Man Updates His Facebook Status During Hostage Stand-Off

36-year-old Jason Valdez wouldn't let a little thing like a SWAT team keep him from updating his Facebook status. During a 16 hour hostage stand-off in an Utah motel, Valdez made sure to update his Facebook page with things like, "Got a cute 'Hostage' huh?" He even got help from friends who posted the location of SWAT members outside.

Re:So much for shutting off power.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I am not a LEO (but work with them), I can say that this is something they all thing about. Now, they don't often cut the power anymore, but they do run what the LEO's I work with call a "Trap and Trace" (I know, wrong term, but that's what they call it), which kills the data/SMS connections and forwards all outbound calls to a special hostage negotiator phone number. It works pretty damn well all things considered. At one convention I attended a vendor demoed a local-area cell jammer, which the FBI rep in the room quickly pointed out wasn't permitted by Local and State LEO's to use, and that only the FBI had permission to use cellular jammers. So... most likely, the Hostage Negotiations team will use the fact that there are cell phones in the room to the advantage, and are really happy when a hostage dials 911 from their phone and leaves an open channel for the Negotiations team to listen in to the room.

Again, Posting AC because I like my friends.

Re:Obstruction?

[gman003]

Correction: Body armor rarely stops rifle rounds. Most body armor will protect against pistol bullets, shotgun pellets, or artillery/grenade fragments. Even most military body armor is relatively useless against rifle rounds - police armor, definitely not. SWAT, perhaps, has armor that can stop an AK47 round (a rather slow-moving round for a rifle), but a common 5.56mm or 5.45mm will go right through it. And you can forget about any of the heavier rounds - there is NOTHING that will save you from a (civilian-legal in the US) .50BMG round, save being somewhere else while the shooting is going on.

Body armor's not magic. It can save you from a lot of stuff, the kind of stuff police and armies commonly encounter. Pistols - lightweight bullets, at relatively low velocity, and often designed to fragment on impact - are common and easy to protect from, since they have such low momentum to stop. Artillery kills mainly by fragments, which are also easily stopped. Same for grenades - movies and games massively understate the range on them: a fragmentation grenade can often kill someone half a football field away, if the tiny shards of metal fly in the right direction. But rifles? The most common light rifle round, 5.56x45mm, has 1800 joules of energy. The most common pistol round, 9x19mm, has 570-700 J, depending on make. That's a whole lot more energy to stop, and it's concentrated into a much smaller area (24mm^2 instead of 63mm^2).

Re:Obstruction?

[x6060]

Hello, There are some good information and bad information in your post. 1. SOFT body armor will not stop rifle rounds. Kevlar is virtually worthless (alone) against rifle rounds. Soft armor (assuming Level IIIA here) will stop most rounds up to and including .44 Magnum (Excluding a few rounds like 5.7mm and 7.62x25) rounds that are FMJ or JHP and of normal velocities. They will NOT stop anything steel cored. 2. SWAT and the military both employ Hard armor as well as soft armor. These are typically either steel plates or ceramic plates. They will either be rated for single impact or multiple impact and whether they are assisted panels or not (If they need to be assisted it means you HAVE to have a soft vest on under the plate or it will NOT stop a rifle round). These plates tend to ONLY cover a small portion of your body though, usually just your vitals as the plates are typically only 10x8 inches in size. (and youll typically have one in front and back) 3. A 7.62x39 round (The round used in the AK47) is actually MUCH harder to stop then your typical 5.56x45 (assuming it is an XM193 round [not steel cored]) round. It is a heavier round that does NOT fragment, however the wounding characteristics are not that great. The majority of the US military uses a XM193 round that fragments on impact making it easier to stop. The Russian 5.45 round is kind of weird and not a very effective round as its wounding method is to yaw inside its target, which means the temporary and permanent crush cavities are not spectacular, though it is decent at penetrating armor. 4. Grenades and Artillery actually try to kill with the concussive force (thats why the range is stated as being shorter) and fragmentation is the secondary wounding method. (If its going to throw chunks of deadly metal everywhere then you might as well capitalize on it.)

Re:Obstruction?

[NineSprings]

Correction -- XM193 denotes a QC rejected M193 round, which is a 55 grain 5.56mm FMJ ball round. It is no longer issued in the majority of brnaches/units The most common 5.56 round now is the M855 green tip -- 62 grain FMJ round with a steel core. Now sounds like M855A1 is the next large scale (minor gain) switch.