Gamers Involved In Fatal Wichita 'Swatting' Indicted On Federal Charges (kansas.com) 432
bricko shares a report from Kansas: A federal grand jury has indicted the man accused in Wichita's fatal swatting as well as the two gamers involved in the video game dispute that prompted the false emergency call. The 29-page indictment was unsealed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. It charges 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, who is facing state court charges including involuntary manslaughter, with false information and hoaxes, cyberstalking, threatening to kill another or damage property by fire, interstate threats, conspiracy and several counts of wire fraud, according to federal court records. One of the gamers -- 18-year-old Casey S. Viner of North College Hill, Ohio -- is charged with several counts of wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The other gamer -- 19-year-old Shane M. Gaskill of Wichita -- is charged with several counts of obstruction of justice, wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
UPDATE (5/26/18): Both Barriss and Viner are now facing life in prison.
UPDATE (5/26/18): Both Barriss and Viner are now facing life in prison.
Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Their actions caused someone's death.
Re:Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Interesting)
This could actually be a monumental case if the right legal team gets involved.
There is no denying their actions were wrong, however, there's a major question as to whether the police were criminally negligent by failing to properly assess the situation prior to storming the building. A reasonable person would expect they would verify claims before acting on them.
Re:Good, throw the book at them! (Score:4, Interesting)
A reasonable person would expect they would verify claims before acting on them.
The law doesn't operate with an incontrovertible definition of "reasonable". SWAT teams operate on the notion of safety of bystanders first. They can only maximize their safety by killing the threat. The perpetrator doesn't get shot only when they do not present a threat to either the police or bystanders/hostages.
SWAT doesn't go out of their way to verify there is a combat situation before acting, because "surprise" and "speed" is how they maximize the probability of a positive result. Either the caller is correctly reporting an imminently dangerous situation, or they are lying and putting their target under deadly threat. SWAT only has to demonstrate that they operated within their RoE.
Re:Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Insightful)
That is a counter argument. Given how policing is done elsewhere in the world, with far fewer deaths, one could also argue that their metric for a "positive result" is flawed. It certainly wasn't a positive result for the individuals who were swatted.
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Re:Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Interesting)
And in this case, the victims were bystanders. Try again.
Re:Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprise and speed seems to also maximise the probability of killing innocent people.
Re:Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Insightful)
The law doesn't operate with an incontrovertible definition of "reasonable". SWAT teams operate on the notion of safety of bystanders first. They can only maximize their safety by killing the threat.
Shouldn't they determine that there actually is a threat before killing it? If there's no vetting by the police/SWAT, what you have is an on-call publicly funded hit service.
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I think that swatter and the SWAT team itself bear equal responsibility and be indicted on the same charges. It would be a good idea for the Justice Department to investigate the politicization of local prosecutors who give police an automatic pass on malpractice.
Re: Good, throw the book at them! (Score:5, Insightful)
When a situation dictates that SWAT be deployed, it is a combat situation
No, it's a police situation. There is a risk of harm.
That risk should not come from the fucking murdering cunts in police uniforms.
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This could actually be a monumental case if the right legal team gets involved.
There is no denying their actions were wrong, however, there's a major question as to whether the police were criminally negligent by failing to properly assess the situation prior to storming the building. A reasonable person would expect they would verify claims before acting on them.
Oh, they should be fully prosecuted with maximum sentences for the things they actually did, which may be less than they're being charged with (manslaughter for the intended target that gave an address? I'm not sure that applies but haven't read the full charges as they aren't in any of the links). The police (re)action is irrelevant to how guilty these guys are for the charges listed. That said, that doesn't absolve the police and their actions. That's a separate issue that needs to be addressed independen
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as to whether the police were criminally negligent by failing to properly assess the situation prior to storming the building.
Well, they didn't actually 'storm the building'. They just shot a random guy standing in his doorway, which I think is at least as criminally negligent as calling in a fake SWAT situation.
Fail (Score:3, Funny)
TRUMP caused the deaths of countless millions of Americans in the military overseas.
The quality of Trolling on Slashdot has dropped considerably with the influx of Millennials.
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It's actually post-millenials, or "generation z," that's popping up now. Get with the times, grandpa.
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TRUMP caused the deaths of countless millions of Americans in the military overseas.
The quality of Trolling on Slashdot has dropped considerably with the influx of Millennials.
The most shocking thing is more people have been killed in American schools than American personnel in combat zones
http://www.politifact.com/flor... [politifact.com]
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Ship has sailed, when they let the economists make up their own 'nobel' prize, it was over.
Soon: Nobel prizes for sociology, astrology, palm reading, scientology auditing and women's studies. They all need credibility as much as economics did/does.
swat = licence to kill (Score:2)
So I call the police for X reason
Police are so shit they kill someone playing video games in their room
Police keep their jobs
I go to jail
_________
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...hopefully for a long time. Because you put the guy playing video games in imminent danger. If you support the 2A, you have to realize the deadly nature of firearms.
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It's possible for multiple people to be fully at fault here.
Re:swat = licence to kill (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully someone finally starts to sort out the cultural problem the US police has too.
Indeed. Canadian police vs known terrorist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
US police vs unarmed man pleading for his life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Stark contrast.
Re:swat = licence to kill (Score:4, Insightful)
Then there's the Toronto policeman convicted of attempted murder for the last 6 shots fired at the guy he'd already killed.
From http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... [www.cbc.ca]
Re:swat = licence to kill (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're totally culpable if there was not a fire. Its only not your fault if there actually was a fire.
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If simply yelling "FIRE" is enough to cause a panic like described...
"Yelling fire in a crowded theater" is a standard way of saying "inciting a panic." Maybe lighting off a couple of firecrackers and yelling "gun" would be more modern.
not enough (Score:4, Insightful)
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So everyone gets charged except for the cop that actually killed a man? That seems a huge lapse of justice.
I thought the same thing. It shows the degradation of respect for the rights of citizens that "swatting" is even a thing.
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The DA who investigated the shooting by the officer in question:
"Bennett said he had to make a determination based on Kansas law and law handed down by the Supreme Court, which says that when determining if an officer acted reasonably, evidence has to be reviewed based on what the officer knew at the time of the shooting, not 20/20 hindsight, he said."
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The DA who investigated the shooting by the officer in question:
"Bennett said he had to make a determination based on Kansas law and law handed down by the Supreme Court, which says that when determining if an officer acted reasonably, evidence has to be reviewed based on what the officer knew at the time of the shooting, not 20/20 hindsight, he said."
The cop certainly didn't know the victim was armed (since he wasn't) when he opened fire. That is the big problem with police these days. "I thought" or "I believed" has become enough justification and evidence for the use of lethal force, not "I knew". Police now put their safety before the safety of the public. If it had been a real hostage incident and the hostage taker had forced one of the hostages to answer the door the cop would have killed a hostage. Deadly force should not be used unless a civ
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The police did their own review as well as a citizen review board. You have to read through several links to get to that. The information is in this article http://www.kansas.com/news/loc... [kansas.com]. I can't access the game subsection on Slashdot at work so maybe the information is there as well.
We have the advantage of 20/20 hindsight here. You have to realize that if the situation describe over the phone was actual true, not taking the shot could have gotten an entire family killed.
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You have to realize that if the situation describe over the phone was actual true, not taking the shot could have gotten an entire family killed.
You have to realize that cops shooting people based entirely on hearsay is fucking retarded, and not an excuse.
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So disregard the emergency status of hundreds of real situations because of the very occasional one that is a fraud?
I wonder what the net effect will be, saving-lives-wise?
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It's still better to live in a world where criminals are killing people than cops.
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'Murica. Love it or leave it.
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You have to realize that if the situation describe over the phone was actual true, not taking the shot could have gotten an entire family killed.
You have to realize that, since the police arrived with guns drawn, waiting an extra half second to see that the suspect was in fact armed or reaching for a gun would have saved his life while not endangering the potential hostages inside because the police could still have shot him before get could even get the gun aimed.
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The police did their own review...
which pretty much always determines that the cop is a hero who did his job and followed orders
as well as a citizen review board.
Which tend to be made up of people who have close, personal ties to police officers.
Totally legit.
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Reading the description in the link you provided it seems that the heavily armed and armoured cops surrounded the front of his house. The victim opened the door to see what all the commotion was. The cops started screaming at him. The report uses that word, the cops use that word in their statements.
The victim seems unsure what is happening and looks around. They start screaming louder to put his hands up. He goes to put his hands up and gets shot.
That seems like a massive collective failure and an individu
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Have you ever shot a gun before? It's not like on TV. You go for the largest point of the target.
Heck, read the story.
His hand was on his storm door when the shot was fired, and the bullet ricocheted into him, Bennett said.
There is no way this cop could have hit the leg.
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Because the use of force was justified in the situation presented to the cop at the time... Even though in hindsight we know the guy that got shot wasn't armed and hadn't intended to threaten anyone, at the time, given the information the cop had, shooting him was a reasonable action.
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I think that unless the rule of law applies to the police too, you have no rule of law.
In the UK that means the police must be genuinely in fear of imminent loss of life before they can use lethal force.
That's the standard the courts use too. It can feel very harsh at times, but it's a fuck of a lot better than the situation in the US right now.
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Partially. Cops propensity to shoot first and ask questions later is just as much of a problem however.
Re:not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
If you consider the 911 call credible and some guy pops out of the house and his hand moves to his waistband, what are you going to do? Do you stand there and get shot?
You wait until you positively identify a weapon before using lethal force. If a police officer's reaction time is so bad that someone can grab an gun from their waistband and shoot them before the cop, who's weapon is already drawn!, can fire his own weapon, they probably shouldn't even be allowed to drive, much less be a cop. A cop's first duty is to ensure the safety of the public and yes, that includes the suspect as well. You run the risk of being shot when you put on the uniform. That's why they give you training and give you body armor. If you are afraid to take the risk, aren't willing to put the lives of everyone else before your own, don't sign up for the job.
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Dang man... You just want cops to die needlessly. Why don't we just take their guns away?
Look, cops have the right to defend themselves and go home to the wife and kids. This means that they MUST be allowed to use deadly force. The reality of policing is that it's a split second decision between going home and being buried. In dangerous situations the police are empowered to use deadly force to defend themselves, other officers and the general public and generally they save many from harm by using force. The unfortunate side effect is that there is a chance, however slim, that bad things will happen to innocent people.
The question you need to ask and answer is how your ill-conceived theories about how policing is done will affect both the police and the public. In my view, you *might* keep one or two innocents from harm from the police, but you will condemn an order of magnitude more people to being harmed because you tied the police down to some ridiculous PC driven rules of engagement that make no sense and make police's lives more complicated and dangerous.
No, I don't want them to die needlessly, and I want them to go home to their wife and kids if at all possible. What I am saying is, their duty is to first make sure WE, the American citizens that they serve, go home safe to our wives and children. As cliche as it sounds, their first duty is to "protect and serve", and that means running the risk of bodily injury or death every day to ensure the safety of others. There are plenty of cases where deadly force could be and should be authorized, but none of t
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For the love of Pete.. THINK about what you are saying.
You are almost literally putting handcuffs on police with your rules of engagement. You are actually giving them LESS rights than your average person to defend themselves? Seriously?
I don't think you have any clue about the danger of what you are suggesting and you might want to find a friend who's a cop and talk to them about this. I've actually had discussions with multiple officers about this kind of thing and I can assure you your ideas are cra
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You think if you were behind cover with a scoped rifle and you shot an unarmed person from outside the effective range of a pistol you could just say: 'I didn't see his hand for a second, so I shot him.' and walk?
Nonsense. Not even if you suspected there was something violent going on.
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Your average person only needs the reasonable suspicion of danger to defend themselves.
Which is also entirely bullshit, uncivilized, and the reason the US has so much more death and destroyed lives than most other civilized countries.
I'm baffled why you think being able to straight up murder someone because you're scared is a mark of honor and a good thing. It's fucking barbaric.
You are almost literally putting handcuffs on police with your rules of engagement.
And that is a good thing, right? Yep, more cops will get shot at if they shoot second. But at the same time, 0 innocent people will get shot by cops. These people didn't choose to stand in the line of fire as their jo
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Dang man... You just want cops to die needlessly.
How the fuck did you possibly draw that conclusion from what he said? Seriously, take me through the steps here because I don't see it.
Look, cops have the right to defend themselves and go home to the wife and kids. This means that they MUST be allowed to use deadly force.
Nobody has argued otherwise.
The unfortunate side effect is that there is a chance, however slim, that bad things will happen to innocent people.
There is. There is also a duty of care to minimise that chance.
There sure as fuck isn't an imperative to gun down innocent people just because a police man is too fucking stupid/cowardly/badly trained to properly assess and respond to a threat.
The question you need to ask and answer is how your ill-conceived theories about how policing is done will affect both the police and the public
It'll reduce violence against the police and (by the police) against the public. It'll save lives.
In my view, you *might* keep one or two innocents from harm from the police, but you will condemn an order of magnitude more people to being harmed
That's
That's great, now what about the police? (Score:5, Insightful)
Shouldn't they ALSO be held accountable for showing up at a house and killing someone who WASN'T ARMED? Isn't that manslaughter? I hate the double-standard.
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Police have the "reasonable belief" clause. That doesn't mean they can't be held accountable to internal policies, or state laws regarding the level of force that was used, or various police acts, or reviews of the incidents reviewed by external investigations and so on. You don't really ever hear about it because the media doesn't really care to report on it, but it happens all the time.
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Citations, please?
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No, you don't hear about it - because it almost never happens. Only a tiny percentage of cops ever suffer negative consequences beyond slaps on the wrist for their murderous acts.
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Kind of. They're operating as expected; I'd place more of the blame on the institution of criminal justice which has created and maintained this approach to policing.
In other words: it's less the cops's fault as it is the legislature's, mayor's, and governor's.
Do note I'm running to be a legislator (in US Congress), so I may have a non-intuitive assessment of the situation.
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Imagine, for a second, some bright minds develop a robotic policeman — and it shoots someone in similar circumstances? Not even out of fear for its own "life", but simply because an opportunity to end a hostage-crisis presents itself...
Would you be out seeking excuses for the robot and its designers faced with vague and self-contradictory laws and public preferences, or will you organize and lead a march dem
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Would you be out seeking excuses for the robot and its designers faced with vague and self-contradictory laws and public preferences
The designers are professionals given policy by those commissioning the use of the robot. States don't go, "Well, the thing does X, I guess that's what it has to do;" they go, "Hey, we think this behavior is optimal for the public good. We'll buy your robot, but only if it can operate to these specifications."
Look at prisons in Norway. Look at prisons in Baltimore City. Now you tell me: who decides that prisons in Baltimore don't look like prisons in Norway? Who has the power to change that? Is it
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I read your page.
I'm more conservative and disagree with most of your stances but you must have said something I liked here since I friended you :)
Just curious, and you probably can't really go into detail, but how many of these issues are what you support versus what are mandated by your party? (I'm not saying you are selling out - more like "I don't feel strongly about this - or have no opinion - so I can toss my support to what the party says." I'm sure what core principals you have are non-negotiable
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The Democratic Party happens to align well with my ideals. Parts of it, anyway; there are some serious ideological differences between the party's internal factions.
I've had the chance to think and develop positions on things I hadn't considered in a long time, and most of the Democratic Party's positions are fairly liberal and sensible. Things like individual rights and freedoms are inherently good--that spans topics like abortion, gay marriage, and worker's rights. I don't trust unions, but that's o
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Kind of. They're operating as expected; I'd place more of the blame on the institution of criminal justice which has created and maintained this approach to policing. In other words: it's less the cops's fault as it is the legislature's, mayor's, and governor's.
No, it's the police's fault for fostering a militarized, "us vs them" approach. They encourage it because they want the Hummers, the surplus military weapons: they want to be "tacticool". Police in the US have a looser ROE than soldiers patrolling the streets of Iraq did, and they were in a war zone. Like I've being saying for a long time, police need to stop being law enforcement officers and go back to being peace officers.
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It's an interesting admission (Score:5, Interesting)
The charge is involuntary manslaughter. [findlaw.com]
From that link:
Three elements must be satisfied in order for someone to be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter: Someone was killed as a result of the defendant's actions. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others.
The interesting bit is "The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life."
We're admitting that simply having the cops show up is so inherently dangerous that it constitutes a reckless disregard for human life.
Re: It's an interesting admission (Score:5, Insightful)
No, weâ(TM)re saying that calling armed cops who have been told that there is an active danger at a location is inherently dangerous. Thatâ(TM)s a very different thing.
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No, you stupid fuck. We're saying the telling the police there is an active hostage situation with a hostage taker so twitchy he already 'accidentally' shot one of the hostages in the head is inherently dangerous.
This is an important factor. However, the police need to assess the situation on their own before taking action. That is part of their responsibility, and why they are supposedly trained in law enforcement.
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Re:sounds like mockery of the state. (Score:4, Insightful)
DA on the "cop that shot the guy":
"Bennett said he had to make a determination based on Kansas law and law handed down by the Supreme Court, which says that when determining if an officer acted reasonably, evidence has to be reviewed based on what the officer knew at the time of the shooting, not 20/20 hindsight, he said."
The police were acting on deliberately deceptive information provided by the gamer.
obstruction of justice = talked to cops (Score:3)
Play stupid games (Score:2)
Christ (Score:2)
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Build a bridge and get over it.
With all due respect, this attitude is part of the problem. It's not "getting over" that it happens, and continuing to raise a stink, IMO at least, that will eventually (with any luck, at least) get attention drawn to whether or not people in a position of power are being prosecuted when they commit a wrong (both legal and moral), and get things changed over time.
They deserve what they get... (Score:5, Informative)
I was at home in the garage with the door open. I was sandblasting some parts I was working on, so was incapacitated by having my hands stuck into the rubber gloves that are attached to the blasting box. With the air compressor rattling away, I couldn't really hear anything, and being deep into concentrating on what I was doing, I was not aware of my surroundings.
But, when the compressor reached pressure and shut itself down, I heard someone yell, "Don't move". Looking up, there were two policemen at the end of my driveway. One had a pistol drawn. The other had a rifle. Both were pointed at the ground, but ready to point a me. They moved closer, and I was very careful to explain what I was doing and made damn sure they understood how difficult it was for me to extract my hands before I moved an inch. They were very nervous and highly agitated, and I had no desire to do anything but diffuse the situation.
One of my son's middle school "friends" thought it was funny to play this "prank". The policemen allowed me to hear the message he left 911 where the little fucker claimed there was a shot out going on at my house, while he had a war game playing in the background. If I had not been in a VERY public place, in a VERY incapacitated predicament, the story could have been much different. I can't imagine how tense they would have been if the door had been closed. They would obviously been able to hear that something was going on inside, but I would not have been able to answer any knock or call to "come out with my hands up". As it was ( a peaceful summer afternoon), I got to show of my project and have a nice conversation, but I would have beat the snot out of that little shit if I could have gotten my hands on him.
Re:What about the cop? (Score:4, Interesting)
I read the linked article. The Slashdot summary really sucks. It doesn't even mention the death or what swatting is. I had to read the article for that.
The police where told that the man had killed his father, was holding his mother and sibling hostage and had soaked the house in gasoline. The man was a dead man walking the moment police where called. With the information they had, they didn't have the luxury to take their time to fully access the situation.
I honestly support the civil lawsuit. It's easy to see in the video that the victim did nothing to deserve to die. But criminal standards are higher and I completely understand why the police had to act in the manner they did. It was not exactly presented to them in a "we can wait and see what happens" context.
The person who did the swat (sorry - new word for me so not sure how to use it properly) completely bears the responsibility of the victim's death and deserves the full weight of the law brought down on him. The fact that he did this before is shocking and it is amazing that no one else was hurt. One of the stories mentioned this happened in Canada but that the victim was warned and was able to call the police and give them the heads up that it was a false report.
I'll never understand this civil suit thing (Score:2)
This is something I still don't understand. It is up to the criminal court to decide whether the officers dis something wrong or not. If they didn't, then it's strange that the next of kin can essentially get a do-over with lower standards of guilt. In Europe, at least in most countries I am aware of, only the state can bring homicide cases to the court. When that is done, it is done.
The US system allows someone to for example win a self defense case, only for the person who defended himself still to be fuc
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A US civil court has no power to effect criminal punishment upon a defendant. They cannot convict them of a felony, they cannot imprison them. A civil court can only seize assets of the defendant. That's why they're called civil courts.
The guy who wins a self defense case can only be charged as such in a criminal court. The person who defended himself in criminal court only demonstrated that the state could not prove the person is guilty of murder (beyond reasonable doubt). In civil court, the plaintif
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ok, you seem to have forgotten that the police raid that happened 4 days before the bombings, where there was a shoot out in Forest, with one terrorist dying, Belgian and French police getting injured, and a number of terrorists got away, who then went on to commit the attacks in the metro and at the airport.
I think the difference was that in the earlier raid, they were not expecting to find anyone and were confronted by armed terrorists. The later raids, the police had huge advantage in numbers and equipme
Re:What about the cop? (Score:5, Informative)
This is an interesting problem... if you look at nearly ALL police shootings, they typically seem unjustified from the general public's perspective, but the cops always say "the officer was in fear for his life"... and therefore it is somehow justified. The problem is the way the laws are written and the way police are trained. If you ever get to see police training materials, police conventions, or even the daily emails from the department, they are all oriented around the basic concept of "every interaction could kill you so be hyper vigilant so you can come home to your kids tonight." This creates a scenario where police see what they've been trained to see: a threat on their life. This is how a naked guy running away down a rural highway can get shot for "being a threat" despite the 911 caller telling the dispatcher that the person is suffering from a mental condition.
One thing I know from personal experience is the way the media twists facts to make things look salacious. My brother was nearly killed in an avalanche, and the media reported that he was skiing out of bounds, when in fact he was never on resort property, he was back-country skiing with friends in forest service property. They also made it seem like the group had taken HUGE risks, when in fact they had been prepared, planned their route ahead of time, brought appropriate equipment, recognized the emerging risks, mitigated them with strategy, then executed a perfect self-rescue after the avalanche. But telling a great story about self-reliance and preparedness isn't on the media's agenda so they spin it the way they want... I mention all of this because I expect no less from the media with a police shooting. I suspect there are situational things that made the cop think the way he did. How well lit was the front porch? How clear was his view? What unrelated events prior in the day may have primed him to see what he saw as a threat? The media doesn't want to give you a clear picture of how the situation unfolded, they want to induce you to quickly pass judgement and move on to the next story.
It was certainly a homicide, but I'm not sure the intent rises to murder. I think it's a systemic problem throughout our entire police system. The police know how the law is written, so they train specifically to that loophole. If we tighten the loophole, fewer people can fit through. I'd love to see the laws change in that regard.
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This is how a naked guy running away down a rural highway can get shot for "being a threat"
In most cases, the cop can't shoot. The naked guy has to "present himself as a threat" (to the person he's running towards) and then the cop can shoot the naked, unarmed man. Its a bad situation (for the shooter, even a cop) when the victim is shot in the back. The jury generally will only disregard its evident meaning when the victim is armed.
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http://archive.sltrib.com/arti... [sltrib.com]
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"Because more than a 3rd of Americans are armed"
Actually, we're all armed. Only a third of us with guns. Knives can kill. Bats can kill. Rocks can kill.
Fun fact: Gun ownership is down from 50+ years ago.
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No, because most of us would never even consider shooting a cop, even if we were rather more heavily armed than we (occasionally) are.
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And the overreacting police, too.
Given the situation and looking at it from the perspective of Wichita's police, I don't think they acted inappropriately.
It is really easy to use hindsight to accuse the police of acting wrongly when the outcome is something nobody wants. If one considers the situation, what the police where being told and what they observed, what happened was justified, even if it was unfortunate. From the perspective of the police, with the information they were provided by dispatch, the guy who got shot was an active
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based on what they thought was a credible 911 call of an eyewitness
He wasn't even pretending to be a witness, which is only ever somewhat credible, in the fake call, he was pretending to be the guy who answered the door.
Re: Horse-fuck those morons (Score:2)
You describe the police as hitmen. No thanks, their fault still.
Re:Horse-fuck those morons (Score:5, Insightful)
And the overreacting police, too.
Given the situation and looking at it from the perspective of Wichita's police, I don't think they acted inappropriately.
It is really easy to use hindsight to accuse the police of acting wrongly when the outcome is something nobody wants. If one considers the situation, what the police where being told and what they observed, what happened was justified, even if it was unfortunate. From the perspective of the police, with the information they were provided by dispatch, the guy who got shot was an active threat. Based on the 911 call and the unfortunate actions of the victim, there wasn't much else the Police could reasonably do.
Don't fall into the 20/20 hindsight trap here. The police where rolling up on what they thought was an active shooter situation with hostages based on what they thought was a credible 911 call of an eyewitness. When the unfortunate guy opens the door, it goes from bad to worse and apparently an innocent movement was seen as a threat. It may seem a bit extreme in hindsight, but from the cop's perspective this is one of those dangerous situations that, like it or not, justifies the use of deadly force.
Horseshit.
The police officers who killed the innocent person were 50+ yards/meters away and had cover.
There was NO ONE under immediate threat from a person WHO DIDN'T HAVE A VISIBLE WEAPON READY TO USE.
Worst possible case he could have pulled out a pistol. And then what? Take a few blind shots into the bright lights?
Would that have put the officers into some danger? Yes, but tough fucking shit - that's what they get paid to do.
And the poor guy did none of that anyway.
You don't fucking MURDER someone who NEVER DEMONSTRATED ANY ACTUAL CAPABILITY TO DO ANY HARM TO ANYONE.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're an LA policeman, you do...
Re:Horse-fuck those morons (Score:4, Insightful)
from the cop's perspective this is one of those dangerous situations that, like it or not, justifies the use of deadly force.
Sounds like those cops need a new perspective. Their current approach is getting innocent, unsuspecting, unarmed people killed. Nothing about that sounds justified to me.
Re:Horse-fuck those morons (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is truly considered an appropriate police reaction, then the police need to start working to come up with a strategy to mitigate it, because this makes murder by cop extremely easy. If you want the responding officers to behave the way they did, then someone needs to come up with a better way of authenticating the information they are being provided, because the current situation is obviously not sustainable in the long term.
Re: (Score:3)
That's not mitigation. That's scapegoating.
Try fixing the fucked up police force. Prosecute the murderer that pulled the trigger, prosecute the police service that employed him and prosecute whichever cunt wrote the training plan because they're all culpable.
Then maybe other police services in the US will adopt approaches that don't involve murdering innocent people that answer the door.
Re:Horse-fuck those morons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
threatened to shoot other hostages
Well, the cops did that anyways, because they wound up shooting an innocent man. How is that better?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And this is how you get shot for "walking while black." Police should never 100% trust allegations that come in over a phone call. Never.
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There is some middle ground between ignoring a call and going in guns blazing. If that's too much nuance for you, you're already a lost cause.
Re:Horse-fuck those morons (Score:5, Insightful)
Opening your front door and going "Wha-?" in response to a disturbance outside is not an action that justifies being gunned down without waiting to see if he was an actual threat.
Horse-fuck the SWAT team too.
Re: (Score:2)