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Comment by program_whiz | Hacker News Reader

This will be an unpopular view, but if someone is armed and locks themself in a house (the contents and perons inside which are unknown), its a bit tough for the police.

Police protocols are largely based on preventing the numerous deaths and damage that they see on a regular basis, and the court ruling is based on the legal experts reviewing the case and seeing that they did what was expected.

If your family was in that house, murdered, and you were held at gunpoint for hours, you would probably be wishing the police had acted more swiftly, not just put up their hands and said "well I guess we just let an armed suspect who ran and hid inside a residence after committing a crime go..."

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No one was held at gunpoint. The article even says the guy took a nap. They could just wait.

Also he shot at the police, that's pretty much going to mean they have to assume you could kill them or someone else. You really think you can not only steal, then lead a car chase, then lock yourself in a house, then shoot at the cops, and expect them to just wait hoping you don't kill someone or yourself or them to avoid property damage? And then, if they kick in your door (or after 19 hours destroy your house), you want them to pay for it, when you could have avoided or ended the situation at any time?

Hard to say who caused what after certain point. Certainly police has been criticized before for risky chases, for example. Is risking lives of pedestrians worth a chase for a few dollars of stolen merchendise? Then things escalated, sure.

Chases are dangerous, and there are attempts to avoid them. For example, there's a system that some police are testing, that shoots magnetic GPS trackers to the chased car, and then police then track the car from a safer distance without putting pressure at the chased driver, and try to catch him when he stops.

Police aren't supposed to go on high-speed chases anymore, especially because they could hurt innocent people. They made the situation worse in every way.

Based on your comments you haven’t read the story. The house didn’t belong to the person police were pursuing and there was nobody in the house. They destroyed the house of a completely innocent third-party.

What if you and your family were being held hostage, how do the police know "they can just wait"? They don't even know if the guy is really allowed to be in the house. Also how long do the police wait, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month? How many millions is it worth to avoid damaging an armed criminals residence, especially when he can willingly walk out at any time and avoid all that damage.

How well would we respond if someone was killed because the police waited saying "We didn't want to damage the house, we figured he was just taking a nap or something."

If you and your family were being held hostage the actions by the police would have put them in far more danger if they didn't know where you were since they were blind firing launchers throughout the house. The police can shut off the power and water, could have flooded the house with tear gas, could have breached with multiple teams. You realize this was more damage than gets caused in a war zone breaching right? The house was so overly damaged it was condemned. That's so in excess of what's required to get a single suspect that they know is in a confined area. They could have sent in a drone with a grenade and caused less damage. This was willful negligence on the part of the police department who didn't use proper judgement in the apprehension of a serious criminal. They literally used military rounds over and over for 19 hours, military vehicles, explosives, grenades. The same city then condemned the house and offered $5000. Destroying the property is going to cost more than that. The city decided to take the house, the city should pay for the house.

I don't care about your fantasy. The reality is insane overreaction to a guy who stole $20 worth of clothes. Walmart writes this into their bottom line. You know what should've happened? Nothing.

Not trying to start a flame war here, but its not a fantasy. There are 36,000 gun deaths, and over 100,000 gun related injuries in the US every year (thats roughly 3000 per week). There was an armed man who lead a high-speed chase and shot at police. The odds are very high he will injure or kill another person, its not a fantasy to think the police are thinking worst case.

https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-america/

We are looking at this article with hindsight that his only crime was taking the belt, but you can't know that _at the time_, and given that these officers see shootings, robberies, and murders on a regular basis, its impossible to make the assumption that "well he's probably just harmless, lets wait this out".

I pose this simple question -- if someone broke into your house, armed, and fired shots. Would you wait it out, or assume the worst? If you assumed the worst, and that meant sacrificing your property to possibly save your life and the life of your family, but then it turned out the guy was just looking for a few items to sell, and wasn't really that bad, would you say you made the wrong call?

That 36,000 number isn't really the entire story. The majority of those are suicides. In the year that this incident took place (2015) there were 9,616 murders with a firearm of some kind. Source:

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

Police shouldn't engage in high speed chases if you're concerned for innocent's safety

Police in the US are responsible for about 1000 firearm deaths each year, and getting increasingly aggressive towards innocent Americans

Police militarization increases this aggression at no benefit to the public

If the police blew up my house and offered a snarky apology after escalating the situation far beyond what was necessary, I'd be angry. Your question isn't simple, it's leading.

"Let me ask you a question that is totally different from what happened and will give me an answer I'm satisfied with"

Was anybody else in the building when the police were destroying it?

If there were (which I don't think is the case from the article), were they in more danger from the suspect or the police?

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