Of course most of the focus is on the swatter but the police should be investigated by authorities outside their unions.For a completely innocent person to die,likely in their own home says the cops used inappropriate actions involving pulling a gun and killing someone for NO reason. As a police officer wielding deadly force in the form of a gun or even a taser or beating stick,you should be trained to react in a proper method of investigation BEFORE automatically declaring guilty and killing someone. So the cop or cops did not afford the citizen his rights and pulled a weapon for no reason and used deadly force for no reason.
I think some people likely saw the video the other day of a person picking up garbage off his front lawn and the cops arrived and pulled guns on him.It is bad enough to just walk up and ask a perfectly innocent person some questions but to pull a gun and only the cop in charge got a office job for 3 days.So threatened a man on his property with guns because he was picking up garbage.
BTW a desk job for 3 days is NOT nearly enough punishment. Obviously the swatters are idiots,we are not going to EXPECT them to respect another person but with the cops we should expect to be respected as they would expect.
A bigger picture is out there.."profiling"Google working with the government on ideas to kill people and watch over people with drones,watch follow tracking with facial recognition etc etc".Things are getting way out of hand people and most of it is behind closed doors to keep it out of the public's eye.
Think of if from your own perspective,would you be happy if some cop shot your child because of phone call?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For what it's worth, the officer who determined the man "reached for his waistband" in a manner that was conducive to pulling a firearm was all the way across the street from Finch.
Not sure he was in a position to even make a determination of whether the man should've been fired upon, considering there were officers much closer who obviously didn't feel the situation warranted it. That seems... A pretty serious error in judgement by the officer.
Not condoning what dude did, but why are they so vague about the police that actually shot and killed the guy? Is that normal procedure for a bomb threat? I dont think the telephone call is what killed him, it was a bullet that killed him and not a bullet from the guy who is now in prison.
....snip....
In a situation like that, it would be very hard to build a criminal case against the police officer who shot the guy. Maybe he could be fired for being bad at his job, but you shouldn't prosecute someone for making a good-faith effort to do a tough job as best as he can. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or standard police procedures to know if he should have been (or was) fired.
Agreed. I do think though there needs to be more oversight and better training being done.
If you look across the board there an unusually high number if bad incidents involving police officers...some of them because some people make it through training and become cops when they shouldn't in the first place and others because they now seem to be trained to shoot first, ask question later....they are suppose to deescalate things and shooting is suppose to be a last resort.
They try not to shoot innocent people. They really do. That's why the overwhelming majority of hostile encounters between police and suspected criminals (sometimes actual criminals, sometimes innocent people) don't result in anyone being shot.
But there's a considerable reporting bias that makes police shooting innocent people seem like it's more common than it is. If there's a tense situation, the suspect cooperates, the police figure out that he's innocent, and promptly let him go, that doesn't make the news. It's only when someone gets shot that it makes the news. And if the person was innocent, it's going to be broadcast far more widely than a situation where it was appropriate for the police to shoot a criminal who was imminently trying to kill them.
If there are adjustments to training that they can make to reduce the frequency of police mistakes all around, then sure, do it. But they know that and they've been trying to do that for decades.
It just isn't possible to magically determine whether a suspect is armed, nor whether he is inclined to fight back. If you just assume he isn't, you could be shot less than a second after first seeing a gun. That's why they want you to put your hands away from your body (likely above your head) and not make sudden movements: if a suspect does that, then there's no way that he could whip out a concealed gun and fire. If you act like you're in the process of pulling out a weapon so that you can attack, the police are far more likely to assume that you're doing exactly that, even if you're actually unarmed.
And at close range, guns are hardly the only weapons to be worried about. Bare fists can be pretty deadly, too.
He wont live 20 years in GP , matter a fact , i predict we reading he was killed inside 1 year..
Then Justice will have truly been Dished out
That's not Justice. We should never celebrate injustice even against criminals. He got what society determined he deserved. He is losing basically his entire life. 20 years is no joke.
Not condoning what dude did, but why are they so vague about the police that actually shot and killed the guy? Is that normal procedure for a bomb threat? I dont think the telephone call is what killed him, it was a bullet that killed him and not a bullet from the guy who is now in prison.
If you were told you are responding to a shooting and hostage situation would you be so calm and collected that every time you responded to such a call there would be no danger you would shoot an innocent man?
I would be bricking it.
Pretty sure those people are trained not to kill innocent people, so what went wrong in this case? Was the guy being mouthy? There are many places to shoot a person without killing them.
Training helps but this is not learning how to bake cakes. Your instincts cannot be quelled, you want to fight or flight. Adrenaline surges, your body tries to override your brain. Being in that situation and not running or neutralising perceived threat goes against millions of years of evolution. A person can move their hands in a way that suggests violence and you fire.
The way to tell if you need to take action against the officer is has this happened before? Some people are too wired into their instincts to do this job but you won't know that until they do it.
A lot of talk here about the scenario. If you have not done this sort of thing yourself it does amaze me that people think they can tell what a normal and proportionate response is in a situation which you think is threating your or someone else's life.
He wont live 20 years in GP , matter a fact , i predict we reading he was killed inside 1 year..
Then Justice will have truly been Dished out
That's not Justice. We should never celebrate injustice even against criminals. He got what society determined he deserved. He is losing basically his entire life. 20 years is no joke.
Well prison GP is its own society , and its own Justice , he cost a life in a very cowardly way .. His future and his life are not in his own hands any longer
Not condoning what dude did, but why are they so vague about the police that actually shot and killed the guy? Is that normal procedure for a bomb threat? I dont think the telephone call is what killed him, it was a bullet that killed him and not a bullet from the guy who is now in prison.
....snip....
In a situation like that, it would be very hard to build a criminal case against the police officer who shot the guy. Maybe he could be fired for being bad at his job, but you shouldn't prosecute someone for making a good-faith effort to do a tough job as best as he can. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or standard police procedures to know if he should have been (or was) fired.
Agreed. I do think though there needs to be more oversight and better training being done.
If you look across the board there an unusually high number if bad incidents involving police officers...some of them because some people make it through training and become cops when they shouldn't in the first place and others because they now seem to be trained to shoot first, ask question later....they are suppose to deescalate things and shooting is suppose to be a last resort.
They try not to shoot innocent people. They really do. That's why the overwhelming majority of hostile encounters between police and suspected criminals (sometimes actual criminals, sometimes innocent people) don't result in anyone being shot.
But there's a considerable reporting bias that makes police shooting innocent people seem like it's more common than it is. If there's a tense situation, the suspect cooperates, the police figure out that he's innocent, and promptly let him go, that doesn't make the news. It's only when someone gets shot that it makes the news. And if the person was innocent, it's going to be broadcast far more widely than a situation where it was appropriate for the police to shoot a criminal who was imminently trying to kill them.
If there are adjustments to training that they can make to reduce the frequency of police mistakes all around, then sure, do it. But they know that and they've been trying to do that for decades.
It just isn't possible to magically determine whether a suspect is armed, nor whether he is inclined to fight back. If you just assume he isn't, you could be shot less than a second after first seeing a gun. That's why they want you to put your hands away from your body (likely above your head) and not make sudden movements: if a suspect does that, then there's no way that he could whip out a concealed gun and fire. If you act like you're in the process of pulling out a weapon so that you can attack, the police are far more likely to assume that you're doing exactly that, even if you're actually unarmed.
And at close range, guns are hardly the only weapons to be worried about. Bare fists can be pretty deadly, too.
Again, the officer that made the determination wasn't in the best position out of the officers responding to make that call. The ones who were in the best position didn't fire a single round. He wasn't in close range at all.
The fact that the officer took it upon himself to make that deadly call while other officers in better positions to judge Finch's movements didn't fire at all implies the firing officer held little faith in his fellow officers' abilities to appropriately judge and respond to that situation to protect themselves and others.
An expert was shown body cam footage and felt the officer shot prematurely, for what it's worth:
'“It does appear to show one of the arms of the target swing downward,” Jones-Brown said in an email.
Still, she said, “If that arm movement is being used as the justification for the single shot, it does not answer the question of why no other officer fired. I also notice that there do not appear to be any officers or civilians who appear in the ‘line of fire’ if in fact the target had a weapon.
“That being the case, it seems, at least, premature for the officer to have fired,” she said.'
Definitely seems to have been poor judgement on the part of the officer. Notice the expert notes that even if the suspect had a weapon, he wouldn't have had any officer in the line of fire based on the position Finch and the surrounding officers were in. Again: not realistic to think he pulls a weapon, turns and aims accurately at an officer, and fires before the officers around him are able to accurately fire on him themselves after spotting a gun in hand.
Will he serve the full 20 years or be out sooner? This guy deserves way more than 20 he got an innocent man killed bloody arsehole.
I think 20 years is enough. We should reserve life sentences for people who killed intentionally, or people who were already in prison once and then committed another crime. Someone who caused a death because he though it was fun to disregard rules should get a shorter sentence.
EDIT: Also we should remember that he had already swatted multiple times and apparently no official decided it was dangerous enough that he should be imprisoned immediately.
Giving a harsher sentence now would be like "We knew what you were doing and could have prevented it, but we didn't understand how dangerous it was either, so now we're going to take vengeance on you because it'll make us feel better". It's not a solution. The solution is to learn from our mistake and stop the next swatter sooner.
I think many find crimes like this an accident or facilitation by lack of care or negligence. People who talk on the phone, drink and drive or while driving not paying attention and try to pick something up off the floor of the car and kill folk and never consider themselves having really committed a crime.
You know what, people who premeditate and kill deserve death not long imprisonments. I am for the death penalty for people who commit murder but this fella is a serial swatter and he knew what he was doing and the risks involved. He deserves what he got and he should go in longer in my opinion. Like I said the crimes you mentioned deserve death.
Also every time you get behind a wheel of car and hold a phone and don't pay attention or get drunk and drive, these people all manage to take away innocent lives and don't nearly get punished enough.
Would punishing him more help something?
This sentence is already harsh enough that he's very unlikely to ever do it again, it's already harsh enough that it's about as effective at scaring others who consider swatting as anything short of death penalty would be, and a harsher sentence wouldn't bring the dead one back either. If there's no real benefit in a harsher sentence then a harsher sentence wouldn't really be justice, it's just lashing out in revenge.
I'm all for sentencing people who swat, who get drunk and drive, etc. But I think we should focus more on giving penalties who took that risk without killing anyone. Really harsh penalty against the unlucky person who managed to kill someone isn't helping anyone, it's just revenge directed on the unlucky individual who manage to kill someone while those 99 people who behaved exactly the same get to walk free because they happened to be lucky and no-one died.
They literally shot him through the heart, that's a killing, not disarming shot, no way around it.
It's really not very easy to use a gunshot to instantly incapacitate someone without killing him. It's actually much easier to do the other way around. Wounds that will kill someone after several minutes of blood loss commonly won't incapacitate him immediately, which would give an armed person inclined to fight back enough time to at least fire his own gun.
"Hey guys lets take a random call at face value and run out guns blazing. What could go wrong? Besides retards on MMORPG.com will totally not hold us accountable in any way." -Officer
"Shouldn't we at least put our ear to the door to hear if anything is going on or something?" -Rookie
"Shut up ROOK weapons hot. There's ISIS and different color gangbangers raping children in there!!" -Officer
You have obviously never done anything remotely close to this job. Put your ear up to the door? A good way to get shot in the head. This type of situation while tragic and should have been handled differently, does illuminate why police officers need far more training. I would not hold the officers that responded to this accountable. They were doing what they thought was best with the information they had, and if you have never been in this type of situation you would realize mistakes happen.
Lack of information was the real issue here however, if it was your loved ones in a hostage situation or similar, I am betting you would want the police to go in guns blazing.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
They try not to shoot innocent people. They really do. That's why the overwhelming majority of hostile encounters between police and suspected criminals (sometimes actual criminals, sometimes innocent people) don't result in anyone being shot.
But there's a considerable reporting bias that makes police shooting innocent people seem like it's more common than it is. If there's a tense situation, the suspect cooperates, the police figure out that he's innocent, and promptly let him go, that doesn't make the news. It's only when someone gets shot that it makes the news. And if the person was innocent, it's going to be broadcast far more widely than a situation where it was appropriate for the police to shoot a criminal who was imminently trying to kill them.
If there are adjustments to training that they can make to reduce the frequency of police mistakes all around, then sure, do it. But they know that and they've been trying to do that for decades.
It just isn't possible to magically determine whether a suspect is armed, nor whether he is inclined to fight back. If you just assume he isn't, you could be shot less than a second after first seeing a gun. That's why they want you to put your hands away from your body (likely above your head) and not make sudden movements: if a suspect does that, then there's no way that he could whip out a concealed gun and fire. If you act like you're in the process of pulling out a weapon so that you can attack, the police are far more likely to assume that you're doing exactly that, even if you're actually unarmed.
And at close range, guns are hardly the only weapons to be worried about. Bare fists can be pretty deadly, too.
Again, the officer that made the determination wasn't in the best position out of the officers responding to make that call. The ones who were in the best position didn't fire a single round. He wasn't in close range at all.
The fact that the officer took it upon himself to make that deadly call while other officers in better positions to judge Finch's movements didn't fire at all implies the firing officer held little faith in his fellow officers' abilities to appropriately judge and respond to that situation to protect themselves and others.
I don't think that's a trained behavior.
I'm not claiming that the officer who shot the guy shouldn't receive any punishment. I'm only claiming that I don't know if he should--and that I'm skeptical of random Internet commentators who try to give a definitive answer. As I see it there, are two big questions, neither of which I know the answer for.
1) Was he following the proper procedures, or did he disregard some important thing that may have prevented the tragedy?
That depends tremendously on what the standard procedures were, and what his training was. If the standard procedure is that when you arrive at a site, you always do X, Y, and Z to make sure that you don't kill an innocent person, and the officer skipped it that time, and doing it may have prevented the tragedy, then yeah, that's grounds for some sort of punishment.
But this would have to be something concrete and routine. It can't be something high-level like "don't shoot an innocent person", as the problem is that he couldn't tell if the person was innocent. And it can't be some technical violation of an obscure provision in some manual that most officers aren't familiar with.
2) What do other officers who see the situation think of it?
There's a huge difference between other officers who look at the situation and say: a) I'm glad that wasn't me in that situation because I might have done the same thing, b) That was a dumb mistake that a competent officer wouldn't make, or c) That should never happen, not even once in a million such incidents, as had to have known that he shouldn't fire.
The reason I say "other officers" is that they're familiar with the training and procedures. I'm definitely not. If the consensus reply is (a), then we can't really hold the particular officer accountable if he was doing what the system said he should. But a typical response of (b) would justify a firing, or for (c), criminal charges.
Proper procedure does NOT make it right.I should ask the question yet again,if your child was shot down inappropriately because of procedure,you would be livid,beyond livid.
Now before i get any purest that feels protocol must ALWAYS be upheld,do you think that same rules apply to fellow cops,to family members?
There is also a real big problem out there,one the unions are too powerful,they and their systems do NOT answer to anyone.I am not trying to steer ANY blame away from the swatter,i am just saying there are more than one criminal here. The respect for another's human life,you know that thing that we can NEVER get back once it is gone,has seemed to be lost.
So the cops in a nearby city "Hamilton" have been for a few years been questioned about profiling and weather it is even legal.You think those cops are EVER going to once profile one of their own or a family member?They stop innocent people minding their own business and start harassing them questions to form a profile for their computers.They have also been asked about the high % of minorities being profiled as if to insinuate racial differences.
There are a lot of problems that need to be fixed but once an entity is too powerful and answers to no one,how could we possibly fix it?Put on a protest in Tiananmen square?
Here is the video i was talking about earlier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEhii8keuQ This one was quickly settled and determined to be improper conduct by the police force superintendent but the problem is ,what if they shot this guy?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I'm not claiming that the officer who shot the guy shouldn't receive any punishment. I'm only claiming that I don't know if he should--and that I'm skeptical of random Internet commentators who try to give a definitive answer. As I see it there, are two big questions, neither of which I know the answer for.
1) Was he following the proper procedures, or did he disregard some important thing that may have prevented the tragedy?
That depends tremendously on what the standard procedures were, and what his training was. If the standard procedure is that when you arrive at a site, you always do X, Y, and Z to make sure that you don't kill an innocent person, and the officer skipped it that time, and doing it may have prevented the tragedy, then yeah, that's grounds for some sort of punishment.
But this would have to be something concrete and routine. It can't be something high-level like "don't shoot an innocent person", as the problem is that he couldn't tell if the person was innocent. And it can't be some technical violation of an obscure provision in some manual that most officers aren't familiar with.
2) What do other officers who see the situation think of it?
There's a huge difference between other officers who look at the situation and say: a) I'm glad that wasn't me in that situation because I might have done the same thing, b) That was a dumb mistake that a competent officer wouldn't make, or c) That should never happen, not even once in a million such incidents, as had to have known that he shouldn't fire.
The reason I say "other officers" is that they're familiar with the training and procedures. I'm definitely not. If the consensus reply is (a), then we can't really hold the particular officer accountable if he was doing what the system said he should. But a typical response of (b) would justify a firing, or for (c), criminal charges.
It touches upon what I believe and what I was getting at in my previous post.
Here's a small quote.
And ethical codes can be written down, but more typically are unofficial
and informal rules of thumb. Cops and soldiers have them, but some in
law enforcement appear to have picked up a few bad ones.
These wrong-thinking cops seem to have adopted ‘the first rule of law enforcement,’ made famous in the film, The Untouchables, in which a policeman advises, ‘Make sure when your shift is over, you go home alive.’ This line could’ve been spoken by James O’Neill, commissioner of the New York City Police Department, who just said, ‘Not one of us signed up to never return to our family or loved ones.’ Another officer, on trial, noted an expression heard often amongst cops: ‘I’d rather be tried by twelve than carried by six,’ a preference to face legal dishonor instead of potential peril.
So some cops put fear of policing’s personal consequences over their professional responsibilities. When some police feel threatened, their ethical code tells them to fire first.
It's a good read and pretty much what I feel is wrong with police training.
EDIT: btw thw site I linked is run by a retired police officer that has 30+ years of experience.
Throughout my 30+ year police career I’ve had a burning desire to see police improve – I always thought police could be more than they were — like defenders our Constitution and Bill of Rights and “social workers in blue.” It all came together when I was appointed chief of police in Madison (WI). It was there that I spent over twenty years transforming the department into a national and international model. I ended the “war at home;” a bitter and brutal battle between protesters and Madison police during the Vietnam war years.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
They try not to shoot innocent people. They really do. That's why the overwhelming majority of hostile encounters between police and suspected criminals (sometimes actual criminals, sometimes innocent people) don't result in anyone being shot.
But there's a considerable reporting bias that makes police shooting innocent people seem like it's more common than it is. If there's a tense situation, the suspect cooperates, the police figure out that he's innocent, and promptly let him go, that doesn't make the news. It's only when someone gets shot that it makes the news. And if the person was innocent, it's going to be broadcast far more widely than a situation where it was appropriate for the police to shoot a criminal who was imminently trying to kill them.
If there are adjustments to training that they can make to reduce the frequency of police mistakes all around, then sure, do it. But they know that and they've been trying to do that for decades.
It just isn't possible to magically determine whether a suspect is armed, nor whether he is inclined to fight back. If you just assume he isn't, you could be shot less than a second after first seeing a gun. That's why they want you to put your hands away from your body (likely above your head) and not make sudden movements: if a suspect does that, then there's no way that he could whip out a concealed gun and fire. If you act like you're in the process of pulling out a weapon so that you can attack, the police are far more likely to assume that you're doing exactly that, even if you're actually unarmed.
And at close range, guns are hardly the only weapons to be worried about. Bare fists can be pretty deadly, too.
Again, the officer that made the determination wasn't in the best position out of the officers responding to make that call. The ones who were in the best position didn't fire a single round. He wasn't in close range at all.
The fact that the officer took it upon himself to make that deadly call while other officers in better positions to judge Finch's movements didn't fire at all implies the firing officer held little faith in his fellow officers' abilities to appropriately judge and respond to that situation to protect themselves and others.
I don't think that's a trained behavior.
I'm not claiming that the officer who shot the guy shouldn't receive any punishment. I'm only claiming that I don't know if he should--and that I'm skeptical of random Internet commentators who try to give a definitive answer. As I see it there, are two big questions, neither of which I know the answer for.
1) Was he following the proper procedures, or did he disregard some important thing that may have prevented the tragedy?
That depends tremendously on what the standard procedures were, and what his training was. If the standard procedure is that when you arrive at a site, you always do X, Y, and Z to make sure that you don't kill an innocent person, and the officer skipped it that time, and doing it may have prevented the tragedy, then yeah, that's grounds for some sort of punishment.
But this would have to be something concrete and routine. It can't be something high-level like "don't shoot an innocent person", as the problem is that he couldn't tell if the person was innocent. And it can't be some technical violation of an obscure provision in some manual that most officers aren't familiar with.
2) What do other officers who see the situation think of it?
There's a huge difference between other officers who look at the situation and say: a) I'm glad that wasn't me in that situation because I might have done the same thing, b) That was a dumb mistake that a competent officer wouldn't make, or c) That should never happen, not even once in a million such incidents, as had to have known that he shouldn't fire.
The reason I say "other officers" is that they're familiar with the training and procedures. I'm definitely not. If the consensus reply is (a), then we can't really hold the particular officer accountable if he was doing what the system said he should. But a typical response of (b) would justify a firing, or for (c), criminal charges.
I shared the review of footage and the events from someone who trained these officers for a decade- the very fact that no other officer fired a shot was something she specifically mentioned calls his actions into question.
She also mentioned the position of Finch relative to the officers. He was in no position to immediately fire upon the officers even if he had drawn a weapon.
The officer reacted poorly. Doesn't make him a cold-blooded killer, but it certainly calls into question his ability to make good judgements under duress. Like it or not, you have to have that to be a successful police officer.
People stop being idiots. When police tell you to do something...JUST DO IT....time to argue or get mad, comes AFTER they are gone and you can actually talk and get as mad as you want. Every single police officer is armed...most normal citizens are not... arguing or antagonizing an ARMED person is STUPID...
File a complaint later, call the FBI later, call the media later, call your congressman or senator LATER...much easier to do if you are alive....so much better chance of being alive LATER if you are not being stupid and arguing with people with a gun....
Stick your arms in the air...yell out you are not armed ...and that you are following all orders. Situation resolved and everyone is alive and you may even get some money out of the deal if they are shown to being acting improperly...but mainly YOU WILL BE ALIVE...do not be stupid.
Doing the above will STOP the VAST majority any and all police involved shooting against NORMAL innocent citizens. And it matters NOT A BIT as to the training or competence of the police in these situations.
"Hey guys lets take a random call at face value and run out guns blazing. What could go wrong? Besides retards on MMORPG.com will totally not hold us accountable in any way." -Officer
"Shouldn't we at least put our ear to the door to hear if anything is going on or something?" -Rookie
"Shut up ROOK weapons hot. There's ISIS and different color gangbangers raping children in there!!" -Officer
You have obviously never done anything remotely close to this job. Put your ear up to the door? A good way to get shot in the head. This type of situation while tragic and should have been handled differently, does illuminate why police officers need far more training. I would not hold the officers that responded to this accountable. They were doing what they thought was best with the information they had, and if you have never been in this type of situation you would realize mistakes happen.
Lack of information was the real issue here however, if it was your loved ones in a hostage situation or similar, I am betting you would want the police to go in guns blazing.
I was obviously being facetious about putting ear to door, so you'll never make detective.
I honestly don't care about your "what ifs" as loss of life (avoidable) at the hands of police has been within a couple degrees of separation from myself multiple times. If there was a hostage situation involving my loved ones I wouldn't want bumbling idiots with 0 information, shit training, or inability to vet a situation to go in "guns blazing" like some f#$%king children playing cops and robbers.
I'd rather the crime be committed by the criminal because they'd at least be held accountable in a court of law and not protected by the blue shield or law-enforcement groupies making excuses *stares*.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
"Hey guys lets take a random call at face value and run out guns blazing. What could go wrong? Besides retards on MMORPG.com will totally not hold us accountable in any way." -Officer
"Shouldn't we at least put our ear to the door to hear if anything is going on or something?" -Rookie
"Shut up ROOK weapons hot. There's ISIS and different color gangbangers raping children in there!!" -Officer
You have obviously never done anything remotely close to this job. Put your ear up to the door? A good way to get shot in the head. This type of situation while tragic and should have been handled differently, does illuminate why police officers need far more training. I would not hold the officers that responded to this accountable. They were doing what they thought was best with the information they had, and if you have never been in this type of situation you would realize mistakes happen.
Lack of information was the real issue here however, if it was your loved ones in a hostage situation or similar, I am betting you would want the police to go in guns blazing.
Send a patrol car? Recon the situation / area? Negotiate? What happened to those?
Recon the situation? What? send one officer in there to poke around? alone? What if it were a real threat? Now we have a dead cop, but I guess that doesn't matter?
Before negotiations can start you have to control the scene, negotiating also implies there is an actual crime being committed and again, the scene is under control.
They sent a response that was equal to what they thought they had. How about the guy getting swatted just cooperate? If 20 cops materialize outside your home and you can't figure out there has been a mistake (assuming you aren't doing terrorist shit) just cooperate for the five minutes it will take for them to figure it out.
Yeah, it will suck, no one wants their freedom infringed upon, but in the end, a sore wrist is better than a funeral. It truly sucks that a person died over some immature asshole on a fucking video game but the fact of the matter is in the world we live in right now, terroristic threats are taken very seriously and everyone needs to realize that. Police officers are going to respond based on the information they have, just like firefighters, and paramedics do.
Lessons learned: Don't swat people, it is not funny and it can be life ending.
2. If you are on the receiving end, cooperate, and sue the shit out of the city afterward.
Live.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
"Hey guys lets take a random call at face value and run out guns blazing. What could go wrong? Besides retards on MMORPG.com will totally not hold us accountable in any way." -Officer
"Shouldn't we at least put our ear to the door to hear if anything is going on or something?" -Rookie
"Shut up ROOK weapons hot. There's ISIS and different color gangbangers raping children in there!!" -Officer
You have obviously never done anything remotely close to this job. Put your ear up to the door? A good way to get shot in the head. This type of situation while tragic and should have been handled differently, does illuminate why police officers need far more training. I would not hold the officers that responded to this accountable. They were doing what they thought was best with the information they had, and if you have never been in this type of situation you would realize mistakes happen.
Lack of information was the real issue here however, if it was your loved ones in a hostage situation or similar, I am betting you would want the police to go in guns blazing.
I was obviously being facetious about putting ear to door, so you'll never make detective.
I honestly don't care about your "what ifs" as loss of life (avoidable) at the hands of police has been within a couple degrees of separation from myself multiple times. If there was a hostage situation involving my loved ones I wouldn't want bumbling idiots with 0 information, shit training, or inability to vet a situation to go in "guns blazing" like some f#$%king children playing cops and robbers.
I'd rather the crime be committed by the criminal because they'd at least be held accountable in a court of law and not protected by the blue shield or law-enforcement groupies making excuses *stares*.
Yeah, it's very hard to convey emotion via text, nor do I know you so I am forced to take it at face value. If you want to be better understood, I suggest you learn to write with more clarity.
The rest of everything you wrote is just too asinine to respond too.
*stares* lol whatever that means.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
"Hey guys lets take a random call at face value and run out guns blazing. What could go wrong? Besides retards on MMORPG.com will totally not hold us accountable in any way." -Officer
"Shouldn't we at least put our ear to the door to hear if anything is going on or something?" -Rookie
"Shut up ROOK weapons hot. There's ISIS and different color gangbangers raping children in there!!" -Officer
You have obviously never done anything remotely close to this job. Put your ear up to the door? A good way to get shot in the head. This type of situation while tragic and should have been handled differently, does illuminate why police officers need far more training. I would not hold the officers that responded to this accountable. They were doing what they thought was best with the information they had, and if you have never been in this type of situation you would realize mistakes happen.
Lack of information was the real issue here however, if it was your loved ones in a hostage situation or similar, I am betting you would want the police to go in guns blazing.
I was obviously being facetious about putting ear to door, so you'll never make detective.
I honestly don't care about your "what ifs" as loss of life (avoidable) at the hands of police has been within a couple degrees of separation from myself multiple times. If there was a hostage situation involving my loved ones I wouldn't want bumbling idiots with 0 information, shit training, or inability to vet a situation to go in "guns blazing" like some f#$%king children playing cops and robbers.
I'd rather the crime be committed by the criminal because they'd at least be held accountable in a court of law and not protected by the blue shield or law-enforcement groupies making excuses *stares*.
Yeah, it's very hard to convey emotion via text, nor do I know you so I am forced to take it at face value. If you want to be better understood, I suggest you learn to write with more clarity.
The rest of everything you wrote is just too asinine to respond too.
*stares* lol whatever that means.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
Not condoning what dude did, but why are they so vague about the police that actually shot and killed the guy? Is that normal procedure for a bomb threat? I dont think the telephone call is what killed him, it was a bullet that killed him and not a bullet from the guy who is now in prison.
The problem is that the police are sometimes sent into a very dangerous situation. The whole idea of swatting is to try to convince the police that they're going into the most dangerous, urgent situation that you possibly can. That it's hard to detect a hoax that is designed specifically to prevent you from realizing that it's a hoax isn't an indictment of the police.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the police officer mishandled the situation. But that relies on knowing what we know now and he didn't know in the heat of the moment. When you're thrust into a situation where you know that you might have to shoot someone quickly to save the life of another, innocent person, you're going to be on edge. Put enough people into that sort of situation often enough and they'll make some mistakes--whether shooting an innocent person or acting too slowly to prevent a criminal from murdering someone. That's something that soldiers sometimes have to deal with when fighting wars, too.
In a situation like that, it would be very hard to build a criminal case against the police officer who shot the guy. Maybe he could be fired for being bad at his job, but you shouldn't prosecute someone for making a good-faith effort to do a tough job as best as he can. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or standard police procedures to know if he should have been (or was) fired.
The details that came out definitely showed a mishandled police response to me, but more overall than just with the guy who fired the shot (he only fired a single round, claimed he was given almost no information about the situation before or after arriving on the scene, etc).
The swatter called a Wichita PD non-emergency line from VoiP in Los Angeles, who then transferred him to 911. 911 had no gps on the call, but showed a Wichita call origination since their call came in from the municipal offices.
The swatter gave a Wichita address, and when asked by 911 to describe the home, specifically said it was a single-story house. The actual home they arrived at was 2 stories. While officers were surrounding the home, and apparently before anyone took charge of the scene, instructed the officers, or tried to make contact inside, the homeowner noticed the commotion outside and opened his front door to see what was going on, was shouted at by a bunch of cops and freaked out a bit, and was shot once through the heart.
Hm...
Both the swatter and the cop deserve to go to jail over this. The phone officer and superintendant should also probably be punished somehow.
Too many pieces of the puzzle were wrong, yet they still shot a guy. The police AND the swatter are equally guilty. And this is why:
They are supposed to reconnoiter(meh spelling) first, then try to negotiate then shoot as a last option. Why do I think they haven't even reconed the area to ascertain what's what(like, the SIZE of the house NOT MATCHING), let alone tried to negotiate. They simply went "GO GO GO, HANDS IN THE AIR...SHOOT". They literally shot him through the heart, that's a killing, not disarming shot, no way around it.
Not condoning what dude did, but why are they so vague about the police that actually shot and killed the guy? Is that normal procedure for a bomb threat? I dont think the telephone call is what killed him, it was a bullet that killed him and not a bullet from the guy who is now in prison.
The problem is that the police are sometimes sent into a very dangerous situation. The whole idea of swatting is to try to convince the police that they're going into the most dangerous, urgent situation that you possibly can. That it's hard to detect a hoax that is designed specifically to prevent you from realizing that it's a hoax isn't an indictment of the police.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the police officer mishandled the situation. But that relies on knowing what we know now and he didn't know in the heat of the moment. When you're thrust into a situation where you know that you might have to shoot someone quickly to save the life of another, innocent person, you're going to be on edge. Put enough people into that sort of situation often enough and they'll make some mistakes--whether shooting an innocent person or acting too slowly to prevent a criminal from murdering someone. That's something that soldiers sometimes have to deal with when fighting wars, too.
In a situation like that, it would be very hard to build a criminal case against the police officer who shot the guy. Maybe he could be fired for being bad at his job, but you shouldn't prosecute someone for making a good-faith effort to do a tough job as best as he can. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or standard police procedures to know if he should have been (or was) fired.
The details that came out definitely showed a mishandled police response to me, but more overall than just with the guy who fired the shot (he only fired a single round, claimed he was given almost no information about the situation before or after arriving on the scene, etc).
The swatter called a Wichita PD non-emergency line from VoiP in Los Angeles, who then transferred him to 911. 911 had no gps on the call, but showed a Wichita call origination since their call came in from the municipal offices.
The swatter gave a Wichita address, and when asked by 911 to describe the home, specifically said it was a single-story house. The actual home they arrived at was 2 stories. While officers were surrounding the home, and apparently before anyone took charge of the scene, instructed the officers, or tried to make contact inside, the homeowner noticed the commotion outside and opened his front door to see what was going on, was shouted at by a bunch of cops and freaked out a bit, and was shot once through the heart.
Hm...
Both the swatter and the cop deserve to go to jail over this. The phone officer and superintendant should also probably be punished somehow.
Too many pieces of the puzzle were wrong, yet they still shot a guy. The police AND the swatter are equally guilty. And this is why:
They are supposed to reconnoiter(meh spelling) first, then try to negotiate then shoot as a last option. Why do I think they haven't even reconed the area to ascertain what's what(like, the SIZE of the house NOT MATCHING), let alone tried to negotiate. They simply went "GO GO GO, HANDS IN THE AIR...SHOOT". They literally shot him through the heart, that's a killing, not disarming shot, no way around it.
Both are equally guilty.
Disarming shot? You live in a fantasy world.
Agreed. No agency on the planet trains to disarm with firearms. If you are going to go lethal, you aim for lethal effect.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Not condoning what dude did, but why are they so vague about the police that actually shot and killed the guy? Is that normal procedure for a bomb threat? I dont think the telephone call is what killed him, it was a bullet that killed him and not a bullet from the guy who is now in prison.
The problem is that the police are sometimes sent into a very dangerous situation. The whole idea of swatting is to try to convince the police that they're going into the most dangerous, urgent situation that you possibly can. That it's hard to detect a hoax that is designed specifically to prevent you from realizing that it's a hoax isn't an indictment of the police.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the police officer mishandled the situation. But that relies on knowing what we know now and he didn't know in the heat of the moment. When you're thrust into a situation where you know that you might have to shoot someone quickly to save the life of another, innocent person, you're going to be on edge. Put enough people into that sort of situation often enough and they'll make some mistakes--whether shooting an innocent person or acting too slowly to prevent a criminal from murdering someone. That's something that soldiers sometimes have to deal with when fighting wars, too.
In a situation like that, it would be very hard to build a criminal case against the police officer who shot the guy. Maybe he could be fired for being bad at his job, but you shouldn't prosecute someone for making a good-faith effort to do a tough job as best as he can. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the details of the case or standard police procedures to know if he should have been (or was) fired.
The details that came out definitely showed a mishandled police response to me, but more overall than just with the guy who fired the shot (he only fired a single round, claimed he was given almost no information about the situation before or after arriving on the scene, etc).
The swatter called a Wichita PD non-emergency line from VoiP in Los Angeles, who then transferred him to 911. 911 had no gps on the call, but showed a Wichita call origination since their call came in from the municipal offices.
The swatter gave a Wichita address, and when asked by 911 to describe the home, specifically said it was a single-story house. The actual home they arrived at was 2 stories. While officers were surrounding the home, and apparently before anyone took charge of the scene, instructed the officers, or tried to make contact inside, the homeowner noticed the commotion outside and opened his front door to see what was going on, was shouted at by a bunch of cops and freaked out a bit, and was shot once through the heart.
Hm...
Both the swatter and the cop deserve to go to jail over this. The phone officer and superintendant should also probably be punished somehow.
Too many pieces of the puzzle were wrong, yet they still shot a guy. The police AND the swatter are equally guilty. And this is why:
They are supposed to reconnoiter(meh spelling) first, then try to negotiate then shoot as a last option. Why do I think they haven't even reconed the area to ascertain what's what(like, the SIZE of the house NOT MATCHING), let alone tried to negotiate. They simply went "GO GO GO, HANDS IN THE AIR...SHOOT". They literally shot him through the heart, that's a killing, not disarming shot, no way around it.
Both are equally guilty.
Disarming shot? You live in a fantasy world.
Agreed. No agency on the planet trains to disarm with firearms. If you are going to go lethal, you aim for lethal effect.
It's about as realistic as when I see people saying the police should use a taser when they're being approached by someone holding a knife.
Comments
As a police officer wielding deadly force in the form of a gun or even a taser or beating stick,you should be trained to react in a proper method of investigation BEFORE automatically declaring guilty and killing someone.
So the cop or cops did not afford the citizen his rights and pulled a weapon for no reason and used deadly force for no reason.
I think some people likely saw the video the other day of a person picking up garbage off his front lawn and the cops arrived and pulled guns on him.It is bad enough to just walk up and ask a perfectly innocent person some questions but to pull a gun and only the cop in charge got a office job for 3 days.So threatened a man on his property with guns because he was picking up garbage.
BTW a desk job for 3 days is NOT nearly enough punishment.
Obviously the swatters are idiots,we are not going to EXPECT them to respect another person but with the cops we should expect to be respected as they would expect.
A bigger picture is out there.."profiling"Google working with the government on ideas to kill people and watch over people with drones,watch follow tracking with facial recognition etc etc".Things are getting way out of hand people and most of it is behind closed doors to keep it out of the public's eye.
Think of if from your own perspective,would you be happy if some cop shot your child because of phone call?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Not sure he was in a position to even make a determination of whether the man should've been fired upon, considering there were officers much closer who obviously didn't feel the situation warranted it. That seems... A pretty serious error in judgement by the officer.
But there's a considerable reporting bias that makes police shooting innocent people seem like it's more common than it is. If there's a tense situation, the suspect cooperates, the police figure out that he's innocent, and promptly let him go, that doesn't make the news. It's only when someone gets shot that it makes the news. And if the person was innocent, it's going to be broadcast far more widely than a situation where it was appropriate for the police to shoot a criminal who was imminently trying to kill them.
If there are adjustments to training that they can make to reduce the frequency of police mistakes all around, then sure, do it. But they know that and they've been trying to do that for decades.
It just isn't possible to magically determine whether a suspect is armed, nor whether he is inclined to fight back. If you just assume he isn't, you could be shot less than a second after first seeing a gun. That's why they want you to put your hands away from your body (likely above your head) and not make sudden movements: if a suspect does that, then there's no way that he could whip out a concealed gun and fire. If you act like you're in the process of pulling out a weapon so that you can attack, the police are far more likely to assume that you're doing exactly that, even if you're actually unarmed.
And at close range, guns are hardly the only weapons to be worried about. Bare fists can be pretty deadly, too.
The way to tell if you need to take action against the officer is has this happened before? Some people are too wired into their instincts to do this job but you won't know that until they do it.
A lot of talk here about the scenario. If you have not done this sort of thing yourself it does amaze me that people think they can tell what a normal and proportionate response is in a situation which you think is threating your or someone else's life.
The fact that the officer took it upon himself to make that deadly call while other officers in better positions to judge Finch's movements didn't fire at all implies the firing officer held little faith in his fellow officers' abilities to appropriately judge and respond to that situation to protect themselves and others.
I don't think that's a trained behavior.
'“It does appear to show one of the arms of the target swing downward,” Jones-Brown said in an email.
Still, she said, “If that arm movement is being used as the justification for the single shot, it does not answer the question of why no other officer fired. I also notice that there do not appear to be any officers or civilians who appear in the ‘line of fire’ if in fact the target had a weapon.
“That being the case, it seems, at least, premature for the officer to have fired,” she said.'
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article193294019.html
Definitely seems to have been poor judgement on the part of the officer. Notice the expert notes that even if the suspect had a weapon, he wouldn't have had any officer in the line of fire based on the position Finch and the surrounding officers were in. Again: not realistic to think he pulls a weapon, turns and aims accurately at an officer, and fires before the officers around him are able to accurately fire on him themselves after spotting a gun in hand.
This sentence is already harsh enough that he's very unlikely to ever do it again, it's already harsh enough that it's about as effective at scaring others who consider swatting as anything short of death penalty would be, and a harsher sentence wouldn't bring the dead one back either. If there's no real benefit in a harsher sentence then a harsher sentence wouldn't really be justice, it's just lashing out in revenge.
I'm all for sentencing people who swat, who get drunk and drive, etc. But I think we should focus more on giving penalties who took that risk without killing anyone. Really harsh penalty against the unlucky person who managed to kill someone isn't helping anyone, it's just revenge directed on the unlucky individual who manage to kill someone while those 99 people who behaved exactly the same get to walk free because they happened to be lucky and no-one died.
Lack of information was the real issue here however, if it was your loved ones in a hostage situation or similar, I am betting you would want the police to go in guns blazing.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Having worked in a position where lives are in one's hands, calling it a mistake doesn't absolve one of any and all responsibility for the end result.
1) Was he following the proper procedures, or did he disregard some important thing that may have prevented the tragedy?
That depends tremendously on what the standard procedures were, and what his training was. If the standard procedure is that when you arrive at a site, you always do X, Y, and Z to make sure that you don't kill an innocent person, and the officer skipped it that time, and doing it may have prevented the tragedy, then yeah, that's grounds for some sort of punishment.
But this would have to be something concrete and routine. It can't be something high-level like "don't shoot an innocent person", as the problem is that he couldn't tell if the person was innocent. And it can't be some technical violation of an obscure provision in some manual that most officers aren't familiar with.
2) What do other officers who see the situation think of it?
There's a huge difference between other officers who look at the situation and say:
a) I'm glad that wasn't me in that situation because I might have done the same thing,
b) That was a dumb mistake that a competent officer wouldn't make, or
c) That should never happen, not even once in a million such incidents, as had to have known that he shouldn't fire.
The reason I say "other officers" is that they're familiar with the training and procedures. I'm definitely not. If the consensus reply is (a), then we can't really hold the particular officer accountable if he was doing what the system said he should. But a typical response of (b) would justify a firing, or for (c), criminal charges.
Now before i get any purest that feels protocol must ALWAYS be upheld,do you think that same rules apply to fellow cops,to family members?
There is also a real big problem out there,one the unions are too powerful,they and their systems do NOT answer to anyone.I am not trying to steer ANY blame away from the swatter,i am just saying there are more than one criminal here.
The respect for another's human life,you know that thing that we can NEVER get back once it is gone,has seemed to be lost.
So the cops in a nearby city "Hamilton" have been for a few years been questioned about profiling and weather it is even legal.You think those cops are EVER going to once profile one of their own or a family member?They stop innocent people minding their own business and start harassing them questions to form a profile for their computers.They have also been asked about the high % of minorities being profiled as if to insinuate racial differences.
There are a lot of problems that need to be fixed but once an entity is too powerful and answers to no one,how could we possibly fix it?Put on a protest in Tiananmen square?
Here is the video i was talking about earlier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifEhii8keuQ
This one was quickly settled and determined to be improper conduct by the police force superintendent but the problem is ,what if they shot this guy?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
She also mentioned the position of Finch relative to the officers. He was in no position to immediately fire upon the officers even if he had drawn a weapon.
The officer reacted poorly. Doesn't make him a cold-blooded killer, but it certainly calls into question his ability to make good judgements under duress. Like it or not, you have to have that to be a successful police officer.
File a complaint later, call the FBI later, call the media later, call your congressman or senator LATER...much easier to do if you are alive....so much better chance of being alive LATER if you are not being stupid and arguing with people with a gun....
Stick your arms in the air...yell out you are not armed ...and that you are following all orders. Situation resolved and everyone is alive and you may even get some money out of the deal if they are shown to being acting improperly...but mainly YOU WILL BE ALIVE...do not be stupid.
Doing the above will STOP the VAST majority any and all police involved shooting against NORMAL innocent citizens. And it matters NOT A BIT as to the training or competence of the police in these situations.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Recon the situation? What? send one officer in there to poke around? alone? What if it were a real threat? Now we have a dead cop, but I guess that doesn't matter?
Before negotiations can start you have to control the scene, negotiating also implies there is an actual crime being committed and again, the scene is under control.
They sent a response that was equal to what they thought they had. How about the guy getting swatted just cooperate? If 20 cops materialize outside your home and you can't figure out there has been a mistake (assuming you aren't doing terrorist shit) just cooperate for the five minutes it will take for them to figure it out.
Yeah, it will suck, no one wants their freedom infringed upon, but in the end, a sore wrist is better than a funeral. It truly sucks that a person died over some immature asshole on a fucking video game but the fact of the matter is in the world we live in right now, terroristic threats are taken very seriously and everyone needs to realize that. Police officers are going to respond based on the information they have, just like firefighters, and paramedics do.
Lessons learned: Don't swat people, it is not funny and it can be life ending.
2. If you are on the receiving end, cooperate, and sue the shit out of the city afterward.
Live.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
The rest of everything you wrote is just too asinine to respond too.
*stares* lol whatever that means.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.