sunglasses wrote:Again, they had no way of knowing that.
Sure they did! They're
cops, for fuck's sake! Part of their job description is to
investigate situations like this. There are entire branches of law enforcement dedicated to the delicate art of hostage negotiation. What they
actually had "no way of knowing" (believing, as they apparently did, that this was a REAL hostage situation) was whether that guy was the shooter or one of the hostages or just some really unlucky guy who had nothing to do with anything.
Also, why do you feel you need to call for "cooler tempers"? Nobody here is howling for blood in any way, just expressing anger and frustration over a completely senseless killing... or is
that where I'm out of line? Seriously, please show me where someone said something that made you feel like tempers are inappropriately flaring on this subject. Predicting an onslaught of predictable behavior hardly constitutes taking up "pitchforks and torches." The complete lack of necessity for such intervention may have been why it was interpreted as support for the cops' actions.
sunglasses wrote:None of this would have happened in the first place if someone hadn't decided that the appropriate response to an online argument was calling 911 and faking a hostage situation.
And you feel 100%
sure about that? None of
this would have happened, but police absolutely HAVE shot perfectly innocent people for no goddamn reason
without being provoked by a lying prankster. Sure, the asshat who swatted the guy should be up to his behatted ass in felony-level legal problems, but this situation can HARDLY be dismissed as "all his fault."
The primary reason "swatting" became so much fun for a certain kind of mean little troll is because our cops have a SOLID REPUTATION for running in like assholes, throwing bullets and tearing shit up before they even know what's going on. Otherwise, what would be the incentive to do a thing like that - causing a mildly annoying knock on the door followed by massive legal hassle for being such an asshole? I'll totally get on board with making the laws against that sort of thing absolutely
brutal, but a much more effective way of making it stop would be to not even put on the SWAT show in the first place until/unless a real emergency has been established. Don't worry about those "precious seconds," a REAL emergency never eats up very many of them in establishing itself.
EDIT: Here's a question the media isn't really asking. Shouldn't 911 be able to tell when a call is coming from nowhere near the crime scene? It's highly unlikely that the prank caller just happened to be in the same neighborhood as the victim. Even with a cell phone, what are the odds it was a local area code and can't they even trace cell phones these days without having to "hack" anything?
Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies. (76th Rule of Acquisition)