[kdeberk]

To me it seems that there are a lot of issues at play that led to the death of this man, but temporarily ignoring the fact that it seems hypocritical for a state to both punish gamblers while promoting a state lottery, it appears necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for protection.

I'm not saying that firearms need to be outlawed for anyone but government agencies. I'm just arguing that when people need to be arrested (lawfully or otherwise), police officers want also want to protect themselves in their line of work, so they necessarily need to create an imbalance of power for their own self-preservation. The victim was unarmed, so the use of SWAT teams certainly was unnecessary and he could have been arrested by two officers and a single patrol car, but given any other case, he might have carried a weapon and gunned down an officer.

[noelwelsh]

Well, you're wrong. From the same article:

Indeed, that’s exactly what happened to seventy-two-year-old Aaron Awtry in 2010. Awtry was hosting a poker tournament in his Greenville, South Carolina, home when police began breaking down the door with a battering ram. Awtry had begun carrying a gun after being robbed. Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door, wounding Deputy Matthew May in both arms. The other officers opened fire into the building. Miraculously, only Awtry was hit. As he fell back into a hallway, other players reporting him asking, “Why didn’t you tell me it was the cops?” The raid team claimed they knocked and announced several times before putting ram to door, but other players said they heard no knock or announcement. When Awtry recovered, he was charged with attempted murder. As part of an agreement, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. Police had broken up Awtry’s games in the past. But on those occasions, they had knocked and waited, he had let them in peacefully, and he’d been given a $100 fine.

Summary: people who are committing minor crimes don't want to trade up to major crimes. Be reasonable and most people will be reasonable in return. The police increase the risk to themselves and to the citizens they are supposed to be protected by using unreasonable force.

[kdeberk]

> "Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door"

Yeah, that appears to be a pretty foolish thing to do. What if it were firefighters who noticed a fire through his upstairs window? I don't think that they would just ring the bell and wait for an answer. I know that this a hypothetical situation, but it just seems a really stupid thing to just blindly fire at whatever is behind the door.

The only people who claim that the police did not first knock on the door are the friends and associates of the victim. One of the two groups is lying, and both can be lying to cover their asses. I have too little information to know whether this is an actual case of police brutality, sorry.

Edit: As a correction, the victim and his friends don't need to be lying. Perhaps the doorbell was broken, perhaps they didn't hear the police officers pounding at their door. I don't know, why should I jump to conclusions?

[ndesaulniers]

>> "Thinking he was about to be robbed again, he fired through the door"

>Yeah, that appears to be a pretty foolish thing to do.

Definitely. Reminded me of the part in Major Payne when the little boy is scared because he thinks there's a monster in his closet. The first time I saw this, I figured it was one of the other boys in the movie playing a prank on him and hiding in the closet. Major Payne draws his pistol and unloads it into the closet door, exclaiming "if he's still in there, he ain't happy." At this point, I was like OMG he probably killed a kid (there's no one actually in the closet). Point being, if you fire a gun through a door knowing someone is on the other side, you should be held as accountable had you aimed the gun directly at them and fired.

[afterburner]

"The only people who claim that the police did not first knock on the door are the friends and associates of the victim."

Well, to be fair, the only people at the scene that weren't police officers were his friends and associates. He was hosting a private gathering in his residence after all.

[gohrt]

This gets awkward. Scold me for blaming the victim, but here we have a case where the victim has refused to desist from specific criminal behavior despite multiple citations, and who fired a weapon in a populated room at someone who was neither identified nor holding a visible weapon.

When I hear about cops shooting dogs when they get the address wrong on a warrant, I worry. But in this case, well, don't go bear baiting.

[ryguytilidie]

I don't know why the article didn't really discuss this, but if you know that there are armed gamblers inside and are worried that they will be a danger to you, why not just announce that you are outside, have the people come out and just wait? Storming through the door with weapons drawn SPECIFICALLY because you believe that they are armed is probably the worst piece of logic possible. You are basically causing deaths with negligence at this point. But there isn't really much of an incentive to change this process when you get to murder whatever civilian you want and take their stuff and know that even if they fight back, they will go to prison for a very very long time. I don't get why this is the way things work.

[kdeberk]

Well I don't think that the police officers risk waiting. I can think of several reasons why you don't want to have this standoff. Mainly, it would give the suspects enough time to destroy any evidence that could incriminate the suspects. Furthermore, if you are assuming that the only way for this standoff to end will be through the own volition of the suspects, then this standoff could turn into a siege and last months.

[philwelch]

A months-long siege over a home poker game!?

[maxerickson]

If the crime involved is not violent and the suspect has no history of assaulting police officers (or perhaps any history of violent acts), it should basically be a criminal act for the police to initiate the use of force during the apprehension.

You are making a huge leap from the presence of weapons to the use of violence against other people.

[kdeberk]

> If the crime involved is not violent and the suspect has no history of assaulting police officers (or perhaps any history of violent acts), it should basically be a criminal act for the police to initiate the use of force during the apprehension.

I think I agree.

> You are making a huge leap from the presence of weapons to the use of violence against other people.

I think police officers has to put their lives on the line. I'm not saying that SWAT teams have to use violence, I'm only saying that police officers should come prepared with semi-automatic firearms and body armor if there is a suspicion that the suspect will be armed.

[sophacles]

Firefighters/EMTs also put their lives on the line - responding to medic calls in the wrong neighborhood is dangerous, combative patients (such as those with weird blood sugar levels or medication issues), mean dogs, and so on are risks. Perhaps we should grant them special protections and reasoning to start putting people and animals down at will too. Right now if an EMT killed a combative patient or a dog, all hell would break loose on them, yet they are in danger too. Yes, police are in a different situation, but not IMO different enough to warrant free reign.

[kdeberk]

I'm not saying that SWAT-teams should have free-reign. I fully agree that they need to be held accountable for their actions.

Edit: Fixed some terrible grammar.

[maxerickson]

Police in the U.S. carry high capacity semi-automatic pistols as a matter of course. I think they also frequently wear bullet proof vests on normal duty. Swat teams wear more armor and typically carry submachine guns that are capable of fully automatic fire.

Part of protecting people that do not have a history of violence is giving them the benefit of the doubt. Sure, there need to be lines drawn that allow the police to protect themselves, but anyone choosing to be a cop is going to be aware of the fact that they will occasionally be placed in dangerous situations.

[protomyth]

The police officers are putting their lives on the line when they escalate a situation that does not require it. This is a non-violent crime. Send someone to take some pictures and arrest people later.

Without the SWAT team, this remains calm and less costly for the police and the taxpayer.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>it appears necessary that SWAT teams are required to arrest people within their own homes given the fact that people are free to own weapons and use those for protection.

No. The guy was an optometrist with a local business, your suggestion that he was some undercover cop-murderer waiting for the slightest provocation is absurd and insulting. He had every incentive to maintain civility in his neighborhood/town. There is very little reason to believe that he would have reacted violently to any of the following alternative tactics:

- A phone call from an investigator requesting a meeting.

- A knock on the door from a pair of polite/professional investigators.

- Police could have waited for him to leave in a car and had patrolmen stop him on the street.

>I'm just arguing that when people need to be arrested (lawfully or otherwise)

How can you defend SWAT as a valid way to make an unlawful arrest? Have I misunderstood you?

SWAT is only appropriate for hostage and other situations where danger is imminent. In other cases of people "needing arrest", the use of SWAT is abusive.

[kdeberk]

> No. The guy was an optometrist with a local business, your suggestion that he was some undercover cop-murderer waiting for the slightest provocation is absurd and insulting. He had every incentive to maintain civility in his neighborhood/town. There is very little reason to believe that he would have reacted violently to any of the following alternative tactics:

Hindsight is 20/20. I will probably agree with you that if the police force did proper research on the suspect, then they would have chosen a different approach. However, I don't understand why they didn't so I can say very little about it. Perhaps it requires a structural change within the police force to accomplish this.

> How can you defend SWAT as a valid way to make an unlawful arrest? Have I misunderstood you?

You misunderstand me. Unlawful arrests are not good, but they happen anyway. The fact that the arrest is unlawful is not always known to the officers performing the arrest, so at that point in time and space, the legality of the arrest has become irrelevant.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>Hindsight is 20/20. I will probably agree with you that if the police force did proper research on the suspect, then they would have chosen a different approach.

This wasn't some spur-of-the-moment action. The investigators planned this operation, one of them had befriended Culosi. They don't get to use the "hindsight" defense here. I would argue that the investigator entrapped the Culosi by upping the ante to the point that made it a felony charge.

[etherael]

This argument is spectacularly stupid because based on the rise of exactly these kinds of incidents, you could justify the production and distribution of automated turrets to negate the use of current SWAT tactics. You can't just stop at the perceived consequences of your supposed equilibrium point, you have to follow it all the way to the logical conclusion.

If this keeps up and/or accelerates, it's only a matter of time before someone acting in the same spirit as defense distributed throws an arduino controlled turret and either sells them on silk road, or open sources the plans and we're living in a much shittier world because of the out of control arms race accepting that the police are going to act like militant home invading thugs will provoke.

[solistice]

They are allready out there.

http://projectsentrygun.rudolphlabs.com/ http://realsentrygun.com/ http://paintballsentry.com/Videos.htm

also, with OpenCV, cheap hobby servos, webcams and 35$ Raspis, and 40$ AKs, the parts are pretty easy to come by.

[etherael]

Well, fuck.

[kdeberk]

> This argument is spectacularly stupid because based on the rise of exactly these kinds of incidents, you could justify the production and distribution of automated turrets to negate the use of current SWAT tactics.

Then it's a good thing that most states have laws that prohibit owning fully-automatic firearms then.

> You can't just stop at the perceived consequences of your supposed equilibrium point, you have to follow it all the way to the logical conclusion.

Don't be absurd. If I use a semi or fully automatic weapon to protect myself against police brutality, it will only ensure that I won't get out alive.

Nice slippery-slope argument by the way, do you work at FOX News?

[etherael]

An automated turret is not at all the same thing as a firearm with an automatic fire mode. An assault rifle with an automatic fire select might indeed increase the likelihood the operator is killed. An automatic turret on the other hand doesn't have an operator, making it potentially quite a good deterrent to thuggish humans jacked up on authoritarianism with guns storming an area.

I assume though since you're automatically painting opposition you don't understand with the same tired old bullshit labels typical of mainstream statist standard leftists, correcting your mistakes is liable to just annoy you with more cognitive dissonance. My apologies, I won't be replying again.

[kdeberk]

I'm not sure what you are trying to tell me. You told me that you can use my spectacularly stupid argument to justify a conclusion that you don't like, well that is your problem, not mine.

I only attempt argue that, 1) given the fact that people are free to own lethal firearms within their own homes, 2) given the fact that police officers are wont to die if they get shot, 3) and given the assertion that presented with a police force, SWAT or otherwise, within the safety of their own home, threatening the suspect with arrest, the suspect can resort to irrational and sometimes violent behavior, I conclude that to maximize their self-preservation, police forces have to ensure an imbalance of power while making the arrest.

You are calling this argument spectacularly stupid, so you are going to, without having to resort to logical fallacies, show to me why my conclusion is wrong.

> I assume though since you're automatically painting opposition you don't understand with the same tired old bullshit labels typical of mainstream statist standard leftists, correcting your mistakes is liable to just annoy you with more cognitive dissonance.

That you are quick to associate me with a political position that I am not inclined to support merely betrays your confused dichotomous outlook on politics. I can't even begin to guess what a "mainstream statist standard leftist" is. I only asked the question because to my knowledge, FOX News often uses the slippery slope argument as a rhetorical device. You turn it into a political debate.

> My apologies, I won't be replying again.

Right.

[drunkpotato]

People have always owned their own weapons, and if anything the percent of households with guns has declined [1]. The burden is on you to show why the increase in police militarization is necessary. What is different now that requires SWAT teams to participate in poker room raids and alcohol regulatory inspections?

What the article posits is that what has changed is not, in fact, the level of danger that police face, but that there has been a combination of mission creep and cops getting away with pushing the boundaries of excessive force. Other commenters have pointed out that there is a monetary aspect as well: departments justify bigger budgets by using personnel and equipment on more and more trivial tasks. What used to be routine enforcement and arrests become full SWAT takedowns.

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/03/chart-day-gun-...

[stcredzero]

> departments justify bigger budgets by using personnel and equipment on more and more trivial tasks. What used to be routine enforcement and arrests become full SWAT takedowns.

Seems that all that DHS money spread all over the country has put local police into the mindset of pork barrel spending and big government largesse.