[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.