<story><title>LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police</title><url>http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192281169.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bastijn</author><text>Here we have the exact opposite and police are often prosecuted for firing their weapon. Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service). Why? Because &amp;quot;police needs to know better and accept it as part of their job&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the statistics of people with guns there it makes sense.&lt;p&gt;You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.&lt;p&gt;April from all that I hope they will prosecute the idiot swatter to set an example. This ain&amp;#x27;t no games you do for fun.</text></item><item><author>api</author><text>The blame can be placed on both. The person who faked a police report is guilty of homicide, but this was made possible by an overly trigger happy police force.</text></item><item><author>mmmBacon</author><text>Sorry but almost all the blame is on the person who pulls the trigger.  Swatting is possible because of police militarization.  Frankly while the idiot who made the call certainly shares some responsibility, our police policies of shoot first and ask questions later are the problem.  When police are trained to respond to citizens, even violent ones, like enemies in war, we get the outcomes of police killings that we have today.  Citizens are not enemies or combatants and as such the military style training of police in the US today is wholly inappropriate.</text></item><item><author>v64</author><text>&amp;gt; So - the demonstrations following some police shootings aside, is there any significant push in the US to drive the police towards less lethal encounters with the public it is to serve and protect?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m from the southern US, which is historically more conservative than the rest of the country. I&amp;#x27;m not in any way claiming that the following viewpoints are universal and accepted in this region, but a large enough portion of the population holds these viewpoints, preventing further progress:&lt;p&gt;1) Anyone who gets shot by cops must have done something to warrant being shot. Even for people who get shot during traffic stops, that person did something to get pulled over in the first place. If they had a criminal record in the past, even if they didn&amp;#x27;t commit an offense during the situation where they were killed, there&amp;#x27;s a good chance they would have offended again, and this preemptive killing probably prevented a future crime.&lt;p&gt;2) In the case of this swatting incident, the blame lies 100% on the person who made the false police report. No false report, no shooting. The cop had reason to believe based on the report that the man who emerged from the door claimed to have a gun and had killed in the last hour, so it was plausible to believe he may try to retaliate and the appropriate force was used. No time for fact checking during an active shooter situation. &amp;quot;Shoot first, ask questions later&amp;quot; is considered an appropriate way for the police to deal with criminals.&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are numerous refutations, and that isn&amp;#x27;t lost on people. Many people will justify it by saying that regardless of the circumstances, the police put their lives on the line every day, so that gives them a pass when they make mistakes. Many people would view your suggestions as weakening the police, and the militarization of US police is viewed by many as making us safer, not less safe.</text></item><item><author>lb1lf</author><text>Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards.&lt;p&gt;Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely goes some way towards explaining their apparent eagerness to shoot first, then ask questions later.&lt;p&gt;However, what puzzles me most is this - if the police around here shot but one innocent, there&amp;#x27;d be cries for resignations, perhaps even going all the way to the secretary of justice; we collectively would expect - nah, demand - that the police come up with policies and training which would make it less likely that another, similar incident would ever occur, &amp;amp;c.&lt;p&gt;So - the demonstrations following some police shootings aside, is there any significant push in the US to drive the police towards less lethal encounters with the public it is to serve and protect?&lt;p&gt;Say, requiring better people skills, more use of non-lethal weapons (and, if sufficiently effective non-lethal weapons do not yet exist - to have them developed), more passive safety for police officers (say, if you are wearing body armour which will stop a cal. 50-round, maybe you do not have to fire the first shot) etc?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lb1lf</author><text>&amp;gt; You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.&lt;p&gt;-The problem, at least in some cases, is that you may get confusing, if not direct contradictory orders.&lt;p&gt;Say, if one officer yells &amp;#x27;Put your hands up&amp;#x27; whereas another yells &amp;#x27;Get down, get down&amp;#x27; - sure, keeping your wits about you, you could get your hands up, then kneel and get down - however, you are probably stressed as hell (being at gunpoint hopefully not being an everyday occurrence), and stressed people make mistakes.&lt;p&gt;Being frightened is NOT a condition which carries the death penalty. Police officers are the professional party in encounters like this. They should act like it - and receive training in how Joe Q. Public is likely to react when having a gun pointed at him.&lt;p&gt;(Heck, it might even be justified to have a masked instructor crash a class at the police academy and holding them at gunpoint for a few seconds (better make it a class where the cadets are not armed!) - with any luck, the brighter ones will remember how scared they were and cut civilians they encounter later a little slack for being scared s--tless.</text></comment>
<story><title>LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting call to Wichita police</title><url>http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192281169.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bastijn</author><text>Here we have the exact opposite and police are often prosecuted for firing their weapon. Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service). Why? Because &amp;quot;police needs to know better and accept it as part of their job&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Maybe US is a bit much to the other side but with the statistics of people with guns there it makes sense.&lt;p&gt;You know what would help? If the police tells you to do something, do it without question or big mouthing. Cops tell you to put your hands where they can see them? Do it. Tell you to lie down? Do it. Fight them later for any unjust actions but while at gunpoint just beeping comply.&lt;p&gt;April from all that I hope they will prosecute the idiot swatter to set an example. This ain&amp;#x27;t no games you do for fun.</text></item><item><author>api</author><text>The blame can be placed on both. The person who faked a police report is guilty of homicide, but this was made possible by an overly trigger happy police force.</text></item><item><author>mmmBacon</author><text>Sorry but almost all the blame is on the person who pulls the trigger.  Swatting is possible because of police militarization.  Frankly while the idiot who made the call certainly shares some responsibility, our police policies of shoot first and ask questions later are the problem.  When police are trained to respond to citizens, even violent ones, like enemies in war, we get the outcomes of police killings that we have today.  Citizens are not enemies or combatants and as such the military style training of police in the US today is wholly inappropriate.</text></item><item><author>v64</author><text>&amp;gt; So - the demonstrations following some police shootings aside, is there any significant push in the US to drive the police towards less lethal encounters with the public it is to serve and protect?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m from the southern US, which is historically more conservative than the rest of the country. I&amp;#x27;m not in any way claiming that the following viewpoints are universal and accepted in this region, but a large enough portion of the population holds these viewpoints, preventing further progress:&lt;p&gt;1) Anyone who gets shot by cops must have done something to warrant being shot. Even for people who get shot during traffic stops, that person did something to get pulled over in the first place. If they had a criminal record in the past, even if they didn&amp;#x27;t commit an offense during the situation where they were killed, there&amp;#x27;s a good chance they would have offended again, and this preemptive killing probably prevented a future crime.&lt;p&gt;2) In the case of this swatting incident, the blame lies 100% on the person who made the false police report. No false report, no shooting. The cop had reason to believe based on the report that the man who emerged from the door claimed to have a gun and had killed in the last hour, so it was plausible to believe he may try to retaliate and the appropriate force was used. No time for fact checking during an active shooter situation. &amp;quot;Shoot first, ask questions later&amp;quot; is considered an appropriate way for the police to deal with criminals.&lt;p&gt;Obviously there are numerous refutations, and that isn&amp;#x27;t lost on people. Many people will justify it by saying that regardless of the circumstances, the police put their lives on the line every day, so that gives them a pass when they make mistakes. Many people would view your suggestions as weakening the police, and the militarization of US police is viewed by many as making us safer, not less safe.</text></item><item><author>lb1lf</author><text>Coming from a country where the police spends more time developing people skills than doing gun practice, it never ceases to puzzle me how the solution to any situation appears to be to shoot anything that moves on the flimsiest of assumptions, then figure out what happened afterwards.&lt;p&gt;Now, I appreciate that the police in the US does face a population with more guns on hand than the Norwegian police does; this surely goes some way towards explaining their apparent eagerness to shoot first, then ask questions later.&lt;p&gt;However, what puzzles me most is this - if the police around here shot but one innocent, there&amp;#x27;d be cries for resignations, perhaps even going all the way to the secretary of justice; we collectively would expect - nah, demand - that the police come up with policies and training which would make it less likely that another, similar incident would ever occur, &amp;amp;c.&lt;p&gt;So - the demonstrations following some police shootings aside, is there any significant push in the US to drive the police towards less lethal encounters with the public it is to serve and protect?&lt;p&gt;Say, requiring better people skills, more use of non-lethal weapons (and, if sufficiently effective non-lethal weapons do not yet exist - to have them developed), more passive safety for police officers (say, if you are wearing body armour which will stop a cal. 50-round, maybe you do not have to fire the first shot) etc?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jakelazaroff</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; Result is they get kicked, slapped, scolded and vocabulary assaulted by 13 year olds who know they would win the case for a judge if it comes to it (or otherwise get 40 hours of public service).&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m gonna go out on a limb and say that if an offense only warrants 40 hours of public service, it&amp;#x27;s probably not serious enough for a cop to use their firearm.</text></comment>