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Comment by mmmBacon | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but almost all the blame is on the person who pulls the trigger. Swatting is possible because of police militarization. Frankly while the idiot who made the call certainly shares some responsibility, our police policies of shoot first and ask questions later are the problem. When police are trained to respond to citizens, even violent ones, like enemies in war, we get the outcomes of police killings that we have today. Citizens are not enemies or combatants and as such the military style training of police in the US today is wholly inappropriate.

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Exactly. This could have been avoided by asking the neighbors if there was gunfire or if they called. Seems weird that an “active shooter” would result in a quiet street. Surely they’d get multiple reports. This is where better training needs to come into play.

That, and it sounds like the “hostage situation” narrative should have thoroughly unraveled as soon as he shambled to the door and let them in. I’m not an expert on hostage situations, but I’m led to believe that they typically involve more than one person, not to mention that hostage takers are not known for being immediately compliant.

Police militarization makes this man more culpable, not less. He called the police with foreknowledge that doing so would provoke a militarized response likely to end in a death.

murder by cop

Let's split the difference and put both parties in prison.

Fool me once...

The blame can be placed on both. The person who faked a police report is guilty of homicide, but this was made possible by an overly trigger happy police force.

Here we have the exact opposite and police are often prosecuted for firing their weapon. Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service). Why? Because "police needs to know better and accept it as part of their job".

Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the statistics of people with guns there it makes sense.

You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.

April from all that I hope they will prosecute the idiot swatter to set an example. This ain't no games you do for fun.

Where is “here”?

According to the nickname, I'd says Netherlands. But it doesn't matter, you can find people from every single country in the world holding the same (mostly fictitious) discourse.

+1 for the Netherlands. Nice job on an irregular name :).

Regarding mostly fictious: we have national television reporting our first aid/response units are being assaulted on their jobs. We have police officers on trial for arresting people who didn't comply simple questions (no crossing orders). We have the generic public joking about public service. Mostly fictious is not what I would call it. The image of our national police is not great. I would say we could have a bit more of the US respect and they can have a bit of our control. Then again, no proof so hard to fight either way.

P.S. I knew I should jot have taken a 13 yo example :(.

> Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service).

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if an offense only warrants 40 hours of public service, it's probably not serious enough for a cop to use their firearm.

> You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.

-The problem, at least in some cases, is that you may get confusing, if not direct contradictory orders.

Say, if one officer yells 'Put your hands up' whereas another yells 'Get down, get down' - sure, keeping your wits about you, you could get your hands up, then kneel and get down - however, you are probably stressed as hell (being at gunpoint hopefully not being an everyday occurrence), and stressed people make mistakes.

Being frightened is NOT a condition which carries the death penalty. Police officers are the professional party in encounters like this. They should act like it - and receive training in how Joe Q. Public is likely to react when having a gun pointed at him.

(Heck, it might even be justified to have a masked instructor crash a class at the police academy and holding them at gunpoint for a few seconds (better make it a class where the cadets are not armed!) - with any luck, the brighter ones will remember how scared they were and cut civilians they encounter later a little slack for being scared s--tless.

True. That's why I said US might be exceptional here. The chances of a person drawing a gun are large compared to other nations. Which means as an officer you have more reason to quick draw and as a convict/victim you have more reason to behave/be unlucky.

I have no doubt the police is trained. I have no doubt they did not draw because they wanted to have a party. They most likely thought they were in serious danger.

Let's do the Devils advocate. You are the cop standing there. You are almost certain he will pull a gun on you or your colleague. What would you do?

I don't think it will be solved by having an actor join their class. It's statistics and interpretation of it mostly.

> Let's do the Devils advocate. You are the cop standing there. You are almost certain he will pull a gun on you or your colleague. What would you do?

-Fair question. IMHO there will be situations where the police are justified in firing on suspects. I just think that bar is currently (apparently) way too low - and that much can be done BEFORE a situation goes as far as the one in the parent story.

I would expect that SOP at 911 dispatch when receiving a call like the one triggering this death would be to seek more information as the team dispatched; why didn't they call the neighbours? Why didn't they call the house the call supposedly originated from? Why didn't they floodlight the entrance to the house as they ordered the victim to come out? He wouldn't see a thing with a couple of lights in his face, and it wouldn't matter one iota whether he had a gun or not.

My point isn't that police never are justified in exerting violence on us; my point is that they could do a lot more to avoid ending up in situations where deadly force is the only apparent solution in the first place.

I hope I didn't dodge your question.

That's a good idea. And cadets at police academies are never armed outside of a firing range.

This is anathema to the American self-image of independent/free.

Growing up, in my civics classes, we were taught that police were no more privileged than an ordinary citizen. It was WW2 Europe where your papers were required. If you were being bullied by a cop, you can stand up for yourself and be shown to be right by the justice system.

Of course, even as a kid, I knew this was self-delusion. I have always distrusted police and treated them as super powerful combatants who weren't targeting me, but would put me in their crosshairs if they didn't personally like something about me.

vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds

Oh no, children saying rude things? So long civilization, it was good while it lasted.

If we're talking about the Dutch police, they actually seem to do a pretty great job with patience and professionalism from what I remember when I lived there (for about 2 years).

Nothing they said contradicts what they said.

It’s important to understand though how the (rest of) US thinks about situations like these. Throwing. Your arms up and declaring the moral high ground instead of being a apart of pragmatic conversations reminds me of the stance R.M.S would take on things.

That's unfair. What is missing from this discussion is that American crime rates are an outlier in the developed world. I worry that trigger happy 'militarized' police force won't end until crime rate goes down to the level of other developed nations.

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