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Comment by WhatIsDukkha | Hacker News Reader

What bothers me about these situations is just the entire idea of "SWAT" as practiced.

You are a cop with 5+ other cops.

You all pull your guns.

Someone comes to the door, groggy in the middle of the night. They may or may not understand you are police. They may or may not believe you are the police.

They are definitely confused/frightened/angry by your presence.

We now begin the dice rolling process.

Since every police officer with a gun drawn is now a DECIDER they get a dice roll.

Every single millisecond, all these dice are rolled simultaneously for the entire arrest process as the "suspect" is ordered around like they haven't been since grade school gym class.

This process is designed to have a weapon be discharged.

View on HN

The person making the prank is in the wrong, but so are the officers.

How I see it is that the officers of their own freewill took on the role of law enforcement and public service.

Fully aware that they would be put in life threatening situations.

Their first instinct shouldn't be to fire first to save their own skin, but be trained to take time to assess the situation and risk erring on restraint of force.

Most of the talk coming from police departments usually state their actions in terms of the officer's personal safety.

Though that is important, due to their choice and the role in society that they play, their safety should be a secondary concern to the safety and lives of those they are to protect.

There is actually a slightly more damning view of the situation here than the moral issues around police safety.

The police had complete control over how they approached this. Why then are they even in a position where they feel threatened?

When we look at the outcome here, they just killed some dude for no reason. If this is acceptable to the police force; why not have them call out to the room with a megaphone? What is the worst case scenario then? Hostage gets shot by a criminal instead of a policeperson?

In this day and age, they could just fly in a drone in with a microphone and and a speaker while they sit 200 meters behind a bullet proof screen. Instead they proactivly put themselves in a situation where they felt at personal risk from ... turned out to be some dude sitting in his house. How could they have come up with a worse plan?

This to me seems to be the big difference between US policing and what we're used to in e.g. most European countries: A focus on quick resolution at all cost rather than peaceful resolution.

UK police for example tends to respond with overwhelming force, clear the area if possible, and contain their potential adversary, and if possible often wait the situation out. They will use violence if they have to, but it ends up being rare.

Stupid accidents still happens (e.g. an unarmed man was shot because police worried he might be a terrorist a few years back), but serious ones are predictably few when police defaults to avoid violence, and defaults to not even carry guns. But even firearms teams who are specifically called out when a suspect is armed have few serious accidents because they're not there to shoot their way to a resolution except as a last resort.

It looks like a default approach to provoke and escalate confrontation. A few days ago I watched the video of a police officer armed with a rifle arderimg a drunk guy to crawl on the floor. The drunk crawled wrong, so he was shot and killed. Turns out he was unarmed and innocent of any crime. The officer apparently will not be charged. Here in the UK this would be completely unacceptable, but in the US it’s routine.

And I witnessed a suicidal guy walking around Portland at 5am holding a gun to his head. The police surrounded him on three sides, wearing bullet-proof armor and hiding behind large armored vehicles and even had snipers in the parking lot across the street. They seemed pretty secure in their positions and decked out with heavy weaponry from a safe distance. He had a small 6-shooter and was walking in circles. They called out to him to drop his gun, to which he replied that he needed help (they wouldn't admit him to the hospital for mental care because he couldn't afford it). He pointed the gun towards the ground and fired, upon which they shot him multiple times from multiple positions. Don't they have people trained in psychology to deescalate such situations? Or is that just a movie trope? Even if wanted to shoot a cop, from my vantage point, there was no way he would have hit any of them.

In the end it was labeled a police-assisted suicide i.e. he still shot himself and the police have 0% responsibility. The irony is that at the same time across town, the police chief of Portland was giving a conference about how the police will use less deadly force in such encounters in the future (because this wasn't the first time).

Shoot pretty much any direction in a busy city, and hit somebody. He was a loose cannon, aiming a deadly weapon irresponsibly. It can be argued, he had to be taken down. Cruel, but when people put themselves in that position something has to be done, and quickly.

Not clear why a sleeping dart couldn't have been used though. Animal control does a pretty good job in such situations.

I should have mentioned, the police cordoned off the entire block with tape and there were armed police on every street. The police were also yelling through the megaphone. Nobody was on the street and nobody was leaving their houses in that climate. The parking lot was 99% empty.

As mentioned, he shot the ground directly in front of himself. Once.

And as mentioned elsewhere here, German police would in that case shoot e.g. a leg to disable the threat, not aim to kill. Someone gave the kill order and a lot of shots were fired. Of course your suggestion to use a sleeping dart (or something similar) would be ideal.

On top of all that but less relevant to this thread, they left the body uncovered on the street until late in the afternoon, approx. 8 hours. I took a lot of pictures of the entire thing (starting after the shooting, because I was afraid the police might think I had a gun too with my huge black camera with telephoto lens).

> Someone gave the kill order and a lot of shots were fired.

I honestly don’t believe anyone gave a kill order, I rather feel (maybe not fairly) that police had guns trained on him and heard gun fire and instinctively pulled without even taking a second to analyze situation. If I’m right (good video footage could help prove the theory), this should scare everyone (but likely won’t).

So if someone throws a firecracker near an active US police situation all the officers are just going to open fire on whatever is in front of their gun barrels?

I probably shouldn’t have been that vague, knew I was leaving myself open to whataboutism / trolling. Here’s a bit more specific version:

“If a police officer hears and sees the perp’s gun go off, they likely won’t stop to think even long enough to see who got shot, but likely instinctively pull to neutralize the threat.”

In most places outside the US, they’d aim for legs / arms as that would “neutralize” but not “kill”. In this scenario they’ve got snipers trained on him after all, no excuses about handgun accuracy. Yet in the US, you’ll virtually never see that, all shots will be into the chest.

They disn't use sleeping darts because the police are also loose cannons aiming deadly weapons irresponsibly, as we can see time and time again.

"n unarmed man was shot because police worried he might be a terrorist a few years back"

That was 2005, 3 weeks after a successful terrorist attack on the tube, and 1 day after an unsuccessful one. It was news for weeks and resulted in a criminal prosecution for the head of the police force involved.

The prosecution was not of the head of the force as an individual but of the office of the head of the force (effectively equivalent to the force itself being prosecuted - a legal quirk due to the way the force is legally constituted). And it was for breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act, and resulted in a tiny (comparatively speaking) fine. This was viewed by many as a whitewash.

More broadly, the whole episode made them look incredibly incompetent, callous and uncaring. No action was taken against the officers who were clearly culpable through their abject incompetence (for example, if he was a potential suicide bomber, why wasn't he stopped before he got on a train?). Furthermore, the force took far too long to apologise and admit errors publicly. And they never adequately explained the tactics that led to an innocent man being shot without warning.

This is very similar in character to the issues which plague policing in the USA and has served to sow a great deal of distrust of the police here. Witness the "London riots" in 2011, for example.

And that's also set against a background where they have been publicly found to be "institutionally racist". Subsequently to the de Menezes incident, armed police also "accidentally" shot an unarmed suspect in the shoulder while running upstairs in a house in the Forest Gate raid (which again, just makes them look like amateurs).

And so on.

So our police are very far from perfect - it's just that being better than some of the worst excesses seen in the liberal world is not a hard standard to meet.

> police defaults to avoid violence, and defaults to not even carry guns.

I think this might be more of a difference between the legality of guns in the US and UK. Guns are so rare in the UK because they are illegal to own for almost everyone. I can imagine that makes a big difference for a police officer's expectation of the likely potential danger of public adversaries... yes there are still knives and acid and whatnot but those are close quarter and improvised weapons that don't emerge so suddenly from a distance, I think those make you far less "jumpy" for lack of a better description.

PS. Please don't start an "anti guns" thread under here because we all know that never goes anywhere on the internet. I'm simply pointing out that the prevalence of guns will have a big impact on personal risk felt by law enforcers and that is a relevant difference between these two countries.

I live in a country where guns are legal to own and the police still doesn't shoot random people for no reason. It's not that hard, just don't give the job to thugs.

Is gun ownership as common as in the US?

Norway has one of the highest gun ownership rates, and until some years back the territorial army had people keep their AG3 service weapons at home. Yet it's only been for time limited periods that police has been routinely armed, and they certainly also doesn't act like the US. I don't like guns, but I also don't think guns alone are sufficient to explain the high firearms related crime rate in the US.

Some of the differences:

1. a different gun culture. Most weapons in Norway are actually for hunting, and no that does not mean semi-automatics etc.. A few are for firing on a range, but there's no culture for seeing a firearm as intended for self defense, and the laws specifically makes it hard (you need to store the weapon locked down and inoperable, and generally you'd e.g. store gun and ammo separately; if you have time to arm yourself, police will question whether or not you had the ability to get away and call for help instead - if the threat is not immediate enough you risk a murder charge).

2. A culture for not meeting suspects with force unless they're armed, and generally focus on de-escalation, and for taking weapons use extremely seriously. E.g. officers need to account for every time they take their weapon out and every bullet fired.

3. A legal system that is generally lenient but where there is a clear path of escalation in response based on how dangerous a crime is. E.g. a robbery carries a sentence up to 5 years if unarmed, of which you'd generally serve less than half (and most people won't get the maximum sentence) - as an example, a robber that participated in a stealing one of the instances of Scream and Madonna by Munch got 2 years and 6 months a decade and a bit back.

Arm yourself, and you risk an additional 7 years. Kill or seriously injure someone during a robbery, and you might get 21. As an example, one of the largest armed robberies in recent Norwegian history, that ended up with one dead poice officer, (the "Nokas" robbery) ended up with one of them getting 18 years, and several others getting 16. That's a pretty substantial extra risk on top of the risks involved in a shootout with police.

Combine that with #2, and criminals have a very strong incentive in general for not being armed - by not arming themselves they don't risk being shot at by police, and they cut the worst case punishment from 21 to at most 5 years in a robbery, for example.

Compare to the US, where a robber has little reason to want to take the risk that police won't shoot even if they're unarmed, given how often we hear of police firing even at innocent civilians. Couple that with high sentences and the incremental cost in using firearms to prevent police from catching or killing them is low.

Wait, an armed robber killed a police officer and only got 18 years?

THAT is your take away from that post? Or is this just trolling illustration of U.S.police mindset?

The maximum sentence in Norway is 21, AFAIK. It can be renewed if the person is deemed a threat after that time (terrorists and such).

Thanks that's a really interesting perspective, for me that really highlighted a refined 'equation' of:

legality_of_guns * gun_culture * gun_ownership_legal_details * gun_crime_sentence_details * police_gun_use_rules * police_descelation_emphasis

Specifically the differences between culture and usage laws between US and Norway that you describe.

> I think this might be more of a difference between the legality of guns in the US and UK.

I don't think so; UK gun restrictions are relatively recent (~20 years). I would attribute it to the Peelian Principles¹, which post-date US disconnection from Britain.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles

Interesting, I didn't know about the peelian principles, and no doubt a substantial amount of differences can be attributed to it... however I still suspect gun ownership differences play a significant role, 20 years law or not, guns are and have been prevalent in the US like they have never been in the UK.

> UK gun restrictions are relatively recent (~20 years).

This statement is misleading. Yes there were gun laws made twenty years ago, as there were ten years before that, twenty years before that, thirty years before that ... right back to 1594. Source Wikipedia.

That would affect incidents where the police is not yet sure whether they're meeting someone armed, but the de-escalation is generally adhered to when firearms teams are brought in too - which are generally situations where they know they're dealing with an armed suspect.

> A focus on quick resolution at all cost rather than peaceful resolution.

The reason for this is simple. It just takes one situation (or at least one believably plausible situation) for people of power to justify a quicker resolution that ultimately gives them more power and meets their KPI goals (more arrests, less bad guys living).

In this case, imagine a real armed gunman shoots a hostage or a stray bullet hits an innocent bystander. Imagine the outcry of the public and SJW's: "OMG they should have just run in there and killed the SOB! Or better, shoot him in the leg! Do something police!"

Solution? A more swift resolution to the problem - i.e. SWAT style infiltration.

I think this political escalation process is itself specific to the US... I think if it happened in the U.K. there would be no such outcry... just tributes to the innocent bystander and a nice funeral. Shit happens. It doesn’t have to always be someone’s fault.

Americans seems to be perpetually caught in a victim-aggressor-rescuer drama triangle...

Yes I should have clarified that this is fairly unique to US culture.

Notably after most UK police shootings - and there's rarely more than one a year, sometimes years without - police ends up having to apologize and face demands for tighter rules, but the opposite rarely happens. There are occasional demands for police to be more regularly armed, but they've not gotten very far.

All the money goes to “more important” things. Police are badly educated, badly trained, badly equipped, etc. And part of a culture that views dead bodies as an acceptable outcome, “better than the alternative”.

You are reading too deep into it. The situation is that the cops have too little downside and too high an upside: since they never get convicted for these crimes, you need little to nothing to convince you that deadly force is fine.

Cops need to go to jail for this. Its as simple as that. And they will find the way to not shoot like that anymore.

It really does seem that simple. Most people will behave similarly in similar situations and American cops have so many perverse incentives.

> you need little to nothing to convince you that deadly force is fine.

I'm disturbed by that line of thought. A normally educated human being from a developed country should feel bad about using deadly force, and worse after using it. The whole point of military training is to break the human instinct no to kill and even with the pressure of actual combat situation (where the upside is much higher, the downside much lower than for SWAT teams), killing breaks the soldier mentally.

What kind of people is the US is selecting (or what kind of training) for its police force that only some fear of criminal prosecution is keeping them from shooting people ?

After shooting dead an innocent, you would expect a police officer to be mentally wrecked. Even worse as he utterly failed at his primary mission of protecting the citizen which, as a Police officer, should normally be pretty high up in his list of personal priorities. So I can of understand going easy of the Police, from a legal point of view. But if the kind of people you have in the police are the one looking for the license to kill to assuage their most primal instinct, the problem is not with the legal side, you are hiring/training really wrong. That's not a police force, that's a criminal cartel.

You're right, US police officers are trained to be less hesitant in using force than would be natural. They are taught that at any moment they could be in a life and death struggle and that they have to have a "warrior mindset" to react quickly before it is too late.

"Better tried by twelve than carried by six"

Im sure there is grief afterwards, but there is also grief and pain from over eating and overdrinking: some consequences are very hard to measure at the point of decision. Specially when its related to your own survival.

The ghost of a 1% danger vs a 0% consequence makes it a pretty rational decision. Bear in mind that criminals, even those with hostages, dont make the decision to shoot so fast: they know that if you shoot the hostage you die or get captured immediately. So the criminals do respond to the punishment. Why wouldnt cops?

US is hiring lots of former soldiers as LEO. Also the training for the soldiers is not to break the human instinct not to kill (there is nothing like that), but to follow orders, react quickly under pressure, reduce the risk of panicking and to use superior tactics for killing the enemies. We train soldiers to be effective killing machines, nothing else. And many become LEO after retiring from the army.

> The police had complete control over how they approached this. Why then are they even in a position where they feel threatened?

The police is also under an immense pressure when they are assigned to a hostage situation.

Yes, I suppose much of that comes from their own feeling that they must achieve a quick resolution to a distressing situation, and if they are not well trained, not experienced and do not have the right incentives to work in a professional way, this kind of tragedies will happen.

In my country of 5 million people, the police force (8000 policemen) often uses less than 10 bullets in action per year, per the whole force (including warning shots but excluding ammunition used in training), but on the other hand, police officers being killed in the line of duty is also extremely rare, so they can usually approach most situations without being too aggressive.

(This is not because we wouldn't have a lot of guns in the country - we do. We just don't have violent subcultures that would shoot each other or the police.)

Real answer? They are scared cowards. The 18 year old marine in parts unknown, LEGIT scared for his life has better judgement.

Individual police officers individually opting out of individual SWAT missions, or teams, or equipped-police-departments, isn't going to end SWAT tactics.

Policy changes, and collective action, are.

Cops are laughably trained. A fresh boot from any service has more resolve than beat cops. I used to think SWAT was different but the last few years proves otherwise.

As a son of a cop and former service member myself, the whole thing makes me sick. And the COMPLETE lack of repercussions makes me furious. God forbid some idiot doesn't get his "gold watch." The thin blue line will rally around that idiot to protect him.

It's not a prank, it's a deliberate attempt on someone's life.

And it takes advantage of US police officers' lack of training in de-escalation. Compared to other western countries, American police officers receive less training, and their training is more focused on shooting, less on de-escalation. Better training would go a long way towards preventing them from being abused like this.

>Their first instinct shouldn't be to fire first to save their own skin.

I agree with this, however, do you realize that the officers were told this was a hostage situation? I think in this case they were thinking about the hostages, not themselves since they weren't the ones being threatened.

The most interesting opinion about this subject I've read comes from a comment, in the popehat blog, by an experienced military:

  There is plenty of reason to restrict the use of SWAT teams, but not to abolish
  them. They are needed now and then, when there is an actual hostage situation or
  an armed gang that tries to shoot it's way out. They should never be used for
  routine search or arrest warrants. That not only endangers the possibly innocent
  target of the raid, but it undermines the team's training – they become used to
  tearing up houses where no one is resisting. There's a dashboard video of the
  Jose Guerena raid. My drill instructor would have said they looked "like a monkey
  fucking a football" – and I was in the Air Force, ground tactics weren't even on
  the curriculum. I've seen considerably more forceful comments from Army and
  Marine Corps infantrymen who actually have had to break into a house against
  armed defenders. They milled around, exposed themselves to possible fire through
  the open door, and got into each others line of fire. They did NOT identify
  themselves as police that I can hear on the audio track, so Guerena was justified
  in hunkering down in a defensive position with a rifle. If Guerena (a former
  Marine) hadn't been far more professional than any of the cops and not fired
  without identifying his targets, several cops would have been down.

  Then there are the SWAT members that "accidentally" (that is, negligently) fired
  a round and killed an unresisting, unarmed suspect because they tripped or
  bumped their elbow – an accident that can only happen if you are in violation of
  the two most important rules of gun safety: don't put your finger on the trigger
  until you have decided to shoot, and don't point the muzzle near anything that
  you do not intend to shoot. We know they were running around with their finger
  on the trigger – in a situation where there was clearly no need for shooting –
  because modern firearms in good working order just don't fire unless the trigger
  is pulled. The military just doesn't tolerate that. If a non-police civilian in
  my state had done this, he could have been sentenced to life for manslaughter.
  But if you are a cop, you can recklessly kill someone and the prosecutor will
  throw the case…

This comment makes a lot of sense to me. SWAT / Armed police aren't inherently a bad thing. There are cases where they are needed, we're just overusing and undertraining officers.

I'm Irish, so while we do have some branches of the police who are armed, most are not. I wonder how the armed Irish Gardi would stack up training wise against armed American cops (ignoring the fact that every state / city would be different..).

Would our limiting of arms to a smaller group result in better training and responses? Or are they just as likely to mis-fire and fail to identify themselves?

Here's that quoted section without weird formatting:

There is plenty of reason to restrict the use of SWAT teams, but not to abolish them. They are needed now and then, when there is an actual hostage situation or an armed gang that tries to shoot it's way out. They should never be used for routine search or arrest warrants. That not only endangers the possibly innocent target of the raid, but it undermines the team's training – they become used to tearing up houses where no one is resisting. There's a dashboard video of the Jose Guerena raid. My drill instructor would have said they looked "like a monkey fucking a football" – and I was in the Air Force, ground tactics weren't even on the curriculum. I've seen considerably more forceful comments from Army and Marine Corps infantrymen who actually have had to break into a house against armed defenders. They milled around, exposed themselves to possible fire through the open door, and got into each others line of fire. They did NOT identify themselves as police that I can hear on the audio track, so Guerena was justified in hunkering down in a defensive position with a rifle. If Guerena (a former Marine) hadn't been far more professional than any of the cops and not fired without identifying his targets, several cops would have been down.

Then there are the SWAT members that "accidentally" (that is, negligently) fired a round and killed an unresisting, unarmed suspect because they tripped or bumped their elbow – an accident that can only happen if you are in violation of the two most important rules of gun safety: don't put your finger on the trigger until you have decided to shoot, and don't point the muzzle near anything that you do not intend to shoot. We know they were running around with their finger on the trigger – in a situation where there was clearly no need for shooting – because modern firearms in good working order just don't fire unless the trigger is pulled. The military just doesn't tolerate that. If a non-police civilian in my state had done this, he could have been sentenced to life for manslaughter. But if you are a cop, you can recklessly kill someone and the prosecutor will throw the case…

What's rendered weird specifically, on your system?

I'm always very puzzled when I have to do HN quoting/bullet points, so I thought 80-columns code would fit well (evidently, it doesn't).

I also wonder why HN doesn't improve formatting, which has at least a couple of very common problems (the mentioned code and bullet points rendering).

When you're on mobile it's almost impossible to read.

Unreadable on iPhone and potentially other mobile devices.

it's formatted as code, which is slightly weird but does not really decrease legibility for me.

Firefox on iPad: needed to scroll right to left

On my mobile, the text is cut off after the 25th character on each line and the browser doesn't render a horizontal scrollbar preventing me from seeing the right half of each line.

It would be nice if MIME format=flowed was a thing for quoted text on web pages that otherwise would be hard-wrapped.

When you indent the text by two spaces it renders as a pre block.

On mobile this will mean only about 35 columns are visible at once.

and being woken in the middle of the night, wearing boxers or pajamas with hands in the air, better pray that they don't happen to slip down causing you to instinctively "reach for your waistband" in order to hitch them up

Funny, this happens often in my neighborhood where people wear pants too big for their waists with no belts.

do you personally sleep while wearing form-fitting pants with a belt?

Oh, yeah, thats definitely not racism right there, blaming hip hop fashion for a shooting percentage. Carry on.

I was merely pointing out that people in my neighborhood like myself often have to reach down to pull up our pants. What race do you think I am?

Are you suggesting my fashion should be influenced by the chance that the police my murder me over it?

Not at all. I live in the same neighborhood and often where pants with no belt.

This seems to me to be what happened in the Daniel Shaver case, who was drunk and in his pajamas when police (responding to a report of a brandished gun being spotted in his motel room window) confronted him. He was facedown and yelled at for ~4 minutes before being shot when officers mistook him pulling up his waistband for reaching for a weapon:

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/us/police-shooting-vid...

The officer who shot him was exonerated but IMO, the officer belligerently shouting confusing instructions at him should have faced scrutiny. Instead, he got to retire with a full pension while testifying on behalf of the officer who did pull the trigger.

if i recall correctly Shaver was not wearing pjs, he was wearing shorts. but yes, he appeared to pull up his shorts which were being dragged down because he was being forced to crawl on his hands and knees.

i would bet that almost everyone being in such a position, or standing at their front door in front of their neighbors, who felt their bottom falling down, would instinctively reach down without thinking.

some points to note about that incident -

a) he had the pellet gun as part of his job as an exterminator, even if he was careless in demonstrating how he used it to shoot birds for pest control

b) think about how easily the officers could have gone to the wrong hotel room; you, me or anyone random could've been in the room next door to Shaver and been treated the same (and probably wouldve reacted the same), even if we'd just poked out head outside our room to see what the heck was going on

How was he “careless” in any way? Was it not completely legal for him to own it, and completely legal for him to show it to other people, especially in the privacy of a hotel room?

I thought the right to do this was for many the single most important principle of your country, shouldn’t the police have responded to reports of somebody with a gun with “Well this is the USA, nothing to see here?”

it was called in because he was pointing the rifle out of his hotel room window.

i guess it's up to you to decide for yourself whether or not that could be called "careless". or whether it would be reasonable for a passerby to call in a report of someone pointing a rifle outside of a hotel room window, a couple months after Las Vegas.

The verdict came in a couple months after the 2017 Vegas shooting. The actual incident took place in January 2016. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver

ah thanks for that bit of info. still, even pre-Vegas, i think it is reasonable to label pointing a rifle outside a hotel room window as "careless", which is the point i was responding to.

the commentor seemed to conflate the questions of "was it not completely legal for him to possess that item?" and "was it careless (legal or not) to show it off in that manner?"

That video is sickening. That man was murdered.

Technically not murder, as that requires premeditation. However it is apparent that this is a no-win situation for the victim, the officer is clearly intent on creating a situation for a "justifiable" homicide.

What's just as horrifying is that the jury acquitted.

IANAL but I believe it could be classified as second-degree murder (no premeditation required)

a bit further, you're absolutely correct; it seems the US has a more nuanced definition of murder, for which any of the three definitions of second degree murder could potentially apply in this case[1]:

  - A killing done impulsively without premeditation, but with malice aforethought
  - A killing that results from an act intended to cause serious bodily harm
  - A killing that results from an act that demonstrates the perpetrators depraved indifference to human life

As for my original point, that just makes the aquittal even more shocking!

[1] http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/second-degree-m...

Note that the US does not have a single definition of murder; there are loose common guidelines, but each jurisdiction within the U.S. has its own, slightly different, definition of each form of murder. The specific statutes matter a lot in actual cases even if they get ignored in general discussion, as do the actual charges filed. The fact that another form of murder exists that could have been supported based on the trial evidence will not save a conviction on appeal if the appellate court feels the evidence cannot reasonably support a conviction for the specific form of murder actually charged.

Being 'intent on creating a situation for a "justifiable" homicide' would itself be a form of premeditation, would it not?

I have seen use-of-force training exercises that look very similar except there is actually a weapon being drawn. I don't think it makes the officer who pulled the trigger innocent, but I believe he behaved exactly the way he was trained, and holding him personally responsible would not prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

Note in particular it is a different officer who is talking in the video and created the whole situation.

Fair enough. The horrifying part to me was not the moment the shots were fired, but the escalation and screaming of inconsistent instructions by an unmistakably bloodthirsty officer to a man who was clearly scared out of his mind and literally begging for his life.

Its a life and death game of Simon Says in these situations. And you get to play regardless of guilt or innocence at the time.

this particular situation was not Life:Death. Which is the important thing to remember when the media becomes complicit in the coverup of police brutality.

I also don't get why they said he should move to them. instead another police officer could've just came from the back and searched him for potential weapons. but well the video shows that the police basically was harmful.

One thing that gets overlooked in police shootings is innocent bystanders as an aside to the people getting shot by police, justified or not.

Imagine the person that called the police to investigate someone with a possible weapon in a hotel, moments later police show up in SWAT gear with AR-15s and discharge them in the hallway, with many other rooms around, and kill an innocent man. Worse, bullets could have gone into rooms or out the window into the parking lot and who knows where else. Why not rubber bullets, why not a taser, why an AR-15 in a hotel hallway?

Next time you see one of these shootings, watch the disregard in some for who is behind the person the police are shooting at [1][2][3] whether justified or not, it is a bit scary. It is getting to the point that maybe it is safer to not call police, what if you were robbed and they come in and shoot the guy in front or you house, bullets everywhere?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/25/justice/south-carolina-trooper...

[2] https://nypost.com/video/cop-fatally-shoots-suicidal-man/

[3] http://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2017/12/10/daniel-shaver-philip...

That happened in New Zealand a few years ago. The police missed their target (an actual active shooter running on foot) and instead killed the driver of a nearby van. I don't know how you can be trained to use a gun and not learn about looking at what you're shooting it at.

Handguns are difficult to use. Moving targets are hard to hit. Extensive training helps, but many people who have found them in situations where they need to use that training have found their performance suffers.

Sleep naked

The video leaked online. He is not even trying to reach for his pajamas or something. A cop asks him to move towards them and the next second you hear the shot. It's crazy.

He definitely reached for his shorts. It's a reflex that comes from a whole lifetime of being able to pull up your pants without risk of being shot.

But that's all irrelevant. If the cops were only interested in securing him, they would've made him lie down like a starfish and have someone approach him instead of letting Jigsaw make him play Twister.

that video is horrific. the cop directing him is just dripping with sadism

i hope the undeniable pleasure that cop took in playing this lethal game of Simon Says was worth it.

Anonymous for obvious reasons...

This happened to me on Wednesday about 5:00am. My wife and I had gotten into a terrible fight. She suffers from terrible alcoholism. This week of Christmas has been absolutely horrible as demons resurface. She awoke me from my sleep about 4am, drunk and outraged because I asked if she was wearing a robe in bed. Things spiraled very quickly out of control, my wife was out of control, and so was I. We both said terrible things and made unwanted body contact. The fight made its way to the driveway and a neighbor called in the disturbance.

About 30 minutes later I was awoken by the doorbell. I knew who it was. I threw on my PJ pants and a hoodie. Fifteen minutes later I was in handcuffs heading to the county jail.

I could have easily been in a very very bad situation if I hadn't followed orders to the letter.

My wife and I are in therapy and she will be entering detox this next week. I hope this event turns into the wake up call that helps her beat this disease with my help all along the way.

Peace.

So sorry to hear your story. As an alcoholic though (currently 1.5 bottles of wine down, and wishing I had another to hand), I find it hard to reconcile your situation. Your wife was drunk, you were not, but both lost control? Not judging, just asking.

The reason I ask is that only situation in which my alcohol abuse has triggered any kind of verbal exchange is where (unaware of my situation) my partner has been snappy about something, and due to lack of sleep (staying up late, secretly drinking), I've responded less diplomatically than I would have liked. Never abusive, never physical by either party, and only a small number of times.

Under no circumstance has either of us become physical. That's a totally different problem, and I'd encourage you to seek help for your wife (If I'm understanding correctly that she was the one that became aggressive, or both of you otherwise) It's probably also the time to consider what's best for you both in the long term.

Unrelated to that, but apropos your comment and the OP, I had a cop pull a gun on me when I was 19. I naively, but quite literally laughed it off, as I was doing my job and had no idea the risk I was in from his overreaction.

I was in college, but working a night security job. I had to check the premises set the internal alarm, then check the outside doors. Unfortunately a (really stupid) design flaw in the alarm system resulted in the occasional false silent alarm.

On this occasion, as I was checking the outside doors, a cruiser rolled up, the cop saying they'd received an alarm call.

I identified myself, invited him in (first mistake), then said I'd switch off the alarm (second mistake - why I don't know - it was a silent alarm!)

Switching off the alarm with a key switch required reaching around a door in to a closet where the alarm system was.

I turned around to discover the now less-than-friendly looking cop pointing his gun at me.

I laughed instinctively, as to my innocent mind it seemed absurd. Thankfully, that seemed to drop his guard. He was 6 feet away, and my hands were now clearly empty.

I wasn't asked to follow Simon-says "crawl towards me with your left foot over your right, and your hands straight in the in the air, or we will shoot you type instructions, and shortly after, the dispatcher ID'd me as being a registered person for the property.

Now that I think about it, I had several negative experiences with the cops in a 2 year period. (Broke into my residence in the middle of the night for no reason - I was more embarrassed that it was untidy!; gatecrashed a party because they "didn't like the music" (no neighbours, no disturbance), probably looking for underage alcohol; stopped for speeding on a bicycle!!!

I read your comment, kept going with my morning, but then felt compelled to come back. You might not see this given it’s a throw away, but I hope you do.

As someone who has lost family members to alcohol (both figuratively while they were living, and now literally as they have passed away), I’m always prone to respond to opening sentences like yours with “today is a great day to get sober.”

There is a meeting near where you live today. https://www.aa.org/pages/en_US/find-local-aa

If you’re looking for some inspiration from another addict, I always recommend Bob Forest. You can hear him on the This Life podcast with Drew Pinsky http://drdrew.com/thislife/.

Best of luck to you.

Thanks for taking the time to come back and respond. I'm going to try to get it under control for the new year. I'll check out that Dr Drew link.

My email is also in my profile. Here if you want to talk. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.

nothing personal man but i don't think the reason you posted this was to share an anecdote about obeying the police

Yep. If cops break into your house and point guns at you, you need to suppress your natural tendency toward modesty.

Add it to the lawsuit, later.

In general so many things can be misunderstood. E.g. when Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by anti-terror police in London who mistook him for a potential suicide bomber, one of the things brought up was how he got up from his seat in a rapid motion by lifting his arms in front of him to shift his point of gravity.

It stands out to me because they thought it was weird, but to me it's just the easiest way to get up when you're on a crowded train and there's no space to your sides to support you on.

But to a stressed out, scared armed response team even that made him seem scarier.

To this date, almost ten years later, I think of that case ever time I get up from a seat that way. Not that I expect to be mistaken for a terrorist, but because it underlines just how bad people are at interpreting body language, and how dangerous that can be when combined with stressed out armed police.

The initial claims made about Jean Charles de Menezes included that he ran, he jumped the barrier, he did not buy a ticket, he was wearing a thick jacket. In reality he walked, bought a ticket, used the barrier normally and was wearing a t-shirt. This is visible on the cctv footage.

Yes, but the part I'm specifically talking about was how he got up from the seat on the tube when confronted in a way the officer in question thought was aggressive, but that in reality is something you often see on the tube. There's no doubt there was lots of bullshit coming from the police over it too, but that he stood up was one of the few claims the jury in the inquest agree was proven, an it stands out because the testimony relating to it as far as I remember made the officer seem genuinely to not realize why someone might get up that way, which is quite unlike their other excuses in that it exposes ignorance compared to the other attempts to describe things in a way that could have actually contributed to giving them an excuse.

Correction. No useful cctv footage was apparently available and he was wearing a denim jacket.

They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario. Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily. There's also a huge problem with the whole that macho, gun loving, power-tripping culture, it just makes things worse, wrong profile of people gets that kind of job.

> Problem is that they typically lack the proper training and the discipline required, and act too hastily.

What you are asking them to be is super human, indeed even better than a computer could in the same situation. No amount of "proper training" or "discipline" can prepare you to make perfect decisions based on imperfect data (your sensory perception, plus all the data that isn't present such as must be read from the mind of the suspect). Oh and add to this the stress that if you screw up, one of the following is likely:

1. You get killed

2. You wrongly kill and end up in prison

A different approach is needed. I'm not sure what that is, but asking/requiring certain humans to be super human is a sure way to fail.

>> 2. You wrongly kill and end up in prison

Actually, part of the problem is that you never end up in prison for wrongly killing.

Even when it's not pretty clear it's not an accident. See http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-daniel... (Daniel Shaver killing).

Somehow police in the rest of developed world are able to resist shooting a great deal of suspects on the spot. Find what's different in America and fix it.

We know what is different but we refuse to address it. I understand that many people feel the second amendment is very important, but we at least have to have the intellectual honesty to admit that shootings like this are a consequence of it. We might decide we are willing, as a society, to accept that risk, but we can’t pretend it isn’t there.

I don't see much of a plausible argument that lack of gun control makes American police more trigger happy. And I say that as someone with no particular stake in gun rights. America doesn't have that high a murder rate, it just has a high rate of killings by cops. Lack of training, poor training and overall problematic police-culture seem to be the main offenders.

3x france 4x UK. The USA has a high murder rate; ok.. not as high as Iraq, but by the standards of developed nations, high. Put it this way, more than 10k people a year are murdered in the USA that would not be should the murder rate be the same as the UK's.

Easy access to guns in this country means it’s plausible that anyone the police encounter may be armed. As a result all the police also have guns and are reasonably concerned about being shot themselves – especially in tense situations. That’s a pretty direct connection from more guns in the public to more heavily armed, twitchier police.

There’s more connection to excessive traffic stops than to gun ownership.

Guns are definately a problem, but a bigger problem is the idea that we Officers at high risk so that they can be gloried toll collectors. If you cut traffic stops by 80% and used cameras for speed enforcement, you’d dramatically reduce Officer shootings and attacks on officers.

Train them to be EMTs and paramedics instead. The police and public should not be afraid of each other.

I think there's at least a plausible argument to be had. A lot of bad guys get guns through holes in gun control, getting a gun out of state, etc. If it were harder for the wrong people to get guns, maybe there wouldn't be such a need for a militarized police force, or at least officers might not fear for their lives during stressful situations.

That said, I'm a believer in the second amendment -- I just think there's definitely an argument to be had.

Do we know what it is?

You seem quite confident.

Americans have 101 guns per 100 citizens. Finns have 34.2 guns per 100 citizens. Icelanders have 30.3 guns per 100 citizens.

America has 110x the murder rate than Finland has. America has 13,000x the murder rate Iceland has.

Whatever the cause is, 3x the guns ≠ 110x the murder rate (or 13,000x the murder rate).

A more interesting comparison might be to examine countries with similar murder rates to the U.S., regardless of arbitrary "developing or not developing" boxes, and ask what the two countries have in common. For instance, countries with similar murder rates to the U.S. include:

• Burundi (1.2 guns per 100 residents)

• Cuba (4.8 guns per 100 residents)

• Kazakhstan (1.3 guns per 100 residents)

• Kyrgyzstan (0.9 guns per 100 residents)

• Latvia (19 guns per 100 residents)

• Niger (0.7 guns per 100 residents)

• Rwanda (0.6 guns per 100 residents)

• Somalia (9.1 guns per 100 residents)

• Turkey (12.5 guns per 100 residents)

• Turkmenistan (3.8 guns per 100 residents)

• Ukraine (6.6 guns per 100 residents)

What about the U.S. makes it more like these countries, murder-rate-wise, than more developed countries with higher gun ownership, like Finland or Iceland (both of which have far and away higher gun ownership than all the countries on that list)?

We know it's not guns. So what's the cause?

> We know it's not guns. So what's the cause?

You misspelled “I want to believe it’s not guns.”

I am from Ukraine originally. Poverty is the reason there. So yeah let’s have that proper safety net instead.

But when we are talking about this, let’s break it down a bit between different types of violence where guns are used: police shooting suspects, gang violence, run of the mill murder, and acts of terrorism. You don’t believe that the police are shooting suspects because the officers are poor, do you? Or that the Vegas shooter was poor? Or the Sandy Hook one? Gang violence is a result of poverty, but terror attacks (the US likes to call these mass shootings when the suspect is white and/or Christian), are not.

I think it is time to repeal the second amendment. It clearly failed to create an organized militia that could stand up to an oppressive government. The US police force alone is enough to suppress any rebellion by the civilians, and if aided by the military, no militia could stand up to it. You can have gun ownership without the second amendment. Individual laws could grant access to weapons. But it is time to switch from a loophole that lets us have all the guns unless specifically disallowed by a law to a denied first, allowed second system.

Do I hear you ask about all the criminals that would keep their guns anyways, and only the law abiding citizens would be left unarmed? I will buy that argument the day it’s applied across the board to drugs and abortions.

Even with all the technology police + military has. I don't think it would be an easy win if the gun owning population decided to revolt. There would be millions of deaths. The government may end up on top, but the consequences would be dire.

Not an American. Canadian here. I actually wish we had American gun laws, even with their consequences.

See, I want to send my kids to school and be reasonably sure that some idiot can’t go down the street, buy a couple of rifles, and murder them and their classmates. Being able to go to the gun range once in a while and post on /r/guns is sorta secondary to that. Different priorities I guess.

Edit: and funnily enough the above scenario doesn’t happen in the developed world, except in the US, where it happens multiple times a year. Here we don’t tolerate things like weed, or abortions, or refugees because the societal price for those is too high, but mass child murder is cool because otherwise how would we prove our manliness?

> See, I want to send my kids to school and be reasonably sure that some idiot can’t go down the street, buy a couple of rifles, and murder them and their classmates.

Everybody does. Let's not be disingenuous, though: the chances one of our children dies from a gunshot wound at school is incredibly small.

By my counts, 4 students have been killed at school shootings this year. 4 students out of ~50 million kids at over 130,00 schools. Consider also there are over 350 million firearms in the US.

People only care about it because of _guns_.

Nobody seems to care much about the ~30,000 firearm deaths in the US each year.

They don't care that 2/3 of them are suicides, usually of middle-aged men.

They don't care that most of the remainder are usually in poor areas (often because of the US' long history of racism) and often gang-related.

They only care about the sensational (and very tragic) 0.0001% of deaths.

It annoys me to no end because it's proof they don't care about gun deaths. No, they just care about tear-jerking cable news stories. It's gross and disingenuous.

</soapbox>

That's 4 more students dying in school shootings more than in Europe for example.

You miss my point.

I lived next door to Sandy Hook when it happened. A relative of mine was a student in their school system and for a while I didn’t know if she was alive or dead. My town and towns around it have events every year honoring each person that died in the shooting. Yeah it’s a little close to home both figuratively and literally.

And I never said anything about not caring about other gun deaths. I don’t have a magical scale to weigh lives, and say which gun deaths are more meaningful objectively, but my solution to most of these is exactly the same: repeal the second amendment. Don’t let suicidal middle aged men buy guns. Don’t let legally owned guns become illegally owned guns. Don’t pawn them, privately sell them, hide them, find them, etc. Don’t put them in the hands of 12 year olds, or 50 year olds. What does seem true to me is that you almost never see a story where the gun made a difference and a life was saved. The NRA loooooves to talk about self defense the reason to sacrifice the poor, the defenseless, and the sick every damn year. Yet there is no damn evidence for this.

Also yes sure you can say schools are “safe” because it might not happen at yours. Add churches, malls, movie theaters, concerts, etc. and the picture gets a lot bleaker.

This experiment with guns has clearly failed. Arming a bunch of civilians and glorifying gun culture to the point of fetishism turns out leads to a not insignificant amount of death, a good chunk of which is innocent bystanders. So we can spend another year or ten or 100 pretending that this is a good idea or we can repeal the second amendment and start over. I am willing to bet that mayhem and pandemonium won’t happen and instead we would learn that not having a bunch of people armed to the teeth is a good idea.

> Yet there is no damn evidence for this.

This is blatantly incorrect. From the Violence Policy Center:

"Using the NCVS numbers, for the three-year period 2012 through 2014, the total number of self-protective behaviors involving a firearm by victims of attempted or completed violent crimes or property crimes totaled only 263,500."[0]

In other words, about 87,000 defensive uses of a firearm per year. This is up from the VPC's previous numbers, which totaled ~67,000[1].

> Also yes sure you can say schools are “safe” because it might not happen at yours.

They're "safe" because 4 deaths out of 50 million is safe. Similarly so with the other venues.

I will say, though, I respect your position on gun control much more than the folks who think we'll solve our gun death issue by banning characteristics of firearms (i.e., "assault weapon" bans).

[0]: http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable16.pdf

[1]: http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable15.pdf

That's fair, but as easily dismissed as the 4 in 50 million number: from http://www.vpc.org/studies/justifiable16.pdf it's clear that only in 0.9% of cases was the victim offering resistance using a gun. From what I can tell the outcomes of such resistance have not been compiled to see if offering resistance using a firearm made things better or worse for the victim.

In other words, personal firearms made very little difference in preventing crime. "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" is therefore at best a stretch.

I will grant you that the media does sensationalize mass shootings over someone defending themselves from a criminal. Sensationalizing mass shootings is possibly one of the reasons there are so many of them. I am not a huge fan of Malcom Gladwell, but he did describe school shootings specifically as spreading in an epidemic-like fashion: after Columbine they were given so much attention that it sort of self-perpetuated. But the fact remains that if I am being mugged in a dark alley, I am most likely safer if I simply hand over my wallet and phone, then cancel my credit cards when I get home, than if I try to resist.

> I will say, though, I respect your position on gun control much more than the folks who think we'll solve our gun death issue by banning characteristics of firearms (i.e., "assault weapon" bans).

I appreciate that. I don't believe that the problem is scary looking rifles. The problem is first and foremost hand guns which are responsible for most firearm-related deaths. At the same time, mass shootings are a US-specific problem that I do believe comes from two sources: easy access to firearms AND fetishizing guns. As a society we can't change the latter. By definition it's the very rare outliers who go on mass killing sprees. You can't just teach them to not do it. So the solution is to control the former: gun control. You can take incremental measures like stricter background checks, but people will still slip by that. That's the thing about a sociopath: they know exactly how to get around rules and restrictions. But I am in favor of just starting over: repeal the second amendment, remove as many guns as possible from the society, bring that 101 guns per 100 people down to 1.1 guns per 100 people. Then see if there is an actual need to introduce them back into society. My guess: you won't see a strong need beyond the cries of a few enthusiasts.

I also support the hunting exception. I am not a hunter myself, but I know that lots of people derive their livelihood from it. But weapons used for hunting are significantly different than you'd use for self defense. You don't need a huge quick reload magazine to take down a deer for example, because deer by their nature will bolt shortly after hearing the first shot. You won't be able to unload into one unless you are spot lighting the. You can make hand guns used for hunting boar or bear highly reflective orange. Again, quick reload is likely not necessary for these guns.

I looked into bow hunting for a bit, and the funny thing is that the advice I got in one of the classes was to always zip tie your bowstrings when leaving the hunting area so that if a rangers stops you, you can show that you aren't actively using your bow. But you can carry a loaded pistol with the safety off at your hip while doing this and the ranger can't do a thing about it because the pistol is protected by the second amendment. A bit ironic, I think.

</soap-box>

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by your first sentence. Even if only 0.9% of cases involved resistance with a firearm, it still totals over 87,000 a year which is nearly 3x the rate of _all_ firearm deaths. It's over 9x the rate of firearm homicides.

I'm not sure how you square

> the outcomes of such resistance have not been compiled to see if offering resistance using a firearm made things better or worse for the victim.

and

> But the fact remains that if I am being mugged in a dark alley, I am most likely safer if I simply hand over my wallet and phone...than if I try to resist.

> So the solution is to control the former: gun control.

I have some ideas for this :-) It's another pet-peeve of mine: lots of gun control is never run by gun owners first. While there's an obvious conflict of interest, it also means those implementing it lack a whole lot of context and insight that only gun owners can provide.

> But weapons used for hunting are significantly different than you'd use for self defense.

Sorta. A shotgun used for hunting would make a fine home defense firearm. AR-15s can be used just fine for hunting and home defense. Although, a deer hunting rifle (bolt action, scope, etc.) probably wouldn't be a great choice. (Additionally, usually hunters are limited to 3 cartridges in their rifle, but that wouldn't make much sense for home defense.)

> the advice I got in one of the classes was to always zip tie your bowstrings when leaving the hunting area so that if a rangers stops you, you can show that you aren't actively using your bow.

I wonder if this is similar to how it's illegal to have loaded long guns inside vehicles (in most states...)

You say 60k deaths from guns is bad, but 4 kids not involved with guns is ok. I say the 87k uses of guns in resisting an attacker (where there is no documented outcome and it is possible that quite a few of the outcomes do add to the 60k deaths) is not a big number as compared to all crimes where a gun could have been used in defense (hence 0.9% is a low number).

I see your point about how gun experts, which could also include gun owners, should at least be included in deciding policy. As a counter example I will posit that gun owners have failed to put forth any meaningful policy changes. The second amendment still failed to created a well regulated militia, gun deaths are still rampant, mass shootings are still a mostly US problem in the developed world, and the NRA which is supported by most gun owners still is pushing for less gun control.

I think most reasonable people will agree that things like hunting can be treated separately from other uses of firearms by civilians. If there is more nuance to this, we can talk about that. But gun control debate often gets lost in nuance. Who cares about bump stocks when you can buy the AR-15 to attach it to without doing many or any background checks? Who cares about the rate of fire or magazine size when you can go to your pawn shop, buy a 22 and blow your brains out in the parking lot? Repeal the second amendment, give a 30 year cooling off period, then start with new legislation, with data from the past 30 years.

(I hope you don't mind me quoting parts of your comment—it helps me categorize stuff.)

> You say 60k deaths from guns is bad

Well, 30k. And I'm not saying the 4 deaths are okay, I'm saying it's not an epidemic and, statistically, schools are safe. But, I'm still not sure how that part of your comment logically proves much.

> As a counter example I will posit that gun owners have failed to put forth any meaningful policy changes...pushing for less control.

I'd suggest that gun owners have always had to play catch-up. For example, consider the '94 AWB. It was rammed through as a halfway, last-minute measure that pitted gun owners against each other and has left a bad taste in many of their mouths. The general feeling is if they give an inch, "the other side" will take a mile. It's evident if you compare and contrast the positions groups like GOA and NRA take on bills.

I'd also posit that defense of one's self _from_ the state is an underlying reason for the 2nd amendment. Considering the massive (over 350 million) number of firearms in the US and entrenched gun culture, I'm of the opinion the amendment is fine in that respect.

> I think most reasonable people will agree that things like hunting can be treated separately from other uses of firearms by civilians.

As it should. I think where we disagree is on the type and scope of difference.

> But gun control debate often gets lost in nuance. Who cares about bump stocks when you can buy the AR-15...[or] buy a 22 and blow your brains out in the parking lot?

Granted, an AR-15 is not necessarily more dangerous than "any old rifle." It's simply a platform that encompasses different calibers, gas systems, etc. But, good gun control could help stymie sales to prohibited persons. Is it any better, though, if instead of purchasing a $200 pawn shop gun the person hangs himself? When I had a family member dealing with that issue we were told that, essentially, those who _want_ to commit suicide _will_. Have we achieved much if we've simply caused those people to change methods?

Anyway, as an aside, I appreciate the dialogue. It's not too often this topic can be discussed without name calling and such or without degrading into "muh rights" versus "think of the children."

On my side of the aisle, the feeling is that gun rights groups take a mile with every opportunity they get. While some states, like Connecticut, have enacted slightly stricter gun control measure, federal laws have been more and more relaxed as the likes of NRA lobby and bully congress. Again, I don’t believe gun owners and especially organizations that represent them have done anything to make me safer in this country. All they managed to accomplish is to stoke the fire around gun ownership to the tune of rising profits for gun manufacturers. Because of that I support the idea that they aren’t responsible actors and should not be a major voice in the debate. Basically self regulation didn’t work.

Again, if we are talking about gun experts, Wayne LaPierre ain’t one.

As far as the second amendment, yes there are a lot of guns in this country. But, I still posit that it failed:

1. We don’t have a well regulated militia. We have a bunch of individuals, often times with poor training.

2. The individual gun owners are not doing anything to keep the State free. There have been no instances where there was even an attempt to form the well regulated militia it talks about.

3. Even if a major threat to the State showed up, within or without, in a modern world hand guns and semi automatic rifles would not stand up to modern military tech. That fight is over before it starts.

Notice that the second amendment does not talk at all about personal safety, hunting, or anything like that. It basically says that for the purposes of having a civil defense force, individuals can own guns. So in my view it doesn’t even apply to most cases of gun ownership.

As for suicide stuff, I am not sure if you are familiar with some of the stats around it, but basically women are more likely to attempt suicide but men have a higher rate of success. The difference is that men tend to use more lethal methods, often times hand guns. In HN terms, guns reduce friction. Of course if someone is determined to commit suicide, they will. But the other thing is that most people are not. They will go through the steps but also look for an off ramp as they do. And the longer the steps, the more chance they have to change their mind. Suicide is a very complex issue with a large number of underlying causes, but I would argue that not having access to a firearm will in some cases give the person extra time to think before they go through with it.

Lastly, as for mass shootings, I would say that schools were safer in 2017 vs 2016, etc. but they aren’t at an acceptable level of safety in absolute terms. As a citizen I want my schools safer than this. Also, check this out http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.....

I also appreciate the dialogue. If only this had any real world effect :)

> federal laws have been more and more relaxed as the likes of NRA lobby and bully congress.

How so? Also, keep in mind the _entire_ gun lobby spends less than Microsoft does each year. It's pitifully small compared to many other lobbying groups.

> Again, if we are talking about gun experts, Wayne LaPierre ain’t one.

Yeah. Although I don't recall bringing him up. :-)

> 1, 2, and 3

1. Sure, perhaps not "well-regulated" (whatever that means), but see #2

2. They are, because see #3

3. Not really. Consider the case of the middle east: two super powers—Russia in the late 70s/80s and the US ever since—haven't been able to "win" their wars in that area for the last 40 or so years. Why? Because ultimately you still need boots on the ground physically controlling the area. Sure, we could use our military prowess to turn the entire thing into a sea of glass, there's _zero_ benefit to that. Which is why we've lost over 4,000 soldiers instead of just bombing the place and calling it good.

Now consider if the US government turned on its citizens or if the US were attacked by another state. You'd end up with the same thing as the middle east, except for the US has many more firearms and, in case #1, the US government would be fractured: plenty of soldiers and police would not want to take the government's side. That's what plenty of people think about wrt "militia."

> Notice that the second amendment does not talk at all about personal safety...my view it doesn’t even apply to most cases of gun ownership.

This is part of the long debate about the 2nd amendment. You can reach different conclusions depending on how you interpret it. When it was written, firearm ownership was simply an assumed right. People owned guns and could protect themselves with them. Depending on how you parse the 2nd amendment's text you can reach different conclusions. That one comma could make a world of difference (historical details about gun ownership notwithstanding).

> but I would argue that not having access to a firearm will in some cases give the person extra time to think before they go through with it.

And so it seems the question is then: are there better ways that don't trample gun rights, and if not, is losing the gun rights worth the extra time it buys some individuals?

(As an aside, I'm not incredibly familiar with suicide, I just know what I was told by doctors when I had a close family member "go through" it, for lack of a better term.)

> As a citizen I want my schools safer than this.

I do too, but at 4 per 50 million (1 per 12.5 million) I'd consider it safer for my kids to attend school than, say, swim in pools or drive a car—both of which are considered routine and "safe" events.

Interesting link! I've always wondered what would happen to the rates of mass killings and such (the "high profile" incidents) if we'd focus on it less. It seems the 24/7 news stories only seem to inflame tensions and normalize it, increasing the propensity of it happening again and spreading fear of what is an otherwise rare occurrence (see: right-wing folk and terrorist attacks).

> If only this had any real world effect :)

We can dream, huh?

> Depending on how you parse the 2nd amendment's text you can reach different conclusions. That one comma could make a world of difference (historical details about gun ownership notwithstanding).

And herein lies the crux. We are staking up to 30k lives a year on a comma. Also, historical context is important in that when the second amendment was written, a group of people with muskets could take on a government force. That's not the case anymore. Police now drive tanks and come at you wearing body armor. I agree that if there was a full scale uprising, with say all the liberals arming themselves to the teeth and going up against Trump's administration in a rebellion, the police and military might be at best divided on the issue. But still, there is no well regulated militia that currently exists.

So my point is that why not re-write the damn thing, taking into account modern tech and modern way of life? The second amendment is held as nearly holy by some, but at one point it was just written down on paper by a few people. It's not exactly a stellar piece of legislature that is above all scrutiny and reproach.

> We are staking up to 30k lives a year on a comma.

Well, 2/3 of those might be taken with other (possibly "worse," like suicide by cop or ODing) means. But, regardless. I understand what you mean.

> That's not the case anymore.

Sure it is, because ...

> Police now drive tanks and come at you wearing body armor.

... anybody can buy body armor. Hell, you can even own tanks in the US. And, like we've seen with the middle east, a guerilla group doesn't need body armor and tanks to stall and protect themselves from the world's largest super power.

> So my point is that why not re-write the damn thing, taking into account modern tech and modern way of life? The second amendment is held as nearly holy by some, but at one point it was just written down on paper by a few people. It's not exactly a stellar piece of legislature that is above all scrutiny and reproach.

To me, that sorta defeats the entire purpose of the US experiment. I believe a lot of our successes have to do with how seriously we take the constitution. Sure, we've trampled over it from time-to-time (e.g., slavery, women's suffrage, etc.) but a lot of the ideas that went into it are just as prevalent in the US as they were 240-some years ago. In fact, some of those ideas have helped the least fortunate and minority groups. Minor edits are one thing, but complete rewrites usually don't go as planned. And having 240-some years of history simply makes parts of it that much stronger. Unfortunately, humans are more complicated than software. :-)

Side note: I'm checking out your family fortune app. It should work fine for just one person, right?

Well in at least several states wearing body armor is illegal. Same with driving a tank. The US has the largest and best equipped military in the world. And unlike the Middle East, I don’t think the US government would hesitate to act against any attempt to secede. Take for example Texas, a state which still believes it never joined the United States, and one that is heavily armed. Do you really think Texas could revel and secede?

As far as the constitution goes, I do think the rest of it is rather workable. Except the second amendment. It is the single most vaguely worded and most misapplied portion of it. It’s like if you wrote a piece of code that ran all the systems in all the hospitals in a country, and did a fantastic job of it, except it picked out randomly about 30k people a year and killed them because of an edge case and a bit of undefined behavior. Would you fix that bug or would you just point out that because overall the system is better than most we shouldn’t worry? We clearly set the precedent that the constitution can be too vague and in one case outright wrong. I say the second amendment is a bad amendment and has been for at least the past 50 years.

Yup the app will work great for just one person! Thanks for checking it out.

> Do you really think Texas could revel and secede?

Not Texas alone, but the 2A doesn't exist so Texas can secede. And it wasn't was I was referring to, anyway. It exists, among other reasons, to ensure the US government won't become authoritarian. If the US did decide to consolidate power (à la the 1930s) it would be met with an armed resistance. Sure, there would be a power imbalance. But simply based on sheer numbers it'd be a nearly insurmountable task for the US government to quash it.

> It is the single most vaguely worded and most misapplied portion of it.

Okay, I'm just gonna be maybe a little too pedantic here, but that sounds too subjective to me. Plenty of folks might argue the right to privacy found in Roe v. Wade is more misapplied. And plenty of folks seem to think the 1st amendment gives, for example, racists too large of a platform and that platform has, both directly and indirectly, caused suffering to millions of minority groups.

> It’s like if you wrote a piece of code that ran all the systems in all the hospitals in a country...

That sort of presupposes the only way to fix the software is to scrap the entire thing. What if it were possible to add some bug fixes in other parts of the program? (Which is kinda what I've alluded to before—I think we could fix a lot of the 30,000 number without having to scrap the entire thing.)

> Yup the app will work great for just one person! Thanks for checking it out.

Sweet! I've been looking for a simple app that I don't have to connect my bank account to, unlike, say, Mint.

> That sort of presupposes the only way to fix the software is to scrap the entire thing. What if it were possible to add some bug fixes in other parts of the program? (Which is kinda what I've alluded to before—I think we could fix a lot of the 30,000 number without having to scrap the entire thing.)

I am proposing scrapping this single sentence amendment. Or rather not scrapping it but adding a new amendment that is significantly more clear. Something like "Except where allowed by a law passed by congress, citizens shall not have the right to own firearms." Or something significantly longer and better. Then after that's passed, let's enact some specific laws that allow it.

And awesome. Let me know if you want me to shoot you a promo code for the ad-free version of the app.

Well, seems like a difference of opinion, then. :-)

Sure! That'd be nice.

Apparently the USA is behind Norway, Finland, and Switzerland in mass shooting deaths per 100k population [1]. For typical gun related homocides it is most certainly correlated with poverty and education.

[1]: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/sTbiw2S8fHl89qyY6AXbohcKkv...

When number of shootings is 1, you are not actually doing useful statistics. It can easily be an aberration.

Mass shootings are almost by definition outliers

In USA, the measure "number of mass shootings per year" doesn't have real outliers, it has a reasonable number every year. In Norway, it's different, you get a streak of zeroes, followed by a 1.

Norway has __considerably__ lower population than the USA. There has to be normalization or your comparison is just bogus.

Sure, but that doesn't solve the original problem which is that you picked small population countries with number of shootings too low to do meaningful statistical analysis your way because any rare event will have an outsized effect.

There are however plenty of European countries with populations large enough to avoid this problem (Germany, France, Italy, UK...).

The comparison is bogus, because you can make the numbers arbitrarily high by subdividing into tiny areas and then conveniently ignoring all the places where they are zero.

Why not subdivide further and claim that Buskerud is a veritable warzone, compared to the whole of USA on average?

So why not compare the US to the EU or parts of it?

Which year is this for? The Finland numbers don't seem right at all.

Neither do the Norway ones.

The numbers are in fact so wrong that one has to seriously question the motivations of the author, it seems like this is a propaganda piece with made up numbers designed to make the US appear slightly less terrible.

The number from Norway is from a single mass shooting in 2011 where a man shot children trapped on an island. There have never been anything like that before or later. He killed more people than the total number of murder victims in an average year.

I'm well aware, but they still don't make sense in the context unless this is supposed to be a cherry picked list of worst years for each country.

I'm still not sure which events the Finland one refers to.

It lists the mass shootings between 2000 and 2014. Take a look at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/05/obama-gun-co... for more information.

The Finland events are obviously Jokela and Kauhajoki.

>The Finland events are obviously Jokela and Kauhajoki.

It's not that obvious with the 2009 Sello shooting being dropped out and the 2011 Utoya shooting being included.

Given the poor coverage it is very difficult to reverse engineer what this graph is supposed to portray without finding the original source.

The data appear to be correct. Maybe you’ve ingested to much propaganda to believe these numbers.

I’m always skeptical of statistics about highly politicized issues as the interpretations and sampling can be very irresponsible/biased.

The data is for a really arbitrary timespan, why 2000-2014?

It’s clearly missing data, Finland for example had more than two mass shootings during those years.

The numbers look bad because they are bad, they may however be bad for different reasons than I originally suggested.

It’s old I think.

I might try to dig up some more recent stuff.

I would go further to say that the second amendment failed so miserably that if you shoot a police officer in self defense (such as in the case of the article), it is game over for you. You either won’t see the light of day again or be put to death. They’ve essentially made acting against the establishment _so illegal_ you’d be crazy to even try.

By merely being engaged by a police officer, you’re dead.

As dukeflukem said below, Iceland and Finland probably have very different aspects driving up gun ownership (rural populations hunting, vs self-defense).

An issue with the provided list is that these countries are all relatively poor. As for something that stood out for this list for me: inequality. i.e.: with the exception of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, all the Gini coefficients are above 35% (with the US (41%) being most similar to Turkey/Turkmenistan/Ukraine (41%/43%/41%). Compare that to Iceland and Finland (26%, 27%)

It's possible that the relationship between the number of guns per citizen and gun deaths is non-linear.

These kind of comparisons are so dishonest, at least you used Finland and Iceland instead of Germany and Switzerland, but the basic flaw still remains: Did you actually compare the gun regulations in place [0] instead of just comparing raw numbers of guns in circulation?

Because it's exactly those proper gun regulations which allow these countries to have many guns, without irresponsible owners constantly getting innocents killed and police being forced to treat everybody they encounter as a potentially armed suspect. That's also the reason why not every police officer in Iceland needs to carry a gun [1].

Case in point: Neither Finland nor Iceland has "open carry", they actually require you to have a reason for wanting to get a permit. In Iceland, applicants have to go through a government course to show they are actually responsible and able enough to own a firearm. In Finland, each individual gun is registered with its own permit.

Contrast that with the situation in the US: There is no federal gun regulation, each state makes its own laws, which leads to lots of loopholes (buying guns at gun shows) and ultimately leads to a flood of unregulated guns getting into the hands of people who lack the training and responsibility to own such a "tool".

Additionally many of these "high ownership, barely any shootings" countries put in place peer control by demanding that gun owners actually state a reason for wanting to own a gun. This entails either regular participation in organized shooting sports or in actual hunting clubs.

Nobody there gets a gun "just because" as getting a legal permit entails quite a bit of work, effort, and responsibility on the side of the applicant. Which is the exact opposite sentiment of that present in the US.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/18...

Here is how you can get a gun in the Iceland[1]: " all automatic and semi-automatic rifles and most handguns are banned for public use in Iceland.

People who hold a gun license can buy semi-automatic shotguns, bolt-action rifles, single-shot rifles and double-barrel rifles to hunt with but all rifles over 8 millimeters in caliber are banned in Iceland, although with a special permit to hunt large animals abroad, such as elephants or African cape buffalos.

It is also possible to obtain a special collector’s license for handguns and sports associations practicing marksmanship can apply for a license to use small indoor 22 caliber handguns as used in the Olympics.

To obtain a gun license people must attend a course and pass a test at the police station. They also have to pass a medical examination where they are specifically asked about their mental health. The gun license is issued by the respective District Commissioner."

Legal firearms in Finland must be registered and licensed on a per-gun basis[2]

Do you the see the problem? In the US, the second amendment makes it extremely hard to make sure that bad actors (a small percentage of the population) don't get a gun. In the countries you mentioned, they have an effective of preventing this from happening.

[1]http://icelandreview.com/stuff/ask-ir/2011/02/10/what-kind-g... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Finland

Replying to throwaway7312

America doesn't have much in common with those countries listed. They are much poorer countries where law and order isn't upheld as well as the US.

I think the key is not just gun ownership rates but WHO is owning the gun and WHY. The Iceland and Finland examples make me think cold countries with higher rural populations and hunting as a sport or necessity.

OTOH in USA perhaps more ordinary people buy guns for self defence purposes with the intent to shoot a person not an animal.

Edit: weird I can now see the reply button for that comment I didn't before. Apologies

The second amendment is irrelevant, as employers (eg the police) can simply prohibit carrying a gun as a condition of employment. How many meter maids get shot?

I agree. I'm far from an expert in this field, but my general observations is that we have a huge police presence in America. They are also empowered way beyond what our founders intended. That for one needs to change. It may also help if we stopped criminalizing every little thing, and giving our Environmental Protection Agency a freaking SWAT team[1].

[1]: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/14/armed-epa-agents-...

A biased article, which does not mention any "SWAT team"—only that some gold miner was outraged that the police investigating him had handguns. Big deal.

The next substantive, impartial article from Fox News about the EPA will be the first one I've seen.

Find what's different in America and fix it

The average American spends several hours a week watching TV and movies where the rule-breaking shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later cop is the hero. Probably most people who join the police see themselves in that role.

Here in the UK our cop shows are like Midsomer Murders. Most episodes don’t even feature a gun...

> Here in the UK our cop shows are like Midsomer Murders. Most episodes don’t even feature a gun...

But your rusty gardening tools seem as efficient and they enhance murdering creativity :-)

>Here in the UK our cop shows are like Midsomer Murders. Most episodes don’t even feature a gun...

Midsomer Murders is a murder mystery show, not really a cop show. There are plenty of action oriented Brotish Cop shows.

I love Midsomer Murders by the way.

Well, so is NCIS then, and they love guns and rule-breaking...

NCIS is a federal investigative and intelligence service--much like MI5, which leads us to Spooks that also has quite a bit of guns and rule breaking.

NCIS? Don't assume anything based on that show; it is a ridiculous farce of nonsense and made-up bullshit. I have family members who watch it religiously, in all its goofy flavors. Not a minute passes without the seemingly serious portrayal of something that would never happen.

Of course it's ridiculous. Who said otherwise?

"better than a computer" isn't really a superlative position in human interaction.

As an Infantry soldier who deployed to Afghanistan, I received more training on how to handle this type of situation than most cops seem to ever get. If we require soldiers to be better, why not require cops. Soldiers get to face more stress than cops.

I also received military training. I don't think it enabled me to make perfect decisions. In fact I saw several poor decisions made by my fellows-in-arms. If you didn't, then you were probably lucky enough to have not been placed in those difficult situations.

I broadly agree, but why does the US seem to have a higher frequency of this sort of thing? It isn’t a problem everywhere, so why not do what other places do?

What you are asking them to be is super human

Here is a cop being fired for NOT shooting someone https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/09/12/...

That would be more relevant if it happened on the scale of the Police shooting unarmed people. That is a one off story that you are giving the same weight as something that happens every day in the US.

According to this article there were 68 unarmed people shot and killed by the police in 2017.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

No he isn't. Some people are better suited to these situations than others, and people can be better trained for it too. I've talked to more than one Iraq veteran who's troubled by how ready police are to discharge compared to the rules of engagement they used in Iraq, which were more than sufficient for them to maintain public safety.

Part of the problem is that police in America offer the default excuse of fearing for their lives in virtually every situation where they shoot someone. I doubt they're actually that cowardly, but it's been a successful formula for them in administrative proceedings.

I like how the police feel threatened and have a hard job is more important than the fact a completely innocent person died.

It's more important in terms of solving the issue. Why would we even be talking about this if an innocent person dying wasn't important?

> Oh and add to this the stress that if you screw up, one of the following is likely:

I think this sums it up better than if you were trying to make the point that I’m about to attempt. It’s not necessarily “likely” that someone is going to die in all of these situations. It’s a possibility.

It’s probably near impossible to tell the difference in the middle of a high-stress situation, but the assumption that it’s going to result in death at the outset is the problem.

It's not asking them to be super-human. Its asking them not to shoot until they actually see a weapon.

Yea this answer is total and utter crap. We aren't asking law enforcement to be super human, we want them to be educated and competent. The fact that the U.S is both lacking in training and competence is a well established fact. Law enforcement in the United States has proven itself to lack training and discipline by firing on innocent unarmed citizens many many times. I don't believe any other country in the world has this problem to our extent. We have a very dangerously trigger happy law enforcement. These issues correlate with lack of training. Civil crime is not like a battlefield, people should be presumed innocent until proven guilty as is law. If someone can't handle this reality, they shouldn't be allowed to wield a weapon that kills. With great force and power comes responsibility. We should be far more selective at the type of people that can go into law enforcement, only those with a grounded temperament and proven track record should be allowed to use deadly force after extensive training. In the U.S, any Joe shmoe hungry for a power trip can attain a legal license to kill by going in law enforcement. That is the actual problem.

I'd love to hear an actual solution or alternative if you have one. But the U.S isn't a special snowflake. It should take a leaf from other countries like Germany, England and France and foster a strong culture of policing by consent rather than the bullshit we have right now.

Also when was the last time an American white law enforcement agent was imprisoned for discharging his or her weapon on an unarmed suspect?

Actual solution or alternative: You and tons more people like you, should apply for jobs in law enforcement, work your way up into leadership, and change policy.

How is this the solution? Wouldn't the selection process of any bureaucracy be designed specifically to 'weed out' people like this?

Yes, and that seems like a fairly likely reason that police agencies are by and large ossified in to this sort of behavior

My brother, quite an intelligent person, attempted to do just that at least three times but no law enforcement agency would admit him (clean record). I am assuming this is because he made comments that to them seemed subversive in interviews.

How about as a taxpayer who funds the police, I have a say in how they operate. No need to become a cop.

Michael Slager was sentenced to 20 years for the shooting of Walter Scott, an unarmed suspect on December 7th.

So it does happen that a cop (not sure if white cops get convicted less than black cops) goes to jail for shooting people.

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

The murder charge was dropped in exchange for a guilty plea on civil rights charges, which is what the 20 years was for. Even with an eye witness and a clear tape of the offense the officer still wasn't convicted of murder.

> Yea this answer is total and utter crap. We aren't asking law enforcement to be super human, we want them to be educated and competent.

That wasn't an answer and it is well reasoned. Saying "nuh uh" as a red herring to put forth what excuses you believe, frankly, is not compelling.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make, but what you quoted wasn't my answer in its entirety. The parent made the assertion that we are asking police officers to be super human and I was disagreeing with that and the rest of the answer goes on to explain why.

The why amounts to you knowing a special incantation that nobody in the US has otherwise stumbled upon. The assertion remains less compelling than the rational explanation that I first heard in the 80s (the context of that is important). Computerx didnt just originate that thought, further demonstrating your lack of knowledge.

I missed the part where perfect decisions were required?

The military often operates on much more restrictive rules of engagement.

Example, where a soldier was criminally charged for shooting a likely combatant in the head, after nearly being blown up by a bomb.

http://www.micourthistory.org/2013_ms/

It's not a binary thing, it's a matter of probability, one can be more or less likely to overreact and training helps with that. You most likely can't fix the problem entirely, mistakes happen, but you can at least reduce the number of incidents.

That's not fair -- we don't know what kind of training the officer had, or what his attitude is.

Maybe it's just really hard to train for this situation?

I was under the impression police office training regimes are public knowledge.

Regardless, we know that police, with very few exceptions, right across the world, are trained to respond with escalating violence.

The worst scenario is that an innocent person is killed

Shouldn't they prepare for the most likely scenarios, i.e. it's a bogus call or misrepresented whats happening, or that the perp just wants to surrender?

How often do these calls turn out to be actually dangerous? One in a dozen? A hundred?

Should cops wearing body armor use sniper rifles to shoot someone on their porch several hundred feet away just on the off chance they might have a pistol in their waistband?

if you worked a job where your life is legitimately at risk then you would know that you prepare for the worst every time.

Multiple policemen killing random unarmed people is not the worst?

The death of a single innocent civilian is objectively worse than the death of a single police officer.

While any unnecessary loss of life is a tragedy, I would agree with your statement simply because the LEO puts on the badge knowing the risks they are accepting. The victim from this article did not. He simply answered his door, and lost his life for it.

Ironically, militarized police training teaches the exact opposite: the officer must protect their lives and the lives of their fellow officers above all else.

Source?

My line of work routinely puts me in the immediate vicinity of equipment which will kill me if I make a mistake. (Huge winches and their associated power systems - some in the megawatt range)

I have yet to injure myself; in large part I ascribe this to the fact that I always think and think again about what I am about to do, and how it may conceivably put me at risk, then take the required measures to eliminate that risk.

However, more importantly - I have also yet to have anybody else injured on my watch. Why? Because I am not only concerned about my own safety, but also that of anybody who are, or may possibly come, within the blast radius in case something goes pear-shaped.

I would expect police officers to do the same - though granted, most of the time they have to make their decisions much faster (which makes it even more important to think things through beforehand - and, hopefully, come up with alternatives to "Shoot at anything you are not 100% certain is harmless, then sort out the details after the gunsmoke clears."

Do troy routinely destroy that equipment if you suspect it’s dangerous? Should cops routinely point their weapons at unknown citizens, with safeties off and their fingers on hair triggers?

If I suspect it is dangerous, I do whatever I can to eliminate - or, if not possible, at least mitigate the risk to make it as low as practically possible - then see what can be done to ensure the safety of people within range even with that residual risk present.

Now, I appreciate that my circumstances are not directly comparable to that of a police officer responding to an emergency call; however, the basic methodology should be applicable in both cases.

Police officers are granted a monopoly on applying force on the civilian population; with that privilege comes great responsibility to use that privilege sparingly and proportionate to the situation they are sent to resolve.

I do not expect the police to disarm completely - that wouldn't be realistic - but as a member of the public I do expect them to show restraint and train -and aim for- non-lethal outcomes in encounters with the public. They have, after all, taken an oath to serve us. I hardly think the best way of serving is to assume civilians are hostile until proven otherwise.

Perhaps this is the problem. When you go into every encounter prepared for the worst, you'll probably find the worst more often than otherwise. Perhaps if they went into every encounter thinking that it could one a hundred different ways, they'd valorize keeping their wits about them, rather than pulling the trigger the first time "the worst" seems like it's about to happen.

With unaccountable murder machines freely roaming the streets with the power to kill you at the slightest provocation (real or perceived), you don't have to have be in a particular profession to fear for your life.

Exactly my point: “prepare for the worst”, meaning me a police officer preparing for the worst that happens to me personally. This is not service, it is self serving.

Preparing for the worst means wearing body armor, not pointing your hair triggered gun at unknowns who aren’t aggressive and whom don’t appear to have weapons.

Hate to break it to you, but America IS a macho, gun-loving, power-tripping culture. What macho, gun-loving, power-tripping game were two man-children playing that got one of them so pissed at the other that he SWATted him?

The victim was an unrelated third party.

It often is.

That's quite the victim blaming you're doing there. I'll make sure to never play an FPS against a twelve year old again, just to make sure a cop doesn't shoot me for no reason

Not good enough. The person who got killed was not one of the people involved in the game. The guy who was the target to be swatted gave a false address to the person calling him out. Not playing the FPS would not protect you in this case.

That's what makes this so much worse - the guy who got killed never knew why the cops were there, which is presumably why he was confused and made the mistake that killed him. He died because he was innocent.

The worst case scenario? I’m pretty sure that is the scenario that played out. Police should be prepared to die wearing the badge, with civilian casualty being an absolute last resort.

It works this way for the military. I can’t fathom why it doesn’t work this way with police.

Police should be prepared to die wearing the badge, with civilian casualty being an absolute last resort.

I disagree. No one should be prepared to die while working a job, a job that one will have all his life.

Then you don't get to be a cop. Or a soldier.

A soldier is in direct danger of losing life/limb only upto 25 years old so. As you go up higher in rank, your exposure to danger goes down exponentially.

And that is usually when an active war is going on.

Even when an active war is on, those in charge have learned to limit the length of time a soldier spends in warzone to 1 year. Like US did in Vietnam war.

For cop in certain areas, they are exposed to loving life/limb any day. It may happen only once a year or just a few years. But still, I wouldn't say one can be a cop only if you are willing to lose own life.

I don't think you've ever been a soldier. Sure the average private or corporal is in their twenties but when I was in Afghanistan the average NCO was in their thirties. Even higher ranked people with office jobs weren't immune from danger. Rocket attacks on KAF and the FOBs was a regular occurrence.

Soldiers can easily get a lot more than one year of combat time. How many full time soldiers only do a single tour in Iraq or Afghanistan?

The stats show policing isn't that dangerous. Most cops never need to draw their weapons. If you want to see a dangerous job look at crab fishing.

No I've never been a soldier but I know a USAF graduate who spent I think 6 month long tour in Iraq. And he did mention being in mortar attack a few times. But it didn't last years. And I agree with what you said about even older/higher ranked people being in danger. But the point is how long has war been going on? And how many of US soldiers are actually in combat zone.

But for US cops, any chance encounter on the street can be deadly. And that lasts for their entire career.

I have trouble with agreeing with someone who says that a cop should be ready to give up life during their whole career of 30 + years.

A 30 year cop (presumably) isn't going to spend the ENTIRE career working as a beat cop on the graveyard shift in the worst parts of Baltimore or Chicago. They also rank up and/or change positions to be detectives, special investigations, expert witnesses for prosecutors, bosses or administrative police staff.

Meanwhile SWAT details (particularly in medium sized cities with more toys than mandatory training) are going to consistently attract the worst of the so called "bad apples" from the greater ranks of police. Individuals that joined up specifically because the rough and tumble stuff appealed to them.

> Even when an active war is on, those in charge have learned to limit the length of time a soldier spends in warzone to 1 year. Like US did in Vietnam war.

This is absolutely false. It may have been true in Vietnam, but that has to do more with there being a near infinite source of soldiers (the draft) and also an insane amount of soldiers being killed an maimed and unable to take a 2nd term.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, I knew people who were serving five or six tours.

Then pick a different job. People aren't required to be police officers.

I don't claim to have inside knowledge but often many cops some to become cops because there are no better job prospects. I'm sure they would've picked a factory job or any other trade if it guaranteed life time employment and pension afterward.

But these days such jobs require much studying/preparation/luck.

That’s a terrible way of hiring. If they can’t get any other job than a police officer, then that that explains a lot.

As much as people slag off the "thin blue line" mentality it does mean something. You put that uniform on and you are the meat-shield between order and chaos, between civilization and lawlessness. You're performing a grim but necessary service, and there's no shame in retiring to civilian life if you can't or won't accept this duty. This is why soldiers are taught that they are outranked by any civilian.

Every officer used to know this. Maybe less so today, when police work is an attractive option for violent people to let loose on civilians with legal sanction. But that's a separate problem from the mentality of duty and sacrifice.

The one time I was arrested (for illegal use of a roadway during a protest), during the post arrest search of my belongings, the cop searching made some comment about something in my bag and I turned my head (I was facing a wall) to reply, for which he immediately shoved my face back into the wall and said "You're not allowed to move - my safety is more important than yours". Keep in mind, this is in a police station surrounded by other cops, he already body searched me, and I was a 5'10, 120 pound nerdy teenager.

Of course, this is just an anecdotal, singular data point, but it strongly accords with the sense I get watching videos of police shootings that many if not most police officers today are in fact trained to put their safety and the safety of their fellow officers above that of civilians.

Look up a Youtube channel called PoliceActivity.

It is a collection of dashcam/bodycam videos of US police involved in some kind of shooting/assault. They are not edited down to fit a news report so videos usually last 10-30 minutes. Some show cops stealing money/drug from suspects and US media actually showed such clips in news reports. But lots of the videos show actual circumstances leading up to shooting by police. Some clips show cops getting shot at by suspects. And even some getting killed. I have a whole new perspective on cops after watching the videos.

I have a relative who was arrested (due to his own fault) and got roughed up by police and he HATES cops. And I kinda used to shared his sentiment.

But after watching the clips on the channel, I feel somewhat less animosity.

When scums of earth are around, most of us have a choice of moving away. But these cops don't have the choice.

> But these cops don't have the choice.

Why wouldn't they? They do have a choice. Of course it's more complicated than simply saying that, but it's ridiculous to suggest a cop doesn't have a choice in where they work or live or even the field in which they work. Being a cop is not compulsory and even offers more opportunities for movement than many other professions.

Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty. Period.

However, this does not justify any of the collateral damage to the ones who are innocent - the scales of justice are not a probability distribution! The entire point of the rule of law is to have a clear dividing line between the acceptable and the unacceptable - every innocent person assaulted by the police is a victim of a freshly-committed crime, and should be entitled to (at the very least) civil recompense.

> Cops act like thugs because the overwhelming majority of people they arrest/hassle/shoot are guilty. Period.

You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right?

Also, I’d love to see your reference citation(s) to back up this statement.

Do one ride along. It's not hard to arrange.

A ride-along is easy to arrange, that’s true. I’ve had the chance to take advantage of the opportunity a few different times. Twice with officers from the LAPD (Rampart and Olympic divisions), and once after I moved back to the East Coast when I spent three hours riding with officers from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s department.

Perhaps my experiences were exceptional examples and everywhere else across the United States, a majority of LE interactions are between officers and “guilty” people, but that’s not what I saw.

I’m open to the possibility, of course, but I’d still like to see a citation backing up the statement I was responding to.

> You realize that judging acts is not within their domain and sphere of interest, right?

Wat? Judging acts is in the "domain and sphere of interest" of any person.

Please note (if you can avoid shooting from the hip) that I'm making this point to criticize police overreach - even a perfectly "clean slate" cop with no peer pressure will develop a bias towards thinking of everybody as a criminal! Similarly, a cop that lives in a White community and works in a Black neighborhood is going to find it awfully hard to not develop a bias of thinking Black people are more likely to be dangerous. (and, in case it's not clear, vice-versa)

If you cannot bear to entertain thoughts like the above, then you really aren't interested in analyzing the problem. Because all of the "training" in the world isn't going to counteract a bias that is reinforced every single day!

What is needed are actual real incentives to not murder people, but fortunately this is a pretty old problem. Apart from responding to a rare overt attack (eg aiming a gun or charging the cop), any cop that shoots someone is themselves committing a crime (somewhere between voluntary manslaughter and second degree murder) - undermining that very "law and order" that police purport to uphold! The routine and casual corruption that allows these crimes to go unpunished needs to be rooted out.

I 100% agree with your second paragraph but as for the idea that most people hassled by the cops are not guilty, well publicized stop and frisk statistics in NYC indicate the opposite. Besides, why does that even matter? Even if most alleged perps are guilty of something, that "something" isn't usually a violent crime, it's a traffic violation or public drinking or selling pot or a minor domestic disturbance. And I would argue that cops should not act like thugs in any circumstance. That comes from the attitude that asserting control over the situation is more important than protecting and serving the citizenry as the cop was hired to do. It comes from the attitude that some people are intrinsically less worthy of protection than others.

In the case of this SWAT call, the cops had plenty of time to secure their own safety and to wait out the hostage taker. First and foremost they did not even confirm what the situation was before rushing to action. And now the citizen is dead.

My first paragraph wasn't describing what ought, but what is.

> stop and frisk statistics in NYC indicate the opposite. Besides, why does that even matter? Even if most alleged perps are guilty of something, that "something" isn't usually a violent crime, it's a traffic violation or public drinking or selling pot or a minor domestic disturbance

Without refuting either of these points, I stand by the intuition of my comment. Stop and frisk seems more like an exception that proves the rule, showing just how bad the narrative of "good guys" "inspecting subjects" has gotten.

> That comes from the attitude that asserting control over the situation is more important than protecting and serving the citizenry as the cop was hired to do

I totally agree - focusing on their desire for control, and the injustice committed when they demand that control over an innocent person, is a good way of analyzing it.

> the case of this SWAT call, the cops had plenty of time to secure their own safety and to wait out the hostage taker. First and foremost they did not even confirm

IMHO, the "in-situation" framing is heading down the wrong path. Primarily worrying about what the police department policy is, how much of a paid staycation a murderer will get, etc is buying into the corrupt idea that cops aren't subject to the laws themselves. Under the actual rule of law, murderers go to prison no matter what costume they wore. And if policy department policy encouraged/defended the murder, we call that conspiracy.

>Look up a Youtube channel called PoliceActivity.

I was actually watching a bunch of videos on this very channel the day before last. And I totally agree with your characterization of it. It did make me more sympathetic to cops as individual people with hard jobs, seeing all the crazy bullshit people put cops through on a daily basis.

But it doesn't negate my critique that there's a systematic flaw in the way police are trained. I don't hold the individual cops to blame for acting as they've been trained. but in watching a lot of the videos I get the sense that because of the warrior mentality of the cop, they simply cannot allow themselves to opt for the de-escalatory path, because they think failing to dominate a situation will put themselves at risk. Which may be true in many of the situations!

But why is this? Why are there criminals who are willing to initiate gun violence against police, despite the overwhelmingly bad odds against that ending well for them?

It's a complex question, but I suspect one significant factor is because they have also been trained indirectly by the warrior mentality of other police they've encountered or observed. I think it's fair to say almost all people who pull guns on cops are not having their first brush with the law. They know that once a encounter with a police officer becomes adversarial, the only possible outcomes are: suspect in custody, suspect dead, or suspect escaped by incapacitating the officer. People hate to lose control, and being seconds away from indefinite, total loss of control over your life on the shoulder of a road creates a situation quite analogous to the first strike problem in nuclear strategy. Except unlike in potential nuclear conflicts, the initial deployment of force is a very common eventuality so the perceived need for counterforce is that much higher.

Now admittedly, the warrior mentality isn't the root cause of this dynamic - criminals on the run would still have a first strike incentive during encounters with police, but the presence of a warrior officer ratchets up the potential for escalation nonetheless, because the criminal is now credibly worried about losing their life in addition to losing their freedom.

I don't know where to go with this, but, the point I wanted to make is we can both maintain respect for police as individuals and critique the aspects of police institutional culture that exacerbate these problems.

>"You're not allowed to move - my safety is more important than yours”

This is exactly the problem, and darkly colors mottos such as ‘To protect and serve’

> Maybe less so today, when police work is an attractive option for violent people to let loose on civilians with legal sanction

Many of the early US “professional” forces were essentially violent ethnic gangs given official sanction to combat other violent ethnic gangs; the present violent condition is more a result of the fact that that culture had continued to shape US policing than some kind of recent deviation from historical police culture; it's more visible because of changes in media and some pro-transparency reforms, not because the actual behavior is worse.

If anything, the recent trend has been for many institutions to try to correct some of the long-standing cultural problems, but that's a long, slow process facing internal and external resistance.

Try finding enough people willing to do that. I'm not willing to die with the badge on, so I will never be a police officer. But I suspect that if you ask police officers the same question, many of them are also not truly willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. I'm not really sure what to do about this. Surely many of those who are willing to make that sacrifice are already police officers or other first responders.

Yet, plenty of people go into the military. I call bullshit. And frankly the only people I want wearing the badge are ones who are willing to sacrifice themselves, even if it’s a much smaller number of officers being paid much more and are much more skilled.

The military offers a much larger compensation package for your employment/service. As a LEO, you get a paycheck, and a pension. As a soldier, you get room & board, food, transportation (mostly), and all your necessities issued to you.

For some people, those are worth the potential of death, where as the LEO compensation isn't.

Lastly, there is a large group of people who enlist due to patriotic beliefs (i.e. "Doing your duty"/"Serving your country"). I don't see that same type of patriotism towards local LEO organizations.

While in the e.g., Army, you are likely away from your family and friends for the better part of 4 years, and if you perform much better than average, you’ll be an E4 late in your third year, earning $25k/yr.

Meanwhile, cops are paid north of $50k/yr; they get to go home to their families every night, and compared to IED-laden roads and AK-47s, their risks are very minor.

Also, saying the military pays for room and board is like saying prison pays for room and board; it’s not exactly the room and board you would choose, and you’re not allowed to just leave when you choose.

In Witcheta, it’s $47k starting salary, overtime over 40 hours, and a retirement benefit equivalent to about another $25k per year.

I call bullshit on this.

These cops have to be willing to consider their lives less important that everyone else's. Bullshit.

Yes plenty of people go into the military. For myself it was because I could not get a better job. Was I willing to die for my country, yes, but I sure as hell wasn't of the opinion I wouldn't be doing everything in my power to make sure I wasn't.

I was just reading the other thread on here about the original story. The police got a proper doing on it.

I bet myself before clicking the link for this one "I bet no one is speaking about the linked story just slagging the polic." Correct.

Why is no one commenting on what this idiot did?

Because this idiot in some other situation can be seating in some other country. So to take out some high value US target say someone from US intelligence the only thing they have to do is to make a believable sounding call over VOIP line and they are golden especially considering the target would likely have a gun on him which will make it that much easier.

It's called being a "Public Servant" for a reason.

Meanwhile, the rest of us don't get any cushy pensions or any of forms of guaranteed stable government benefits like police do.

Not trying to say they should consider themselves "less-than", more that they should be fucking servants.

Police aren't the point! They are a necessary fixture to enable the real point- SAFE, LIVE CITIZENS.

Meanwhile you're not putting you life on the line to protect a public who couldn't give two shits about you.

The police are is a game of heads they lose tails they don't win; what ever they do.

No one wants to hear about the lives they save everyday, no one cares about when a cop is injured or killed doing their job; they deserved it right.

It's one of the toughest jobs you can do; and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Fact, society wouldn't function without the police. Fact if I was a police in America there is no way I wouldnt be armed.

More police are killed in traffic accidents than in violent confrontations. When you factor out traffic accidents in police deaths, being a cop is actually one of the safer jobs in North America.

All your bullshit about putting your life on the line is just psyching yourself up to shoot people. Cops don't put their life on the line. They sometimes get killed by people for no reason, but in smaller numbers than civilians get killed by people with guns for no reason. All your heroic language does is justify cops shooting innocents because they're scared.

>More police are killed in traffic accidents than in violent confrontations. When you factor out traffic accidents in police deaths, being a cop is actually one of the safer jobs in North America.

Love to see the stats on that. Either way you wouldn't get me doing a cops job in America without a gun, for obvious reasons.

>All your bullshit about putting your life on the line is just psyching yourself up to shoot people. Cops don't put their life on the line. They sometimes get killed by people for no reason, but in smaller numbers than civilians get killed by people with guns for no reason. All your heroic language does is justify cops shooting innocents because they're scared.

Not really worth a response seeing as how this is just trolling, but I can guarantee 2 things that you'll not like hearing because you're obviously convinced all cops are just bad men in uniforms but, 1 yes cops do put their lives on the line, 2 my supposed "bullshit" about putting my life on the line is just not psyching myself up to shoot people. Sorry to disappoint you but you're speaking shite.

Just for context: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42529424

Of course cops don't put their lives on the line. Now let's all slag off those cops, because let's face it they deserved what happened to them didn't they!

On one hand, surprisingly, apparently traffic is less dangerous for police than violence. (https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/police-officers-2014.htm)

On the other hand, law enforcement is less dangerous than agriculture, transportation, or "grounds maintenance" (!) (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.t03.htm)

Because it's clear that if the system we've built is so fragile that one idiot can cause this kind of outcome, there must be something wrong with the system?

Police are paid well in this country, better than the military by a long stretch. I suggest we find out how many are willing to step up and be heroes, I think there are many.

Our civilization is so lacking in the honorable stoicism which would serve these personnel so well.

It's not, or shouldn't be, "willing to die". It's "willing to accept a heightened risk of death or injury" that every cop should be ok saying "yes, that's my job."

Because time and again when you look at SWAT tactics or other situations where a cop kills someone, they were being pre-emptive. They were taking no risk at all of being hurt or killed. They pulled the trigger at the first ambiguous sign of threat, resistance, or something going wrong. They've created and valorized a mindset of taking no risk, of making sure they go home at night, of winning every encounter that always has death lurking somewhere.

They've made cops chickenshit, is what they've done. Some of that is internal cop culture, "warrior cop" mentality, etc. Some of that is us having built up a lot of drama around policing and police deaths making us all think that it's a terribly dangerous job. And some of it is just a refusal to hold police accountable for mistakes, which makes erring on the side of a dead civilian preferable.

> It works this way for the military. I can’t fathom why it doesn’t work this way with police.

The military is part of the state's monopoly on violence. We dress it up today and make it seem all noble, and selectively forget all the torture at Abu Ghraib, drop weapons [1], the famous song about the "Little Haji Girl," .. and the list goes on.

The military get away with much more murder and torture than police. Many people I knew who came back from Iraq hate Iraqis; they have to justify their hatred because they've killed so many of them.

In the words of Bill Hicks, "I've been watching all these Congressional hearings and all these military guys and all the pundits going, "The esprit de corps will be affected, and we are such a mora …" Excuse me, but aren't you all a bunch of fucking hired killers? Shut up! You are thugs, and when we need you to go blow the fuck out of a nation of little brown people, we'll let you know."

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqB2a1K9dBw

>> It works this way for the military. I can’t fathom why it doesn’t work this way with police.

>The military is part of the state's monopoly on violence(...)

But the police are a part of the state's monopoly on violence as well - they're the ones who commit the violence on behalf of the state, and the ones whose violence the state legitimizes.

> The military is part of the state's monopoly on violence. We dress it up today and make it seem all noble, and selectively forget all the torture at Abu Ghraib...

Are you suggesting that there's a better solution to handling conflict than relegating the use of violence to the state? If so, what's that solution?

What military unit did you serve in, and how much combat did you see? No service here, but if my reading is worth anything, soldiers do risk their lives - to a degree - even to capture rather than kill the enemy at times. But most won't take large, constant risks, and some won't take any risk if nobody's looking, or their unit has adopted a fiercer culture. In Vietnam, some units were willing to kill their own officers to reduce the friendly death toll overall (fragging.)

I understand the U.N. Laws of War, official terms of engagement, and military law don't talk in terms of risk percentages, but practically that's the calculation each soldier must make. We have to be careful of how much saintliness we ask of policemen (and soldiers) else we won't be able to hire more than a handful.

Given it was thought to be a multi person hostage situation, I think the worst case is every hostage gets killed and shootout ensues.

As bad as it was, it probably wasn’t the worst case.

Well, that's a case of a branch that never even occurred, so what's the point?

In that case, it's not as bad as if it was a secret ISIS compound and one of the bad guys set off a bomb that blew up the block. That's worse than your worst case. But notice how this adds no value to the discussion.

It’s a great example of why these SWAT units shouldn’t be in every small cities police department. Paramilitary tactics should come with military discipline.

Police shouldn't be using military tactics or equipment. If those tactics/weapons are truly needed, then the National Guard should be called in.

There is a fundamental difference between military tactics/actions and law enforcement. It seems that over the past 4-5 decades, we've allowed the lines to be blurred in exchange for a false sense of security and safety.

Yea, this outcome seems to happen surprisingly infrequently for the amount of SWATings that occur, precisely because big city SWAT units are selected for experience and discipline. When any small town cowboy sheriff and his goons can ride in with assault rifles on a bargain bin APC courtesy of the Pentagon, these standards fall off rapidly.

>They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario.

I don’t agree with this. I think they are preparing for particular forms of the worst case, and its causing these incidents.

Is killing innocent civilians the worst case? This outcome isn’t being considered.

>Is killing innocent civilians the worst case?

No, they're literally taught that protecting their lives and the lives of their fellow officers is their top priority. They're taught by the 'warrior mindset' not to treat civilians like, well, civilians, but instead like potential enemy combatants.

Sure, they're mitigating the personal risks they endure on the job, but they're doing so at the cost of increasing the risk of harm and death to everyone they encounter.

> They have to approach the situation prepared for the worst case scenario.

That's not a true premise in the vast majority of cases that involve SWAT raids.

Precisely why the "feared for my life" defense of police execution has to be ended. I fear for my life on the freeway when an idiot driver cuts me off. And I didnt make a conscious decision to risk my life by being on the same road with said driver. And yet, cops are given that power to end a life for a situation they consciously chose to put themselves into by career. US law is bullshit.

> I fear for my life on the freeway when an idiot driver cuts me off.

Bad analogy. You have no option to kill them to save your life.

Exactly my point. Why should a so called trained officer of the law have more fear and less ability to preserve life in at a level of risk the average commuter or health care professional has? Nurse aides are confronted with more violent situations statistically and don't kill anywhere near the rates of cops.

> Nurse aides are confronted with more violent situations statistically

source?

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/263709.php

My point is that if you did have a way of killing a commuter to save your own live, you would be justified in doing so, just as a cop is. The fact that you don't is a consequence of how driving works, not of power that society is stripping you of.

You do have this right on the street, for instance. Just as a cop does.

My point is that any living human in your presence can be interpreted as a 'threat to your life ' and the law is too loose and allows cowards and nervous people with badges to get away with preventable murder.

> My point is that any living human in your presence can be interpreted as a 'threat to your life '

Not reasonably, no, which is why all people, including cops, must continue to be allowed to defend their own lives when their is a reasonable threat.

Can you really not imagine a situation where a cop would reasonably fear for their life? Really?

Of course I can imagine one. The point is, the law is written such that any statement by the cop stating fear has to be interpreted as truth. Hence non convictions on a body armored cop, with 4 backing officers shooting 5 ak rounds in a prone crying man's unarmed back after a stupid game of Simon says.

This is what you said "Precisely why the "feared for my life" defense of police execution has to be ended."

Which is a clear argument for removing officers right to defend themselves when they fear for their life, reasonably or unreasonably. You're moving the goal posts.

I think you're reading my intentions in bad faith. Of course police should be able to defend themselves when warranted. The law and training of the police has been shown to exhibit too broad a defintion of when warranted, at the expense of the citizen, because it is based on the subjective, ambiguous definition of fear.

This is my last clarification of what I meant as I find this conversation is a waste of time, because you are being pedantic rather than dealing with the spirit of the argument. If you follow the Roman Calendar, Happy New Years, in advance. Cheers.

> I think you're reading my intentions in bad faith.

One can only read your words, not your intentions. If you want to avoid miscommunication, make your words match your intentions.

The problem is that the cop feeling get to decide if violence is warranted. It’s all in the wording ‘fear’ - you can argue, prove and disprove risk and threat, but ‘fear’ is entirely subjective and as far as thing goes subjective is not a good standard upon which base laws

> Can you really not imagine a situation where a cop would reasonably fear for their life? Really?

This is just a blatant straw-man argument. The real issue is whether unreasonable claims that an officer acted out of a fear for his life should effectively be 'get out of jail' cards.

> This is just a blatant straw-man argument

No, it's not. OP said "Precisely why the "feared for my life" defense of police execution has to be ended".

It's difficult to have a reasoned discussion when you don't read.

It is rather ironic that you should write that, when the poster had already clarified his meaning (for those who had not realized it from the context in which it was originally made) and in the very post to which you were replying, no less.

It's not "clarifying" when it's inconsistent with what he first said.

And it doesn't make your strawman accusation any less incorrect.

If someone finds that what they wrote did not express precisely what they meant, then making it clear is perfectly reasonable. It happens all the time in reasoned discussions.

You might have had an arguably tendentious point if you had made your comment immediately, but once aswanson had clarified his position, it became a straw man. Rational discussion moves along, and flogging a dead horse that's left the station has no part in it.

So wait, if I legally have a gun in my car it'd be fine to start shooting at that erratic driver?

Nothing goes over his head! He’s too fast!

If that was the only way to save your life in that circumstance, which when driving it almost never is, then of course. What about self defense laws do you not understand?

Garbage workers and fishers have it worse than cops: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-dangerous-jobs/

The way things are going if a SWAT team rolled up to my house ( I know this is going to sound silly). I'd call 911 and have them on speaker phone coaching me through it.

Most people are not trained to handled these situations properly and they will be nervous and start slipping up which a not well trained or inexperienced officer may wrongly interpret as suspicious/dangerous.

If I am truly innocent then perhaps I am the one that needs the hostage negotiator from the threat on the other side of the door.

>The way things are going if a SWAT team rolled up to my house ( I know this is going to sound silly). I'd call 911 and have them on speaker phone coaching me through it.

Who said you're going to get any chance to call anybody? They could just as easily break into your house shouting and pointing guns...

Right, most of these calls are designed to provoke no-knock forcible entry... "hostages actively being threatened", "domestic violence in progress", etc.

Neither of these situations should trigger no-knock forced entry. The response to most situations should be careful assessment of the situation at hand, the involved actors and the dynamic of the situation, especially since swatting has come up. Police truly need to expect that an anonymous tipster is trying to goad them into action. There’s few situations that should probably trigger an immediate forceful response, active shooter for example and that should be relatively easy to confirm on site.

Any cop who shoots an innocent person during a no-knock forced entry should be automatically charged with murder.

In germany any police shooting that results in death of a human triggers an automatic investigation.

The same thing happens in the USA. In fact discharging a weapon for any reason with or without injury is going to be investigated.

Sure, but in the US that investigation always leads to aquittal, so what even is the point?

Agreed. Though this "swatting" thing is horrifying and tragic, I think the Wichita police should shoulder most of the responsibility. Am I wrong in thinking that they could have done some reconnaissance or something? In any case, I hope they revise their procedures to give a horrible prank like this zero chance of succeeding.

>The response to most situations should be careful assessment of the situation at hand

This is not the forte of the SWAT teams whose adventures we read in the news. Idiotic cowboy cops given heavy arms to play with is more descriptive.

I utterly agree, as I think my other posts should say. But regardless of the should, for better or worse, we are in the "they likely -will- provoke...".

Of course there are scenarios out of our control. In this one particularly the victim walked out of the house and then was shot after he slipped up on one of the commands.

Not to blame the victim, but his mistake lead to their over reaction. My point is even us citizens aren't experienced these situations and some guidance could help.

Maybe a brochure once a year giving tips on how to not get murdered by the police?

"Congratulations! You've survived another year without being brutally murdered by the public servants whose generous pensions your city has gone bankrupt to fund! If you want to keep your streak 'alive', here's how you can help these heroes not murder you and your family!"

Yes you are blaming the victim. People should not be required to perform jumping jacks just because someone in uniform tells them to. That's not cooperation, it's coercion.

It's not right, but we have a broken system that favors them over us. And I don't think it will be fix soon.

Another problem we have is people getting falsely accused and sent to jail when they make mistakes in interrogations. It's why you always if you can afford one, get a lawyer for guidance.

> It's why you always if you can afford one, get a lawyer for guidance.

And somehow people talk about class warfare as if it was the lower classes starting the violence.

>In this one particularly the victim walked out of the house and then was shot after he slipped up on one of the commands.

In what other first world country a person would just be shot if they merely "walked out of house" and "slipped up on one of the commands"? Even if they had a gun on them, unless they actually fired, they still might not be shot by one of the actually competent police forces -- they'd tried to talk them down first.

Then again, in what other first world country a person can be shot if they walk out of their car after they have been stopped by the police?

Heck, unless he has been messy with their wives and they just found out, nobody in a first world country would shoot an unarmed man sitting on the floor and BEGGING not to be shot:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/daniel-shav...

And it's the people that need better schooling?

They aren’t going to give you the chance to call 911.

You might have noticed if you observe them that nobody is in command of a group of cops. The notion of an officer in charge who is responsible for the actions of his subordinates is completely contrary to the attitudes of US police.

What is the appropriate response in this kind of situation?

None. That situation should not occur, at all. Unless you can handle it, in which case you should be a drug lord or similar.

It is a travesty of the Rule of Law.

"Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law."

Unless you are murdered by the police for pulling up your pants.

Unless you are murdered by the police "restraining" you.

Unless you are murdered by the police in your cell.

Unless you are mentally incompetent and are tricked into signing a confession.

Unless you are mentally competent and are persuaded by the evidence (not of the crime, but the evidence that the system is corrupt) that you should plead to a lesser crime.

You have to make it to the court before that little sound-bite of freedom kicks in.

Pray. Even if you aren’t religious.

I’m not religious and I would definitely pray.

Call the house? Call back the original report?

exactly. it is THAT simple sometimes.

Ideally it wouldn't get this far but at a minimum, the police should not shoot until an actual gun is seen. Thinking they are in danger is not good enough, their rules for engagement need to be as high as the military, if not higher... they should have to confirm there is an actual threat and should not fire their weapons until at least that threat is confirmed. A feeling is not enough to shoot on.

Do you actually think that "a feeling" is the training standard for deciding whether to shoot?

I don't think it's the training standard, but it is the most common defense in court. Somehow military soldiers are able to resist these feelings and have much more strict rules of engagement. Citizens should have the same protection against being shot at by the police that terrorists get from being shot at by the military. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Like many problems, I think the root issue is money in politics. The police have a dangerous job and doing it right involves a balance between risk for the officer and risk for the citizenship. When police unions have the ability to exert large amounts of pressure ($$$) on politicians, the whole system folds to their inevitable inclination to shift that balance toward their personal safety.

Well, swatting wouldn't be a thing if American police wasn't extremely unprofessional and ultra violent.

A pizza place has enough foresight to call the house that 'ordered 50 pizzas' before actually delivering 50 pizzas.

What's more, are those SWAT teams trained policemen or scared little children?

Because if they are the latter, why do they go with guns and ammo and equipment enough to equip a small army just to arrest some kid who's selling weed or some guy who threatened their neighbors and such?

SWAT teams should be for breaking into Escobar's hideout or stopping angry mobs, not for responding to random phone calls and simple cases.

Aren't they men enough to just send 1-3 people with their fucking guns in their holsters?

The overuse of SWAT is ridiculous, but sending them into a shots fired / hostage / bodies on the ground situation is entirely appropriate. And no different from most other developed countries. If you go into a house in Germany, shoot someone, and then threaten to shoot everyone else, do you really think you’re going to get an officer or two casually knocking on the door without weapons at the ready?

German cops have fired a total of 52 bullets in 2016, which killed 11 people. I think it’s very likely that situation would have had a different outcome.

That’s correct, and irrelevant to the point I was making.

It's important to not equate sending SWAT "into a shots fired / hostage / bodies on the ground situation" and a situation where it's been claimed by an anonymous phone call that something like that might be the case.

It's not the same. It's reasonable to respond with lethal force after shots have been fired by the opponent, it's totally not reasonable to do so when you suspect that it might be the case that they might get fired with no good evidence that it actually is so.

No they would send the special forces. But they would not be stupid enough to end it this way.

The PD will just pass the buck to the caller and nothing will change. It's what they always do.

> This process is designed to have a weapon be discharged.

Unfortunately, as a US civilian you need to be smart about de-escalating encounters with underpaid rage-monster cops with something close to legal immunity. Your goal should be to avoid injury or death until you can get to a lawyer.

This was a mistaken address SWAT ing. How was the person supposed to know?

Police officers that shoot ppl should be held liable as well as the SWAT caller.

Or is it whoever (edit: in the Wichita police) dispatched them without checking the details of the call, or adequately briefing them that the details were not clear?

Because the guy who shot made a huge and deadly mistake, but the fact that you can call 911 and have someone SWATted is a big problem on its own.

SWATing should just lead to a bit of wasted time, and a “sorry to bother you sir”. With proper response procedure it should be a complete non-issue. Placing blame on anyone but the cops is completely discounting the problem.

I am saying it should be placed on the cops' boss.

I agree with you that those should have been the consequences---i.e., none. Though, in a country where SWATting is a thing, whoever placed the call is very much responsible too, because he must have known the possible effect of his prank.

All in all, the cops (while responsible) don't have the largest slice of responsibility.

I agree with the rest but underpaid, no. For the Oakland Police Department, where I live, the starting salary is $69,912 to $98,088. Retirement starts at 50. This job requires a GED.

Don't forget overtime pay.

And pension.

Whatever. Also don't forget, then, the cost of living in the Bay Area (astronomical) and the difficulties of policing in Oakland (formidable).

Pension is something we should all expect. Not resent.

Pension is something we should all expect at 50? Really?

If you want to go work a few decades as an Oakland cop? Yes. That's my opinion. You are welcome to yours, sir.

Many people have difficult jobs in Oakland. Not all of them have lobbying power or unions to extract higher than market pay.

There is no universal concept of "market pay" which applies across occupations; only within a given occupation. The Oakland police are the only police available to examine in this particular "market"; there is therefore no basis for an argument about "market pay" in this context.

> I agree with the rest but underpaid, no. For the Oakland Police Department, where I live, the starting salary is $69,912 to $98,088. Retirement starts at 50.

For a job dealing with crime reports and disputes all day and one of the routine job hazards is being shot dead at any moment, that's hardly a particularly attractive deal. Hell, I doubt there's very many people on HN would take that job for twice the pay.

132 police died while on duty in 2016. There are 750,000 police officers in the US.

So? In 2015, there were 51,548 assaults against law enforcement officers, resulting in 14,453 injuries.

This is a misleading point. Assaulting an officer ranges from an elbow to the rib during an arrest to beating the crap out of them.

We have roughly 900,000 police officers. A total of 135 police officers were killed in duty in 2016.[0] And 14,453 injuries. We point these people towards danger daily and in a single year only 1 in every 62 of those officers will be 'injured'. I would say that's an acceptable risk for the job if the alternative is the circumvention of due process.

[0] - http://time.com/4619689/police-officers-killed-2016/

Yes, and postal workers had 32,213 injuries in 2012 with only 630,000 workers.

https://www.gao.gov/assets/660/658174.pdf

Weak logic there. The injuries listed were from assaults; if accidental injuries were added, the number for police would undoubtedly be even higher.

Compared to newly-minted coders getting low 6 figures? Well... The world would be a better place if cops and teachers were trained, paid, and respected like doctors. Police officers' jobs are mostly boredom (e.g. manning a radar gun) mixed with occasional stress and quite a bit of dealing with people in their worst moments (e.g. desperate, angry, drunk, or high). If they were paid more, the job might attract enough candidates to hire more people with the intelligence to de-escalate situations, and fewer who get off on the power.

Police officers in Suffolk County New York get $250K-$350k/year compensation packages.

The former Suffolk County Police Chief is currently in federal prison for attacking a handcuffed citizen. [1]

Sorry, but paying Police Officers as if they were SAP consultants does not improve the quality of their policing.

Oh, and if you're wondering, why didn't the District Attorney protect citizens from the police? Well, he is under federal indictment for covering up police crimes. [2]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/nyregion/james-burke-ex-s...

[2] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Suffolk-County-Distric...

The police, particularly in the US, seem to be quite fond of shooting people who are laying face down on the ground, or otherwise clearly not a threat. It isn't so clear how we are expected to act in an effort to reach the goal of avoiding death during a police encounter.

Move to one of the other 190ish countries?

If you are a cop in this situation, not the lead officer, a grunt among other grunts. You are told the basic situation is that shots have been fired and women and children are in danger...as are you and your team. There is an ARMED individual in the house. Your police training also tells you there is a split second between you and one of your team getting killed as well. Your team members are also husbands and fathers. Your version of deescalating the situation is to remove the suspect as quickly as possible before anything REALLY bad happens (wife gets killed, kid gets killed, you get killed). These aren't "rage-monsters", they are afraid of what could happen.

Also, it is good to remember, the worst case situation, is what cops often have to deal with. But those cases often don't make the news. Even in my small city, these worst case situations happen.

They signed up to put themselves in danger. I as a civilian never signed up for it. If anyone should accept an increased risk, it's not me or my family that were peacefully minding our own business.

> often have to deal with.

Really?

A growing portion of total gun deaths are police shootings. ‘Serve and protect’ doesn’t seem to extend much further than themselves.

But there isn't an armed individual in the house. You've just been told that there might be. Don't you see how you've fallen into the epistemological error here of not only assuming the truth of a claim without further evidence, but also shifting all your attention tot he possibility of someone being armed.

That sounds very hand-wavey and you might say well it's a lot different in the real world, but I've been in a bunch of high-danger real-world situations. Survival is about more than having great reflexes, it's also about having a cool head and knowing when not to act.

And look, while it's legitimate to have some fears/stress, rage monsters are absolutely a problem in policing. Cops are just as likely, or more, to take steroids or be assholes as people in the general population. Let's not forget that nobody is forced to be a cop. If you want to help people and like excitement you could always be an EMT or a firefighter.

Your version of deescalating the situation is to remove the suspect as quickly as possible

See, that's not de-escalation, it's catharsis through crisis - literally the exact opposite of de-escalation. By abdicating your own decision-making power you've ended up arguing for counterfactuals. I realize that you're attempting to model the thought process of police in high pressure situations, but counterfactuals + weapons = deadly errors. The thought process is, however, something we could change.

They don't seem to be all that afraid of someone mistakenly killing an unarmed man.

It seems like a distraction to focus on the SWAT team instead of the gamer at this point. Gamer pulled the trigger as soon as the call was made.

I think OPs point is you shouldn't be able to kill people by proxy with a simple phone call.

Are you suggesting that SWAT don't kill people, people kill people?

As far as I’m concerned, they’re both equally liable. If this was a case of mistaken identity rather than a malicious call, we’d all be calling for the cop’s head even though it would have been the same error.

A caller just wasted the time of the SWAT unit.

A SWAT unit shot an innocent man.

It is very difficult for me to place both parties as "equally liable". Sure, there should be a punishment for the caller, but he didn't kill an innocent man and it sure as hell wasn't his intention to. He just didn't think of the possible consequence. In no way, shape or form does that equal to "actually put a bullet in someone innocent", which is exactly what that officer did.

>but he didn't kill an innocent man and it sure as hell wasn't his intention to. He just didn't think of the possible consequence.

How do you know his intent, or what he thought?

Because it's a gaming community, so they're not really trying to shield their identities, which led to this article, in which I read the news first (note: different than the source of this thread): http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192111974.html

And there's also this in the WaPo, claiming the same social media content: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/3...

Idiot that should face consequences, definitely. Had the intention of killing someone, highly doubt it.

Didn't intent to kill someone, maybe. Didn't care if his actions caused deaths? Definitely.

Swatting is a form of domestic terrorism. The caller wasn't someone trying to waste time, that was someone who wanted to potentially turn someone else's life upside down.

I can't fathom how someone can invite an armed squad to some location, under the pretense that a violent crime is in progress, and not have the slighest inkling about the ways things can go wrong in that situation.

Felony murder. If someone does in the process of a crime being committed the person committing the crime can be charged with felony murder. I don't know the details of the case, so I can't comment on the SWAT officer. But the person illegally calling for SWAT should be charged.

Not thinking of consequences does not absolve one from responsibilities.

He intentionally created a situation where it was very possible and forseeable that innocent people could be be killed. I believe that's more serious than voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

I get where you are coming from, but blaming the police officers is not the correct conclusion. You should be solely outraged at the caller Tyler Barriss.

That seems extreme. Why shouldn't police be held accountable for killing an unarmed person?

Tyler Barriss is going to go to prison. He's a sociopath. Nobody is on his side. But the cops killed an unarmed, innocent man. Clearly whatever process they are following is deeply flawed. 'Swatting' is also a UNIQUELY American phenomenon - why?

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune?

Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the bad guys, and refuse to take a balanced view by empathizing with them and the danger they encounter on a daily basis.

This claim is obviously untrue. (I suppose you're hedging with "usually", but even that seems unlikely.)

> when it's clear there is [...] danger

Shouldn't they at least verify for themselves whether there is actual danger?

Yeah considering that the 911 call mentioned a 1 floor house and the house in the video is 2 floor they should have had some idea it wasn't quite right.

How? Are you going to send an officer to the door to ask someone if there is a murder going on?

This was a bad shoot, but the tactics were sound. Don’t correctly they would have called him out of the house from a distance with lethal cover from multiple angles and then cleared the house.

If sound tactics get innocent people killed when nobody was under actual threat --- those are shitty tactics.

Tactically, what would you do different?

You cant send people up to the door, as you have to assume the person is telling the truth and has the means to shoot through the door at them. When someone has a gun, distance and cover are your friend.

You then get everyone you can out of the house so you can clear it and assist the victims. That is what any police force in the civilized world would do if they had what they thought was credible information about a murder / hostage situation.

Obviously pulling the trigger in this case was a mistake, but what do you do differently? Everyone is criticizing training in this thread but no one seems to have any real solutions.

How about asking the guy on the porch some questions? Like 'what's your name? Do you have any weapons? Did you call 911?'

It seems not to have occurred to you (and a lot of other people) that yelling commands at people is not an effective way to handle many common situations.

Simple question - what % of SWAT encounters should an INNOCENT person be able to survive?

I dunno? Maybe 99.9% or even 99.99%

Why not make sure that there is some danger first instead of just going off of an anonymous phone call?

Seems pretty simple, just stand outside the house with the megaphone and say “hey what’s going on in there”?

The militarization of the police force precludes this. Whatever's in the house is Al Quaeda, and our hero boys in blue are here to frag some shit. /s

At which point, if you're up against armed individuals, you've lost the element of surprise, and have created a hostage situation at best, and a shootout in a suburban neighborhood at worst.

Or, someone walks out and defuses the police, then their compatriots wipe all the police out unopposed.

This mindset is exactly what's wrong with policing in America. Every single part of training seems to be designed for worst case scenarios. There's no room for common sense or judgment.

Because if you consider average case scenarios, logic will inevitably force you to make a choice: what percentage of cops should die during their career? The police chiefs decided the answer is zero. That leads to extreme aggressive tactics.

Too bad the owners of mines, oil rigs, logging operations, etc. don't share a similar concern for their employees' lives.

Most cops never get shot at their entire career.

Cops are far more likely to die of heart-attacks, cancer, and a dozen other causes than to be killed in the line of duty.

Being a cop isn't much more dangerous than the average jobs.

If "zero" were really the decision, they wouldn't be involved with made-up crimes like drug possession.

Mining, logging, etc. certainly make trade-offs, but at least the trade-off is between safety and the viability of the business. The trade-offs that cops have made are between safety and indefensible political goals.

You've lost the element of surprise to someone who called you and asked you to send a SWAT team to their house?

The element of surprise in coming to the house of the person who had supposedly called them in the first place? A possible hostage situation in what was described to them on the phone as an already-existing hostage situation?

Also, who are these multiple individuals and 'compatriots'? I thought this was about a guy who claimed to have shot a family member and was holding others hostage while threatening to burn the house down. When did this one guy turn into a foreign invasion force?

Why in the hell do you need "the element of surprise" unless your goal going in is "shoot the shit out of somebody?"

If you are genuinely trying to deescalate a situation, you need to talk to the people involved. If we're genuinely that worried about people getting shot, why aren't we rolling "Officer Robot" up to the front door to say hello?

Even if there IS a hostage situation, these SWAT events demonstrate that the hostage is probably in more danger from the SWAT team than the hostage taker.

"Element of surprise" implies shoot first, ask questions later. And that NEEDS to change.

If any rando can call in a 'dangerous situation', then yes, they should be more circumspect. There is just no excuse for killing an innocent civilian. It's outrageous.

Response to the parent's edit: These are supposedly trained officers who acted with absolute incompetence leading to a completely needless death. How is one supposed to empathise with this? It's a complete and utter fuck-up.

Someone here is trying to increase the consequences for killing suspects and they had a rep from the police union arguing against it because it could have unintended consequences like “people dying”.

I ended up yelling at my radio, “PEOPLE ARE ALREADY DYING!”

What the rep meant was cops dying. But the statement, as worded, makes it sound like cops don’t consider the rest of us to be people. Which is exactly the thing a lot of Americans are terrified is actually true.

In the end I expect he made the case for the people arguing for bigger penalties.

Too many cops see the people they interact with as criminals. They know that they interact with innocent people sometimes, but they are heavily biased towards thinking that by the time they are interacting with you, it is very likely that you're a criminal. And it's their job to protect "society" from "the criminals."

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

Sure, but you’re assuming that the clarity has been established. That threshold needs to be met, and it certainly didn’t happen in this case.

SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger.

That is demonstrably false.

For reference, start with this case.

Police were responding, in this case, to a call made by someone claiming to be armed and holding his family hostage. You do not assume a call is fraudulent in a situation like that. You assume the worst.

What happened to the civilian is a tragedy. He should not have been killed. But the person most at fault here is the one who lied and called in SWAT in the first place.

You do not assume a call is fraudulent in a situation like that. You assume the worst.

We're talking about literally a life or death situation here. Why on earth would you assume anything, rather than being cautious and trying to confirm for sure what the situation actually is?

The worse outcome is that the innocent bystander is killed. That could be a hostage, or some random person caught up in a hoax. The whole point of the police presence is to protect that person. In this situation they failed in that objective.

> But the person most at fault here is the one who lied and called in SWAT in the first place.

It completely mystifies me how people can think that people with guns were justified in fatally shooting someone with no guns. That kind of thing should just never happen, either subdue them or let them get away, why are you shooting them? What could they possibly have done, short of ran to the kitchen to get a knife and then ran back and tried to stab someone? How can you mistake anything someone unarmed does for a deadly threat?

The obvious answer is: because you think they ARE armed, and if you wait until they start shooting at you, it’s too late.

And if it turns out they weren't armed, you were way, way too early.

The US military rules of engagement disagree.

This was apparently a SWAT team that initiated a confrontation in response to a report of a situation involving firearms. Why weren't they already behind cover so that if the guy really did come out of the door shooting at them, they were protected? And if they were, why was it necessary to shoot first when the situation obviously wasn't clear at all? Nothing about this adds up.

Too late for what?

What do you think will happen if a shirtless man on a porch a pulls a pistol, while you have your high powered rifle's scope locked on their chest while you are wearing body armor, positioned behind a police car, a few hundred feet away?

We have 1 possibly-armed-with-a-handgun guy of unknown intent and ability on a porch, vs 5+ SWAT officers who are definitely trained in shooting people, are in cover, have body armor, rifles (presumably good ones with scopes and whatever else), and high-powered lights trained on the house.

So yeah, I would say they should wait until a suspect starts shooting because they have an overwhelming tactical advantage. Yes, that's a risk because the guy on the porch might be John Wick or Jason Bourne or the Terminator, but most people, even most professional criminals, are not expert marksmen under any circumstances, let alone ones where they're at a large tactical disadvantage.

Next time you meet a cop socially, ask them if criminals are smart or supervillains 'like in the movies' The cop will laugh and regale you with stories of how dumb and inept most criminals are. Police know perfectly well that most people don't have a clue, are easily intimidated by police, and not super-skilled. Sure, they have to consider the small number of dangerous exceptions, but overstating the risk factors is also a really convenient way to get off the hook for their own poor firing discipline.

It mystifies me why you believe anyone thinks the shooting was justified. Literally NO ONE has said that. Please try to engage with the actual debate instead of making up strawmen to attack.

The grandparent said that the person most at fault was the person who called it in. I disagree, the people most at fault were the police, by far.

I get where you're coming from, but the person who called it in named themselves SWauTistic and makes a hobby of this behavior.

Yes, the guy is definitely guilty of some degree of murder, because he knew what he was doing. However, I'm contrasting it with my country, where calling in such a situation would be very unlikely to get someone killed, because the police are much more reticent to shoot people. In such a case, the caller could be guilty of wasting resources, but not of murder. The only difference is the handling of each situation by the police, hence my reasoning above.

How many gun-related homicides are there per year in your country?

1.5 per 100k (most of which are suicides), gun culture isn't big here.

That's why it seems a bit unreasonable to compare how the police in your country would react to how American police unfortunately reacted in this scenario. Because the situations those officers face on a daily basis is completely different. American cops can reasonably expect to regularly deal with armed and hostile psychos, unlike the cops in many other countries. Again, that's not to say that the shooting was in any way justified, but try to put yourself in the life of American police officers.

Yes, that's another good point, and a big factor in why the police there acts the way it does. Yet, even with all the needless deaths, gun culture remains widespread.

> However, I'm contrasting it with my country, where calling in such a situation would be very unlikely to get someone killed, because the police are much more reticent to shoot people.

Yeah, but I don't think that's reasonable to do. If you live in the U.S. you know this is a problem, choosing to still do it is more damning.

I think the disagreement here lies in that people think "given that the police is likely to kill someone, the person who called in an innocent man is a murderer", and I agree. However, I contend that the police should not be likely to kill someone, exactly because they might be killing innocent people. The police are the ones with guns and ostensible training.

> However, I contend that the police should not be likely to kill someone

I'm not arguing that they should. I'm saying that they are, and having knowledge that they are makes the one calling in the threat seriously in the wrong. I can't stress enough, the caller's twitter handle is SWauTistic. They know full well what they're doing.

We completely agree on this.

There are people right here in this thread who think the shooting was justified because the guy at the house didn't follow instructions carefully enough and the police (supposedly) had to assume the worst.

How do you know he didn't have a gun? You were told her has a gun, you get to the house and the person letters his arm and then raises it and starts pointing it at a fellow officer... What do you do? I don't think this particular incident is as cut and dry as you think it is.

> How can you mistake anything someone unarmed does for a deadly threat?

A person's bare hands can represent a deadly threat if he is close enough. Not that that was the case in this situation.

Not to multiple trained, armed, and armored men it doesn't, which is normally the case with police shootings.

> You do not assume a call is fraudulent in a situation like that. You assume the worst.

I disagree.

A call from someone calling in via a VOIP line that was effectively out of country, yet pretending to be the neighbor. Corroboration is a good thing, and based on my (first hand) knowledge of what information shows up on a 911 dispatchers screen about call origin, should have prompted more 'skepticism'. Little details like "it's a one story house" (when in fact it's two story), and the like.

> But the person most at fault here is the one who lied and called in SWAT in the first place.

This I absolutely agree with.

Most of these calls are false or inaccurate. You don't assume the worst, or you screw up just like these cops did.

You do not assume a call is fraudulent in a situation like that. You assume the worst.

How about not assuming anything until you have more information to go on? The fake caller is definitely at fault here, and so are the police.

If nothing else, they fuck up addresses all the time.

There is just one way this isn’t a massive police screwup, and that’s if the person SWATed reacted in a way that was (very) threatening, such as grabbing a gun, or something that is reasonable the police could believe was a gun.

My hunch here is that, just like you are suggesting, Swat teams are used incorrectly as first response in unconfirmed situations. No investigation by anyone has confirmed the threat.

At the end of the day, police officers just can’t shoot unarmed people, no matter how stressful the situation.

What kind of investigation would you suggest take place before hand about a situation where there is supposedly a person with hostages who has already killed one?

A situation that doesn't include the "supposedly" qualification you make. A single anonymous source on a non-911 number without corroborating reports of gunfire is not sufficient cause to shoot a man on his porch.

Here's an idea -- fly a drone around the house and look in some windows. Knock on a neighbors door and ask if they heard a gunshot. Establish the identity of the reporter - how does the reporter know what is happening? Is the reporter physically proximate to the area?

> A single anonymous source on a non-911 number without corroborating reports of gunfire is not sufficient cause to shoot a man on his porch.

No one is arguing that.

> Here's an idea -- fly a drone around the house and look in some windows. Knock on a neighbors door and ask if they heard a gunshot.

That sounds great. Until there is an actual hostage situation, and police waste their time doing this and a hostage is killed, at which point people will be asking why they didn't kick the doors down if they knew someone was being held in there.

> Establish the identity of the reporter - how does the reporter know what is happening? Is the reporter physically proximate to the area?

The reporter claimed to be the person who killed his father and was holding other people hostage. How would you confirm if the reporter was physically in the area? E911 includes location reporting, but this can be spoofed(I don't know if it was in the situation)

This isn't the movies, cops should never be kicking down the door in a hostage situation. They should be guarding the perimeter and trying to talk to the perpetrator.

Which is exactly what happens in the movies - die hard for example.

It was the only realistic part of the film.

I'm curious - how much training do you have in SWAT tactics? Where did you get it from?

Assuming it is zero, would you in whatever field you are in accept advice from someone who has zero experience in the field?

Do you think SWAT tactics are designed with minimizing civilian casualties? Or SWAT team casualties?

Could be a simple as calling the suspects phone or knocking doors at neighbors. If the suspect answered the phone and said he was asleep and said he would be happy to show the officers around his house, maybe things would have gone differently.

Did you listen to the audio? The person calling 911 was the supposed suspect he claimed to have killed his father, so I'm not sure how you would contact the suspect without just getting the same 'prankster' again.

Knocking on doors of the neighbors sounds great, but does it give you any useful information if no one heard a gun shot? What if he shot his dad in the basement, or the walls of the house are thick enough to block the sound. You still need to go in and check even if every neighbor said they didn't hear anything. Also, knocking on doors wastes what may be valuable time in a real hostage situation.

I still don’t see how calling a phone number associated with that address and seeing who picks up could hurt anything.

This phone call could’ve occurred while SWAT was deploying to the scene.

They only could’ve gained by doing this.

If it was real, and the hostage taker picked up, he could say everything was fine. What do you do then? Calling seems like a good idea but I'm not sure it provides any actionable information.

Then you tell your team there is a high likeylhood of a false call, and maybe they don't keep their fingers on hair triggers.

I said the police could only have gained from calling. You have not provided a scenario in which it would further endanger lives. Even if it didn’t provide “actionable” info, it wouldn’t hurt to try and some semblance of doubt around the veracity of the initial claims could be forwarded onto the SWAT team.

You're making an amazing effort to dream up new worst-case scenarios that could justify the speediest, least hesitant response. Great imagination and creativity, but you're violating Occam's razor by multiplying entities, ie inventing new facts to rationalize an illogical position. Yeah, maybe the murder could have taken place and the neighbors would be unaware of it because it occurred in an almost soundproof basement, but how do you know the house even has a basement?

Sure, you want to get police into position as quickly as possible, but you can also direct other people to investigate at the same time. And instead of just yelling directions at the guy from a distance when he came to the door, they could have tried asking questions when he appeared.

I mean, you can just as easily imagine other non-threatening factors. What if it was real, but the person at the door was actually one of the hostages who had been released but was scared and disoriented? What if it was an innocent person who was deaf? Police in Oklahoma shot a deaf guy 3 months ago even though people were yelling at the officers to tell them he was deaf. Police know what swatting is, and it's a common enough term that newscasters can use it in a sentence these days, so why didn't they consider that possibility?

I realize you're trying to be objective, but almost every one of your posts on this subject actually depends on a logical fallacy.

In this case, the supposed hostage taker was the 911 caller.

Calling the house won't get the "prankster" again. If you call the house and the same person answers making the same threats, that's confirmation that the situation appears to be serious (most likely someone attempting suicide by cop though).

If the person who answers tells you that nothing is wrong, and that no one called the cops, then swat team can be a bit more careful about keeping their safeties on.

The video below shows how the British police handled a high-risk incident - a report of a mentally ill man wandering the streets in his pyjamas, brandishing a handgun. The suspect is believed to have returned to his flat by the time they arrive on scene, so the officers literally knock on his door and politely ask if he has a gun.

With the right training, American officers can behave in exactly the same manner.

https://youtu.be/LKVyu1sodOU?t=3m35s

In some cases an unarmed person can present a deadly threat. Though not from across the street.

This is almost never the case when there are multiple armed and armored police present.

In this case there was no immediate and present danger yet SWAT was called in. There was a report which turned out to be false. The SWAT team also was under no danger when they shot this guy.

I should add that being a police officer is not a particularly dangerous job. A telephone lineman has a dangerous job. A garbage man has a dangerous job.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-dangerous-jobs/

The fact that there are jobs with higher injury rates out there doesn't make policing not dangerous.

I am going to strongly disagree. Being a cop is extremely dangerous — just because more cops don’t get hurt doesn’t mean it’s less dangerous. We can probably agree that being a race car driver is dangerous despite there not being a large number of injuries. Training and equipment mitigate some of the effects of the danger — but that doesn’t make it less dangerous.

Spend a night doing a police ride along in a major city, then report back on just how “not dangerous” the job is.

To be clear, I am not defending the cops in this situation, merely disputing the ridiculous claim that being a cop isn’t particularly dangerous.

How many garbage men have been killed on the job by their customers or targeted specifically because of their job? Any snipers taking out garbage men? Any garbage men getting routinely assaulted on the job?

"I am going to strongly disagree with well established statistical evidence" usually isn't a strong starting point for an argument.

> How many garbage men have been killed on the job by their customers or targeted specifically because of their job?

Why does this matter? Dead is dead. If you're more likely to be killed or injured doing that job, why does it matter how it comes about?

It's sad to see how many people here view police as the bad guys

Apparently they just killed a totally innocent man, entirely avoidably.

In this case, they are the bad guys.

This will not be the first case of questionable use of force people have encountered.

If you think the venom around this case is about this case then you’re going to be confused.

Let's cut the BS US Military is facing unimaginably more dangerous situations on daily basis yet expected to obey engagements where rule often is do not fire unless fired upon. Police is not even in the top 10 list of dangerous professions in US. Situations that in most countries are handled by few police officers in US are handled by paranoid SWAT teams on armored vehicles with assault rifles in full tactical gear.

Police gunfights are typically at much closer range than the military’s. Soldiers have more armor and are often already in fortified positions when fired upon. The situations aren’t exactly comparable.

Granted, combat troops probably have superior training to police.

I am not advocating for police to have a rule that disallows them to fire first. But police officers should be capable of acting cool under pressure and to use lethal force as a last resort not as a first tool to be used in any situation. I'd favor the rule that police should be filled with Army vets that have actually being on deployments and can keep their cool in an adversarial situations. There are plenty of footage of real firefights both involving police and Military in 80% of situation police looks like they are scared out of their mind and are acting purely out of being in uncontrollable fear which is a horrible situation.

These are SWAT teams. They often have military gear (http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/04/small-town-cops-get-armore...). If the problem is that they don’t have enough armor, let’s get them it.

This was across the street. Is that close? You can barely make out the victim in the body cam footage.

> when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger.

And that makes sense. There are certainly situations where it's neccessary to subdue everyone in the room and ask questions later.

The problem is here

> when it's clear

The whole subgenre of "SWATing" works, because SWAT teams are being deployed based on dramatic, but unsubstantiated information, on the suspicion of a dangerous situation.

This does not help protect officers saftey. It endangers them, and it makes police officers into the tools of criminals.

That can't be a good system.

> The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering.

Speaking as someone in Fire/EMS who has friends who are on SWAT teams, and as someone who has personally trained with SWAT teams for active shooter situations, going into unsecured scenes to remove patients while under the cover of law enforcement... I'm still going to disagree with you, and with the assertion of wilful ignorance. Speaking of which,

> when it is clear there is immediate danger

It evidently wasn't that clear. Even when I go to a structure fire, one of the confirming criteria is "multiple callers". To be clear, "one of", not deciding, or otherwise.

I have moderate sympathy with police for the difficulties of their job. If they find it uncomfortable or find themselves unable to handle the rigors, like the rest of us in society, they can get a new job that is better suited.

When it comes to police shooting people, I have little sympathy. They are the only class of people in society who can kill and under most circumstances, face no real consequence for their actions unlike the rest of their citizen compatriots. With that privilege comes a greater responsibility in my assessment.

I have absolutely zero sympathy for post-shooting employment difficulties police face who have, unlike nearly the rest of society, union protections and can not be terminated at will. When my employment circumstances are equal to a police officer, either by at-will provisions being extended to that class of citizen, or by me having access to a union of equal effectiveness, will I have one iota of sympathy for cops who find scrutiny too hard to bear.

Police officers are free to do like the rest of us and find a new job.

This was not a dangerous situation. They should not have had their weapons drawn.

It’s almost as if the USA isn’t the only country on earth and other developed countries manage to have police forces that don’t murder their own citizens regularly.

it's clear there is an immediate and present danger

(probably) dangerous

Pick one, because, those two situations are actually quite different.

willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering

Or maybe some of us are fully aware of that and simply don't agree with your point of view.

Not to be too blunt, but that's why they call it law enforcement. What's causing all the cognitive dissonance is the fact that law enforcement was summoned inappropriately -- i.e. on a an innocent person in a situation where no laws were broken and no enforcement was needed.

If the drug-lord whose assassins raped and killed your sister is confused and groggy in the middle of the night and gets shot accidentally or even "accidentally," there won't be any conflict in your mind. That's the kind of situation the process is designed for. Unfortunately it's also designed for a world where you can mostly trust what a 911 caller is saying. They'll have to tighten that up, especially after this incident. I just hope it doesn't get so bad that real victims have to beg and plead for 15 minutes and show two forms of ID and receive an auth code on their 2FA before a cop can show up to save them.

I have a huge conflict in my mind.

I am a firm believer is due process and equal protection under the law for all. What you are suggesting is far from it, and a far cry from the ideal.

SWAT teams, as heavily armored as they are, are still police, serving under the motto of protect and serve. If armor and automatic weapons are necessary to fulfill that goal, so be it.

But SWAT teams are fundamentally not an extrajudicial force to kill people in the middle of the night.

Actually I agree, and I think most cops would agree with that too. One thing hindering that ideal is how police officers are trained to have a chickenshit mentality where no risk to an officer's safety is tolerated ever. In that philosophy the balance is tilted too far in favor of officer safety and away from public safety. Scour the news for any "hero" story. A hero never displays concern for his own safety, he acts out of concern for someone else's safety. (Remember heroes/heroism? So quaint!)

Nonetheless, and maybe I'm just jaded here, if the police show up anywhere, be it an Occupy protest or a carjacking, there is likely to be mayhem and bloodshed. They're a blunt tool with a single purpose. It's only after the smoke clears and the cuffs are on, that someone gets a formal legal proceeding. Cops always stand between you and a courtroom, in other words. Not sure I like it that way, but that's how it is.

>One thing hindering that ideal is how police officers are trained to have a chickenshit mentality where no risk to an officer's safety is tolerated ever.

Absolutely. And in spite of this zero tolerance, "officer safety over everything" mentality, they continue to use the PR crutch of being in "constant danger" without ever acknowledging the extreme mitigation tactics they employ against that danger, regardless of if it's real or imagined.

>if the police show up anywhere, be it an Occupy protest or a carjacking, there is likely to be mayhem and bloodshed.

If you grew up in the US (I can't speak for other countries), I think most people, despite the media coverage, would say otherwise. There's way too many cops for this to even make sense. If even 1% of police interaction ended in a death, there would be literally millions of people dead by cop every year.

>chickenshit mentality where no risk to an officer's safety is tolerated ever.

Again, I'm not sure this is true. Are cops selfless superhuman crime fighting machines, charging heedlessly into danger? Of course not, and it's unreasonable to expect them to be. I would go so far as to argue we don't want heros. Heros are a band-aid fix, a substitute for good training and careful decisions made possible by always selfless, often reckless, decisions. We shouldn't be putting officers in a situation where they need to step up to become a hero.

Of course, there is the unpredictable event that necessitates a hero, but we should be working to reduces these edge cases.

I think we are waiting to hear: "and this culture of impunity and valuing their own lives above the lives of the people they swore an oath to protect needs to end and we need to re-train our forces and hold those who use deadly force accountable"

That would go further than making excuses for the rash thinking on the part of trigger-happy leo's.

The "swatter" should be charged with 2nd degree murder, minimum, but this particular instance is just the icing on a cake in which over 1000 people die every year from leo firearm discharge, and that is due to a culture within law enforcement that needs to CHANGE NOW. We have seen this coming for over 50 years, and it's OUT OF HAND at this point. It's past time for legislative actions to have taken place.

We are absolutely globally isolated in this regard (unless you count Duterte as good company and a supporter of the sort of society America should stand for.)

Of course. I think bodycams are a huge step in the right direction, in terms of holding police officers accountable for their actions whilst also protecting them from false claims.

Culture change is fundamentally slow, but I think process is being made. We're talking about a whole new generation of cop, from new supervisors to new codes of conduct and police union leadership.

The comparison to Duterte is unfair and minimizes the atrocities in the name of justice happening in the Philippines. The NYT has/had an excellent article, replete with photos, of the devastation. It is a whole order of magnitude more people in a much smaller nation.

You can keep it, I don't want any part of what you're into. And that's not for lack of life experience with dangerous situations.

Wait what am I into?

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