If he’d done his time, and was (presumably) assessed by medical professionals at that time as not posing a threat to the public, then wouldn’t it be outrageous to keep him locked up extrajudicially?
Clearly, any such assessments were incorrect, and given his behavior just preceding the attack, the police monitoring that was done was inadequate in either supervison or enforcement. The most desireable situation for everyone involved would have been not to release a dangerous offender to begin with. To me, this indicates a problem with the judical system (in not allowing the imposition of an adequate sentence), the penal system (in not rehabilitating said person), or post-penal control and tracking.
I just find it curious that they guy had a chronic history of predatory sex offender behavior, but there is no outrage directed at any relevant party about his being released into the general public; all of the indignation here expressed is toward the police for not flying in through the windows like armored chimpanzees or bursting through the wall with blazing guns and tear gas.
Stranger
God damn it, I really didn’t want to continue this. But I can’t let this stand.
Physically uninjured? She was repeatedly raped over 12 hours! Do you have any idea what…never mind.
Really, I’ve now typed 11 different posts and deleted them to cool down. This is the kindest I can make it: I’m extremely disappointed by what you wrote.
Una, you have been the victim of a sexual assault, and I’m sure that was a terrible experience which I can’t begin to image what it was like.
But have you ever suffered a knife attack?
If the police had moved any earlier, it is highly likely that the criminal would have stabbed the victim. Perhaps she would have died. Perhaps she would have suffered serious physical injuries. Perhaps she would have been scarred for life.
Can you say that being raped was worse than that?
I do, in fact have an idea of the horror she went through. I’ve work with battered women (self-defense training) and known a couple others who have been through similar experiences. I agree that the police should have done everything reasonably possible to end the standoff and evacuate her from the situation. However, given that we have only the sparse and unsubstantiated facts from the article, it is impossible to say whether they did dilligence in this matter or not. It is clear–if we assume that the article is correct–that the door was barricaded, and the window was locked such that the woman could not even open it from the inside. It’s also clear that police could not get surveillance inside the flat. Whoever was in command of the situation clearly decided that an entry was unlikely to succeed and would put the victim at risk of death. Perhaps that was a wrong evaluation, but from what is presented in the article, we don’t know.
I know that we’ve seen movies and cop shows where the tactical team bursts in with flash-bangs and submachineguns, overwhelming the robbers/kidnappers/terrorists, taking them all out with clean headshots and then triumphantly walking out with the victim in arms. The reality of this type of situation is that the defender almost always has the advantage in terms of initiative and immediate response. By the time entry personnel can clear a barricade or secure a room the hostage-taker can execute the victim, or worse yet, use them as a human shield in a direct face-off, forcing the officer(s) to decide on the spur whether to risk shooting the hostage themselves or stand at risk; this is almost always a bad situation. Danny Glover can stand there on screen, pop his neck, and quip off “No way you live,” before shooting the bad guy right between the eyes; in reality, under stress, just getting a shot inside the 9-ring on a B-27 target can be tough, never mind a head shot that, should you miss, will either hit the hostage or allow the perpetrator to kill the hostage. This type of operation is a desperate last chance maneuver that puts both the hostage and officers executing it at risk.
As it stands, she walked away from there, which is better than many hostage situations, and appreciably better than hostage situations where force is used to terminate the standoff. She’ll no doubt have significant and horrific mental trauma for years to come, but unless the article isn’t telling us something, the physical trauma she has suffered is not permanent or debilitating. It’s not an ideal situation (which would be the perp in custody before making an assault) but it’s better than a dead hostage, which is an unfortunately probable outcome of an attempted entry.
Stranger
Person held by deadly force would justify a sniper shot to the head. First thing I would do is put micro cameras in all the windows so I had situational awareness. After that I’d get a swat team to bust in from multiple directions using standard diversionary tactics.
In reality the room they are in is going to be 4 meters square or less. Hitting a target at close range is not hard for someone who trains for it. More than likely a room that is rushed will be nothing but a pile-on given the confusion factor and the amount of time it takes to run 4 meters.
As it stands this woman is scarred for life.
Have you ever actually fired a gun in your life?
Wow, where did you learn that? By watching The Shield?
Stranger
Well lets, see, Having broken up bar brawls involving sharp objects I know it’s not hard to pile on someone who’s 3-4 meters away. Aiming a gun at that distance is a piece of cake for people who are trained to do exactly that. So no, just my personal experience and that of my well trained friends.
But you can fill me in on the emotional trama of being raped.
Yes, have you ever dealt with someone holding a knife or club?
Well, shooting through windows worked for these people, one of whom’s of which was fairly similar to the situation in question:
Example 1
I find it a tad hard to believe that a plate glass window of the usual thickness will make much of a difference to a 308 or 300 win mag bullet if fired from the shorter police sniper distances.
Fact is, it’s been done, and for all I know, may have been considered in this case. However, it seems like the Edinburgh police left their balls at the station.
Is there ANY reason that the woman won’t/can’t sue the pants off of all police officers involved? It would sure make for an interesting case, that’s for sure.
This did not need a three-paragraph essay that did not answer my question. You wrote she was “(physically) uninjured.” Do you still assert that? Can you not understand how your saying she was “(physically) uninjured” would be offensive to women? Do you really want me to dump a few hundred citations in this thread about the physical injuries typically sustained during rape?
And how do I deserve the repeated implication that I’m advocating some sort of Hollywood action here? I advocated action in that they should force the door and shoot if he resisted. I did not posit any Hollywood scenarios nor did I say that there was not a large risk of injury and even death to the victim. Give me some credit. If you don’t mean to imply that I am advocating fantasy scenarios, then use quote tags and quote the people you mean to address directly, and leave me out of it.
No. I have been threatened with loaded guns thrice.
But here we get into opinion. Your opinion is that it’s “highly likely”. Mine is that it’s highly likely she would suffer minor injury at worst, much less likely serious injury, remotely death. My opinion is that it’s also possible that in that situation she might have been killed anyways by the madman. Remember, we only know that he didn’t kill her or didn’t intend to mortally wound here via hindsight.
Is my opinion more or less valid than yours?
Than death? No. Than serious injury? It depends. Than slight injury? Sure. But we’re giving opinion only.
I understand your position, but it’s mainly based on educated opinion, right?
My husband has been stabbed. I asked him if he would rather be stabbed or raped, and he said stabbed. 
But seriously- SWAT teams are trained to deal with this stuff. It may sound “rah rah gung ho” but yes, in the US I think they would have stormed the room, and I would agree with it. I know people who did this kind of thing for a living, and they train all the time for it. The guy might have killed that woman at any moment and they had a duty to try and stop it (and not by discussion it and asking if the fucker wanted tea).
It would seem to me that if the cops were waiting for a moment when the guy was distracted, hitting him while he was raping her would be an opportune moment.
Man, I read this all wrong for a while. I kept thinking you had asked your husband which he would prefer, and then, after he gave his decision, dutifully stabbed him accordingly (i.e., that your first sentence was announcement, while your second sentence was explanation).
Did you all pile through a barricaded doorway or burst through a window before breaking up a bar brawl? Did you have one person holding another up against a wall with a knife to her head?
Do me a favor, if you have access to a handgun and an outdoor firing range. Go to the range, put the gun down at the shooting line, and go do a half mile sprint. Then pick up the gun and see how well you shoot. (This is about as close as you can practically simulate the condition of having a shot of adreneline running through your system.) Can you make a single head shot at 15 feet? Can you even reliably manage not to hit the rest of the target? How about if it is moving around?
If you can, you’re better than the vast majority of police officers. It’s one thing to talk about how easy it is to walk up to a shooting line and hit a well-marked, stationary target (which still isn’t as easy as most people think it is). It’s another to shoot accurately under stress, when a missed shot means a dead hostage. It takes a hell of a lot of training–even more than most major police departments have in their special tactics units–to do this with a high degree of assurance. This is why dynamic entries and takedowns in hostage situations are limited to a last resort, only used when police believe that negotiation won’t work and the hostage(s) are otherwise in immediate peril.
I can only speak from seconde-hand knowledge of the women I’ve known who’ve been brutalized or raped. It’s a horrible, nightmarish, panic inducing, and often life shattering episode that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. But I do know that, aside from depressive episodes, these women are all glad to have survived. I don’t think any of them would feel quite the same about being vindicated after being killed.
Again, we have almost no information about the layout or situation from the article, how the police there were equipped, prepared, or trained, nor do we have any insight into the tactical decisions that were made other than by an anonymous officer who had an unknown role in the situation. What little we do have–that the door was barricaded, that the window was not accessible–tends to indicate that the situation was not ideal for an entry or sniping the perpetrator. Could or should they have moved anyway? Nobody here has enough information to say! Maybe the whole thing was a cock-up and they could have rescued her sooner. Or maybe it was a horribly layout with no way to make an unobserved approach and no good entry.
This “I would do is put micro cameras in all the windows…I’d get a swat team to bust in from multiple directions using standard diversionary tactics,” stuff is handwaving nonsense that comes from watching too many action movies. You talk about it like it’s all laid out in the stage instructions. In the real world you may not be able to place cameras unobserved or come busting in from multiple directions. And “standard diversionary tactics,” (specifically what?) may not keep the perpetrator from killing a hostage. Since you’ve only got the one, that really reduces the reward of executing an entry.
Regarding the probabilty of being killed by knife, my edged weapons instructor (a former consultant with the Singapore police department who had been involved with plenty of real world knife situations) started me off with this advice: “In a real knife fight, the best situation you can expect is one man goes to the ER, the other to the morgue.” A knife is a terrible defensive weapon because of all of its detriments (melee range, size, limited legality for carry), but it can be plenty lethal.
Una Persson, permit me to amend my statement from “(physically) uninjured” to “did not suffer permanent physical injury” (as far as can be asserted from the article). My intent was not to minimize the physical aspect but rather to acknowledge that there is substantial emotional trauma, that nonetheless is easier to treat than a fatal wound to the neck or head. If there is “a large risk of injury or death to the victim,” as a consequence of trying to do an entry (and with a barricaded door it’s probably going to ake more han a few seconds to open) the police are not going to do an entry, unless they feel that such an attack is otherwise imminent. This would be irresponsible and highly criticized afterward, regardless of how you personally feel about it. And perhaps you are not envisioning the sort of blazing entry described, but this appears to be the general perception of how an entry works; the police burst in, accurately and without error shoot the perpetrator(s) dead, and walk out with hostages intact. This is not a realistic expectation in most circumstances where this type of scenario would be invoked.
Stranger
Great, three of your examples of “snipers” are criminals who may not care if they actually drop their target immediately and certainly don’t care about hitting anyone in the background, and another is about a Palestinian girl shot in the stomach. Yeah, that’s some really precise, professional shooting. The only one involving law enforcement (two police snipers) indicates that no one else was in the home (not a hostage situation) and that he was shooting at police through the window, indicating that it was open.
Stranger
Thank you.
There’s no perhaps about it; I never posited any Hollywood-type entry. I do believe that there is a significant risk of injury, possibly death, to one or more persons in any armed police action. Possibly an innocent. I’m not a police officer, I’ve never been in the military, but I do a damn lot of research on things, and I have an idea about how incredibly risky and dangerous armed police action is.
But if I’m in her position, I want the police to take the risk. That’s my opinion.
Since you’ve clarified your earlier statement that made me see red, and since it’s clear my opinions are perpendicular to the general opinion on the SDMB I don’t think I need to say anything else here. I’m sorry we interacted on such a tragic topic.
Not to mine, they’re not, Una.
