I’m as disgusted with this story as most seem to be, but I don’t think running KYC and asking for documentation of the emergency is a good idea for 999 calls.
I’m as disgusted with this story as most seem to be, but I don’t think running KYC and asking for documentation of the emergency is a good idea for 999 calls.
Now you may quite reasonably point out that a page on a software system is seldom of the same weight as an emergency call to the police (true in my case -- money, not lives, have always been at stake in the systems I work on), but this ignores the reality that the "swarming with guns" approach _also_ can, and has, cost lives. So if anything, the higher stakes involved for police involvement is an even _stronger_ argument to take the extra time to properly assess the proportional response.
Perhaps my conclusion would be, rather, that a SWAT team coming in to arrest someone shouldn't also lead to a heart attack situation. Maybe I'm being naive, and probably most people SWAT teams come to apprehend are super-dangerous, but it feels to me it shouldn't be a consideration.
I know HN loves to think raw tech will save the world but come on... this is a societal problem, not a tech problem