Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

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Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:51 pm

This is a wholly fucked-up and repugnant story. A couple of gamers were playing Call of Duty and got into an argument. One threatened to swat the other (meaning call the police with a fake crime) so the one being threatened gave a fake address. The other used it to "report" a shooting and hostage situation.

The cops show up to this completely innocent man's house (remember, he wasn't even part of the gaming spat that started this mess, just the unfortunate owner of an address someone made up) and shoot him dead as soon as he opened the door. Cue the usual ass-covering bullshit!
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:57 pm

How the hell do you get to the point where a $1-2 transaction on fucking Call of Duty of all things is worth killing someone over?
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:15 pm

Deathclaw_Puncher wrote:How the hell do you get to the point where a $1-2 transaction on fucking Call of Duty of all things is worth killing someone over?


“I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION,” a gamer identified as the prankster tweeted, before Twitter shut down his account.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby sunglasses » Fri Dec 29, 2017 9:37 pm

Yeah, he was swatted.

Honestly, it was only a matter of time before someone died from a swatting incident (which the Verge said back in '13). And, look, I'm not the biggest "the cops are always right" person but with the information they had been given, that they had NO idea was false, they thought there was a dangerous hostage situation and were incredibly on edge. They are investigating it, and will be looking into the person ultimately responsible-the jackass who called in the false report.

Let's pull the pitchforks and torches back for now.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby satan_n_stuff » Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:05 pm

sunglasses wrote:Yeah, he was swatted.

Honestly, it was only a matter of time before someone died from a swatting incident (which the Verge said back in '13). And, look, I'm not the biggest "the cops are always right" person but with the information they had been given, that they had NO idea was false, they thought there was a dangerous hostage situation and were incredibly on edge. They are investigating it, and will be looking into the person ultimately responsible-the jackass who called in the false report.

Let's pull the pitchforks and torches back for now.

Is shooting a suspect on sight standard procedure nowadays?
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby sunglasses » Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:18 pm

Feels like it.

I'm not excusing that. I'm saying let's not try to demonize the incident without more information. It would appear, at first glance, that the officer was way too nervous and shot prematurely. That's without doubt (in my mind).

The part I was objecting over was the phrase that they'll be spinning it/covering it up.

So far, we don't know that.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Fri Dec 29, 2017 10:43 pm

sunglasses wrote:And, look, I'm not the biggest "the cops are always right" person but with the information they had been given, that they had NO idea was false, they thought there was a dangerous hostage situation and were incredibly on edge.


Yeah, no need to bother finding out whether it's even true or not, just storm in and start shooting! I'm sorry, but these cops had ZERO excuse to shoot this guy, not even the usual "this was a hostage situation and everyone was tense" because it fucking WASN'T, not even remotely! He didn't come out brandishing a "weapon," either. His mother has already gone on record as saying he doesn't even own a gun and just went to the door (unarmed) because he heard people out there. I think she was actually there, so this is not the usual "he's a good boy" drivel that comes out of everyone's mother.

Would you make similar excuses for a nurse who killed someone with unprofessional carelessness? If not (and I don't think you would) then what makes cops so seemingly understandable when they summarily execute an innocent man for opening his door? If they're legitimately that chickenshit scared of everything that moves, they shouldn't be cops, any more than a person who's horrible at dosage math should be a nurse.

sunglasses wrote:The part I was objecting over was the phrase that they'll be spinning it/covering it up.


For now, I'll withdraw that insinuation - time will tell. However, that's what they fucking DO, Sunny. Have you read the latest development in the Justine Damond shooting? The prosecutor claims he "needs more time" to determine whether there should be even misdemeanor charges for the cop who reached across his partner and gutshot a perfectly innocent woman to death through the open window of a police car. The police and court system absolutely DO NOT have a trustworthy reputation for conducting fair investigations and holding incompetent and/or abusive cops accountable for their actions, not even when an attractive, middle-class white woman (with no criminal record to insinuate the world is better off anyway) is dead.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby sunglasses » Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:10 pm

DamianaRaven wrote:
sunglasses wrote:And, look, I'm not the biggest "the cops are always right" person but with the information they had been given, that they had NO idea was false, they thought there was a dangerous hostage situation and were incredibly on edge.


Yeah, no need to bother finding out whether it's even true or not, just storm in and start shooting! I'm sorry, but these cops had ZERO excuse to shoot this guy, not even the usual "this was a hostage situation and everyone was tense" because it fucking WASN'T, not even remotely! He didn't come out brandishing a "weapon," either. His mother has already gone on record as saying he doesn't even own a gun and just went to the door (unarmed) because he heard people out there. I think she was actually there, so this is not the usual "he's a good boy" drivel that comes out of everyone's mother.



Again, they had no way of knowing that. Should they shot someone as soon as they open the door? Of course not. That me calling for cooler tempers in this thread seems to be interpreted as "Kill 'em all" is odd to me. But they had absolutely no way of knowing that there wasn't a situation since that was reported.

If I call the cops and tell them I've just killed my sister and I have a gun, they have no way of knowing if I've killed my sister and have a gun or not until they get there. Should they shoot first? Of course not. But should they waltz around assuming that I haven't shot my sister and have a gun to my mom's head? No, they shouldn't do that either.

This is a horribly tragic case but, again, the ROOT issue is that some asshat called a swat team and filed a false report to cause someone to have a swat team come to someone's house. That the other person involved gave a false address is equally frustrating. 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.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby SandTea » Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:20 pm

sunglasses wrote:I'm saying let's not try to demonize the incident without more information.


What information could possibly justify not demonizing this incident? As many cops have told me over the years, ignorance is not an excuse.

The part I was objecting over was the phrase that they'll be spinning it/covering it up.


I mean, fair enough if you want me to wait until that happens to call it out but it is going to happen. No one except maybe gamer boy is going to see any consequences for this. Besides the innocent murder victim, that is.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Fri Dec 29, 2017 11:31 pm

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?
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Lindvaettr » Sat Dec 30, 2017 1:38 am

Honestly, this seems like extremely bad police work, even ignoring that this guy was totally innocent and there was no hostage situation at all, as others have said. Not only did the police have no way of knowing if the person at the door was the hostage or the hostage taker, but how did they know there wasn't more than one hostage taker? What if the guy answering the door HAD been a hostage taker, and the other hostage takers had panicked when their buddy got shot, killed all the hostages, and opened fire from inside the house?

If the cop who pulled the trigger was so nervous, why was he even present? Why would you send an unprepared cop to so delicate a situation as a hostage rescue? It's called swatting because the goal is to get them to send a highly trained SWAT team, not some rookie traffic officer who starts shooting when he sees a door move.

We like to peg cops shooting people as racism, or insane aggression, or power trips, but this one seems a lot more like a police officer who was phenomenally undertrained and underprepared. Maybe it's the whole force. Maybe we should try training our police to use guns before we give them guns and send them after hostage takers.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Dec 30, 2017 2:39 am

Lindvaettr wrote:What if the guy answering the door HAD been a hostage taker, and the other hostage takers had panicked when their buddy got shot, killed all the hostages, and opened fire from inside the house?


Complications like this are exactly why "hostage negotiators" are supposed to be sent in the moment the word "hostage" is on the table. This entire operation violated even the most basic of tactical directives, from start to finish. Instead of admitting that this is an epic disaster that should NEVER have happened, their Designated Spokesdoofus is making excuses, which tells me that they have little (if any) intention of doing The Right Thing.

Another thing that's been bothering me about this. The other participant in the online spat claims that he just "made up a fake address." Seems like it would be VERY unlikely for someone to just make up a random address off the cuff and have it turn out to be a legitimate address. (Try it yourself and see how many addresses you have to make up before you get an exact hit.) This probably means one of two things: the kid actually researched his "fake address" in order to provide a real one that wasn't his, or he didn't even give an exact address and they just raided whichever place sounded closest to the "fake address" they were given. Of course, it's still possible that he just "lucked out" and created a perfectly correct address out of thin air, but I kind of doubt it. If nothing else, he should have tripped up on the HUGE assortment of things we call our streets - St, Ln, Rd, Blvd, Hwy, Cir, Ct, Way, Pl, Plz, Ter... and the list goes on.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:05 am

DamianaRaven wrote:
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.

Perhaps she was referring to you making the argument into a personal attack by asking her if she would make excuses for nurses.
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby sunglasses » Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:08 am

DamianaRaven wrote:

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?



Because, as linked in my one post, it's known that their are programs you can use on computer that will mimic the area code when calling 911.

And can you please stop linking to Justine Diamond? I'm well aware of the case and it's a completely different situation.

Pretty sure we have a thread on that, and again while it shouldn't have happened, it wasn't a reported hostage situation.

Tess, there was that, and the out of the door condemnation of all cops (whom I'm not a huge fan of but...still).
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Re: Police Instantly Kill Innocent Man Over Prank Call

Postby DamianaRaven » Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:23 am

Tesseracts wrote:Perhaps she was referring to you making the argument into a personal attack by asking her if she would make excuses for nurses.


That's a pretty low standard for "personal attack." It was personal, yes - and deliberately so - because she's a nurse, but how is it an "attack" to wonder if she would be so accepting of another nurse killing somebody because they were "on edge and had no idea that much drug would kill a person"? I made it VERY clear (check the parentheses - the stuff inside them counts) that I think she would NOT, so it's perfectly appropriate for me to wonder why cops get a pass like that and a fellow nurse would NOT. Just because it's an uncomfortable question without an easy answer doesn't mean I'm attacking her.
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