made with a bad attitude, but noble none the less.

What isn't happening here though is this:

but what people like you seem to want is open season on the people who selflessly defend us.

We're discussing an officer who shot an unarmed civilian here. The police have no more right to fire on a person than any of the rest of us do. 'he made a movement!' isn't a clear or present enough danger for me to fire on someone else, the same should apply to the authorities.

Gunning down an unarmed person isn't 'selflessly defending us'. It's overreacting to your own fear and it would land any of the rest of us in jail.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Firing on an unarmed person is the wrong split second decision. The speed at which they had to decide doesn't give them a pass anymore than it would you or I if we shot someone we 'thought was going for a weapon' or whatever they interpreted this 'suspicious move' to have been.

Re:That's great but...

[drinkypoo]

They were responding to a report of a dangerous armed individual.

If they assumed that the report was genuine, when we know they often are not, then the police are at fault.

They went in ready for action.

If the action they went in for was murder instead of conflict resolution, then the police are at fault.

They go in half-assed and they die.

They went in half-assed and murdered someone, and it was their fault.

Also at the time SWATTING was still a new phenomenon

No, it wasn't. It had already been going on for years and the term was already well-known in the news media. If the police can't be bothered to keep up with what is happening with the people they are supposed to be policing, then the police are at fault.

This incident and a couple others have changed that. But at the time they had no reason to not believe the caller and had to treat the threat as very real.

No, they didn't, and the fact that they treated the report as if it were true without doing any investigation is the reason they were at fault.

Even if swatting were not already a thing, lying is part of human nature and if they ignore that fact, it makes it their fault.

Thus to protect their lives and the lives of innocents living around the home in question they had to go in ready to fire without hesitation.

They went in ready to fire without hesitation, and consequently murdered a man, which is why it's their fault.

This is fully and entirely on the person who called in the report.

Only the false report is on his head. The shooting was committed by the officer, who pulled the trigger. That's why it's his fault.

Unfortunately the victim did something that caused the offer's finger to move.

This is where you really go fully insane. That's not how it works. The only link between the motion of the victim and the murderer pulling the trigger existed in the murderer's mind. That's why the police are at fault.

The officer has to live with knowing it was an innocent man.

No, he doesn't. He can also die. I'm not really calling for that, because I don't believe in the death penalty whether it's the law of the land or not. The only time it's acceptable to kill someone is when it's to prevent harm to another, and there's no better way to prevent it. That's why it's the fault of the police.

But the blame is not on the officer who was just doing what he had to do based on the situation as he then knew it.

The officer was in a covered, supported position across the street where he couldn't see what was happening in a dark doorway, and he opened fire when there was no clear and present danger to any persons, which is why he is at fault. The police created this situation by failing to cover his doorway with a sniper who could see into the doorway with his narrow optics, and who should have been the only person to even have a finger on a trigger. Those of us who actually know how to handle guns properly know that you don't put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot something. But cops have shit muzzle and trigger discipline on a level that would literally get them kicked out of a real military organization, not their toy soldiers in blue bullshit, and he was aiming the weapon at someone who was not a danger and had his finger on the trigger as well. That's negligence by any reasonable measurement, and that's why the police are at fault.

The very first time I got pulled over, literally for nothing, I had two cops point guns in my face with fingers on triggers. It's this kind of illegal and unethical behavior that leads to accidental police shootings, for which the police are at fault. And cops engage in it every day in this cou

Re: That's great but...

[roman_mir]

American cops are crazy, no question about it, but how is a 25 year old a kid?

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't know the guy. He didn't get anything out of the murder except national condemnation. Surely he will feel shitty about it for the rest of his life.

It isn't like he killed some personal rival rival and then was to get out of it because he's a cop.

Re: That's great but...

[Zero__Kelvin]

You misspelled GP.

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you get a call that there is someone being held hostage at a residence and when you go there the person answering the door has a gun, you shoot first. 9 times out of 10 the person that shoots first in a gun battle wins. Do you want to be the one on the loosing end?

I place half the blame on the guy coming to the door with the gun. If you look out the window and there are 15 guys all with guns, don't bring a knife to a gun battle.

Now I have personally been on the wrong end of said SWAT. An ex-girlfriend of mine called the police and told them that I had beat her and raped her. At a little past midnight there was a banging on my door with "Come out with your hands up". If you go to your door with a gun in your hand, that is the worst thing you can do. I opened the door showed my hands and walked out. Of course I was tackled by 4 guys all twice my size, but I did remain calm and sat there once hand cuffed.

The last laugh is that I called her from the police station asking why she did what she did and an arrest warrant was issued in her name. She was later deported from the country.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The article states the victim repeatedly reached towards his waist area when told not to. The police were told by dispatch that he had shot someone. It was not unreasonable for the police to expect he was reaching for a weapon under those circumstances. Could it have ended better? Certainly. But trigger happy - especially when we're talking about SWAT - is not really an appropriate description here.

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Says Captain hindsight in his soft armchair.

It's easy to make judgements and recommendations when you are 100x divorced from the situation.

Re:That's great but...

[deadwill69]

You absolutely nailed it. Too bad I already ran out of points.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's a kid because he's significantly younger than 99% of slashdot readers.

Re: That's great but...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's exciting and fun to imagine we're in a country where this is common and increasing, rather than face the truth that it is rare and decreasing.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. SWAT Standing With Armor, Trembling

Re: That's great but...

[Shotgun]

In an active shooter situation....YES.

The "victim" was given orders. He not only refused to comply, he made motions that were reasonably viewed as provocation.

I have been swatted. I froze dead still and did not move until instructed. I had enough sense to realize that those policemen were more nervous than I was.

Re:That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they assumed that the report was genuine, when we know they often are not, then the police are at fault.

Let's have the cops treat any emergency you call about as a fake call and see what you think then.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

They had to be ready to act in an instant to stop a madman bent on killing others.

Killing the others is really not the best way to keep the madman from doing it.

If the situation was as reported and they hesitate at the wrong moment innocents die.

And if they shoot anything that moves, innocents die too.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only was he unarmed, but the police were well beyond the range of any pistol, wearing body armor, and covered behind their cars. They could have waited to see what was he was actually doing before unloading with sniper rifles.

I live in wichita, and this is by no means an isolated incident. Less than a month later, a 9 year old girl took some bullet fragments in the face when a cop tried to kill the family dog in front of 4 children and missed, after explicitly being told he did not have permission to enter the house. A few years ago, a drunk guy waving a knife around took 3 rounds in the gut from an ar-15. Us locals often joke that the only gang here is the cops. Even they say they are not here to help people. They enforce the laws, nothing more. We don't call them unless we have to.

Re: That's great but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's time for the cops to start acting like honorable policemen, and stop acting like an occupying army.

The same way people were saying

[Crashmarik]

The bomb threats to the FCC were done by Ajit Pai himself ?

Just goes to show hate makes you stupid.

Suitable punishments are in order

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy needs to be locked up!!
But not left alone, he should be made to suffer the same thing his victims have.. they need to use him as the swat team practise raid bunny!! And the only time off he gets is when they are raiding that other fuckwit that thought swatting is a good idea...

As soon as punishments become more inline with crimes then we might see some change..

And no more hiding this shit behind kids being kids they know people die cuz of this sort of thing therefore they know better!!!

Re:Suitable punishments are in order

[Anonymous Coward]

that and he needs to shot on every raid.. at first with paint markers. then after he realizes or gets uesd to it change it out for salt shot then on special occasions actually clip him with a live round, just a flesh wound in the are or leg nothing that will cut his sentence short or anything nice like that... that should get this guy in to the same psychological state that he wanted his victims to be in..

I feel for the copper that shot this dude... he was just there trying to help... given false information... garbage in garbage out..

you get told there is a situation then someone inside that house has no idea how on edge they are.. a quick movement like throwing your head back in laughter or some other unexpected move ends up getting someone shot..

lets think about it for a second.. if there really was a dangerous situation inside and you see quick and unexpected movement you would get your ass handed to you for not shooting.. if not by your supervising officer at the very least by the other officers that are now going to question you and your skills, will you have my back??? they want to go home at the end of the day just like everyone else.. if you are questioning the guy next to you, you are at a disadvantage.. its a tough spot to be in..

I'm sure the officer involved is not out at a bar telling everyone how they dude dropped when he shot them.. im sure he is probably crying and questioning why he became a cop..

capactha : pigment :p

Re: Suitable punishments are in order

[Anonymous Coward]

"im sure he is probably crying and questioning why he became a cop."

He would have lots of time for tears and self-reflection in jail.

Oh, but wait, that would require a legitimate court system that punishes the actual murderer. But we don't have that. Instead we have a kangaroo court that gave the murderer a hearty pat on the back, then tossed some idiot punk kid in the gulag for the rest of his life. 'Cuz the killer cop said "he made me do it!"

Re: Suitable punishments are in order

[meerling]

The 25 year old man totally deserves the jail time.
So does the cop.
Actually, since it's about a year later, he's probably 26 now.
No idea how old the cop is, but he'd been a cop there for 7 years, so he's no stupid rookie that got scared and did something stupid.

Re:Suitable punishments are in order

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel for the copper that shot this dude... he was just there trying to help... given false information... garbage in garbage out..

You can feel for him all you like. Just like, if you're so inclined, you can feel for the woman who stopped her car in the middle of the highway to try to help some birds off and caused a pileup that killed a bunch of people. However, both of them made mistakes that killed people. In the officers case, there was even intent to kill. It's tragic and sad all around, and it also should be manslaughter in both cases. From what I understand now, the police officer shot the man from across the street after he walked out onto his porch and claimed he saw a gun, but later claimed in court that he didn't. He should have faced manslaughter charges.

Re:Suitable punishments are in order

[dwillden]

Amen! Mod Parent up!

coerced confession

[astrofurter]

Another "plea bargain" coerced confession, another man locked in the gulag without ever being convicted by a jury of his peers.

Fuck whatever this guy may or may not have done. It's time to de-Stalinize America. End coerced confessions. No convictions without real trial by jury. Empty the gulag.

Re:coerced confession

[Joce640k]

Yep.

I have no sympathy for this parasite, he deserves ever minute of a 20-year sentence, but my very first thought was "coerced" when I read the headline.

There's no way this loud-mouth was going to plead guilty all by himself.

The US "justice" system has got plea-bargaining and coercion down to a fine art. It's wrong. It needs to change.

Re:coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't he bragging about all the swattings he's called in and saying he'd continue to make them? Or was that someone else? It isn't hard to believe he'd plead guilty after confessing and with easily traceable phone logs. His loud-mouth is exactly one of the main reasons he should plead guilty.

Re: coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. I think you're an idiot, but sure, get rid of plea bargains so that we can lock up these kinds of retards for life instead of having them plea for 20 years.

Re: coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

If you stalinist assholes had to win a conviction in a legitimate trial by a jury of the defendant's peers, you wouldn't even be bringing this case.

Shiiiit, slaver bro, if you couldn't just force people to "confess" to whatever charges you pull out of your ass, you might have to start focusing on REAL criminals! Can you even imagine that?

Re:coerced confession

[stealth_finger]

The guy was guilty as sin and admitted it to try and get less than the max sentence. What's the point in wasting time and money on a trial by jury to determine if someone did what they have admitted to doing?

Re:coerced confession

[Interfacer]

He publicly admitted doing this before, and iirc he also bragged about this one but even if he didn't, there was enough proof that he did this.
So he gets to choose: take a jury trial when there is absolutely no reasonable doubt, with enough evidence that he was a long term asshole, and possibly get a life sentence. Or take a plea deal and settle for 20.

In his case, taking the 20 was probably the best choice because a trial would in all likelihood have resulted in a guilty verdict and longer sentence.

Re:coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

If his confession was coerced any halfway competent attorney will have him out on the street in a minute. He did it, he confessed, and they confirmed it by his call logs.

And you have no idea what a Gulag is. Even if we do imprison too many people (That is changing with the elimination of mandatory minimums for minor drug possession). Our prisons are five star hotels compared to the Gulags..

Re: coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to read up on how plea bargains work before you call him an idiot. Usually the plea bargain process works by charging somebody with trumped up charges to scare them. Then they'll offer you a "bargain" which would still be extremely severe under what the law could actually punish you for. You'll likely accept it, because okay, yeah, there's no way that stealing that candy bar could possibly be 1st degree murder, but that's what they've charged you with, and what if the jury convicts you for it? Juries do tend to be biased against the defendant.

(And yes, this was hyperbole, typically the 1st degree murder charges come for crimes that are obviously manslaughter, stealing a candy bar would probably be charged with felony theft).

Re:coerced confession

[astrofurter]

You're right - who needs jury trials, anyways? That whole Sixth Amendment thing was a huge mistake. We can always trust cops to tell the whole truth, and we can totally trust prosecutors never to abuse their power. Everyone knows rubber stamp kangaroo courts and a really massive gulag 95% full of people who "confessed" are the hallmarks of legitimate government.

In short, who needs Freedom - free-dumb-shmee-dumb - when we could save a couple bucks AND fill up the gulag even faster!?

Re:coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's such an open-and-shut case, why are you slavers soooooo afraid of a jury trial? Afraid maybe a jury wouldn't see it the way you do? Afraid maybe the jury would see the cop who actually shot the guy as the real murderer?

Re:coerced confession

[stealth_finger]

Jury trials are for when people plead innocent. A jury doesn't decide what happens to a person just if they are guilty or not (beyond reasonable doubt at least). When everyone agrees a person is guilty why does that need to go to a jury? Lying cops and aggressive prosecutors don't do juries any favours at all.

Re:coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in some jurisdictions, juries do determine sentencing. But otherwise you're spot-on.

Astrofurter has obviously got some sort of personal issue happening here.

Re: coerced confession

[Anonymous Coward]

The stalinist asshole hasn't got a real argument, so he brings in an ad hominem. Look at this loser: he hates freedom, but he can't even explain why.

Agreed. Don't SWAT or BULLY people... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: I'm so sick & tired of /. BULLIES. You shitweasels have nothing better to do than HARASS, STALK & IMPERSONATE little ol' me. I've done absolutely NOTHING wrong & just try to make everyone's lives better w/ my work that stops ads & malware.

* As soon as I post, I'm CENSORED to -1 w/ ABUSED downmodpoints by bullies like ZIP, who even admit to this. I caught c6gunner mocking then IMPERSONATING me when he forgot to log out. Zontar mailed me a postcard w/ THREATS on it, then LIES & STALKS me. All because you JEALOUS JOWIE "ne'er-do-wells" KNOW I'm World-Class & you're shit. It's why you hide behind FAKE names & UNIDENTIFIABLE ANONYMOUS.

I'm even improving my already GREAT PHYSIQUE by getting calf implants while you weezils sit around all day on /. STALKING & HARASSING your BETTERS. I repeatedly dust the no-mind bullshit blatherings you BULLIES post to attack me. Like always I WIN & YOU LOSE.

APK

P.S.=> This BULLYING of me is SO UNFAIR & is probably a HATE CRIME because I'm gay. GROW UP... apk

JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" #1/2 "ZIP" ZachPatterson

[Anonymous Coward]

See how STUPID "ZIP" (Zach I. Patterson) CHIMP is (taking credit for what I solved before him) https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... (he needs to LEARN TO READ)!

I even SHOW ways to do it YOURSELF https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... (he couldn't).

Delphi/FreePascal/ObjectPascal HAS no issue w/ null-term'd string bufferoverflows - C does, C++ can UNLESS you do what I said 1st loser.

Tell us about CODE SIGNING (which has been STOLEN & ABUSED) https://www.helpnetsecurity.co... MY METHOD CAN'T BE (upmodded +2 INTERESTING in CODING FOR DEFCON no less) https://it.slashdot.org/commen...

"I'm a much better programmer than APK" - by Anonymous Coward ZIP on Monday October 08, 2018 @11:27PM (#57449082) FROM https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... yet nothing to show in programs. I can from registered /.ers liking/using/praising my work (& 100k users worldwide too). He can't.

LIAR ZIP says he has no account "I don't have an account, so I don't have mod points" https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

Yet LIAR ZIP says he downmods my posts (IMPOSSIBLE MINUS AN ACCOUNT on /.): "I down-modded a few of your post on other threads" - by Anonymous Coward "ZIP" on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:31AM (#57461058) FROM https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

APK

P.S.=> KEEP PLAYING PUSSY GAMES IMPERSONATING ME YOU CHIMP - this comes out every time, lol!... apk

Re:JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" #1/2 "ZIP" ZachPatterson

[Anonymous Coward]

Give em hell, APK!

ALL HAIL APK!!!!

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" #2/2 c6gunner

[Anonymous Coward]

c6gunner CAUGHT impersonating me (his name's the submitter signing "APK") https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & you ALTERED /.ers PRAISE of my work (not yours you don't even HAVE).

* ALL because he tried to INSULT me 2 posts parent prior to it & in the one before it I merely asked to PROVE he did better - he cannot (don't throw stones if you live in a GLASS HOUSE chump & RESPECT YOUR BETTERS (me)).

APK

P.S.=> KEEP IMPERSONATING ME & THIS COMES OUT PUSSY much to your dismay, I'm sure (unless you're a LOSER that does nothing but lose, so you're used to it)... apk

Death Squad?

[fabriciom]

So the problem is the idiot who called the "death squad"? Not the actual people who went in shooting with out asking questions first?

JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" #1/2 "ZIP" ZachPatterson

[Anonymous Coward]

See how STUPID "ZIP" (Zach I. Patterson) CHIMP is (taking credit for what I solved before him) https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... (he needs to LEARN TO READ)!

I even SHOW ways to do it YOURSELF https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... (he couldn't).

Delphi/FreePascal/ObjectPascal HAS no issue w/ null-term'd string bufferoverflows - C does, C++ can UNLESS you do what I said 1st loser.

Tell us about CODE SIGNING (which has been STOLEN & ABUSED) https://www.helpnetsecurity.co... MY METHOD CAN'T BE (upmodded +2 INTERESTING in CODING FOR DEFCON no less) https://it.slashdot.org/commen...

"I'm a much better programmer than APK" - by Anonymous Coward ZIP on Monday October 08, 2018 @11:27PM (#57449082) FROM https://yro.slashdot.org/comme... yet nothing to show in programs. I can from registered /.ers liking/using/praising my work (& 100k users worldwide too). He can't.

LIAR ZIP says he has no account "I don't have an account, so I don't have mod points" https://news.slashdot.org/comm...

Yet LIAR ZIP says he downmods my posts (IMPOSSIBLE MINUS AN ACCOUNT on /.): "I down-modded a few of your post on other threads" - by Anonymous Coward "ZIP" on Thursday October 11, 2018 @11:31AM (#57461058) FROM https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

KEEP PLAYING PUSSY GAMES IMPERSONATING ME YOU CHIMP - this comes out every time, lol!

APK

P.S.=> KEEP PLAYING PUSSY GAMES IMPERSONATING ME YOU CHIMP - this comes out every time, lol!... apk

JEALOUS "Lil' Jowie" #2/2 c6gunner

[Anonymous Coward]

c6gunner CAUGHT impersonating me (his name's the submitter signing "APK") https://linux.slashdot.org/com... & you ALTERED /.ers PRAISE of my work (not yours you don't even HAVE).

* ALL because he tried to INSULT me 2 posts parent prior to it & in the one before it I merely asked to PROVE he did better - he cannot (don't throw stones if you live in a GLASS HOUSE chump & RESPECT YOUR BETTERS (me)).

APK

P.S.=> KEEP PLAYING PUSSY GAMES IMPERSONATING ME YOU CHIMP - this comes out every time, lol!... apk

I was expecting a teenager

[johnsie]

I was expecting a teenager, not a 25 year old. I guess the masses are asses, so people will always do stupid stuff.

Re:I was expecting a teenager

[Anonymous Coward]

I was expecting a teenager, not a 25 year old.

If you measure life expectancy not in years but in the ratio of time acting as a mature person, its average probably went down in past centuries.

what about?

[AndyKron]

What about the mother fuckers that actually shot the guy? They should have a longer sentence.

Buriss was a one man swatting wave, screw him, but

[Anonymous Coward]

The cops murdered that dude. White lives matter!

Hi, both swatters and cops are bad. You're welcome

[OwP_Fabricated]

It's that simple.

The swatter is a piece of shit who should go to jail for basically sending a squad of armed police to someone's house on a false report.

The cops are pieces of shit because they have no fucking discipline and shoot people at the drop of a hat. People seem to have a really hard time understanding this but "Getting home to their family" is NOT the job of a cop.

If you choose to be a cop, you're an arm of the government. You have been invested with the coercive force of the government- you are far, far different from a regular civilian worker. Your job isn't to protect yourself first- it's to protect everyone else. That's the cost of your privileges. You are literally being paid to hesitate a moment longer to make sure you don't murder an innocent civilian because if they turn out to NOT be so innocent you are legally authorized to kill them if need be in a way that a civilian is not. If you get killed because of that hesitation, that's the fucking gig. Either deal with that possibility or don't be a cop.

A swatting attack?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of us not in Yankeeland and with English as a second language, this sounds as if the guy were doing something obnoxious with a flyswatter.

US POLICE:

[Anonymous Coward]

if shots are being fired, hide (unless its a bank)

if no shots are heard and it looks more peaceful than a sunday picnic, break in and shoot someone in the face

Not just Blue Shield

[rsilvergun]

don't forget the "Tough on Crime" voters. Most prosecutors have political ambitions (sorta like how most 7-11 clerks have musical ambitions). Prosecuting cops is bad optics. It'll bite you when you run for office.

If you want to hold police accountable you need to do away with Tough on Crime politics. It's a blind ideology that says anything that hurts criminals must be good. They're voters who don't think, they feel. You need to reach these voters and get them to consider the impacts of their voting decisions.

Re:Not just Blue Shield

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to hold police accountable you need to do away with Tough on Crime politics.

Why is it impossible "to be tough on crimes, including crimes committed by cops?" Putting an officer in prison for murder is not being soft on crime.

Re:Not just Blue Shield

[Anonymous Coward]

It turns out that you can be tough on crime without allowing your police force to commit them.

Same reasons this guy didnt get charged

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www.star-telegram.com/...

You cannot make up a story to get someone else to shoot someone (who reasonably felt the need to). It is all about intent.

Cops get arrested all the time...

[Anonymous Coward]

And I 100% guarantee that anti-police internet tough guys are the first motherfuckers to cry "where the fuck are the police" when they need them.

Just saying.

Re:Cops get arrested all the time...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that the fucking police are never around when you need them is proof that what you say isn't true. The cops have been great at showing up at mass shootings after the perp has already fled or killed themselves though. Thanks cops!

Military equipment and tactics w/o the training

[rsilvergun]

A YOutuber by the name of Beau of the Fifth Column has some great videos on reasonable gun control.

One of the videos talks about a 61 year old man who was shot by police who came to take his guns away after he was declared a risk to the community. The cops came at 5am. They did that because it's a military tactic. You're showing up while the target is waking up and likely to be disoriented. It's a tactic you use when you're showing up to kill your target.

And that's the problem. Police are using military tactics meant for lethal force without thinking about it. They adopted Military tactics because that's "Tough on Crime" without having the training or understanding of what those tactics _mean_. This is why you don't militarize your police.

For the record his solution was to have the police pull the guy over while he's out and about (similar to what was suggested for the leader of the Branch Dividians), take him to a hearing and have a hearing then and there to determine if he's a threat to the community. Seemed like an OK compromise.

Hey fuck you. Sport is not recreational

[Anonymous Coward]

police are not government, theye are lex merchantoria.

Why not murder 2?

[Holi]

They could easily up it to felony murder - depraved indifference, swatting fits its definition perfectly.

I would rather 1000 cops die...

[Ryanrule]

...than one innocent. From star trek, of course: SISKO: You're damned right you should've checked. You knew there were civilian ships in the area. You fired at something you hadn't identified. You made a military decision to protect your ship and crew, but you're a Starfleet officer, Worf. We don't put civilians at risk or even potentially at risk to save ourselves. Sometimes that means we lose the battle and sometimes our lives. But if you can't make that choice, then you can't wear that uniform.

Soldiers are held to a higher standard than cops

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that soldiers are held to a higher standard than cops and failing to follow protocol can lead to war crimes whereas a cop murdering someone results in nothing because the cop was "afraid". Soldier have to identify a target as a combative whereas cops can simply shoot first and ask questions later for there own "safety". The way things are it make no sense to me. A professional should be trained and held to a higher standard than a homeowner defending his property. At the same time this problem of fake calls isn't new and the failure here is in the system. The blame is mostly on our government officials and how they are trained and react and that of law enforcement in general to such situations. I think a sentence for swatting and any related acts which constitute crimes during the commission of crimes of this level or of a lesser nature should not result in a prison sentence of more than 5 years. I think after a sentence has been served should an crime of this nature be committed again the same or slightly harsher sentence may be warranted. The death is on the police. The danger posed should have been minimal and so I don't feel I can reasonably hold this man responsible for the death.

While I don't think it was wise for this man to do what he did I do think he deserves a defense. We don't get down to the real problems if we simply lock up every perpetrator of crime without considering why people act the way they do and tailor our responses in proactive ways to said reasons. We need to prioritize helping the people doing the victimizing in many if not most cases if we want to reduce the harms. Everything from prank calls to thefts, drugs, and sex crimes.

I would argue that having victims under some circumstances is actually a good thing for a variety of reasons. There are people who benefit from the harms and those people shouldn't necessarily be looked at as evil and beyond reproach. Even someone who is willing to harm another to one degree or another for the benefit of themselves may outweigh the harm caused or otherwise create a positive reduction in the overall harm created by others in society. The alternative can be that more people get harmed to a greater degree and no benefits exist for either victim nor harmer by outlawing less harms for instance. Take pornography for example. Some may argue that pornography is harmful to the person or persons involved in its production. Lets assume this is true. Is it more harmful than rape? I doubt anybody thinks being a victim of porn where that porn is created by consensual adults creating pornography for commercial benefit to themselves is more harmful than being a victim of a violent rape. If pornography is harmful in this moralist view, but it reduces violent rapes substantially (and it does statistically) it makes sense to encourage a healthy porn industry even where one thinks the production of porn is creating a victim.

Swatting is hee-larious!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

20 years, minimum

Ha ha!

Can escape the penis?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can he escape the penis or penises which will now be searching for a home in his tookas?