Seattle police roll out a 'registry' that allows 'swatting' targets to better protect...

[m4a4]

No what doesn't make sense is this:

1. Barging in when there is no information about the possible dangers. This shows lack of investigation and carelessness.
   
2. Barging in and expecting your suspect to remain calm as if they were not startled. This is just plain arrogance.
   
3. Using lethal rounds close range period. This is execution without trial.
   
4. Most of all barging in gins waving, without giving the suspect the opportunity to walk out or voluntarily surrender. Lack of patience is a big issue with authority.
   
5. And even if the allegations were true, shooting an unarmed person is definitely evidence of lack of training.

Police that can not control their firearm are just as criminal as anyone else, if they don't show responsible. This registry that is being brought to the table will not solve bad police training and tactics.

Wow, the ignorance. Well, here we go (for the last time):

1. It's their job to barge into a volatile situation to take down a threat. Wasting time on "investigating" could put more people at risk when they're told the person has hostages and is willing to kill them.
2. The situation dictated that they take the suspect by surprise. The report was he had hostages and was going to burn the place down. And then when told to put his hands up, he reached for his waist.
3. It was lethal vs (misinformed) lethal. You don't take chances at that close of range with something else.
4. Patience? And give the suspect the opportunity to kill the hostages?
5. How were they supposed to know he wasn't armed?

Man, use some logic next time. Oh, here is a summary of what the police knew, just to help you:

[The swatter] called the Kansas police and informed them that a domestic dispute incident was taking place at the West McCormick Street address. He told the 911 dispatcher that he had shot his father in the head and was holding his mother, brother, and sister hostage. [The swatter] also threatened to burn the house down.

Armed police quickly arrived at the address expecting a hostage situation, but it was an unsuspecting Finch who answered the door. According to Livingston, Finch was ordered to put his arms in the air but instead moved a hand toward his waistband. One officer, convinced that the father was reaching for a gun, fired a single round

What world do you live in where a perfect solution exists where all you know is misinformation, and you're on the clock to solve it or else people (in this case hostages) die?

Suggesting Andy Finch died because of bad police training is bull****. He died because of some idi0t making a believable "prank" call.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Patience? And give the suspect the opportunity to kill the hostages?

Barging in didn't save the hostage either now did it. I'm finished here. I'm not going to continue conversing with a police malpractice supporter.

 

[Danny101]

Both arguments produce valid points and that's what makes coming to a workable solution so difficult. Swatting is a terribly cancerous problem and something has to be done about it.

 

[EndRessentiment]

[*]It's their job to barge into a volatile situation to take down a threat. Wasting time on "investigating" could put more people at risk when they're told the person has hostages and is willing to kill them.

It's not about choosing between investigating rigorously or not at all. That's what you seem to be implying, and it's a false dichotomy. Of course it seemed urgent to get into the house, but that doesn't mean that they should just rush in... Even a little bit more information on a dangerous situation helps a lot.

Of course, there can be an extreme case of bad luck. To some degree, this seems to be part of what happened. But even then the police is not off the hook, not at all.
"And it sounds like he opened the door when they were close" Suppose, then, that this happened. Even in this case at least one of the officers really ****ed up. The reason for this is that the guy "was merely opening the door after allegedly hearing noises outside." Now, if he had swung open the door, I can imagine them (deliberately or not) shooting to kill because of being caught off guard. But in this case there was no urgent escalation that required such an approach, not even close. They had the time either to see what would happen, or fire shots that are probably non-lethal (I.e. not in the head or (upper?) chest).

 

[m4a4]

It's not about choosing between investigating rigorously or not at all. That's what you seem to be implying, and it's a false dichotomy. Of course it seemed urgent to get into the house, but that doesn't mean that they should just rush in... Even a little bit more information on a dangerous situation helps a lot.
Of course, there can be an extreme case of bad luck. To some degree, this seems to be part of what happened. But even then the police is not off the hook, not at all.
"And it sounds like he opened the door when they were close" Suppose, then, that this happened. Even in this case at least one of the officers really ****ed up. The reason for this is that the guy "was merely opening the door after allegedly hearing noises outside." Now, if he had swung open the door, I can imagine them (deliberately or not) shooting to kill because of being caught off guard. But in this case there was no urgent escalation that required such an approach, not even close. They had the time either to see what would happen, or fire shots that are probably non-lethal (I.e. not in the head or (upper?) chest).

*Sigh* The situation was urgent. What more could they have done without putting the supposed hostages at risk by waiting longer? There's a fine line between getting there in time, and getting there too late (and some people in this thread cannot seem to understand that).
And as for your second paragraph, I knew that the innocent guy unfortunately did something weird, but as it had been many months since this story last surfaced, I didn't remember all the details.
Full context is that the guy reached for his waist when told to put his hands up. Which means the guy made a mistake, and then the officer mistakenly thought he was reaching for a gun.
You do not take chances against lethal force (and he was assumed to have a gun and was willing to use it based off of the misinformation). Why do people not get that?

 

[Cubi Dorf]

I agreeing to police not get a free pass to kill. They have a difficult job yes. But should not kill anyone with out knowing who they are shooting at and have reason other than a phone call. If they fail to save hostages because they require to verify the situation then it still better than killing innocent persons. Police killings should be last resort, not first. If too dangerous for you then find new job.

 

[senketsu]

.........They had the time either to see what would happen, or fire shots that are probably non-lethal (I.e. not in the head or (upper?) chest).

I know neither the details nor the situation, however in regards to the part I quoted, in Canada the police are not allowed to fire any kind of warning or deliberately non-lethal shots. Their firearm is only to be used when there is a threat to their life or another life and in that case it is shoot to kill. Anything else and they are in deep trouble. Perhaps the law in the USA is different.

 

[m4a4]

I know neither the details nor the situation, however in regards to the part I quoted, in Canada the police are not allowed to fire any kind of warning or deliberately non-lethal shots. Their firearm is only to be used when there is a threat to their life or another life and in that case it is shoot to kill. Anything else and they are in deep trouble. Perhaps the law in the USA is different.

You attributed me to the quote, when you meant to attribute @EndRessentiment

As for what you said, police in Canada and the USA are trained similar (from what I understand).
What @cliffordcooley and @EndRessentiment don't get (or are ignorant about) is that you can't apply civilian logic to what police do. They can't just "shoot to maim" or "fire a warning shot" or give a lethal threat the room to do something. They're trained to react as effectively as they can to the situation. And then this is a SWAT team, so they're expecting the worst...

 

[EndRessentiment]

You attributed me to the quote, when you meant to attribute @EndRessentiment

As for what you said, police in Canada and the USA are trained similar (from what I understand).
What @cliffordcooley and @EndRessentiment don't get (or are ignorant about) is that you can't apply civilian logic to what police do. They can't just "shoot to maim" or "fire a warning shot" or give a lethal threat the room to do something. They're trained to react as effectively as they can to the situation. And then this is a SWAT team, so they're expecting the worst...

That is not the problem. This isn't about me "not getting police logic". It is about looking at the situation and trying to figure out what makes sense to do and what doesn't.
The only thing you are doing is adopting the logic the police has, even though they keep ****ing up.

I have an important question to you: how do you explain that swatting is a definite thing in the US, and not at all in Europe?

Moreover, if you account for population sizes, the US is doing horrible when it comes to police killings. It's hard to account for all the factors (US has a higher crime rate).
This is just for an intuitive consideration, but it's useful still to look at data. (ignore the thing about guns)
http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/homicide-rate-100000
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7swce8/police_killing_rates_in_g7_members_oc/
Compare Germany and the US. The US police killing rate is 36 times higher than that of Germany, while its homicide rate is only five times higher. Do you really think US police logic is up to scrutiny here?

Obviously, the US police system needs fixing.

 

[m4a4]

That is not the problem. This isn't about me "not getting police logic". It is about looking at the situation and trying to figure out what makes sense to do and what doesn't.

And there you go, trying to use civilian logic again. Actually, I'm just going to call it ignorance, because you refuse to look at the situation with only the context that was given to the dispatcher (as misinformed as it was), and refuse to accept that they needed to act as quickly as they did and were trained to do.

You are using the wrong story to try and justify your flawed logic. The innocent guy made a wrong move (a mistake), and then the officer mistakenly thought he was reaching for a gun. The focus should be on the idi0t who swatted.

And as for your stats, remove all the gang violence, and account for the mental health problems, and you might make more sense of it.

 

[cliffordcooley]

And there you go, trying to use civilian logic again.

Looking at police as anything other than a civilian wearing a badge is how we got in this mess. You can also be seen as the one making illogical comments and sounding ignorant. You might want to stop using those words. I really wanted to stay out of this but you keep throwing out those two words that can be thrown right back at you.

 

[m4a4]

Looking at police as anything other than a civilian wearing a badge is how we got in this mess. You can also be seen as the one making illogical comments and sounding ignorant. You might want to stop using those words. I really wanted to stay out of this but you keep throwing out those two words that can be thrown right back at you.

That's... nice. You're an untrained civilian ignorant of police training and protocol. You've made that fact known plenty of times already.

As I said in my first comment, you join the police (in an active role dealing with tough situations) if you think you can do a better job. I bet you would mentally break or get fired within a year (if you even got in) sticking with that kind of thinking.

But hey, you're an ignorant civilian, what do you know

 

[cliffordcooley]

That's... nice. You're an untrained civilian ignorant

The only one ignorant here is you and I have spent every comment I have made trying not to point that out.

 

[m4a4]

The only one ignorant here is you and I have spent every comment I have made trying not to point that out.

Really? Because from the very beginning you've shown an ignorance to the point that you suggested that a SWAT team should casually knock on the door. And suggesting that (in this particular situation) is but 1 example of your ignorance.

But please, point out why I'm ignorant of this situation. And use some logic this time (like understanding the dire nature of the situation given to them).

 

[cliffordcooley]

But please, point out why I'm ignorant of this situation. And use some logic this time (like understanding the dire nature of the situation given to them).

Shooting someone that plainly does not have a gun is not logical. It is emotional. Yet you speak of police logical training. That throws your whole argument out the window. Because if the officer had of used his logical training, they never would make a mistake. You can not expect all police not to act emotional at time. So therefor police will not always act logically. This very notion makes your logic flawed. And until you realize that, you will not be able to see any other view point.

 

[m4a4]

Shooting someone that plainly does not have a gun is not logical.

And we're done. The guy got shot because they were told he was armed and he reached for his waist when told to put his hands up. If you used some logic, you'd take that into account after being told multiple times.
But no, you push your incorrect narrative of him making no mistakes at the door and the police shooting him for "fun".

 

[cliffordcooley]

And we're done.

Yes we are, as long as you stop posting your non-sense.

 

[EndRessentiment]

And there you go, trying to use civilian logic again. Actually, I'm just going to call it ignorance, because you refuse to look at the situation with only the context that was given to the dispatcher (as misinformed as it was), and refuse to accept that they needed to act as quickly as they did and were trained to do.

You are using the wrong story to try and justify your flawed logic. The innocent guy made a wrong move (a mistake), and then the officer mistakenly thought he was reaching for a gun. The focus should be on the idi0t who swatted.

And as for your stats, remove all the gang violence, and account for the mental health problems, and you might make more sense of it.

Wait, what? Gang violence can't be that high... Comparing to Germany again, it would probably have to be in the order of 36 times higher in the US, which it isn't. Moreover gang violence is mostly between gangs, not so much between the police and gangs.

But the really important part is: do you realise that the police killing rate is part of the homicide rate? If the gang violence were to account for the high police killing rate, it would have to be higher in proportion to the homicide rate. Either that, or you are pretending that gang violence involves killing much less often than police violence, which is an even more disturbing thing to note.
Ergo, gang violence doesn't account for the WAY higher police killing rate.

 

[m4a4]

Wait, what? Gang violence can't be that high... Comparing to Germany again, it would probably have to be in the order of 36 times higher in the US, which it isn't. Moreover gang violence is mostly between gangs, not so much between the police and gangs.

But the really important part is: do you realise that the police killing rate is part of the homicide rate? If the gang violence were to account for the high police killing rate, it would have to be higher in proportion to the homicide rate. Either that, or you are pretending that gang violence involves killing much less often than police violence, which is an even more disturbing thing to note.
Ergo, gang violence doesn't account for the WAY higher police killing rate.

Might make more sense of it. Also, while you're at it, why don't you break those stats down where it separates justified police killings vs non-justified.

 

[EndRessentiment]

Might make more sense of it. Also, while you're at it, why don't you break those stats down where it separates justified police killings vs non-justified.

Okay, I see what you mean. As for ignoring most of the points I made: do you really believe that the US police system is not malfunctioning in an obvious way?

Also, it's good to prevent justified killings. It's better if a judge (and jury...) takes a look at the situation, rather than the heat of combat sorting things out...

 

[m4a4]

Okay, I see what you mean. As for ignoring most of the points I made: do you really believe that the US police system is not malfunctioning in an obvious way?
Also, it's good to prevent justified killings. It's better if a judge (and jury...) takes a look at the situation, rather than the heat of combat sorting things out...

I don't think you do. My point is that you can't just take raw data and shove it into a refined argument. Countries (like the US) are more unique than that. I would first argue that the US has a big mental health issue.
If you compare US police deaths vs Germany, you would see it is at least 10-50x times higher (which suggests that most of the killings are more than likely justified because of more police officers being in more dangerous situations).
But hey, only take the raw one sided data without looking for cause and instead of looking into numerous ways to refine it.

And I do think there are many human errors in many different systems (the police being one of them).
But for the situation outlined in the article, the first and foremost mistake was the idi0t calling in the swatting. Otherwise, the police reacted with what they knew (and regrettably the innocent guy made a mistake at the wrong time).
If the situation allowed them to act in a less urgent way, I would be all for that. But, again, the situation given to them didn't allow that. Law enforcement can't second-guess urgent, credible sounding threats (even if they might be fake) because they don't know if they have the time to do so.

 

[EndRessentiment]

I don't think you do. My point is that you can't just take raw data and shove it into a refined argument. Countries (like the US) are more unique than that. I would first argue that the US has a big mental health issue.
If you compare US police deaths vs Germany, you would see it is at least 10-50x times higher (which suggests that most of the killings are more than likely justified because of more police officers being in more dangerous situations).
But hey, only take the raw one sided data without looking for cause and instead of looking into numerous ways to refine it.

And I do think there are many human errors in many different systems (the police being one of them).
But for the situation outlined in the article, the first and foremost mistake was the idi0t calling in the swatting. Otherwise, the police reacted with what they knew (and regrettably the innocent guy made a mistake at the wrong time).
If the situation allowed them to act in a less urgent way, I would be all for that. But, again, the situation given to them didn't allow that. Law enforcement can't second-guess urgent, credible sounding threats (even if they might be fake) because they don't know if they have the time to do so.

Why don't you have a source on that? I couldn't find the relevant statistics on police deaths. Kind of suspicious argument, without data.
What I could find is that 0.01% of officers are killed per year, which doesn't sound bad to me, and definitely doesn't match up with the incredibly high amount of police killings going on. At all.
All in all, this all still seems a lot worse than just common human error. I think the US police problems are way beyond that, and the statistics so far clearly support that take.

 

[m4a4]

Why don't you have a source on that? I couldn't find the relevant statistics on police deaths. Kind of suspicious argument, without data.
What I could find is that 0.01% of officers are killed per year, which doesn't sound bad to me, and definitely doesn't match up with the incredibly high amount of police killings going on. At all.
All in all, this all still seems a lot worse than just common human error. I think the US police problems are way beyond that, and the statistics so far clearly support that take.

Germany doesn't really have stats that are easy to find (so it's people's guess that it's around 0-2 a year in recent years), but the US stats on officer deaths is super easy to find (around 100-160 a year in recent years). Hence why I had such a big margin (which could've even gone 20-100x).

And you can use Google. I don't care to cite generic stats.
Though the German stats are an inference because apparently there really hasn't been enough officers killed recently to keep track of it (or so I'd guess).

 

[EndRessentiment]

Germany doesn't really have stats that are easy to find (so it's people's guess that it's around 0-2 a year in recent years), but the US stats on officer deaths is super easy to find (around 100-160 a year in recent years). Hence why I had such a big margin (which could've even gone 20-100x).

And you can use Google. I don't care to cite generic stats.
Though the German stats are an inference because apparently there really hasn't been enough officers killed recently to keep track of it (or so I'd guess).

For starters, the German police force is only a third of the US one. And again, the US police force fatality rate is VERY low. But you don't provide a police deaths rate of Germany, so no comparison is possible. Sorry to say this, but here you just insist on laziness, just as you don't respond to the rest.
It keeps surprising me a bit how hard it seems for people to admit that something was not as plausible as they thought, that they might've been a bit mistaken on a specific issue.

 

[m4a4]

For starters, the German police force is only a third of the US one. And again, the US police force fatality rate is VERY low. But you don't provide a police deaths rate of Germany, so no comparison is possible. Sorry to say this, but here you just insist on laziness, just as you don't respond to the rest.
It keeps surprising me a bit how hard it seems for people to admit that something was not as plausible as they thought, that they might've been a bit mistaken on a specific issue.

Force size doesn't matter in this context.
And dismissing the inferred stats on Germany is laziness on your part, because you can't find something wildly different. There are no official stats for every year (which is weird that they wouldn't have something official).
But this article mentions low deaths at the bottom. So, again, unless you find something different, it's a reasonable assumption that there are 0-2 police deaths a year.

And you claimed an "incredibly high amount of police killings going on", and I responded by pointing out police deaths. Which, in the US for 2015, for every 1 police killed, there are around 10-20 people killed. Where in Germany for 2015, for every 1 police killed, there are around [undetermined]-10 people killed.
Which implies that people in the US put police in way more dangerous situations (putting the police killings up) in 2015 since the overall ratio isn't that far off for that year. Shouldn't have needed to so blatantly point that out again.

And then looking at some stats that break down the 2015 police shootings numbers, you can see that most of those are in response to a deadly weapon.

Basically, what I've been trying to tell you is that the police killings are as high as they are in the US not because the police like to kill people, or are poorly trained, or there are huge problems with the police system (though there will be some cases where that applies), but because people are putting themselves into dangerous situations. Mental heath problems (and probably cultural issues), not specifically police problems (though mental health can affect that too).