[aharrison]

I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips. If we are going to start talking about fixing this issue, I'm not sure getting rid of blocked numbers is going to materially impact these outcomes.

Likewise, what is your recommendation on eliminating the threat of burner phones?

[m0zg]

Technically, in the US the police doesn't have to protect you (search "no duty to protect"). And "holding them accountable" much beyond the existing threshold will ensure they won't show up at all except to collect the body.

[scotty79]

It sounds like you are saying that better police cannot exist. But it exists in every first world country except the US.

[m0zg]

That's only because those countries aren't, in fact, the US. The US is a pretty violent country compared to just about any other first world country. The policing methods employed elsewhere are (IMO) unlikely to work here. It'd be hilarious to send London policemen to Chicago or Detroit and have them "deescalate" things with gangs there.

[root_axis]

Well, Detroit and Chicago gangs exist inside minority communities, i.e. not the vast majority of America, including in this particular story. SWATing is not a problem in the hood.

[m0zg]

:-) https://www.google.com/search?q=swat+chicago+hood

[hermitdev]

Most police calls that are not from a victim amount to an anonymous call. They cannot be ignored.

I hate to say, but it's a slippery slope. Right now, you can't distinguish between a legit line and a spoof, or a burner.

But a burner still has a traceable number. Perhaps burners could be placed in a "low trust" zone when dialling emergency services. Such a classification could give 1st responders the caution they need.

[omeid2]

> I hate to say, but it's a slippery slope

The underlying problem is that police should not jump to lethal force and have proper training to contain dangerous situation, not kill people who are crawling on the floor under their orders.

The problem is not distinguishing between a legit line and a spoof, it is having a police force that is not trigger happy who cowardly justify every killing with "I was scared for my life".

Police who are so easy to be "scared for life" should not be in the force, in the same way someone with pyrophobia should not be a firefighter.

[usefulcat]

> Police who are so easy to be "scared for life" should not be in the force, in the same way someone with pyrophobia should not be a firefighter.

I take your point, but at the same time, that's a very easy thing to say when it's not your life that is on the line. Unless you have first hand experience doing that kind of job, I would strongly advise a bit of restraint in being quite so judgemental.

[PhasmaFelis]

I might be less judgmental if the police were ever willing to admit that they could have done anything differently.

IIRC, the victim in one swatting death was lying on the floor crying as two cops screamed contradictory orders at him, reached down to pull his pants up after crawling forward as instructed, and was shot dead. I might have been able to respect, at a bare minimum, a police response along the lines of "we need to review our procedures for this sort of situation." Instead the police chief gave a press conference about evil swatters and absolutely refused to accept any culpability at all.

As long as the cops keep ducking blame like a child with his hands over his ears, this shit is going to keep happening with every swatting.

[root_axis]

First hand experience isn't needed to condemn the unnecessary murder of a completely innocent and terrified man. The police should not burst into the homes of innocent citizens and shoot them to death. Being scared is not a valid excuse.

[usefulcat]

That's a straw man. No one is arguing that that is ok.

[AstralStorm]

The police force actually are.

[onetimemanytime]

Again, that's a different issue and separate from calling the Swat teams. The cops are told that murder has happened and a person that had "killed" his family member has zero to lose, so yeah, cops are afraid. The person that sees 20 armed cops or has a grenade thrown through his window will freak out and not act rationally. Recipe for disaster, all because someone made that call.

19 years old going to jail for 20-25 years...

[omeid2]

I am no army general or special forces specialist but one has to wonder why is throwing a grenade or any other aggressive action is the first line of action for any highly tactical large team with arguably the world's most advanced tech?

The consequences of the situation is perhaps up-to-debate but that is missing the point, the SWAT teams shouldn't be acting reactionary and out of fear, they should be, well, tactical about the situation and not burst into homes and hotels like they're in war-zone doing a Search and Destroy.

[AstralStorm]

Don't they have thermal cameras at the very least to take a peek inside? Marksmen who could take a look inside? Someone who can listen in?

Very sloppy operation if they just shot a guy standing in the open.

[socceroos]

The call is the catalyst. The cops are the gullible, hyper-agressive actors that turn what should be a simple matter of communication into the 'justified' killing of an innocent.

[onetimemanytime]

I agree. In the video I saw the cops killed the person from it seemed like 100 yards away. He had opened the door and cops thought he was reaching for his gun. But the cops were or should have been behind a car or bulletproof thingy, no need to look for the lamest excuse to kill someone.

[chipperyman573]

>I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips

I think the logic behind this is that if the tip was correct then trying to talk it out/etc could end much worse for everyone involved. You have to remember that, to the best of the officer's knowledge, there is a live hostage in a building somewhere that needs to be saved by them

[LanceH]

There is no "best of the officer's knowleedge", though. They have zero knowledge of the situation. They have an unsourced phone call. They know exactly that one person has made a claim on the phone and too often they don't bother looking past that and it is completely reckless.

I can't even conceive of the same thing happening in the military (been there, done that). "We got a call the enemy is in that build." "suit up, we'll go in." "how about we watch the building for a minute?" "Naw..."

[Haga]

At the end of the day you will always want to go home more than follow the law. Americas weapon laws put everyone postcall in a defacto civil war zone. In war zones the law, civil conventions and concepts collapse. Its your tribe vs the others. Quite frankly for this situation americas swats are remarkable civil.

Ps: the military has its own track record on fire first and then sort them out later. They blew up whole towns in Iraq for one sniper-with everyone on it. So bad example. The watch and wait often only happens in spy movies. In reality it's protect our boys preemptive at all costs. If one dies you have alot more to answer for then 40-50 locals die. Those can be labeled asymmetric after exitus. And quite frankly theire surviving relatives thirsty for revenge will cover your war crime up. One week later that sleepy town ruin is a Hotspot.

[scotty79]

Ok. Worst case if they restrained themselves from killing the suspect is that one citizen is dead and they couldn't prevented it.

Actual outcome was that one citizen is dead because they murdered him. I don't see how much worse is first outcome when compared to the second one.

[djsumdog]

There's an audio clip of the 911 call posted on here. It wasn't an anonymous tip; the person on the phone pretended there was a situation/serious domestic dispute.

The police should have still been more accountable, but let's get the context right.

[AstralStorm]

Sure, and that is a bad reason to go in guns blazing. It is even worse than if it was a hostage situation. It is even worse if the subject capitulated and went outside. What could they do, take aim at someone and then get shot?

This is stupid trigger happy gangster style policing.

[oh_sigh]

The alternate side of officers using unreasonable force from a scam anonymous call is getting officers or members of the public killed from a real anonymous call.

Police are going to be on high alert regardless, even if they think the call was a hoax

[aharrison]

You will note that I did not say "scam" anonymous call. I said "anonymous call" which includes both real and anonymous calls. Police officers should respond with force dictated by the circumstances of their situation, trained in such analysis, and held accountable to their decisions - both as individual officers and as departments. The source of the initial investigation should have little if any impact on the level of force used in the encounter.

[kinleyd]

Spot on. I believe the crux of the issue lies in the present bias toward officer safety, leading to an almost anything goes situation if the officer claims to have felt endangered. Which is quite ridiculous because the danger is always there. It's just not an acceptable reason to blast away.

[AstralStorm]

They're paid hazard rates exactly because of the danger. They are not supposed to cause danger. It is completely unacceptable.

At least here which is not US there is no such problem.

[oh_sigh]

I agree completely - my point was that police can't treat anonymous calls differently than real ones, because it is literally their lives(and the lives of the potential hostages) on the line. Unreasonable force is unreasonable force, regardless of how the officer was called into the situation.

[onetimemanytime]

>>I'm a little surprised you didn't mention anything about police being held accountable when responding with unreasonable force to anonymous tips.

Who says they aren't? They have rules, procedures etc., but when you tell police that x person killed his wife and is about to kill his two little children bad things are likely to happen.

Plus, both sides can be held accountable at the same time. The person that made the call can be responsible for everything that happens, even for the car accident cops get into while going there. More or less like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule