[jdally987]

We’re clear here that that was just what the kid said, all made up right? And no one was actually killed prior to the swat showing up. The article was written pretty confusingly.. anyway sounded to me like the guy was literally just sitting around and happened to have a gun, as you probably would in a rural area, and went into fight or flight once the neighbor told him he was surrounded by armed cops

But I would think - depending on whether prank reports like this are relatively common, as a % of all SWAT calls made legitimate or illegitimate - it’d be better to check out the scene, maybe even knock first if the situation allows it, as a default, to determine any chance that they were just being sent on a wild goose chase by some bored gamers. I guess cases with quote-unquote hostages would preclude that kind of luxury though, dunno

[cortesoft]

It sounds like the police did a fairly rational thing here. They went to the house in a large group, they asked for the person, told him to out down his weapon, and didn’t shoot him. That sounds like a reasonable response, even though it ended in tragedy.

The only people responsible for this were the people who called the police with a false report. That is the crime.

I think cops do a lot of bad shit and need to be held accountable, but this sounds like they did the right thing.