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Comment by Peroni | Hacker News Reader

Regardless of your stance on the entire Mega issue, no-one can deny that the raid is simply terrifying.

Personally I have no clue how they justified such a heavily armed response particularly considering the fact that Dotcom never posed a physical threat to anyone let alone the fact that there were a number of children in the building at the time.

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Using a SWAT raid to arrest a subject in cases where the police also want to seize evidence isn't at all uncommon in the US these days. The ostensible idea is that speed and ferocity is needed to capture evidence before criminals can destroy it. In practice I think the situation is more that police departments feel they need need SWAT teams because of terrorism, etc. But once they have them they start looking for chances to use them so the members don't get bored. The police in the US are required to knock on the door and announce themselves before conducting a raid which would interfere with the police starting the suspects and getting them before they could, say, flush their drugs down the toilet. Thankfully for the police there's no requirement for how loudly they have to knock, so I don't think I've ever heard of a case where the suspect or neighbors heard them do this. There are some states where over half of police searches are done by tactical squads bursting in behind a battering ram.

This raid was conducted in NZ. One of the most passive countries on the planet.

At the behest of the US government.

Police departments also want SWAT teams because other jurisdictions have them and it's easy to get funding.

As you mention this is quite common in the U.S. These "high-risk" warrant teams are used all the time for serving narcotics warrants on non-violent offenders. They also commonly get the wrong address or the wrong suspect with tragic results. Take a peek at the map of botched paramilitary raids for a sobering look at what happens when the police screw up: http://www.cato.org/raidmap

What's the point of buying all those toys if you never get to use them? And what's a better time to use them, but when you know they can't potentially get damaged?

> no-one can deny that the raid is simply terrifying.

It looked pretty amateurish to me. They had trouble climbing a 3 foot high gate, which after they had ‘scaled’ it, turns out was easily opened.

> such a heavily armed response

I counted 5 police officers who approached the house together, only one of them was armed with a rifle. I saw no violence whatsoever, it was pretty laid-back. At no point in the video did they point a gun at any of the suspects, and they lowered their fire arms before they entered the building (highly unusual if you think you’re in danger or if you want to intimidate someone).

> Dotcom never posed a physical threat to anyone

When you’re dealing with a rich suspect who loves expensive toys and has a large staff, you have to be prepared for anything. In the US, they would’ve sent an army to surround and comb through that enormous mansion. Given that Dotcom is morbidly obese, I doubt the agents saw him as a physical threat, it’s his staff and the presence of weapons they needed to worry about.

I'm pretty sure that in most countries if a police officer turns up with a silenced automatic weapon then the police action is no longer "laid-back".

Wow you really have no idea do you?

Seriously just cause you live in the US and everything is over the top including police force, that doesn't mean its the norm. I can ensure you police force in the US and the use of guns is over the top and unjustified, so was this in the case for Dotcom.

I don’t live in the US. Even in the Netherlands, where I live, police raids are a lot larger than just 5 agents and one rifle.

In your country, police officers don’t carry guns and tactical units are armed with flowers?

>In your country, police officers don’t carry guns?

Correct. UK.

The norm is that police officers wear guns, the UK is an exception. But even in the UK, police carry guns and rifles during raids – especially if they suspect to be met with armed resistance (as was the case with Kim Schmitz).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorised_Firearms_Officer

Not all raids, no.

I didn’t say ‘all raids’.

Did you read the page you linked to? Guns are only carried by specialized units. While said units will be called in if the circumstances seem to merit it, that's an unusual occurrence; the normal case, even on a raid, is that noone is carrying firearms.

How does any of that contradict my earlier comment?

If the police plans to raid a building which they suspect hosts armed suspects, like in the case of Kim Schmitz, surely they’ll send in units carrying fire arms.

Not that much of an exception.

Countries where Police do not carry guns as part of normal duty:

New Zealand

Japan

Norway

Iceland

Cook Islands

St. Helena

Falkland Islands

Pitcairn Island

sources: http://www.policespecials.com/forum/index.php?/topic/32618-c... http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50601024

Half of the ‘countries’ on your list are UK territories and 5 out of 206 countries does hardly a norm make.

Add Republic of Ireland to that list

I find that interesting, as police officers in Northern Ireland (part of the UK) do carry firearms. I have to admit I know little about either Irelands, perhaps the situation in the Republic of Ireland is a lot less volatile.

Maybe explain that to Dotcom, who had a shotgun with him in his panic room when they cut him out of it.

Seems like a sensible place to keep a shotgun.

Is hiding from the police in your safe room sensible as well? If they have to cut you out of it, I’d say that constitutes resisting arrest.

As no reasonable police officer would execute a paramilitary operation over copyright infringement, no reasonable person can be expected to believe that the armed thugs busting down his door are police, no matter their claims.

The charges were filed weeks before the raid. Surely he was given numerous opportunities to turn himself in. Also, this was only one of many charges he couldn’ve been brought in for. Kim Schmitz is no boy scout. I don’t underatand why so many people (which includes HN members) idolize him.

Did they ask him to turn himself in?

I can't say I know what New Zealand's procedure for this actually is, but in the US, one of two things would occur in a white-collar case like this: The suspect would either surrender with his attorney at a prearranged time and place, or he would be arrested by a couple of officers who peacefully knock on his door.

Anything else would be seen as grossly excessive force, the fallout of which could easily involve ruined careers and political repercussions.

And I don't know who you're talking about that "idolizes" him. I don't. I actually have no particular opinion about him one way or another, only about the manner in which the case has been handled.

You're the one who seems to be taking things very personally.

Because Kim is super rich, they wouldn't have raid him in the US. It would have been like the Madoff arrest, knock on his door an arrest him. Hell they may have even contacted his lawyers and asked him to surrender.

Schmitz had fled several countries previously to avoid being jailed, why should this time be different? Because of his vast amount of funds and his loyalty to no one, he was a flight risk, so they decided to pick him up. However, they knew that was going to be tricky. Schmitz has an enormous mansion in a rural area. He has a large security staff and a private helicopter. In the end, police “neutralized locks and cut their way into a safe room, where Dotcom was found with what looked like a sawed-off shotgun”.

> ... did they point a gun at any of the suspects ...

This may seem a minor point, but the housekeeper and other staff were not "suspects", they're innocent members of the public.

His associates Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk were also arrested and are suspects.

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