Two More Gamers May Be Charged in Fatal Kansas 'SWAT' Shooting (kansas.com) 170
A newly-released affidavit reveals that money was at stake in a game of Call Of Duty: World War II which led to the fatal real-life police shooting of Andrew Finch. The Wichita Eagle reports:
Investigators learned that Shane Gaskill, who lives in Wichita, was involved in an online video game with other people when he accidentally [virtually] shot and killed one of his teammates in the online game. The teammate who was killed in the game became "extremely upset" and began talking trash to Gaskill, the affidavit says. The dispute escalated until the teammate, who the document identifies as Casey Viner of North College Hill, Ohio, threatened via Twitter to "SWATT" Gaskill, according to the affidavit. Gaskill replied, "Please try some s---." He then posted the address...
Viner "is considered a suspect in several 'swatting' incidents in Cincinnati," reports the Los Angeles Times, adding that prosecutors are still deciding whether these two gamers should also face criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Kansas officials have been informed that the third gamer who actually made the phone call, 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, matches the voice on a fake 2015 bomb threat, and is already the subject of an open investigation by an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Viner "is considered a suspect in several 'swatting' incidents in Cincinnati," reports the Los Angeles Times, adding that prosecutors are still deciding whether these two gamers should also face criminal charges.
Meanwhile, Kansas officials have been informed that the third gamer who actually made the phone call, 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, matches the voice on a fake 2015 bomb threat, and is already the subject of an open investigation by an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.
the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the guy who committed the [real] murder on an unarmed man going to be charged? Or is that workplace mistake?
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If you think the officer will go to jail over this you need to look at the seemingly constant stream of stories of police shootings of unarmed people being either not charged or acquitted.
I would bet 1000 dollars he wont be convicted of anything. Probably wont even get fired.
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The catch is they can not charge the criminal pranksters for the murder or anything associated with it because the idiot law enforcers went to the wrong address and they chose to murder someone at the wrong location, so pretty much a random killing. Sure those criminal prankster made the call and they should be penalised and fined for that call ie wasting public resources but they did not send anyone to the wrong address nor did they panic at that location and kill someone nor are the responsible for shit t
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I would treat this as the officer's lucky day. Any other killing and he'd be charged, but because it was a hoax, he should go free.
This means the charge filters to the actual gamers themselves.
You may think "but what about the cop? He'l
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Or we could charge the idiots that made the call and the bigger idiot that shot and killed an innocent man.
No fucking mulligan, he didn't have to shoot, he chose to shoot and he needs to face prosecution for his illegal lethal assault.
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly there are more then one problem here.
1. Problem of people swatting others.
2. The police jumping to a swat for these calls
3. The action of the swat police who shot an unarmed man.
4. The person who chose to swat them
5. Taking games so seriously that such retribution is considered.
6. The faults in the 911 to allow for anonymous false calls.
There are a lot of problems going on here. However arresting the guy charged for one of them is a step. However the biggest fear is after they get the guy and charge the. Is case closed with all the other problems still in effect
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I hope they charge Viner with the same crimes as Barriss, those two were in a conspiracy to swat that house and who actually made the call is of minor importance. I don't see Gaskill being charged with anything, if you taunt someone that's generally not a crime even if the taunted person injuries somebody else in the process of attacking you.
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That's a separate issue. He should be charged, as well at the person who made the call. Neither should be out of prison before they have gray hair.
Yeah, we'll focus on your first comment here. There will be plenty of officers who will keep the spotlight on the caller and everyone else involved as they attempt to dismiss an action that ended a mans life as a "separate issue" until it is long forgotten by the public.
I'll bet money the actions of SWAT get swept under the rug. Watch and see.
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
Would shooting someone who may have been a hostage without taking the time to find out who he was constitute gross misconduct?
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The only hostages according to the phone call where his mother and sister. In other words women. The person that walked out was male.
The police officer should probably not be a police officer any longer but no he will not get charged. It was reasonable for him to think that lives where at risk.
I find the police hate to be really annoying. Let me explain the concept of intent to you. The officer was intending to save the lives of two hostages. The SWATTER was intending to put people lives at risk for the LO
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The victim was ordered to surrender and was raising his hands (unlike certain, ahem, Michael Brown). What possible reason was there for shooting him?
Seriously, forget putting yourself in the victim's place — put yourself in the cop's place... And think, what could the victim have done differently to avoid being shot at? And if you can't blame him for anything, then you h
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He reached for his waistband... Where a lot of people tend to put guns.
What could he have done? Kept his hands up. But what could have prevented it?
If the SWATTER never called the called the police setting the entire thing up.
Re: the (actual) shooter (Score:1)
Wait to see a weapon before firing a lethal shot. You worried the SWAT team didn't have tactical advantage of the situation? They did. They had every advantage one could have been afforded under this situation. And an innocent man is dead. Fail.
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Even more people keep their wallets there... For all you know, he more likely to be reaching for his ID. That all the other cops present held their fire is the best evidence possible, no threat could have been reasonably perceived. Unlike, perhaps, in the case of this unfortunate man [wikipedia.org].
That a "swatting" prank took place is completely irrelevant. Even if there was
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I find the police hate to be really annoying. Let me explain the concept of intent to you. The officer was intending to save the lives of two hostages.
Given the frequency of wrong-address SWAT raids, from whatever cause, shouldn't the training include accounting for the possibility that the person opening the door has no idea that a raid is being directed against him? Maybe not riddling the front-door-opener with bullets until you have definite indication that he's the bad guy? Like a kidnapper would just open the door in response to a raid, anyway.
I find the copsucking to be really annoying.
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
If we remove everything before and after, we have a person who is shouted at out of the blue and is told to do something. Most people would be surprised and not do what they are told.
Taking the context away doesn't make the officers reaction any better.
And the arguments from GP fall flat, too.
Why would anybody assume that the situation is exactly as described by the caller? The caller could have lied (he's a self-proclaimed murderer, after all). He could have been wrong assuming that nobody but him and the hostages were in the house. Some neighbor might have come around asking if everything is alright between the call and the arrival of the officers..
If the officers assumed they knew all about the situation just from the call they should be fired for incompetence.
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You failed to remain within the boundaries I set.
Don't do that.
You get a redo.
This time, work with the theory that everything that SWAT was told was true .
The perp did not comply and did assume a threatening posture.
Discuss.
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the SWAT team member was already aimed at the perp with his gun and literally only had to pull the trigger, I'd wait until the perp went form "threatening posture" to "actually has a gun out and was aiming it at someone" before pullng the trigger. Or, in the case that it's difficult/impossible to determine if he's got a gun (which implies a handgun or the like and he's not spending the several seconds to carefully line it up properly in front of him), wait until he actually fires because, oddly enough, given that everyone is several hundred feet away, there was about zero chance that any of the officers were seriously threatened even if he managed to fire several shots.
Now let's change the scenario a little and have two armed police officers who were actually near the door who could have, you know, arrested him without guns being their only real option. Oh, right, can't change the situation. We have to presume SWAT was the rational answer and their approach right up to the bullet coming out of the gun was rational. Couldn't just be that a person coming out of a house with a bright light flashing in his eyes would, in a few seconds, not be 100% cooperative. We also know that everyone has guns in their waistband.
*sigh* It's hard to argue simultaneously that SWATing is dangerous because there's a serious risk of death and that SWAT teams are actually a reasonable police force tool and not simple accidental death waiting to happen. If that's all SWAT is, then SWAT should be dismantled because there's something seriously wrong in having a whole police unit which by its nature will not deal with all the accidental deaths it causes regularly.
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wait until he actually fires because, oddly enough, given that everyone is several hundred feet away, there was about zero chance that any of the officers were seriously threatened even if he managed to fire several shots.
I wonder about this one. My assumption is that the person who fired was near to the door, and fired because they thought themselves or their team was in danger. My question is - given what they presumed they were getting into (a threatening situation), why did they immediately put themselves in a position where they would likely have to defend themselves?
It reminds me of that teenager flashing a fake gun at a park, and two officers show up to confront him. The driver of the patrol car stops the car less th
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a bullshit theory. If it we were to stipulate, what you ask as to, we wouldn't need the courts, judges, and juries. If everything the police are told by anonymous callers — and repeat to each other — is truth, then kill/lock up everyone of the accused...
Asking to model based on this "theory" of yours is like calculating a helicopter flight ignoring air-resistance... The proposed theory makes no sense.
The perpetrator of what?
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
This time, work with the theory that everything that SWAT was told was true .
No, I'm not going to talk about a imaginary scenario that is intentionally tilted in favor of the cops. I'm talking about the situation as it developed in reality, which left an innocent man dead.
The cops couldn't assume that they knew all about the situation, and they should have reacted accordingly, which would include the assumption that somebody innocent could come out of the door.
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"Why would anybody assume that the situation is exactly as described by the caller? "
He had to assume the worst case which is pretty much what was described on the phone.
I still do not get this police hate for this guy. The SWATTER committed an act with full malice. The police did not act with malice.
The law is would have a reasonable person thought that lives where in danger. The answer is yes. Frankly the Swatter should get charged with murder but in the state it happened the act of calling in a false rep
Re: the (actual) shooter (Score:1)
I'm the original AC who asked the question. It was an honest question. Even if the cop had justification to FEEL scared, so did the victim. Fact is he wasn't armed and he wasn't a threat. That is not justice. SWAT team had no proof of anything. They had "reports".
I just very simply can't imagine acting ANY better for the police than the victim did prior to being shot. You come up to my door in the late PM with bright lights and I'm confused and dazed I'm bound to do something (accidentally) that probably ge
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:5, Insightful)
Imminent threat to the guys behind bullet proof shields, heavily armed and wearing body armour?
Re:the (actual) shooter (Score:4, Insightful)
>The man on the porch not only failed to comply, but struck a pose of imminent threat.
No problem. Let's take a look at that. A man sees lights flashing outside and goes to his front door 'Hmmm, that's a bright light. What are they saying? I wonder who they're talking to.'
You want the man who has no idea who has no idea that he's an actor in the drama to present a certain way, when a policeman who's in no immediate danger, 50 yards away and wearing armour, surrounded by colleagues, who've all been drilled, and are looking at him through scopes so they can see he's got no rifle, to be excused but the victim to shoulder contributory blame.
No. Sorry. Not justified. Your rationale is both profoundly costly in the short run, and monstrously expensive in the long run.
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This kind of situation is precisely why good SWAT departments _practice_ telling friend from foe in training. How much time can an officer allocate for assessing targets on such a call? And how can they distinguish that?
Re: the (actual) shooter (Score:2)
How much time can an officer allocate for assessing targets on such a call?
That very much depends on the target. Sometimes you have loads of time, sometimes you don't even have two seconds. The latter is inherently going to cause innocent casualties in some situations. It doesn't matter how good your judgement, training, or tactics are; there are going to be situations in which you are going to have to make a split second decision, and some subset of those decisions are going to be wrong.
And then you'll end up on YouTube so that millions of morons can scream about how horrible
Re: the (actual) shooter (Score:2)
Because the gunman set up the situation, it's still not the police's fault for "failing to save them". It's the gunman's fault!
And it wouldn't be paraded around youtube, because it would just be a "terrible tragedy by a deranged killer".
If police were more worried about PR than about enforcing the law and saving lives, then yes, this would be an excellent strategy. Better yet, they could just stay inside their police stations playing solitaire, and then we would have a whole lot of tragedies and zero police shootings.
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Would shooting someone who may have been a hostage without taking the time to find out who he was constitute gross misconduct?
You're joking, right? The FBI does it all the time.
https://www.click2houston.com/... [click2houston.com]
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I don't care what the call sounded like. Are cops too stupid to use their own eyes and ears and what's between them? Or is it even worse than that?
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The gamer who made the swatting call was counting on them being so.
Re: the (actual) shooter and hillary for prison (Score:1)
The american prison system is one of the most insane in the world.
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Re: the (actual) shooter and hillary for prison (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh bullshit. There's not a friggin' twenty year old who doesn't know SWATTing is a terrible thing. None except psychopaths like these people.
As for "brain does not solidify until the early 20's". Again, bullshit. You are very purposefully conflating two very, very different things; the course of brain patterns and fucking intelligence and morals.
It's telling that you think a twenty year old is a child. Besides, the bastard was twenty-five. Outside your fake protective shield.
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Agreed, and I'll add that if parents actually parented instead of using various gaming devices as surrogate babysitters then we might not have this problem.
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The brain does not solidify until the early 20's.
In my experience, a person's brain solidifies when he gets a government job. When something like the swatting incident occurs, the owner of a solidified brain instinctually lashes out against everybody who was playing the game, regardless of whether they were actually involved in the swatting.
Re: the (actual) shooter and hillary for prison (Score:2)
I am against the death penalty. But your post is misinformed: The guy is 25 years old. Has multiple similar charges, spent time in prison.
He is old enough to take responsibility and has been given enough chances. Throw the f...ing book at him. 10 to 20 years should cool him off.
I do not agree with the US justice system to send people to prison for life that the US do not consider old enough to drink. I think that most of the punishments are way to hard even for older people.
But a 25 year old f.cker that got
Re: the (actual) shooter and hillary for prison (Score:1)
Because they caused an actually productive member of society to be shot and killed?
Over a video game?
They aren't even smart enough to target their actual enemy...they were never going to be worth anything.
Just drains on society.
Re: the (actual) shooter and hillary for prison (Score:2)
The brain does no such thing. Plasticity is a lifelong event that simply slows with age. Besides, that is a moot point because it only relates to how quickly your physical brain can learn new things and change habits, and the law isn't concerned with that, rather the law is concerned about whether you know that what you did was wrong at the time you did it. A 15 year old and a 30 year old have the same ability to know right from wrong. A reasonable person would easily be able to know that swatting would be
Re:You miss the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are both responsible for their own parts however there is one large difference: the swatter acted with malice. He intended harm.
The officer was responding as part of his job, how he handled it is a separate part of this fucked up situation.
LOL (Score:2)
The SWAT team clearly has a major attitude problem as well.
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Of course. This is a larger problem but the swatter part is unique to this case. :)
Usually the police are shooting people because of mistaken reports of threats not imaginary (*insert laugh or cry*)
Second LOL (Score:2)
There always has been prank calls. There always will be prank calls.
The only people that need to verify the situation on the ground is the paid people doing the work on the ground. The more force projected the more it needs to be checked. Simply upping the anti is going backwards.
Many people are in despair over the level of inhumanity being displayed by law enforcement. As someone here said, we may as well send the machines in. At least there is an excuse for being heartless then.
Re:You miss the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
The officer was responding as part of his job, how he handled it is a separate part of this fucked up situation.
The only final, irrevocable, irreparable act in the entire situation is the officer aiming his weapon at the victim and pulling the trigger. This was the ultimate go/no-go, life or death decision, and it was made incorrectly. If we are not going to hold the shooter responsible, we might as well just send a robot to execute every suspect. The human is there to not pull the trigger.
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If we are not going to hold the shooter responsible,
Why should the shooter be held responsible when the ONLY reason he was there was because of the moronic snowflake who made the call in the first place? Had the snowflake not gone off the deep end because of a simple game and made the call, none of this would have happened.
The only one responsible for this man's death is the coward who had done this same stunt several times before and gotten away with it.
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The cop showed up *on scene* as his job and duty demanded.
That he pulled the trigger and killed a completely innocent, unarmed man IS THE ONLY REASON WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THIS.
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Why should the shooter be held responsible when the ONLY reason he was there
Because fuck the reason he was at the premises and look at the purpose of him being there. It's not to shoot innocent men.
He should be held responsible because he fucking murdered someone.
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So if someone yells "FIRE!" in a crowded theater and people get trampled to death while attempting to exit, you would let the yeller go and prosecute people whose shoeprints are found on the dead, correct?
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So if someone yells "FIRE!" in a crowded theater and people get trampled to death while attempting to exit, you would let the yeller go and prosecute people whose shoeprints are found on the dead, correct?
No, I'd go after both, because both are shitheels. And that's exactly what I've advocated in arguments on this subject, time and again.
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Outside of Slashdotâ"a paranoid community of internet nerdsâ"nobody gives a shit about your opinion time and time again.
This is inside of Slashdot, and I'm literally being asked for my opinion.
The officer was doing his job, you are now bitching about how he wasnâ(TM)t doing it well enough from the safety of your home.
What safety?
Fuck off.
If you don't want to interact with me, literally all you have to do is stop. I think you have a problem.
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So if someone yells "FIRE!" in a crowded theater and people get trampled to death while attempting to exit, you would let the yeller go and prosecute people whose shoeprints are found on the dead, correct?
Yes, exactly. The yeller caused a disruption and ruined the show, but isn't responsible for killing anyone. Those who trampled others in their haste to exit did that. This isn't a case of acting innocently on the basis of false information—trampling others is the wrong answer whether or not the fire is real.
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I'm not trying to justify it. Obviously it was a bad call. But at the moment the cop pulled the trigger, the death wasn't certain - it merely became a lot more likely.
In this case, it was certain. And that's another issue. Cops have shit muzzle and trigger discipline. You are never supposed to point a gun at something until you are ready to kill it. That's how guns work. The most important safety is the person holding the gun not pointing it at things they don't mean to shoot.
But if that is our criterion, then we would also have to say that it also became a lot more likely when the SWAT team was sent in;
Yes. It did. But think about that for a minute. People swat people because SWAT teams have loose triggers. It's specifically because they are known to shoot people that they aren't supposed to shoot
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Still. The police involved will not be charged. There is no rioting or civil unrest to sacrifice an officer for.
Additionally, this development offers up more folks to share the blame, shifting the focus in the conversation from flaws in police tactical exploi
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Amusing because you could say excatly the same thing about the swatter.
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> he was just doing his job as trained
Yank cops are actually trained these days?
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So prosecution the murdering shit that pulled the trigger and maybe his colleagues will demand some proper fucking training.
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they get a bit of levity
We all like a good giggle at work, but most of us don't fucking laugh about the poor innocent cunt we just murdered.
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Then why the fuck is an innocent man dead?
You and I have very fucking different definitions for 'wrong'.
Game switch... (Score:1)
...from CoD WWII to GTA XXVI, prison VR3D odorama edition.
Caller ID, police attitudes, and punishment (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Caller ID - it's broken. Unauthenticated caller ID and caller ID spoofing should be treated as a crime since scam artists continue to take over unprotected VoIP gateways. Nothing should be connected to the PSTN without a certificate issued by the PSTN provider, period. This way there's at least some traceability and requires someone to have come on premises or seriously violated the chain of trust far beyond the skiddie level that these little bastards engage in.
2. Police attitudes - militarization of police is rampant with surplus war equipment like MRAPS, Hollywood movie style takedowns and insufficiently-vetted police officers with mental stability issues. Some modicum of rational assessment of a situation without automatically deploying people is necessary. Laser listening devices on windows, drones, or maybe just walking up to the door. It can't be break in, throw flashbangs and yell like a lunatic getting the innocent occupants to play Simon says until they can't comply and someone innocent gets shot any more.
3. Punishment - this one is simple. You SWAT, you get twenty years for each instance consecutive. Someone dies because of a swatting, you're guilty of murder and you get life imprisonment. But wait, you say you have some kind of mental disability? Well no problem, you'll just be committed to a mental facility until your condition is eliminated without drugs. Oh, and are you a provider of a gateway to the PSTN or other services that connect to police and don't work to get this done? You lose your license to operate.
So many people, including myself, are tired of this nonsense. Legislators, law enforcement and telecom companies need to start working together to prevent these things. Otherwise I say they should all be held complicit along with the perpetrators of SWAT incidents in the crimes. It is sheer lunacy that this hasn't been addressed at multiple levels yet.
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2: This seems to be the big problem. The police could have done one of seemingly countless things to avoid this. Asking someone to come outside with a fucking megaphone while you are behind a bullet proof shield seems fairly reasonable with 2 seconds of thought. Why does the military have stricter rules of engagement with non citizens than the police do with citizens?? Its crazy.
3: Punishing someone doesn't stop it happening. Sure he should be punished but the events would still have happened.
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3: Really? If any of these guys had been in jail for their previous SWATings or bomb threats, then Andrew Finch would still be alive.
It took repeat murder attempts, also called SWATings, before they successfully killed someone - and they could have been stopped at any time by the police and the courts taking these criminals seriously and punishing them for their crimes.
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seriously and punishing them for their crimes
Didn't work. Evidently Barriss had spent two years in jail for making bomb threats. But he was released early to relieve prison overcrowding.
It all comes down to the lack of responsibility on the part of state and local governments to contain their riff-raff. They need to pay for a large part of the damages here. And that payment needs to come out of the pockets or some of the pet projects in the liberal shitholes in CA. And when they ask where their new schools are or why their lights start to go off in t
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It all comes down to the lack of responsibility on the part of state and local governments to contain their riff-raff.
Much of our riff-raff moved here from out of state. Y'all can have them back. Also, if you only pursue the goal of locking up people who cause you problems, you're just going to have to keep locking people up. What about caring for their needs? We try to do that here in California, but it's difficult while we keep sending our tax money to the feds to be distributed to shithole states that hate us.
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What about caring for their needs?
Don't care.
And once all that 'out of state' riff-raff figures out that CA is no longer a deep pocket for GibsMeDats, they'll go back home.
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What about caring for their needs?
Don't care.
That's why we can't have nice things. Share your wealth with them, or they will share their poverty with you.
And once all that 'out of state' riff-raff figures out that CA is no longer a deep pocket for GibsMeDats, they'll go back home.
Even if we stopped caring for people in California, the weather would still keep them here. You can sleep in a ditch and not freeze to death in much of this state.
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We just stick them on a bus to So. Cal.
What's really bananas is that California is still in the black even while we have to carry the rest of you like this.
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Re: Caller ID, police attitudes, and punishment (Score:1)
I'm in California. We don't take care of their criminal desires to prevent repeats once governor rainbow lets them all out.
We do however provide free sex reassignment surgery, chemicals and therapy and a transfer to the women's ward for prisoners who woke up feeling like a woman that day because gender is non binary and fluid and they have a human right to be whatever gender they want everyday and it's my duty as a tax pay (sucker) to foot the bills.
This has nothing to do with bullshit about which states p
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Why does the military have stricter rules of engagement with non citizens than the police do with citizens?
Because the police must act (almost) instantly, engaging the bad citizens and protecting the good citizens, (usually) simultaneously - for the military it is much simpler: if we not get engaged by the enemy in their own terms, we will engage the enemy in our own terms... hopefully avoiding friendly/neutral losses.
I am a Greek. I have served (as a conscript - all Greek males must serve in the military) in the Greek Special Forces as a "free shooter" (a little less than a "sniper", and little more than a "des
Re: Caller ID, police attitudes, and punishment (Score:2)
The reality is that the really good shooters are not in the military but in the police.
I served, and I also trained with police "SWAT" type teams; in my experience this isn't really true. Police snipers are quite good; I guess you could argue that they might be better than military snipers, but at that level "better" means differences which are largely insignificant, so I would say that the two are on-par.
The rest of the cops I trained with were really nothing special; they train at short distances (200 meters or less) so, if anything, they seemed to be worse shooters than most of my guys.
T
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Its not the aiming of the officer that I think is subpar :)
Re: Caller ID, police attitudes, and punishment (Score:2)
I understand (please correct me if i am wrong) that the USA military has become (in the last couple of decades) more "POLICE/anti-terrorist" (like the Israeli military?), because of the type of the enemy you are against, so you must train harder in this "shoot accurately, shoot far away" and/or "clear the buildings/area" .
I'm actually Canadian, but yes, we as well as the Americans do tend to focus quite a lot on training for urban combat these days. It's not the same as what police have to do - what you wrote earlier about us having a lot more luxury to just sit back and call in artlery is definitely true - but we do use very similar techniques when it comes to house clearing.
You mentioned later in your comment that you've been out for about 2 decades which, I think, is the real difference between what you experienced and w
Re: Caller ID, police attitudes, and punishment (Score:2)
In our defense, the bulk of the Greek military are conscripts like me, so of lower quality (as you surely understand - you can't train ordinary people to be "soldier" enough, even if you press them hard), and training (that in the last decade last only 9 months...) must be about the real national enemy: a neighbor Muslim country with 8 times our population and a big conventional military.
Yeah, I absolutely understand that. National priorities come first. It's unfortunate that Greece has to rely on conscripts to such an extent, but most NATO nations (including my own) have been underfunding their standing armies thanks to the safety blanket provided by the Yanks. I've worked with Brits, Aussies, Germans, French, Sweedes ... we all do very well with what we have, but if it ever came to a major war we just don't have the manpower or the equipment to do much without the US leading the way.
but still they don't really emphasize it as it is just for keeping NATO generals happy - i think you understand...
Ye
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Who were they protecting?
"When police arrived, they shot and killed 28-year-old Andrew Finch after he exited the residence and reached toward his waistband."
It sounds like from the reporting that they were defending themselves. Even if he had a gun, there was no hostages there.
This is why I ask why police can shoot at someone first when generally the military have to be fired at first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Surely the police should try their own citizens with more caution than non citizens (not th
Re: (Score:2)
1. Wouldn't work. Any halfway-intelligent SWATer has a library of low-tech ways to make an untraceable call. There's a piece of archaic technology called a 'payphone' for a start. If that's not available, you just need a ladder - it's easy to climb a pole and hook into a random pair of wires up there. Besides, there are times when there are legitimate reasons for wanting to deliver an anonymous message.
2. Is the real area where reform is needed.
3. No threat of punishment will deter idiots. They think themse
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1. Yes, no system is unbreakable. But the barrier of entry needs to be raised to rule out the halfway intelligent.
2. No question reform is needed, but as has been pointed out by many posters in this story, the police lacked the intent to do harm. Its just like a gun / weapon. The gun lacks intent / motive. The person wielding the weapon has the far bigger share of the blame. Taking away the weapon will just cause the person with intent to reach for a different weapon.
3. Threat of punishment may not deter
Let's not forget underfunding (Score:2)
What about the triggerman? (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, the one who actually shot an unidentified person.
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What if this is a conspiracy to commit murder? Would you SWAT your friend if he shot you in a video game? Sounds unlikely because players die thousands of times in these FPS games and it's no big deal. What if this is three people conspiring to murder someone using SWAT then lying that it was "nothing," a prank. Why should anyone believe liars? The SWATer, Bariss, is an expert liar as you can tell in his 911 call. The police believed him and killed someone.
Bottom line: what solid evidence exists that this i
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If you were to line up the people in order of their responsibility for the result, he'd be in the lineup, but at the back, behind the people responsible for his hiring and training him. Also the people responsible for militarizing the police force.
SWAT was popularized in the 60s due to fear of political unrest by minorities. LA forrmed its squad -- immensely influential because of its impact on popular entertainment -- in the wake of the Watts riots. One of the earliest uses of SWAT was against peaceful
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If you were to line up the people in order of their responsibility for the result, he'd be in the lineup, but at the back, behind the people responsible for his hiring and training him. Also the people responsible for militarizing the police force.
If that's true, then you might as well send drones to shoot people in the face. But wait, the guy behind the trigger is there to not pull the trigger when pulling the trigger is not warranted. If all we wanted was the trigger pulled, we could use a sentry gun.
In my book, here's the order in which we should assign blame: #1 is the trigger man, he aimed the weapon and pulled the trigger. #2 is the swatter, he made the fraudulent phone call. #3 is the police industrial complex that encouraged the trigger man t
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Straw man much?
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Believe it or not, the police don't seem to think they should be killed in the line of duty, and take actions to reduce the chance of that happening.
I think you'll find that most of the populace agree with the police on this, and have no issue with them mitigating the risks they face.
That doesn't excuse unnecessary use of force, unnecessary use of lethal force or fucking murdering a man stood in his own doorway following police instructions.
If there is any hint of corruption they are all to blame.
When the police stop tolerating the corruption amongst their own ranks people may stop believing their all corrupt.
Who is at fault? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is the focus on these gamers? Yes they are probably losers who have no life but that doesn't change the fact the SWAT team murdered this guy not some gamer or a phone call to police. This should ignite a debate about how the police continue to militarize and raid (often times the wrong place) people homes. What happened to police putting their life on the line to save innocents? This POS cop murdered an unarmed man because he wasn't willing to risk his life for innocents. The police are the problem. Give a monkey and hammer and inevitably he will beat another monkey to death with it.
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Isn't the whole point of having police to enable law abiding people to live peacefully?
And a man who asked for no more than to live peacefully is fucking dead.
Go ahead, defend that.
Do we have to accept the occasional error whereby somebody who has absolutely no idea what is going on is killed, or the occasional error whereby someone in an armed force who know exactly what is gong on is killed?
Do we or do we not send soldiers to places in the full knowledge a good number of them won't come back?
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Go after phone companies too... (Score:2, Interesting)
This shit called spoofing numbers needs to be fixed.
A false call to the police shouldn't cause death (Score:5, Insightful)
The systemic problem here is that it shouldn't be possible for a false call to the police to put someone's life at risk.
I've got a teenage daughter who likes exploring abandoned buildings. (There are whole websites dedicated to this [detroiturbex.com], and we're thinking about taking a trip to go on some of the tours at that link.) A couple of years ago she and a friend were picked up by the police as they were leaving one.
When I went in to pick her up, an officer gave her a lecture about how dangerous it could be. "We could show up and think there are drug dealers or gang members in there and you could get shot."
Hold on there! You're telling a teenager that something is dangerous, and it's not the drug dealers or gang members she should be worried about, but the police? On the one hand, thanks for the honesty. But Jesus Tap-dancing Christ don't you think that indicates a problem?
Violent video games do not increase violence (Score:1)
Slashdot posted the study the other day. This is unbelievable.
Everyone involved should be eternally teamkilled (Score:1)
As a gamer, I hope their eventual probation or parole involves every gamer they come in contact with teamkilling them mercilessly and twich'ing every single instance.
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As a gamer, I hope their eventual probation or parole involves every gamer they come in contact with teamkilling them mercilessly and twich'ing every single instance.
Obviously these kids aren't mature enough to play multiplayer games, and should have that right taken away from them. It's not even in the constitution, and rights which are in there are taken away from people all the time.
If these children can't play games without escalating to swatting, or giving someone else's address to a swatter because ha ha won't this be fun, then they shouldn't get to play games.
And the caller is known to help people swat (Score:2)
To complete the summary... The actual caller, Tyler Barriss from LA, had a history of helping people perform swattings, and so appears to have helped Casey Viner by calling in the swatting on the made-up but real address in Kansas where the guy ended up being killed. Given Barriss' apparent history, including bomb threats, *two dozen* swattings or hoax calls, he really should have already been in jail.
While I agree with others that the action of the police are insane and should be punished, one should ke
Single shoot was fired! (Score:1)
The officer likely fired accidentally because he used poor trigger control.
No other shoots were fired; therefore, the other police did not see reason to fire.
Even, the one officer that fired did not fire a second bullet.
This is a case of poor firearm training in the area of trigger control!
Tim S.
Hammer them (Score:2)
Ignoring the issue that cops seem to (a)see guns when there are none and (b)lie their asses off to cover up fellow officers misdeeds - motherf***ers that intentionally send a bunch of amped up, over militarized, SOCOM wannabes to someone's house deserve either attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder charges and sentences.
It's so godd*** chickensh** and the odds are ridiculously high (again because of endemic police problems) that someone is going to get seriously injured or killed.
Gaskill is morally responsible, but criminally? (Score:2)
While Shane Gaskill (the guy who gave out "his" address in the chat), is morally responsible, barring any evidence that he had a gripe with the people at that address it is a real stretch to suggest he could face criminal charges for his role in the events.
OTOH, Gaskill is a resident of Wichita. Did he have a reason to choose that particular "fake" address in Wichita?