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from the yellow-stripe-down-the-back-of-the-uniform dept.
From the NY Daily News (and covered almost everywhere):
A Kansas man shot to death by police earlier this week was the victim of a misdirected online prank known as "swatting," according to social media chatter.
The victim, identified as Andrew Finch, was gunned down on Thursday night after cops responded to his Wichita home amid a false report that he had shot his father to death and was holding his mother, brother and sister hostage.
A responding officer fatally shot Finch, 28, when he came to the front door, Wichita deputy police chief Troy Livingston said during a press conference. Livingston declined to comment on what triggered the officer to open fire and would not say whether Finch was armed.
Police briefing (10m8s). Body camera footage (53s).
I'm speechless.
takyon: The swatting was quickly linked to a dispute between two Call of Duty players:
On Twitter, more than a dozen people who identified themselves as being in the gaming community told The Eagle that a feud between two Call of Duty players sparked one to initiate a "swatting" call. After news began to spread about what happened Thursday night, the people in the gaming community, through Twitter posts, pointed at two gamers.
"I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION," said one gamer, who others said made the swatting call. His account was suspended overnight.
According to posts on Twitter, two gamers were arguing when one threatened to target the other with a swatting call. The person who was the target of the swatting gave the other gamer a false address, which sent police to a nearby home instead of his own, according to Twitter posts. The person who was to be the target of the swatting sent a Tweet saying, "Someone tried to swat me and got an innocent man killed." [...] Dexerto, a online news service focused on gaming and the Call of Duty game, reported the argument began over a $1 or $2 wager over the game.
Update: 911 Call from suspect (4m58s).
Brian Krebs conversed with the apparent suspect over Twitter.
(Score: 3, Troll) by looorg on Saturday December 30 2017, @11:51AM (10 children)
The problem here is that you have to respond to all calls as if they where true. Otherwise you come to that day when you have the next police conference and they ask why they didnt respond and the police answers that they thought that it was a joke. They sent a squad car around and all looked fine, or they sent a squad car around and some heavily armed psycho with a machine gun killed two police officers because they just didn't take the threat seriously.
The blame here is almost entirely with the idiot that called in the fake threat. Yes one can put some place on the LEO for escalating the situation, but he was still just acting to a perceived and reported threat.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday December 30 2017, @12:29PM (8 children)
Guilty until proven innocent? There are two things to note here. First, SWAT-style activities are way too common in the US with them being routinely used in situations where they aren't warranted, and not only endangered lives, but also destroyed considerable property in the process. This may well have been one of those situations where they weren't warranted despite the alleged dire nature of the 911 call. Second, the person who placed the fake 911 call has bragged about placing a number of such calls (more swatting, bomb threats, etc). One person shouldn't have that kind of power over another. The aggressive police response is what makes it so dangerous.
Normal people aren't trained to act properly when raided by heavily armed police with very liberal instructions on what behavior allows them to shoot you. It sounds like the victim probably had loose boxers or a similar wardrobe malfunction.
No, it's not. The idiot didn't pull the trigger on an innocent, unarmed man. The police did that.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by looorg on Saturday December 30 2017, @01:06PM (7 children)
Nobody said that. You completely miss the point as to why SWAT responses have increased and the tactics they use. You seem to believe that they just do this cause they are jackboots that like to wank off to their big guns and they get some kick out of driving around their vans and shooting people. I'm fairly sure they didn't know it was a fake call when it came in, if they had know that they wouldn't have responded in the way that they did. So you are after-the-fact constructing a scenario that just wasnt true for when it happened.
The aggressive police response fills a niche, the jackass that called in the fake threat is the one that is to blame for calling in a fake threat that he knew would result in an overwhelming show of force response. He wanted that. Suicide by cop is a well known phenomenon, SWATting is pretty much, potential-, murder-by-cop and he is the guilty party here. I'm not claiming that the officer is completely innocent but they are responding to an emergency call with non-perfect information but have to assume that the given information is correct and act according to that information.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:40PM (6 children)
That would be fairly accurate. The militarization of US police forces (and various government bureaucracies at multiple levels) has gotten out of hand.
And they didn't know that it was a real call. There are procedures and training precisely because things can't always be treated as worst case scenarios. A number of people have died [reason.com] because of aggressive police tactics and excessive levels of force.
Exactly. And it'll happen again.
Then they need to replaced with someone who doesn't assume such. People die when assumptions are made.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:57PM (4 children)
Quit being a whiny little bitch or we'll take away your "evil" police and see how long you survive in a world filled with real criminals. The police are out there every day putting their lives on the line. That's way more than some amateur armchair windbag has ever done. Put down the bag of Cheetos and step outside - you will see it is true
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @05:40PM
What part of "innocent person who is not a threat murdered" is hard for you yo understand? It is VERY disturbing that innocent people can be gunned down. Wake up fool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:07PM
putting their lives on the line to commit armed robbery maybe. fuck you and your precious pigs. i can protect my own family from all the dangerous savages the system has built out of petty criminals.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:53PM (1 child)
You do realize this is a typical excluded middle fallacy. We don't have to choose between these kinds of excesses from the police or no police at all. We can, like say most of the developed world, have a police force that does its job without killing a lot of innocent people. Remember that you're only a phone call away from getting a visit from the men in black tactical gear. Wouldn't you rather that they obey the laws they're sworn to uphold?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:58PM
Have a +1 Insightful on me. Dear Cthulhu, when we've gotten to the point that *you* are the voice of reason in any given dialogue...yeeeeee gods...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Demena on Sunday December 31 2017, @07:41AM
Actually, your point is not relevant. Even if the call had been genuine they should not have shot. It is not usually the hostage taker who answers the door. They had no knowledge of the role of the person who answered the door.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @03:55PM
Interestingly, they legally don't have to do anything at all.
When cops show up with guns drawn and start shooting innocent people, we're told it's justified because the cops were told there were hostages or people in danger who they had to protect.
Yet when cops stand idly by and watch someone get stabbed to death, we're told that's perfectly alright because they have no legal duty to protect.
So which is it? If they have no duty to protect -- which multiple courts have held is true -- then their safest course of action would be to surround the house and wait it out. But of course that's less fun, so they'd rather go in with guns drawn and shoot anything that moves like THEY'RE playing fucking Call of Duty. Because they know there's no goddamn rules for them; they know that whatever they do the legal system will say they were correct.