Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomohawk | Hacker News Reader

The police are being hacked by the swatters, and not exercising due diligence.

The swatters are taking advantage of the police because it is somehow acceptable for police to show up a a residence in full battle gear, when the resident has no criminal record and there is no known probable cause to use such deadly force.

Swat should be rarely, if ever used. Instead they're used in more than 90% of these cases.

There is literally no downside to the judges who approve these actions, or to the police who conduct them.

View on HN

They may even be justifying their budget, or receiving larger budgets, due to how many times they “have” to respond with lots of manpower and expensive equipment.

Wait so if someone calls in and says “hey this guy across the street keeps rolling in barrels and barrels of explosives and what looks like rifles and ammunition,” you’re thinking they should be sending a patrol officer over to knock on the door?

It’s obviously trivial to produce whatever kind of report is necessary to justify a SWAT response.

I had some friends have the cops called on them during college because they were laying out their (real looking) airsoft guns and gear out on their beds.

They sent police in SWAT gear, but they still politely knocked. They were let in, saw what was actually going on, talked to them about how neat the guns were, and that was that.

There’s a middle ground that’s probably acceptable to most.

Yeah, agreed. It can be true that SWAT is overused, that this guy shouldn't be able to get swatted 40+ times, that even when SWAT is used they're probably excessively aggressive and undertrained, and that "stop sending SWAT to extremely serious calls" is a ridiculously laughable solution to swatting.

You would expect them to learn after a couple of times that it's not a legit report, so yes 47 times would be entirely police getting played like a bunch of five year olds. Which I hope you'll agree is not good.

That’s not what I’m responding to, obviously. This is what GP said:

it is somehow acceptable for police to show up a a residence in full battle gear, when the resident has no criminal record and there is no known probable cause to use such deadly force. Swat should be rarely, if ever used. Instead they're used in more than 90% of these cases.

—-

All of that is obviously bullshit if you spend 45 seconds thinking about reality.

Obviously there is an infinite number of different calls to police that can justify an aggressive, armed, SWAT response to someone previously unknown to law enforcement.

No. Cops should not even be carrying deadly weapons of any kind. Maybe tasers. Mayber pepper spray.

We have a legal system for a reason. Giving a cop any lethal weapon is passive acceptance that he may circumvent the legal system and put himself in the position of judge jury and executioner. This is wrong and erodes trust in police and the judicial system vastly more than any other issue. No cops should have guns, not "SWAT" team, not beat cops, none.

Got it. Cops responding to e.g. reports of a shooter walking classroom to classroom executing 5th graders should have maybe tasers or pepper spray.

Cops responding to e.g. reports of a group of jihadists ambushing restaurants in a crowded European nightlife district: MAYBE tasers and pepper spray!

Here in reality, awful stuff happens on a daily basis. Get a grip.

What’re you talking about? We’re discussing how in this particular case it would be trivial for the police department to see that this house has been SWATed 47 (!) times, which obviously means there’s something going on. How do you get from that to a school shooter executing students (what a horrible image to use for your argument so it’s based on emotion, and accusing people who disagree with you of being OK with school shootings). There’s place for nuance, esp when guns and lives are involved.

Because the GGP, to whom I replied, made much broader claims which I’ve already cited above. The more immediate GP doubled down and clarified the (insane) belief that cops should NEVER be armed, except perhaps tasers and pepper spray.

So to clarify its totally fine for police to act as judge jury and executioner if the crime is bad enough? Screw the whole legal process and the idea of trials, juries and the rule of law generally? At this point why do we even have a judicial apparatus? Just give cops carte blanche to do whatever they see fit, since we dont care about the rule of law anyway.

So wait its not good for cops to execute people at will or what? Now I'm confused...

Of course it’s not good for cops to “execute people at will.” What are you confused about?

I am confused about what the guns are for if not for killing people.

It seems like you already said you dont believe in just circumventing due process and the judicial system so I am just at a total loss in trying to understand why the police would need guns. Maybe killing dogs?

I am very sorry to hear you’re at a total loss in trying to understand why the police would need guns. Do you live in the US?

I sure do! It may also surprise you to hear that I fully support private citizens being able to own and carry guns.

I feel like perhaps I am not communicating my point well here. By giving police guns we are implying that we as a society are OK with them using those weapons. By using those weapons they are likely to kill people. By killing people they are acting as judge jury and executioner. This would seem to imply that we as a society are totally fine with police circumventing the judiciary system.

The argument of course is that cops need guns to protect themselves. Unfortunately guns do not stop bullets. A gun is going to do nothing to stop a cop being shot. Unless they use that gun on the shooter. Thereby again acting as judge jury and executioner. Do you see the problem here?

> All of that is obviously bullshit if you spend 45 seconds thinking about reality.

> Obviously there is an infinite number of different calls to police that can justify an aggressive, armed, SWAT response to someone previously unknown to law enforcement.

People are really watching too many action movies. There are essentially no scenarios that justify responding to a residential area using essentially military gear. The obvious thing to do is first confirm and assess the situation, no assault rifles needed.

The biggest irony is that in the situations where police could have actually used heavy gear to save lifes (Uvalde, note it didn't need to be the initial response either), they rather waited outside not risk any injuries to themselves. Just goes to show they just want to play tough guy in situations with little risk.

I have second thoughts about it

The real intention of the police could be to respond to each call and swat just to assure that as many charges as possible are accumulated and billed to the culprit later.

Everything is reported and recorded so the police actions, that are torturing the victim, also dig the hole deeper and deeper for the criminal. The harm done is obvious and allow asking for damage compensations. At that level of reckless no judge could dismiss it as just child's play.

Keep swatting also reward the criminals that are watching. This is not necessarily a bad thing. To keep them engaged and interested on the game is a must for the police, that therefore increase their chances to complete patterns and chase them slowly one by one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com