If this is a Swatting prank, then find and try the perpetrator for murder. Wherever they are.
A police officer shooting and killing an unarmed man who simply answered his door shouldn’t be a given either, though.
I wonder if they’ll try the “failed to comply” route?
I would also suggest that when they do find this tricksters that they get handed the bill for the cost of sending out the SWAT team.
Why was the cop so wound up? Did they even attempt to call the house before they sent the guns out?
So many questions.
Good questions.I’d like to know, too.
Wound up seems to be the default mode for many police, unfortunately. I wonder if the victim was a minority? That seems to get the police even more wound up.
The practice of swatting is horrible (you can see videos of it on YouTube - it’s a terrifying experience) and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But it also highlights the problems with over-use of swat teams in the first place.
I have to admit that the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this picture was the military-like uniforms the police wore. I was traveling in Greece not long after the Cypriot war and I was scared, intimidated and surprised that the standard city police held machine guns and wore uniforms similar to those of the army…
Outside major cities swat teams are notorious for shooting first and asking questions later. A lot of times want to be seal team 6 yahoos sign up for special weapons and tactics teams. In this case they arrived at the scene jazzed with the report of an active shooter.
From just the other day.
“Particularly the police, we’re giving them military equipment which was taken away by the previous administration, you know all about that,” Trump said. “Now you have the best military equipment and you’re able to use it for the police force.”
American police are simply trigger-happy. Period. Full stop. They would really just as soon shoot you as deal with you.
One of my old FB pals lives just up the street, he says the neighborhood is already looking to protest, they think some of the local cops are just too trigger-happy.
I agree that our police are trigger happy but who the fuck does this? Who is dumb enough to pull a prank like this?
My god - the gamer community sounds totally toxic.
Tena, best post so far. Sounds like somebody set a pack of dobermans loose on some innocent family. Those cold hearted f**kers should be locked up with the cop who committed manslaughter.
While the regular police may not carry guns, many European countries have paramilitary police (e.g. gendarmes/carabinieri) that are armed with submachine guns and often just out patrolling on foot. For all the talk of the militarized police in the US, it was a little unnerving having them around all the time in Spain and Italy.
Many years ago on one of my trips to Italy I was in Rome and walking in area with a lot of foreign embassies.They had carabinieri on pretty much every street corner with two guys per intersection. The one thing I did notice is that where they were standing was #1 a lot of empty glass bottles that had bottle caps and #2 and some of the guys were taking the bottle caps and pressing them into the asphalt where they stood guard. So I guess the art of mosaics really does run in the Italian blood.
Suspended now, but the (apparent) guy was outright bragging about it on Twitter (click through for earlier screenshots, the link is from someone else he targeted):
ETA: He’s now been arrested. And was also responsible for calling in bomb threats to a Call of Duty convention a couple of weeks ago, and was arrested in 2015 for calling in bomb threats to ABC in Los Angeles. These twisted shits need to be taken more seriously.
I find that a question I ask myself a lot when reading the news. I know it is a broad brush to make judgements, but I frequently wonder why there was not another path to be taken.
Whatever happened to
“With great powers, comes great responsibility” ?
It seems, like most Police officers can kill people with impunity ?
Steroids.
Agreed, but we don’t. Here’s a few things we should all be thinking about:
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We allow our police departments to have SWAT, then the departments end up using them for things like drug raids, fugitive arrests and other tasks they aren’t trained for.
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A guy named John Crawford was killed in a Beaver Creek, OH Walmart in almost the same circumstances, only the caller was standing in the store SWATTing. He was given a slap on the wrist, and the officers got off with no charges.
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That foolish man in the WH is okay with this stuff and is giving departments MORE military gear
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Black Lives Matter was trying to address the underlying issues around SWATTing by making departments and officers accountable by changing policies, but way too many people see calls for reform as anti-police.
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How does an officer know what’s happening inside a home if they shoot first and ask later?
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How do states give the police the right to execute no-knock warrants AND give people more rights to defend their homes? It sounds like we want to have more armed conflicts between police and citizens.