They call it swatting,” says grieving Wichita mother after son killed by police

[FIVR]

Do you know what percentage of the time when people call the police, they end up being shot by them? I ask, because you'd really have to have some idea about that to be dispensing this kind of advice. It isn't enough that it's merely possible. It's possible to die every time you attempt to drive a motor vehicle or fly in a plane, but that doesn't mean we don't do it.

Nobody knows that percentage because Police still don't release numbers for everyone they kill. People who are tazed and die later, people who are imprisoned and killed while they are incarcerated.... they are all ignored in the statistics for many reasons.

You make a lot of excuses in pretty much every thread about cops. I bet they pay you big bucks to defend them like this. Have you gotten any other murderers off with these excuses? I bet the typical idiot would gobble your argument above right up, even though it's based on total BS statistics.

 

[Paladin3]

Per your article, the same guy called in a fake bomb threat in 2015 and was convicted and given a 2 year sentence from that, of which it seems he likely didn't serve in its entirety. This man reminds me of a pathological arsonist. He needs to be behind bars for a very long time. He'll do it over and over again given the chance.

So much this. The guy is 25 now and has proven that he won't stop "swatting" regardless of the consequences. Rather, he is proud and open about the crimes he commits. Life in prison is the only reasonable sentence because he's not going to change and it's not worth risking more lives to find out.

 

[renz20003]

They need to make an example of him and give him the death penalty. Although they would have to extradite him.

 

[interchange]

So much this. The guy is 25 now and has proven that he won't stop "swatting" regardless of the consequences. Rather, he is proud and open about the crimes he commits. Life in prison is the only reasonable sentence because he's not going to change and it's not worth risking more lives to find out.

There are times where a harsh criminal sentence serves public good not by being just or playing any role in reformation but instead precisely because the person is frankly hazardous to society if not imprisoned. This seems to fit the bill.

 

[Aegeon]

I was talking specifically about them being able to charge him with felony murder, not a felony in general.

Sorry, I missed that part.

It does appear to be in question if that would apply. An alternate possibility would seem to be involuntary manslaughter under Kansas Law.

Code Section

Kansas Statutes section 21-3404: Involuntary Manslaughter
What's Prohibited?

Unintentionally killing a human being:

• Recklessly,
• During the commission of, attempt to commit, or flight from any felony or misdemeanor that is enacted to protect human life or safety other than the inherently dangerous felonies listed in section 21-3436, or
• During the commission of a lawful act in an unlawful manner

Penalties

Involuntary manslaughter is a severity level 5, person felony.

The argument would seem to be he plainly was acting recklessly and the death was ultimately caused by the other felony he committed. While the circumstances are presumably pretty untested in Kansas courts, the argument that the outcome in this instance was a foreseeable risk of such behavior would seem to make the charge viable. As noted he is not a first time offender in terms of criminal behavior either with his prior bomb threat conviction.

Of course the question would be whether they can throw any stronger charges at him under the circumstances and one option might be to have California pursue the case instead if that is a legal option. (With the complication being that the actual death occurred in Kansas.)

 

[madoka]

They need to make an example of him and give him the death penalty.

They won't. I'm near positive that this guy is autistic.

1. His online name Swautistic which includes the word autistic in it.

2. His reaction to the death was "I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION" showing he has problems with emotion and empathy.

3.

 

[UNCjigga]

They won't. I'm near positive that this guy is autistic.

1. His online name Swautistic which includes the word autistic in it.

2. His reaction to the death was "I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION" showing he has problems with emotion and empathy.

3.

Not trying to be racist, but this man can probably pass for any ethnicity. He's like a chameleon. I bet you could show his picture to any hate group and they'd be all confused. Tyler Barriss...sounds like a white guy...but is he black? Mulatto? Latino? Arab?

I'm sure someone somewhere is claiming this guy is Antifa.

 

[greatnoob]

Not trying to be racist, but this man can probably pass for any ethnicity. He's like a chameleon. I bet you could show his picture to any hate group and they'd be all confused. Tyler Barriss...sounds like a white guy...but is he black? Mulatto? Latino? Arab?

I'm sure someone somewhere is claiming this guy is Antifa.

Undoubtedly. He does have a punchable face though.

 

[Zorba]

They won't. I'm near positive that this guy is autistic.

1. His online name Swautistic which includes the word autistic in it.

2. His reaction to the death was "I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION" showing he has problems with emotion and empathy.

3.

That's not much of a problem in Kansas.

 

[woolfe9998]

Yeah, I looked up the felony murder rules in Kansas but not California. Is there a legal mandate of some sort on who gets jurisdiction? I'm sure Kansas would like to prosecute him themselves but if they can they might concede to California since they can give him a much more appropriate sentence.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but it occurs to me that this is actually an interstate crime, so quite possibly the feds have jurisdiction. The feds have a felony murder rule as well, but I don't know much about how it works.

 

[Jaskalas]

"Comply or die" is the antithesis of liberty. Mere disobedience to the state is not a capital crime in a free country.

In most these cases it's not necessarily disobedience the victims display, I'd say it's confusion. It's how the police approach people that instigates both fear and violence on part of the police. Everyone is treated as a monster poised to kill them.

And !@#$ like this is why. Can't really say it's unfounded when cops are dying out there. What we need is a new approach.

 

[pmv]

Yeah, that would have been great advice when my then 5 year old nephew choked on a pretzel several years back, and we called the police, who showed up in less than 2 minutes and heimliched the boy causing him to cough it up. We might have been able to do it ourselves, though we weren't getting any success. I guess we should have taken that chance right, since according to you, your average cop has homicidal intent in a given case. I guess we just got lucky that he wasn't the typical cop who would have blown as all away instead of trying to help us. You know, like in the vast majority of traffic stops where the person stopped ends up with his brains splattered all over his upholstery.

If you want to not call the police, say, when there is an armed intruder entering your house, by all means. You'd be the proud winner of the Darwin awards. I sincerely hope your foolishness only affects your own safety and not that of anyone else.

Honestly not sure why one would call the police in such a health-emergency situation rather than para-medics. Any more than one would call the police rather than the fire brigade if your kitchen caught fire.

In any case, the point for me is not a literal policy to be followed by all in all circumstances, it's that 'if cops are allowed to get away with this sort of thing it adversely affects the cost-benefit calculus of calling them'.

I'd hesitate in a US context to call the police over, for example, a mentally-unwell person acting out in the street, given the cases where that has resulted in the person being entirely unnecessarily shot dead. Here, I'd not be so hesitant.

Also, personally I've never known anyone, ever, who had 'an armed intruder entering their house', it's not a scenario I really worry about.

Still, your society _likes_ having it's intruders be armed, so it's your collective choice, I guess.

 

[jackstar7]

In most these cases it's not necessarily disobedience the victims display, I'd say it's confusion. It's how the police approach people that instigates both fear and violence on part of the police. Everyone is treated as a monster poised to kill them.

And !@#$ like this is why. Can't really say it's unfounded when cops are dying out there. What we need is a new approach.

Is a cop's life worth more or less than the average citizen?

 

[snarfbot]

Is a cop's life worth more or less than the average citizen?

They would apparently rather kill 100 innocent people than put one of their own at risk that's why they are being trained to shoot first.

 

[Xellos2099]

It is not like the police department will help support the widow family just because a cop is kill due to a split second decision. Every human being will ensure their safety first before other. It is a shitty situation all around this time. You can blame the police all you want but usually someone get shot because they are not following instruction. The hallway shootign was an outliner

 

[pmv]

It is not like the police department will help support the widow family just because a cop is kill due to a split second decision. Every human being will ensure their safety first before other. It is a shitty situation all around this time. You can blame the police all you want but usually someone get shot because they are not following instruction. The hallway shootign was an outliner

And the Australian woman shot walking up to the cop car?

And it's not just that people get shot 'becuase they are not following instruction', because people every day, all over the world, fail to follow instructions from all kinds of authority figures and yet aren't shot. It particularly seems to happen when those giving the instructions are US cops. So there are clearly other factors involved.

It's obviously a deep problem embedded in a historically-determined set of circumstances that doesn't have a quick fix, and where no one group of people are entirely to blame, but its not just about 'not following instructions'. That sounds like the usual attempt to stave off anxiety that leads to victim-blaming.

 

[Jaskalas]

It particularly seems to happen when those giving the instructions are US cops.

That's where #BLM got it so terribly wrong. It's not a racial issue. It's a second amendment issue. It's a gun issue, and people are deathly afraid of guns to the point where they feel the need to shoot others first and ask questions later. I'm sure it disproportionately affects minorities, but many things do. Example, fat from fast food isn't a racial issue, it's a junk food issue. Just as this is a gun issue.

People wanting to deflect harms our ability to examine the cases and address it with potential solutions. I agree, "just follow instructions" is BS and poorly explains all these cases. There is an inherent safety violation in how police approach strangers.

 

[Zorba]

It is not like the police department will help support the widow family just because a cop is kill due to a split second decision. Every human being will ensure their safety first before other. It is a shitty situation all around this time. You can blame the police all you want but usually someone get shot because they are not following instruction. The hallway shootign was an outliner

Nice victim blaming. The cop should get manslaughter at a minimum. If you are so scared of confrontation that you shoot an unarmed, innocent man for putting his hands up, you probably shouldn't be a cop, much less on SWAT.

They didn't even notice that the house didn't match the description, and they didn't even question why a hostage taker willingly answered the door and came outside. At least Wichita will be paying this family mega bucks, too bad none of it will come out of the police's pay.

 

[urvile]

And the Australian woman shot walking up to the cop car?

And it's not just that people get shot 'becuase they are not following instruction', because people every day, all over the world, fail to follow instructions from all kinds of authority figures and yet aren't shot. It particularly seems to happen when those giving the instructions are US cops. So there are clearly other factors involved.

It's obviously a deep problem embedded in a historically-determined set of circumstances that doesn't have a quick fix, and where no one group of people are entirely to blame, but its not just about 'not following instructions'. That sounds like the usual attempt to stave off anxiety that leads to victim-blaming.

That is still bamboozling to Australians. Apparently the investigation of the shooting is still ongoing because the cop who shot Justine damond and his partner are refusing to cooperate with the investigation. What a joke.

 

[newrigel]

Trump's "law and order" America. Shoot first, ask questions later.

Has nothing to do with Trump... this has to do with a moron calling the police and creating a life and death scenario... he escalated the situation to the level it became so the police reacted as such! Yes, the discrepancy of the officers to shoot or not is questionable but they only reacted to the level of intensity that that idiot created by his testimony on the phone...

 

[woolfe9998]

Honestly not sure why one would call the police in such a health-emergency situation rather than para-medics. Any more than one would call the police rather than the fire brigade if your kitchen caught fire.

We called 911. It's what you do in a time critical emergency. The police arrived first. By the time the EMT showed up 5 minutes later, the situation was resolved.

In any case, the point for me is not a literal policy to be followed by all in all circumstances, it's that 'if cops are allowed to get away with this sort of thing it adversely affects the cost-benefit calculus of calling them'.

I'd hesitate in a US context to call the police over, for example, a mentally-unwell person acting out in the street, given the cases where that has resulted in the person being entirely unnecessarily shot dead. Here, I'd not be so hesitant.

Also, personally I've never known anyone, ever, who had 'an armed intruder entering their house', it's not a scenario I really worry about.

Still, your society _likes_ having it's intruders be armed, so it's your collective choice, I guess.

Yes, the fact that so many people are armed around here is likely one of the reasons we have more police shootings than in other countries. 85% of those shot are armed, most with firearms. There are consequences to living in an armed society.

 

[skyking]

My overwhelming concern is this: The entire SWAT response system is misused. Rather than craft up a low risk plan to the general public, law enforcement goes in hard to reduce the risks to themselves first, at the possible expense of innocents. If somebody is not shooting up the place, no actual violence going on, why not surprise a suspect as he gets in his car for work? Police used to do this. Now they tend to go in hard on a bank robbery suspect, etc.
In this swatting example, they had absolutely no supporting evidence of any crime. They went in hard.
I remember this event, and it is a great example of what can go wrong will go wrong. Pardon the huffpost link, but this predates most internets. It was as good as I could do.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/21/raid-of-the-day-robin-pra_n_2732361.html

The whole misuse of SWAT makes the U.S. feel more like a war zone than a free country.

 

[Zorba]

We called 911. It's what you do in a time critical emergency. The police arrived first. By the time the EMT showed up 5 minutes later, the situation was resolved.

Yes, the fact that so many people are armed around here is likely one of the reasons we have more police shootings than in other countries. 85% of those shot are armed, most with firearms. There are consequences to living in an armed society.

But many of those "armed" posed no real threat to the police. The police here just killed a deaf, mentally disabled guy because he was holding a 2 foot pipe, 20 feet away from the police. The neighbors were yelling at the cops that he was deaf, cops didn't give a shit an killed him in his front yard. DA said good shoot because he was "armed" and not following orders (that he couldn't hear). Oh, he was also completely innocent of any crime so he had no expectation of the police coming by and killing him in cold blood.

One of my Brother's friends was also killed by the police while armed with a knife he was holding to his own throat in his house. His parents stupidly called the police. The beat cop who got there first decided to not wait for the negotiator, and shot and killed him when he refused to drop the knife, he was 15 feet away with the knife against his own neck. The family got a decent settlement, especially for Oklahoma 20 years ago, but of course the cop had no punishment.

Meanwhile, being a cop isn't even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs, yet we basically give them a blank check to gun people and dogs down in the street for no reason, except that they are scared.

 

[woolfe9998]

But many of those "armed" posed no real threat to the police. The police here just killed a deaf, mentally disabled guy because he was holding a 2 foot pipe, 20 feet away from the police. The neighbors were yelling at the cops that he was deaf, cops didn't give a shit an killed him in his front yard. DA said good shoot because he was "armed" and not following orders (that he couldn't hear). Oh, he was also completely innocent of any crime so he had no expectation of the police coming by and killing him in cold blood.

One of my Brother's friends was also killed by the police while armed with a knife he was holding to his own throat in his house. His parents stupidly called the police. The beat cop who got there first decided to not wait for the negotiator, and shot and killed him when he refused to drop the knife, he was 15 feet away with the knife against his own neck. The family got a decent settlement, especially for Oklahoma 20 years ago, but of course the cop had no punishment.

Meanwhile, being a cop isn't even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs, yet we basically give them a blank check to gun people and dogs down in the street for no reason, except that they are scared.

Anecdotes aside, the majority of people killed by police are armed with firearms. Police in Europe don't encounter people armed with guns nearly as frequently, and their cops shoot people far less often.

That said, I generally do agree we tend to err a little too much toward favoring their protection over that of the citizen. I just think there tends to be lots of exaggerations in these kind of threads.

 

[newrigel]

One of my Brother's friends was also killed by the police while armed with a knife he was holding to his own throat in his house. His parents stupidly called the police. The beat cop who got there first decided to not wait for the negotiator, and shot and killed him when he refused to drop the knife, he was 15 feet away with the knife against his own neck.

Sounds like the cop kept him from going to hell by taking his own life in my opinion!!! Unstable weirdness in our world is just proof more people need a center! If he’s mentally ill, then it’s not a matter of if, it’s just when because these people need to be removed from our social balance. They can’t make it in society!!!!