I couldn't think of a more absurd reply to this incident. The whole point of swatting is to get the cops to break into your house and shake you up a bit. Anyone who's been online for the past decade knows just how trigger-happy police in America can be, and it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. This was a game of chicken fueled by a remarkable lack of empathy and conscience.
You don't get to wash your hands of the blame just because you didn't pull the trigger.
Imagine you called up to report a genuine crime taking place, and the dispatcher's reaction was 'oh really, that doesn't sound very convincing.' You'd be furious, and rightly so. If the caller's location is spoofed, which is not hard to do, and the caller has minimal acting skills, then the police would be remiss not to act on it.
I really do not care for the prevalence of SWAT teams in the US, but then I don't care for the ease with which criminals can heavily arm themselves either.
You do not possess enough legal firepower, and probably don't have enough practice wih your equipment, to likely kill a member of a SWAT team and "hurt" yourself.
SWAT is usually only involved when it's clear there is an immediate and present danger. So of course they are going to be ready with weapons drawn. Do you want them to just waltz into (probably) dangerous situations with their hands in their pockets whistling a tune?
Edit: The amount of willful ignorance displayed on HN regarding law enforcement is staggering. It's sad to see how many people here view police as the bad guys, and refuse to take a balanced view by empathizing with them and the danger they encounter on a daily basis.
Who are you expecting to show up when some guy barricades himself in his house with a bunch of guns?
I've witnessed a standoff first-hand. The police will show up and attempt to take down the person in question. They don't just hang around with their thumbs up their ass. They have riot shields, body armor, and they storm in from every direction with 20+ guys.
Do you know what SWAT responses entail? It's kick down the door, assault rifles and body armor, shoot if you perceive a threat level response. Police shoot swatting targets sometimes because they have itchy trigger fingers.
The military is trained to engage a motivated organized enemy force. This is very different.
Police, including SWAT, should always assume people are innocent. And they should always strive to minimize violence, if you can avoid pulling your gun out it's a lot safer for everybody, cops and criminals alike.
Let's not pretend that there are many elaborate well armed hostage situations like you see on TV. Mostly it's drunk deranged desperate people who needs to be talked out of a bad situation. Few hostage situations are organized, most of them are just sad cases...
I'm willing to bet more people are harmed by SWAT teams than by heavily armed criminals using the same class of gear.
A patrolman would've been more than sufficient for this.
EDIT:
Just to make this painfully obvious...had he turned around quickly with a mouse in his hand, they quite possibly could have drilled him. Is that sort of risk really something we're okay with?
EDIT 2:
For the downvoters--notice that I said "same class of gear". How many criminals are actually busted carrying fully-automatic MP5s, assault rifles, shotguns, and body armor?
There is just one way this isn’t a massive police screwup, and that’s if the person SWATed reacted in a way that was (very) threatening, such as grabbing a gun, or something that is reasonable the police could believe was a gun.
My hunch here is that, just like you are suggesting, Swat teams are used incorrectly as first response in unconfirmed situations. No investigation by anyone has confirmed the threat.
At the end of the day, police officers just can’t shoot unarmed people, no matter how stressful the situation.
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