That some point is on the first one. They should not send in a violent response due to a spoofed call from another state.
Worst case, once they find the first one was a 'swatting', they should really temper the response on future calls.
Worst case, once they find the first one was a 'swatting', they should really temper the response on future calls.
I've never heard of this happening in Europe in the counties I've lived. They have such teams but they're only sent in after a serious hostage situation is confirmed by cops on the scene. They don't just go around busting down doors because some anonymous caller says so.
I wonder how many of these situations in the US are legit and actually needed such a response.
While guns may exist in a house, for police it's unlikely to be confronted with it.
I would wager way more citizens are killed by police (rightfully or not) than police are killed by citizens.
I don’t disagree that the firearms are a problem, or even a factor, but it certainly doesn’t seem likely that it’s the root cause unless there’s some tipping point between 1-1.5/5 houses and 2/5 houses that makes things substantially more dangerous.
Militarization of police was indeed a symptom, but rather a symptom of the War on Drugs - the first SWAT team (in LA) was organized largely for that purpose.
If I’m a police captain, I’m going in guns blazing every time because I know the trend of SWATting won’t end until the penalties are ratcheted way up. The only way that’s going to happen is for terrible stories like this to become public.
and underlines the complete disconnect between lawmakers/law enforcement, and modern technology.
Well, they aren’t that way. However your town works, Detroit is different. NYC is different. Tampa is different.
At some point the person who is repeatedly surprised at what doesn’t make sense to them has an obligation to either accept that their expectations aren’t universal, or to dig deeper. Maintaining perpetual shock and confusion is not a sign of moral righteousness or principle, it’s provincial.
Even if that means that situation in USA is sad/broken.
The universally shared image of the US is that they loudmouth how great they are compared to the rest of the world. So when news comes out on how the US fails so dramatically on very basic public/social services, it leaves people from outside the US stumped.
The image of the United States is perceived not nearly so negative in the counties which I visited: Jordan, China, Vietnam.
I'll add a fourth country, which I haven't visited. The image of the United States in Israel, while complex, includes a great deal of admiration. As a country with security always top of mind, overall Israel broadly admires the United States' extensive defense capability and power. I doubt most Israelis would describe the US as 'loudmouth'.
Similar nuances could be laid out for the countries I listed above.
Many world citizens can parse media of a random football fan screaming 'USA!' from the state department's lengthy policy positions. The perceived image you describe resembles most closely to me a self reflection found often within the US.
Nonetheless, I do think our culture could stand to posture in a more reserved fashion broadly, while not being afraid to mention where appropriate...
We remain a positive world standout in a variety ways.
Most recently, I believe, the main contributor to that image was the former president of the US, not some American at the FIFA World Cup. Trump providing nonstop material for satire and comedy shows didn't help either.
In general the international image of the US seems to be better under democrat presidents.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image...
That article broadly matches with my personal observations as a European.
> I can say with high confidence that the image of the United States is perceived not nearly so negative in the following counties which I personally visited: Jordan, China, Vietnam.
Eh. I can't speak to Jordan or Vietnam, but in China opinions on the US are usually a toss up. US (cultural) exports are warring with opinionated news that doesn't portray the US any better than US news portrays China.
> As a country with security always top of mind, overall Israel broadly admires the United States' extensive defense capability and power. I doubt most Israelis would describe the US as 'loudmouth'.
You're right that overall Israelis have an extremely favorable opinion of the US (ignoring their Arab population of course), however I have to point out these opinions aren't mutually exclusive.
The only surprising thing about Israel is that Trump apparently was more liked there than Biden is. They still seem to think Trump is more arrogant though.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/07/11/israeli-views-...
Props for citing evidence via Pew. Just FYI, that Israel poll arguably became obsolete in the weeks following the 10/7 terrorist attack. Not sure where things currently stand.
I do wish there was a bit more nuance. The discussion of favorability is complex. I was speaking specifically to the comment regarding the US being perceived as a 'loudmouth how great they are compared to the rest of the world'.
As far as Europe broadly is conencerned... I would probably agree that public perception does include a component resembling the aforementioned perception. I'd speculate that this probably has a fair bit to do with many European nations exceeding the US in various metrics surrounding healthcare, happiness, safety, income distribution ect. Those critism are fair ofc.
I suppose the distilled point of my comment was that there is a lot of nuance to US image from nation to nation. Myself, I didn't realize just how respected the US is amongst so many nations. Even arguably adverserial nations often respect a great number of things about the US. I find it regrettable that the US domestic population often has very unfavorable views of their own nation, without giving adequate and nuanced consideration to our many accomplishments. Often less developed nations focus more on some of the bigger picture factors which are worthy of full consideration.
I'm from Amsterdam and most people there adore the US as well. Our culture is heavily influenced by it as most people on the street now speak a curious mixture of Dutch and American English. The country became strongly neoliberal as a result too (which hurt me as a socialist personally) and even got caught up in the Trumpist outcry over things perceived as "woke". 24% voted for Wilders who is basically a mixture of Trump-style populism and fascism in the last election. The country is really messed up now.
But, the police is not militarised as it is in the US and I'm really glad for that. Even though gangs do have a lot of guns. They're not easy to come by in Holland but we have an unmonitored border with Belgium where they are freely available in criminal circles. We still have some 'common sense' in police approach, at least for now.
And if I could make a bet, I doubt that they treat the houses of rich people the same way. Because they have the means to sue, to fight back.
I think they're asking you to dig deeper.
> However your town works, Detroit is different. NYC is different. Tampa is different.
Yup. But you know what? Europe isn't just one town either. It's not even one country, one currency, one language, or one alphabet. Αθήνα isn't Berlin isn't Paris; Cambridge isn't like London isn't like Glasgow isn't like Belfast, and only the latter has "RPG Avenue" nicknamed due to the weapon fired at the cops, and yet the English (do not go to Belfast and describe it as "England") are so anti-gun that even the cops don't want to be armed.
America isn't unique in being diverse, it's not even half as diverse as its self image makes claim.
Learn about the differences that mean the rest of us don't face your challenges, and then use that to make your cities better.
As a European who spent 3 years driving all around the western half of the US, I really wouldn't even call America very diverse. The climate changes more than the people. The difference between city and rural is bigger than the difference between north and south; rural people in Montana and Arizona just aren't that different.
I am well aware that we have gang violence and all types of problems. What I do not see is a justification for things like violating someones property, repeatedly. The man has no obligation to cooperate with shit, and the police have no right to barge in anyways, that isnt how probably cause is supposed to work.
You can keep burying your head in the sand, make excuses for unacceptable behaviour such as swatting with "but it's extraordinary circumstances with very specific context" and bemoan the "provincials" for expecting the US behaves, or at least trends towards, a society that resembles the rest of the democratic, civilized world.
Or you can say enough, and demand action. One is a lot easier than the other.
A relative worked at the police in downtown Amsterdam. Where gang violence is also a problem, only a few years ago people had to duck in a tram to avoid stray bullets from gangs firing automatic weapons.
This didn't really cause a militarisation of the police though. The problem with that is that it leads to further escalation on both sides. And ordinary people can get caught up in that like what is happening with the swatting.
Also I've lived in many different EU countries and swatting is just not a thing anywhere. The US really is pretty unique in this phenomenon within the western world.
Wouldn't that street be definitionally the highest crime hotspot in the area anyhow?
So I should swat myself in the morning when I want to go on a rampage in the afternoon?
As inconvenient as it is for the victims, the 100% response rate is the only guarantee the system cannot be abused in other ways. A similar example from Germany: A friend is driving 8h every 2 months to his mandatory shooting practice because he missed too many flights back due to residues of gun discharges found on him at the airport. The government is accepting this 8h commute as work time because any way around the mandatory, extensive investigation at the airport would open holes in the security procedures in place. And my friends "secret service" badge does not grant him any special powers at the airport - also by design.
It's obviously super dumb, but it is sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Ideally, we would solve this in a sane way but at least it seems like there is some tempering of violence in most of these stories which is sadly refreshing.
It's a tough job, but there are also a lot of under-trained, under-educated people that just want to bust down doors and wouldn't actually risk their lives for anyone. In fact, I'm sure some let themselves be used by swatters, as it gives them a chance to use their heavy equipment in low risk scenarios.
Besides all that, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police are not obligated to help you anyways.
Police departments are incentivized/required to respond to SWATs as genuine incidents; therefore, they are not “damned” by this situation. It is the victims of the SWAT that are “damned”. The article says that a SWAT costs $10,000 US, but that cost is borne by the taxpayer and so it would be up to municipalities to deal with the risk of looking weak on crime or just pay the bill.
However, if the police were to not respond to an emergency that required a SWAT team that actually needed one, then they would be accused of not doing their jobs and being “damned” in that fashion.
My sad conclusion is that police departments and the different levels of government are not incentivized to solve this problem because the rich, the powerful, and enough of the voting public are sufficiently shielded from the negative consequences.
Of course, in America that training tends to take the form of learning how to use their military-style weaponry to kill the Bad Guys(tm), not eg how to deescalate a situation.
What happened to those Special Weapons And Tactics?
1. How are 911 dispatchers organized and staffed to have 24/7 coverage?
2. How are SWAT teams organized and staffed to have 24/7 coverage? How many SWAT teams cover/overlap a given address?
3. Comparing the answers for 1. and 2. with something like the fire department. Fire departments at times have to fight fires that run into multiple hours and multiple days and scale up their operations with help from neighboring regions and higher levels of government while maintaining sufficient organization and knowledge.
4. Why 4 SWATs and not anymore in that day?
Well, in the flesh things take time to happen, the setup for the call, the deployment, the investigation, the debrief, a cooling off period to observe the results, thats probably a couple hours minimum. This isnt something you can parallelize or task more cores too, the swatter probably got bored, tired, or hungry.
Police budgets are not infinite, taxes don't automatically get raised even if they spend all of it. Towns can and have shut down their police departments because they ran out of funding.
Seattle police department budgets passed four hundred million and were only recently reduced by progressive members of the city council. They've had decades of year over year growth that exceeds both city spending growth and population growth. Bruce Harrell, Seattles mayor, is trying to increase budgets for police again and the one time reduction is unlikely to stick given the change in membership in the city council. One single reduction in a ballooning police budget is not indicative of the overall trend of massively increasing police spending.
Also, the budget was 409 in 2020: https://spdbudget.seattle.gov/
(Also you forgot about inflation.)
I refuse to believe that anyone woild damn them with a headline of “smae parson was found to be doing nothing wrong 3 times earlier on the same day. So the forth time only a small friendly team was sent initially after which a full swat team was sent when they discovers it was real”
No one in their right mind would be like “why didn’t they go in with force for the forth time that day!?