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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>The way things are going if a SWAT team rolled up to my house ( I know this is going to sound silly). I'd call 911 and have them on speaker phone coaching me through it.

Who said you're going to get any chance to call anybody? They could just as easily break into your house shouting and pointing guns...

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Right, most of these calls are designed to provoke no-knock forcible entry... "hostages actively being threatened", "domestic violence in progress", etc.

Neither of these situations should trigger no-knock forced entry. The response to most situations should be careful assessment of the situation at hand, the involved actors and the dynamic of the situation, especially since swatting has come up. Police truly need to expect that an anonymous tipster is trying to goad them into action. There’s few situations that should probably trigger an immediate forceful response, active shooter for example and that should be relatively easy to confirm on site.

Any cop who shoots an innocent person during a no-knock forced entry should be automatically charged with murder.

In germany any police shooting that results in death of a human triggers an automatic investigation.

The same thing happens in the USA. In fact discharging a weapon for any reason with or without injury is going to be investigated.

Sure, but in the US that investigation always leads to aquittal, so what even is the point?

Agreed. Though this "swatting" thing is horrifying and tragic, I think the Wichita police should shoulder most of the responsibility. Am I wrong in thinking that they could have done some reconnaissance or something? In any case, I hope they revise their procedures to give a horrible prank like this zero chance of succeeding.

>The response to most situations should be careful assessment of the situation at hand

This is not the forte of the SWAT teams whose adventures we read in the news. Idiotic cowboy cops given heavy arms to play with is more descriptive.

I utterly agree, as I think my other posts should say. But regardless of the should, for better or worse, we are in the "they likely -will- provoke...".

Of course there are scenarios out of our control. In this one particularly the victim walked out of the house and then was shot after he slipped up on one of the commands.

Not to blame the victim, but his mistake lead to their over reaction. My point is even us citizens aren't experienced these situations and some guidance could help.

Maybe a brochure once a year giving tips on how to not get murdered by the police?

"Congratulations! You've survived another year without being brutally murdered by the public servants whose generous pensions your city has gone bankrupt to fund! If you want to keep your streak 'alive', here's how you can help these heroes not murder you and your family!"

Yes you are blaming the victim. People should not be required to perform jumping jacks just because someone in uniform tells them to. That's not cooperation, it's coercion.

It's not right, but we have a broken system that favors them over us. And I don't think it will be fix soon.

Another problem we have is people getting falsely accused and sent to jail when they make mistakes in interrogations. It's why you always if you can afford one, get a lawyer for guidance.

> It's why you always if you can afford one, get a lawyer for guidance.

And somehow people talk about class warfare as if it was the lower classes starting the violence.

>In this one particularly the victim walked out of the house and then was shot after he slipped up on one of the commands.

In what other first world country a person would just be shot if they merely "walked out of house" and "slipped up on one of the commands"? Even if they had a gun on them, unless they actually fired, they still might not be shot by one of the actually competent police forces -- they'd tried to talk them down first.

Then again, in what other first world country a person can be shot if they walk out of their car after they have been stopped by the police?

Heck, unless he has been messy with their wives and they just found out, nobody in a first world country would shoot an unarmed man sitting on the floor and BEGGING not to be shot:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/daniel-shav...

And it's the people that need better schooling?

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