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Comment by Panino | Hacker News Reader

Do you have any citations for this claim?

Brian Krebs did just this, visiting the local police to inform them of the potential for a swatting attack.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/03/the-world-has-no-room-fo...

Then when he was later SWATted:

"One of the officers asked if it was okay to enter my house, and I said sure. Then an officer who was dressed more like a supervisor approached me and asked if I was the guy who had filed a police report about this eventuality about six months earlier."

For all we know it could have saved his life.

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"For all we know it could have saved his life."

It says something pretty sad about American society that your assumption is that calling the Police will result in them murdering an innocent person.

Says quite a lot more about American police, I'd say.

It's hyperbole. Millions of citizens interact with police on a daily basis and don't get shot. That obviously doesn't excuse the cases where it occurs, but it's not like this happens on a significant number of calls.

Once we define what kind of encounters to sample, specifically encounters involving police breaking into your home, it's no longer a ratio of 1:1000000+ that you will have a bad encounter.

If I were told the chances of me dying from jumping off a cliff were 1:1000, I still wouldn't jump that cliff.

Well, what it says is definitely not great, but in this specific case it's probably a bit less about the police overreaction and a bit more about the prevalence of guns and how to safely proceed when notified about extremely volatile and dangerous situations, such as a hostage situation with an armed individual that is exhibiting signs of mental instability (whether true or not).

How the police respond may be weighted too much towards a specific action, but it's important to consider this is the actual reason that SWAT teams exist.

I would definitely be interested in knowing how situations like this are handled in other countries, and the success rates involved. My suspicion is that in countries without the equivalent of SWAT some scenarios don't have an adequate response, while others that we use SWAT somewhat inappropriately for that are handled better. I suspect a less military approach is better overall, but an entire lack of that option isn't beneficial either. I don't think it's hard to argue that there's far too much police militarization in the U.S. right now.

From the krebsonsecurity link, it appears that Krebs was first confronted by officers with firearms drawn and handcuffed before meeting with the supervisor.

Right. The point is that someone who appeared to be a supervisor, in other words in charge of the swat team, was apparently already aware of the chance that this was a case of swatting. Going into the situation, that knowledge likely made the swat team's approach more professional and safe, thereby possibly saving Krebs' life.

Yes, agreed. Just because he was handcuffed for a period doesn't mean they weren't trying to be careful and already under the impression it would be a false alarm. That doesn't mean they let their guard down and don't take it seriously, which depending on the reason they are there may mean securing the area and people in it.

I think you just proved his point.

How insane is it that you have to pre-empt SWATing now?

The only reason this is even a problem is because (too) many people know that the police is so trigger-happy these days that all it takes is say something dangerous-sounding about someone else and there's a not insignificant chance that the police will murder them.

That's how out of control the "Serve and Protect" police has gotten in the US.

My claim was that I fear it, which is true, although I cannot provide a citation. I could certainly point to many instances of people preemptively calling police (i.e. not reporting a crime) and the police showing up and doing horrible things.

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