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by chipperyman573 2705 days ago
>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

2 comments

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..."

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.

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.