tdylan said:
I didn't watch the video because the article, I think, explains it well enough. My problem with all of these is that yes "how does it get to this point?" I understand a SWAT team reporting to what they believe to be a legitimate threat, but the "barging in the door, safeties off" does not seem like the best approach to me. I understand that it's not like in the movies, but in those tense situations, do they not worry about shooting the wrong person?
For example, let's say that it is legit, and the criminal has hostages. SWAT barges into the room, the criminal is startled, and a frightened hostage sees this as an opportunity to flee. So they do. SWAT sees the hostage, but only recognizes it as "someone moving quickly," so they shoot first, ask questions after. Now we have a dead innocent person because they didn't bother to gather any intel on the room that they were about to break into. Assume these are real threats: shouldn't they at least try to get an idea of how many people are in the room, and how many of them might be threats BEFORE barging in? And also where they are, so that they don't barge into the room and end up getting shot in the back by someone unaccounted for?
I'll echo the sentiments of a few other people, and while those are valid and obviously very reasonable concernes, it perhaps seems quicker, less planned out and less "ordered" than it actually is. Obviously to the person being swatted, it all happens very quickly, but they do tend to come up with a plan before they barge in, just /we/ and the person being swatted only see them barge through the door. And of course, like people have said, they can't risk it being a genuine case, true, all they see is a person sitting at a computer, but they've been called in for a threat, who knows what else is happening in there, or what /has/ happened, as far as they're concerned?
Luckilly, SWAT teams tend to be trained to a significantly higher degree than your average US police officer, and don't quite succumb to the problem of "shoot first, ask later" like some trigger happy US officers have. They exist purely for high threat, high risk situations and require the necessary training and personality to deal with those situations.
tdylan said:
Personally, if I'm sitting at my computer when my door kicks in, I don't think "SWAT team," I think "home invasion. I need to protect my wife and daughter." With that state of mind, I'm not apt to comply just because someone is yelling "get down on the floor." In the panic, for all I know, it's a criminal yelling that at me. Assume they also have lights shining in my eyes so I can't identify them as police, and all they see is a guy running toward them. I get gunned down because "we were responding to a call, breached, and a suspect rushed us." That's what makes these type of situations unsettling to me. Some asshole wants to call the police, fine. They show up? Good. They're being prudent. But if I were to call the fire department saying there was a fire, do they kick in the door with hoses going? Or do they assess the situation first so that they know what they're getting into?
This, on the other hand I haven't really got a response to. Yes that is a very likely scenario that could happen. I just hope it doesn't. But again, they don't just rock up and run in guns akimbo.
Matthi205 said:
BinDipper said:
Question, is "swatting" a thing in anywhere but the U.S.?
I've not heard of any cases outside the U.S.
Is this another symptom of the police-as-military-just-without-the-training culture in the U.S.?
I think that may be part of it. In most other countries, police forces aren't allowed that heavy armament. It may also be that most of the idiots calling the police haven't been caught.
BinDipper said:
Question, is "swatting" a thing in anywhere but the U.S.?
I've not heard of any cases outside the U.S.
Is this another symptom of the police-as-military-just-without-the-training culture in the U.S.?
But they're not really the police, they don't patrol the streets, they don't walk around with heavy arms all the time. There's been a case in France, but it is a bit harder to do so in other countries, the US just has a bit more of a fear factor when it comes to this sort of stuff. It also has a /very/ large amount of guns that are reasonably easy to get hold of and people willing to use them for criminal acts.
If standard coppers had heavy machine guns and everything else, then you'd be right, but these arn't the standard police, they're a SWAT team, they exist purely to respond to high risk, high threat situations, which you /do/ need, because situations like that going to pop up, otherwise they just sit around at SWAT HQ. Now I'm pretty pro-gun control, but until that gets sorted out, in a country like the US where guns are rife, you do need to have an appropriate response, which are SWAT teams, who recieve much higher training and standard of personnel than police officers. For all intents and purposes, they're a domestic military team, not militarized police.
In the UK, we'd send in the SAS for threats our Armed Response Squads can't or couldn't handle(generally ARS are armed with the same as US police officer, while standard UK police have...a baton, but only because gun crime is so low), which is rare, because we have less gun crime, it's no different from sending in SWAT for a situation that requires more than just a bog standard copper, which is appropriate because of the higher gun crime rate in the US.
PerfectDeath said:
So, I recall watching the twitch stream clip of a streamer who had the SWAT show up during a stream and the footage was caught on webcam.
These are definitely intense situations and while the SWAT officers are well trained, there was one in that stream raid which retorted to the streamer lightly chuckling, "What's so F***ing funny?"
I felt like going in there and decking that idiot officer in the face!
Seriously, when a bunch of armed men with automated guns had pinned you to the ground with firearms trained on you calling you a piece of shit, you panic. This often illicits a forced smile and even some forced laughter to show that you are friendly, a self preservation response to calm the attackers down.
Lets think this through: As far as he's concerned, he's just been called in to arrest highly dangerous criminals; if one of them starts laughing, that's cause for concern. Is there a bomb? Does his mate have a shotgun trained on him? Are the hostages already dead? Is he just fucking insane?