Comment by ljm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ljm | Hacker News Reader

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Don't get me wrong, but this kind of point is something I've only ever seen on the internet, and typically from an American point of view. It makes the cops look like infallible overlords or, dare I say it, tyrants, and the criminal as someone completely undeserving of any understanding, benefit of the doubt, or compassion.

> resisting arrest and disobeying a police officer

Mercy me, how dare he. He definitely deserves the electric chair for that.

> probably several other charges (home invasion too?).

After being identified as a criminal because of the original shoplifting attempt, it's now okay to concoct a laundry list of potential new crimes just to make sure the cops can really throw the book at this degenerate. They're now entirely justified in ramming a military tank through a house while a hundred other cops watch the show.

I presume that an officer doing their job would have been able to let the shoplifter run off and, because they'd identified him and the stolen car, they could issue a warrant and pick him up later.

> I presume that an officer doing their job would have been able to let the shoplifter run off and, because they'd identified him and the stolen car, they could issue a warrant and pick him up later.

Let him run off? That's not really how policing works, at least not in the U.S. The police see someone commit a crime, they're obligated to pursue him, unless ordered to stand down or they're forced to triage because another's life is in danger etc.

It seems to me that there's one wrongdoer here and that's the shoplifter/home invader/gunman. That said, yeah, perhaps they shouldn't have called SWAT but on the other hand, according to the article they tried to negotiate for 5 hours, then he fired shots. Not sure what else they could do but fire back.

I don't know why everyone is eliding the gunfire here, to me that's the most important aspect of the story. If he was merely a shoplifter, there would be little harm in just issuing a warrant and looking for him later. But once he started shooting, preservation of property became a secondary concern.

It's still incredibly hard to justify the use of a tank (and a hundred cops) against a single shooter, demolishing a house to reach him. This is the same country that wishes away the many mass shootings every year with thoughts and prayers.

The entire saga screams incompetence and "he had a gun" is a terrible excuse. The whole point is to de-escalate, not one-up them.

The police in the US have a deep, institutional problem with how they serve their communities, and it infests (if indeed it isn't fed by) many aspects of the wider country's culture. It's both sad and infuriating to read about when you see that we don't have any of these issues in other western countries.

He shot at the police. They discovered narcotics needles in the house. This guy was likely on drugs, definitely armed and dangerous. How exactly were they supposed to de-escalate? If they backed off, he could have maybe slipped out the back door, stolen the Lechs' car, maybe went into a neighboring house and held someone hostage or shot them. He was at that point a public menace. Also he had multiple past felonies or felony charges (I don't remember which).

But we're kind of off the main topic which is Google tracking and geo-fencing :)

and you would still run a tank through a house to solve that problem, and then refuse to pay for it, leaving the innocent homeowner to face the same police force in the courts?

there is not a single situation where the police acted in good faith here.

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