No, it’s quite selfish of me, actually. But I am impressed at your own willingness to lay down your life because a cop nearby thought maybe you had gun somewhere on you, and decided that it was too dangerous for him to make sure before he opened fire on you. Truly, our police force could not function as it does without the support of people like you.
I do not expect a police officer to die for anyone. I would, however, like to see our officers get much better training in threat assessment. The average citizen is not Doc Holiday, and has virtually no chance in digging a handgun out of a waistband and beating out a trained officer who is already pointing his weapon at said citizen.
There’s a huge middle ground between “Officers should walk into a dangerous situation armed only with a capgun and wearing a thin cotton shirt with a bullseye on it” and “Officers should use deadly force when a nervous suspect twitches slightly.” Right now policing in the US leans to much to the latter and it would be nice to see police dial it down a notch.
Violence is never the answer, and not acceptable at any time for any reason. If a policeman isn’t willing to find a peaceful solution, then we don’t need them on the force.
and this is why I think the swatter should be found guilty of criminal mischief, possibly manslaughter, but certainly not murder.
That we’ve seen such a pattern is extremely unfortunate. To normalize it, by charging the swatter with murder, simply makes matters worse.
There is a swatting law in California. The 911 call originated from that state.
The intent to cause harm is a thorny legal problem. I don’t think the State or Federal prosecutors want to portray their officers as a loaded weapon ready to slaughter anybody. That would set a terrible legal precedent. We all want to believe our police are rational people that won’t murder somebody because of a prank phone call.
It doesn’t help that a Minnesota officer shot and killed a unarmed woman in her pajamas. She had the audacity to call in a possible sexual assault to 911. The lady was outside waiting to talk to the officers. She had heard noises outside her home that concerned her.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydailynews.com/amp/news/national/father-woman-fatally-shot-police-slams-investigation-article-1.3713466
Swatting should be a crime. It costs cities a lot of money in wasted calls. It could result in a delayed response for a legitimate call.
Just the other day the police were called because an armed man was acting strange in front of an ATM at a bank. He was well known to them, and they tried to talk him down. Without success. He fired at them, and they killed him.
Sorry, in this case violence was the answer.
Witnesses and a video backed the police version, by the way.
Yes, this case seems similar to a drunk driver who kills someone. Not felony murder, since it was not deliberate, but something that should have been foreseen as possible.
Not deliberate? I suppose the cop’s trigger finger slipped then.
IANAL, and IANACop. IAJustALayperson here. Seems like I have some ignorance here that needs fighting.
I am not aware that a Felony Murder charge requires any deliberate intent that a death happen, nor does it require any recognition by the defendant that a death might happen. All it requires for a Felony Murder charge, to the best of my knowledge, is that somebody commits a serious crime (a felony? Would swatting count?) and as a result, however indirectly, a death happened. That’s all. As far as I know.
My Magic Eight-Ball suggests to me that The Powers That Be will try to make a Felony Murder case of this, or something substantially similar, all the better to exonerate the trigger-happy Wichita cop.
I imagine that if you were able to bet this way in Vegas on this, that you would win big. And let me clarify, IMO the swatter is guilty of filing a false police report or whatever the similar charge would be, and having included a phony hostage situation in his claim is guilty of the highest level that this can be charged. I also believe that all adults are responsible for their actions, cops included.
IANAL either. There are different laws in each state, and they’re not easy to interpret because of the definitions of intent, the individual state restrictions, and the underlying felony required.
This right here. Middle totally being excluded.
Though I will reiterate… policing is a job that is 100% voluntary, and involves risk of harming oneself or others. Its stated purpose is to protect the public. It seems like police have decided that they’re just going to shift 100% of the risks of the job onto the general public in every case, and that’s not OK. I would say a policeman with that attitude should pick a different line of work, but I think the attitude is systemic at this point.
Actually, the message they are getting is that they can sacrifice the lives of any number of members of the public with no consequences. They can kill out of fear or sadism and then just walk away. They know they won’t be held responsible.
Also, being a police officer isn’t even very dangerous as jobs go. Jobs like “farmer” and “carpenter” are much more dangerous.
This.
I’m not in the “no violence ever” camp. We give them guns for a reason, and if the police are faced with an active shooter, sure, take him out.
But when I read about police shooting a guy at a routine traffic stop because he told them he had a (completely legal) gun in the glove box, or the police shoot a guy who is alarmed by unexpectedly finding police barking at him at his own door, out of the blue … well, we have a problem, and it’s the police, not the prank phone caller, who are responsible in this case.
I’m all in favor of criminalizing “swatting”. Because it’s a waste of valuable social resources, because it’s disruptive. But NOT because “the idiot/trigger-happy/nervous/evil police officer might kill the innocent victim of the prank.” That is on the police, not on the swatter. Police officers who are that dumb/trigger-happy/anxious/evil should either be removed from the force or better trained, depending on the underlying problem.
There is no reason the guy can’t beheld accountable for his actions in causing a death and the police also held response. Saying the guy knew that someone could die and also saying the cops were wrong to kill is perfectly compatible.
What if someone told me they were going to rape someone, and I set it up where they’d be alone with their intended victim. Sure, the rapist shouldn’t rape, but I would still be guilty. (And, no, I’m not saying these are the same thing. It’s just the same underlying principle that blame is not zero sum.)
And as for the police, I do fully expect them to take risks to avoid killing people. I’m not sure I’d say it’s better for 10 cops to be shot than one innocent, but I’d definitely say it’s better for one cop to be shot than an innocent. Of course, ideally, no one is shot. But, if someone is shot, it is better for it to be the police officer than an innocent. To deal with this, they need training both in how to avoid the situation and how to deal with it, and the best equipment we can get them to make them safer.
I know I’m not an expert. But when I hear the cop who was afraid the guy had a gun, my question is why there isn’t good enough riot gear that no one’s life would be in significant danger even if he had shot? The tech exists. Bullet proof cover, bullet proof vests, shields, etc. If we’re going to give our cops military gear, shouldn’t that be included?
The risk should be low enough that someone can do something reasonable like reach for their wallet or instinctively put their hands down for a bit, without any cop feeling like they are likely to die. Cops should not be trained on fear.
Unfortunately, we’re seeing videos that show police in a bad light, like the APD shouting “drop the knife” at a man who’s already on the ground, dead from a gunshot from those same police.
We’ve seen the toddler in his crib maimed by a flash-bang grenade that landed in his crib, and the LEOs who threw it telling us that it wasn’t their responsibility.
SWAT teams and other police have gone to the wrong address many times and truly innocent people have been injured and killed.
I don’t want any LEOs to die in the line of duty, and I don’t want any innocent people killed by police who are so fearful that they can’t analyze the situation.
What about the possible victims in the house - the 911 call stated that there were people locked in a cupboard and petrol poured through the house. So letting the suspect put his hands down could have allowed him to flick a lighter and turn the house into an inferno, killing more people. The swat team were at least as fearful for those in the house as for themselves.
I keep the blame squarely where it lies - with the swatter who pointed the police like a weapon at someone else, and deliberately engineered the situation to increase the risk to the target. I also give some blame to the intended target, who provided the fake address - if you are going to misdirect someone with a fake address, make it really fake, not an actual valid address.
So they though the house was filled with gasoline, and they decided the smart thing to do was fire a gun into it?
But maybe the house-burner was really inside the house, and pushed a hostage outside to see what happened, and the sound of him being murdered pushed him over the edge to set a fire and start shooting the other hostages!
I mean yeah, it’s imaginary world. There’s no shortage of hypotheticals and counter-hypotheticals. If the cops were willing to entirely jump into a fiction and run with it, they may as well have run with a version where the first person out the door was a hostage rather than the terrorist. Or better yet, have some words, hold fire until a weapon is visible, have dispatch get a little more intel?
There is some truth where you say the swatter “deliberately engineered the situation to increase the risk to the target”. SWATters typically do this… describe a specific scenario with specific fictional elements to ensure the maximum dispatch of force and limit the possibility of de-escalation. The story is easily later proven to be 100% fiction, not a legit understanding. There should be a specific class of felonious false report of a terroristic threat (or whatever lawyer-speak gets at the crime we know is happening).
I can’t put any legal liability on that guy. It’s illegal to lie to cops or emergency dispatchers, but it’s not illegal to lie to some random schmuck about where you live. I mean maybe, if he were saying “go ahead, SWAT me, here’s my address”, then maybe he’s conspiring in the false report.