So the police bear no responsibility ?
Perhaps it would simplify things if the air force had a web form that you could just call up an airstrike ?
Scumbag who phoned in a Call of Duty 'swatting' that ended in death pleads guilty to dozens of criminal charges
One of three people charged over the December 2017 “swatting” death of 28-year-old Andrew Finch in the US has pleaded guilty. Tyler Barriss, 25, was indicted in May for making a bogus 911 call to police in Wichita, Kansas, urging officers to send out a SWAT team. As a result, on December 28, the cops showed up outside Finch's …
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 07:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
The gun laws laws, where everyone can just unexpectedly draw a gun,
Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police? Are they supposed to go in with tanks and an airstrike? After all the suspect is known (there is no likely there) to possess military issue infantry weapons. Does Canadian police shoot first and ask questions later? They have comparable amount of guns per capita. Do not even get me started on the amount of weaponry floating around some places in Eastern Europe. I used to live in an apartment block where we were the only family without firearms. The guy under me had a Dragunov, the guy above me an AK47. That still does not make police go out and kill people at random.
This is a USA specific issue. It is the only country in the world where the cops never ever try to defuse any situation. They go in "to deliver justice" and they do it instead of court. While it was bad as far back as I can remember (all the way to the few years I spent there as a student), it became really bad under Bush.
Bush allowed the army to offload surplus military gear to local police departments and local police departments to undergo ARMY training. There is a massive difference between ARMY training and police training in all of the civilized world. ARMY training is how to kill first, do it more efficiently and it always presumes the other side combatant. It is to kill. Civilian police training is always to DEFUSE. That is the training the rest of the world gets. If a cop, however, does that in USA, he gets fired. Just like that:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/12/stephen-mader-west-virginia-police-officer-settles-lawsuit
By the way, as long as USA does not fix that it has no entitlement to explain others what is a democracy, how to run it and what are human rights.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 08:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
"Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
Despite the number of rifles around, Switzerland is culturally very different from US - and its gun laws are still far more restrictive, despite the number of rifles given to "militia" personnel - still, now without the ammunition. Concealed carrying permission is not easy to obtain, and even buying ammunition requires checks - so you're not really afraid someone will extract a gun from his trousers - living close to the Swiss border and having traveled there often, you don't see guns around, they don't carry around their ordnance rifles, and criminality levels are very low.
Laws were made more stringent when Switzerland entered the Schengen agreement, as it permits Swiss to travel to other countries with stricter laws without border checks.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 10:38 GMT Voland's right hand
Re: "Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
Switzerland is culturally very different from US.
Correct. The US used to be in a league of its own. A lovely combination of brainwashing children about their moral superiority over everyone else from kindergarten onwards and guns all over the place.
That is now no longer the case. They have been joined by Russia as of late.
The Russians have switched from "think of how you can improve and what you are doing wrong" school doctrine to a similar "Nation Guided by Divine Providence" brainwashing style ~ 15 years ago courtesy of Vlad and his helpers.
They are now reaping what they sow. From virtually ZERO school weapon incidents they are up to a Columbine every few months. The sole distinction is that they still have better STEM education so when their kids mix up bombs they explode - as they did in Kerch (and failed in Columbine).
Give it a decade for the brainwashed generation brought up with the doctrine of Divine Providence to grow up and you will get workplace incidents as in USA as well.
They also now have their own pro-gun organizations too which are working together with the NRA as well. In fact they are becoming USA's spitting image in this one as well (anyone who has lived in both places will tell you that there are plenty of other areas too).
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 21:13 GMT bombastic bob
Re: "Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
@Voland's right hand
I won't even bother to quote from your post.
So, how's that "illegal to carry a knife" thing working out in London these days? Did it make ANY difference? Or is it just unnecessarily restricting those who might need one for some reason... or just simply WANT one.
I suspect it's 100% ineffective, just like EVERY OTHER "liberal solution" to crime. It doesn't affect criminals. They're scoff-laws anyway. It only affects the rest of us.
(although some of us, including me, don't need a knife or a gun to kill, so are HANDS going to be banned next? most people might need a weapon to properly defend themselves, because a cop can't be everwhere)
but yeah the main disadvantage of a knife or a gun is the fact that a skilled martial artist could TAKE IT AWAY [and then use it on THEM].
And, only 'sheeple' that have been cowed into NOT FIGHTING BACK [and then banning any means of self defense for anyone else] would want the carrying of reasonable self-defense weapons to be BANNED.
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Monday 14th January 2019 13:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
So, how's that "illegal to carry a knife" thing working out
It's not actually outright illegal to carry a knife, or other blade. There are in fact exemptions for reasonable purposes. I've wandered around London, and many other towns and cities carrying a sword or a firearm and have chatted with (and posed for photos with) police whilst doing so without the slightest trouble. On the other hand, i'm doing it dressed in what is legally classed as historic national costume for the purposes of historical re-enactment.
On our side of the pond you generally don't need weapons for defense. The only people carrying them by large are drug dealers and gangs supplying drugs. And yeah, if they get found carrying a blade then they could end up doing prison time for it in the finest Al Capone tradition. By far and by large, the only people wanting to be armed "for self defense" are drug dealers et al.
As noted, I have worn a sword and carried firearms in public for the purposes of historic reenactment. I would not be interested in carrying them for the purposes of "self defence" any more frequently than I do now. Whom would I be defending myself from?
The only threats would be the other people carrying weapons around in public like toys "cos it's cool, init" who have zero training on how to employ said weapons, zero interest in learning weapon safety and like waving them around to show them off to their mates. It'd be considerably more hazardous than simply keeping things the way it is at the moment.
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Monday 4th February 2019 09:44 GMT warmndry
Re: "Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
Wow, you actually believe you can carry knives unrestricted in USA. I can tell you it varies from state to state on what knives are restricted but every state in USA has some laws restricting the possession of knives. In addition to the laws of each individual state there is a Federal law banning switchblade knives, (sometimes called automatic opening knives).
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Sunday 1st September 2019 14:46 GMT Mark192
Re: "Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
"how's that "illegal to carry a knife" thing working out in London these days? Did it make ANY difference?"
It makes a significant difference, though I'm unsure whether the current knife crime headlines reflect the restricting of the police's stop and search policy or a moral panic by the gutter press. As ever, I suspect a combination of factors.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 10:00 GMT Chz
Re:Army vs Police training
"There is a massive difference between ARMY training and police training in all of the civilized world. ARMY training is how to kill first, do it more efficiently and it always presumes the other side combatant. It is to kill. Civilian police training is always to DEFUSE."
That's not even the case everywhere outside of the US. British forces are considered to be the best in the world at military police actions, precisely because of the lessons learned in Northern Ireland. They are most definitely trained to defuse a situation before shooting, when the opportunity presents itself. Canadian soldiers are most likely to find themselves on UN Peacekeeping duties and train in much the same way. I suspect it's also the case in many of the smaller European countries that play an active role in UN operations.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 10:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
" It is the only country in the world where the cops never ever try to defuse any situation."
I realise (hope) you're exaggerating to make a point but a quick look on the PoliceActivity channel on youtube will prove that a lie. What it shows - even though its probably curated by the authorities - is that there are some good cops working in the USA who don't shoot first. Perhaps they're a minority, I don't know, but don't tar all of them with the same brush.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 21:06 GMT bombastic bob
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
@AC and others...
"pandering to the perception" (U.S. cops being trigger happy murderers waiting for an excuse, and gun rights being an 'enabler' for them to 'be that way') might make you *feel* better, but it's neither TRUE nor HELPING.
And in my opinion FEELINGS are IRRELEVANT.
More often than not, guns STOP crimes.
But then again, *anything* can kill you, especially that Di-hydrogen Monoxide stuff - it's *EVERWHERE* !!!
^^^ if you don't see the correlation, then I pity you.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 12:58 GMT Mark Dempster
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
>"pandering to the perception" (U.S. cops being trigger happy murderers waiting for an excuse, and gun rights being an 'enabler' for them to 'be that way') might make you *feel* better, but it's neither TRUE nor HELPING.
And in my opinion FEELINGS are IRRELEVANT.
More often than not, guns STOP crimes.<
Speaking as one of the relatively few people in the UK who shoots in a number of different disciplines (and even trained as a gunsmith many years ago) I can hardly be accused of being anti-gun; but your statement that guns stop crime is, despite being peddled by Trump supporters everywhere, absolute hogwash. There may be a small number of occasions when it's been the case, but it's the simple widespread availability of very dangerous hardware - and lack of suitable checks/restrictions - that is the root cause of the USA's problems with gun violence. It's why these things happen more in the USA than elsewhere.
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Friday 16th November 2018 20:14 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Sure, that is an exaggeration.
"Seems US police forces are only trained to fire first if the suspect is black. For white people they often do try to defuse first."
That's been found to be very inaccurate. According to the stats, "white" people are shot more often both in total numbers AND as the number per 100,000 in the population. The difference is what gets reported in the news and the rioting/burning and looting of neighborhoods that can occur afterwards.
In certain low-income and predominately black neighborhoods the numbers will look much different, but it's very easy to find a place on the map where your assertions might be valid. Just not when you zoom out and look at bigger regions. Take a look at Chicago and the number of police shooting incidents involving a black suspect is pretty low. Especially when compared to the number of black people shooting each other. The days that make the new are the rare ones when there HASN'T been a gang shooting/killing.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 10:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
Sorry, but that just isn’t true. The ROE (rules of engagement) used by the ARMY (dunno why that’s capitalised, it’s not an acronym) in Iraq and Afghan are far, far more restrictive than anything the cops use in CONUS, and the penalty for violating the ROE far harsher.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 01:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
Sorry, but that just isn’t true. The ROE (rules of engagement).
Correct again. However you missed not one, but TWO points.
1. The cops are getting NO ROE training while getting the shoot-em-up programme of what is considered the MOST TRIGGER HAPPY ARMY IN THE WORLD.
2. Even if they had ROE training as per their ROE training anyone with a gun or suspected to have a gun is a hostile so they apply the standard approach US ARMY applies to a hostile. That approach can be generally described as "thanks god they are not armed with sub-1Kt nukes"(*)
(*)though it looks like Trump is about to fix that.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 18:58 GMT TheVogon
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
"Sure, so where does that put let's say Swiss police?"
Gun in Switzerland are commonly from national service so the owner is trained in use and gun safety, and those guns are generally securely stored separately from ammunition. So it's really not an issue compared to selling them at supermarkets and letting any gung-ho idiot own one...
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Friday 1st March 2019 08:36 GMT fajensen
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
The Swiss government makes the Swiss citizens take "their" infantry weapons out in muddy fields and rainy weather for a refresher in military training six weeks every two years, I believe. They even get to take them back each day and clean the bastards to the satisfaction of the drill sergeant (who might also be your boss at work, or that guy from HR, so you can't give him any lip).
My Swiss colleges all assure me that after a few rounds of that, Guns and Gun ownership are not seen as a glorious thing to be treasured!
PS:
20% of the Swiss population are rejected for military service, these don't get any guns and they get 3% extra taxes. Considering how things are in the USA, perhaps it is those 20% of the "unfit for service" population (which is probably found to be a relatively constant value across any population, an assumption I can readily justify just by looking around the office .... ) are also the gun owners that makes the headlines?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Switzerland
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 11:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
"An unarmed Brazilian plumbers wearing a very thick coat in summer ( potentially hiding a suicide vest ), jumping over turnstiles and running away from the police, ignoring calls to stop."
And working in the UK illegally. The guy was a criminal, just not one who deserved to die, but given the situation and his very odd behaviour the police were left with little choice.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 12:50 GMT xeroks
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
according to pretty detailed wikipedia entry, "...evidence that emerged during the course of the criminal trial into the Health and Safety charge showed that Menezes was lawfully in the country on 22 July 2005."
The same article doesn't say he was criminal, despite mentioning the various theories why he ran onto the train.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 11:23 GMT Mooseman
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
"While it was a cock-up, it was an understandable one"
Very unfortunate for the individual involved but let's also not forget that it was on the same day that tube trains and buses had been blown up by terrorists, and the police were very jumpy.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 12:30 GMT Will Godfrey
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
Well said.
I'm actually astonished that there are still people who still believe Dick's bare-faced outright lies - If ever someone was well named it's that apology for a woman - who incidentally has been 'punished' by being made the boss of the MET.
You couldn't make it up!
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 12:37 GMT Jason Bloomberg
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
An unarmed Brazilian plumbers wearing a very thick coat in summer ( potentially hiding a suicide vest ), jumping over turnstiles and running away from the police, ignoring calls to stop.
That was all proven to be lies. Along with the lie of the police claiming that the CCTV was not working when it was.
This is why Fake News and Alternative Facts are so dangerous. Or lies and demonisations as we used to call them.
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Thursday 22nd November 2018 11:41 GMT chris street
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
@disgustedoftunbridgewells
Menezes wasnt wearing a thick coat, he didn't run, he didnt jump the turnstiles, and he wasnt called to stop.
He was also in the country legally.
You'd know all that if you'd bothered to check the basic information instead of listening to the lies from Ian Blair, which he retracted.
Whats really worrying is that the Dick that made the poor decisions is now in charge of the Met!
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Friday 1st March 2019 08:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
Whats really worrying is that the Dick that made the poor decisions is now in charge of the Met!
Could be worse, one suppose. It seems like, if one is totally an all-in fuckup one will rise to sit in parliament and "run the country" and if one is a crook, then one gets a "Sir" added to ones name!
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Saturday 17th November 2018 13:05 GMT NonSSL-Login
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
You could count the shooting mistakes by UK police over the last 20 years on a single hand.
Even when you consider the population difference of the UK and US, the amount of bad US police shootings a month probably surpasses the last 2 decades of bad UK shootings.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 13:24 GMT NoneSuch
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
Gun laws and proper use of deadly force have nothing to do with each other.
The police shot a man because he dropped his hands to his sides with no weapon visible. Police TRAIN for this over and over. Nervousness should not enter into it. Use of deadly force has a hard series of parameters that must be met BEFORE pulling the trigger. The US police are simply trigger happy with a "shoot first and ask questions" attitude with little repercussion when they screw up. To the same argument, they also choke out unarmed suspects, then fail to render CPR once unconscious, resulting in death.
The US is on a slippery slope. In the US, 'suspicion' is enough grounds to arrest someone, then hold them almost indefinitely. They can seize your money / property and you then have to prove it was not gained through criminal activity to get (only part of) it back. Federal law enforcement can lie to you without blowback, but lying to a federal official is a felony and can result in up to one year in jail. Their prosecutors hide evidence that undermine the defenses cases, they threaten the innocent with 30 year sentences unless you plead guilty to reduce that sentence and the government protects them. They are becoming a lost people.
The idiot that picked up the phone and called in a false report holds part of the blame, but responsibility for shooting an unarmed man falls squarely on the police. They are supposed to protect the citizenry.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 08:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
call up an airstrike ?
How many airstrike hit the wrong target because woefully wrong information? While it looks that US cops always fire first and assess the situation later, it's also true that this time they were lured into a situation very hard to manage for both parties - one that believed to be facing someone who already murdered a man and held hostages that could be also killed, the other that obviously and unluckily couldn't understand what was happening at all, and thereby had a big chances to act in the "wrong" way.
Frankly, I hope to never find myself in such a situation, on either side, because the chances of a tragic ending are very high. Firing to disable someone without life-threatening injuries is very difficult (but in movies or games, of course) - if you don't achieve it, and someone has time to re-enter the house and kill the hostages, it's your fault - of course when you have to think that there are hostages in danger.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 17:53 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
It remains to be seen.
The county DA decided (not quite four months after the shooting) not to bring charges. So there won't be any criminal liability for the police officers involved in Finch's murder.
However, the last I heard, the family was still pressing a Federal civil rights and/or wrongful death suit (various news agencies have conflicting reports) against the police department.
In the US, frankly, a civil action like this is far more likely to be brought, and to succeed, than criminal charges against the police. Because of the adversarial nature of the US judicial system and the predominance of plea bargains rather than trial convictions, prosecutors have extremely close ties to the police forces. (See The Chickenshit Club for more background.) Couple that with the fact that the various local and state prosecutorial offices are now widely treated as stepping-stones to higher political office, and the candidates that emerge from them appeal to the "law & order" fear-fetishist rabble, and you can see why there are relatively few prosecutions (below the Federal level) of police officers and very few convictions.
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Friday 16th November 2018 20:20 GMT MachDiamond
Re: So the police bear no responsibility ?
"In the US, frankly, a civil action like this is far more likely to be brought, and to succeed, than criminal charges against the police."
That is because to convict somebody of a criminal charge (The State vs person), the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt". In a civil trial (person vs person or State), the bar is set lower and winning is "on the preponderance of the evidence". The awards in a civil trial are also money, so more blood sucking lawyers gravitate to that type of practice and the ones that are good in a court room build a reputation (and back account) for being able to sway juries.
There are bad cops, but many of them get pushed out long before they do something that makes the news. Most are pretty good and the worst that can be said is they lack compassion, but after a career dealing with people at their worst, they can hardly be blamed.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 06:35 GMT Anonymous South African Coward
Hostage situations...
Put yourself in the cops shoes.
What would you've done if you get a 911 call regarding a hostile hostage situation, you go out to try to defuse that situation.
Of course you'll have to ASSUME that ANYBODY walking out of the door is part of the hostile party, and if said person do things quite contrary to your orders (dropping hands when ordered to place his/her hands up) you'll shoot, questions asked later.
In this case the police merely acted as a proxy - so the person who originally did the swatting is guilty of "pulling the trigger by proxy". (If such a term do exist in law).
And IANAL.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 07:29 GMT Pascal Monett
Re: Hostage situations...
"Put yourself in the cops shoes"
Okay : I am pointing my gun at a man who has his hands up. I should be able to clearly see that he is not armed. His hands, for some reason (because he's innocent ?) go down (that's a mistake). I can :
A) Shoot
B) Shout at him to get his hands back up
Yes, the cops thought they were dealing with a violent guy, but I'd think you still need to see a weapon before feeling threatened.
All of this confirms what I think I will do if ever I find myself facing a bunch of US cops with their guns out for me: hands up, drop to my knees, hit the ground and spread-eagle. If they want to talk to me after that, I'll be listening, but I won't move until they tell me I can or come and cuff me.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 07:55 GMT Mine's a Large One
Re: Hostage situations...
And if I take option A) and shoot, I can:
1) Shoot to kill
2) Shoot to injure, because it doesn't look like he's armed, he seems confused as to why we're here, there have been those headlines about cops shooting the wrong person and maybe this guy is innocent.so injuring him is better than killing him.
Tough choice...
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 10:08 GMT Chz
Re: Hostage situations...
There are some exceptions (someone mentioned the Dutch police), but it is generally true that once the decision has been made to apply deadly force, then the officers are instructed to do exactly that. The problem is with how liberally the decision to apply that force is taken in the United States.
Their northern neighbours need to fill out a small notebook worth of forms every time they so much as draw their firearm. This is to enforce the rule that you do not draw your firearm unless you fully intend to use it. And any situation that requires the use of deadly force should generate a lot of paperwork. This rolls back now to the issue of "shoot to wound" - abandoning such notions is to protect the officer. We have to assume that a trained officer of the law (well, outside of the US) will not draw their weapon unless it is needed, and if it is needed they must go for the shot that provides the greatest chance to disable, or indeed kill the threat. Shoot for the torso. It makes sense.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 08:48 GMT taxythingy
Re: Hostage situations...
It looks like the problem starts with drawing one's weapon. When your really really southern not-really-neighbours get to this point, they start by drawing their key, going to the boot of the car, unlocking the safe inside it, and then drawing their weapon. If it got that far. Otherwise they just pull back and call in the specialists. Most of the bollocks gets solved well before then.
Confrontations don't typically escalate to drawn weapons, because almost no-one - crims or police - goes into them with the expectation of having a gun drawn immediately.
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Thursday 15th November 2018 08:04 GMT Mine's a Large One
Re: Hostage situations...
@AC "Once the decision has been made that deadly force is required..."
Well if deadly force is "required" - which implies it is going to happen anyway - why bother shouting orders for hands up or lie face down? Surely they'd may as well kill him as soon as he's out of the house.
And who decided that "deadly force was required" without knowing any actual facts about the situation, other than an unverified phone call from an unverified source with no verified evidence of any wrongdoing having taken place? I'd be hauling their arse up in court for murder as well.
I'd have thought that taking someone down with non-lethal force was just common sense. Maybe I'm just getting old.
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Wednesday 14th November 2018 09:25 GMT A.P. Veening
Re: Hollywood bollocks
Dutch police are trained to shoot at the legs and they aren't the best trained shooters in Europe, not by a long shot (pun unintentional but fitting). Sometimes it isn't possible or safe to do, in which case they shoot at the body and even then they mostly manage to miss the heart by not aiming at it, but a single bullet is usually sufficient. Just compare that with the average of five lethal body shots by the American police. America, nice place to stay away from. And that is besides the stunts the Border Security Goons pull at the airports.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
