They call, gunman sees caller ID, freaks out, shoots everyone.
If they don’t, gunman lies. They send a cop over. Cop get shot, gunman freaks shoots everyone.
I think the more pressing issues are:
Demilitarize the police. Sure they can have body armor. They don’t need fucking assault weapons and armored personnel carriers though.
Criminalize swatting. We already know that since the Dubya era that federal US has had their hands on all communication in the US. Find out who the swatter is and prosecute the twatwaffle
I think if you got a jumpy gunman scenario they’re going to start shooting when the police come roaring into the neighbourhood. A call might lead to a hostage negotiation scenario which will more likely to have people surviving than a gunfight between a jumpy gunman and even more jumpy cops with some hostages in the room.
Sure there are scenarios where a call back probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but the 9/11 operator has a description of the scenario, and I’d think for most of them a call back would be fine.
The problem is that they don’t have time in the situations that get called in to
Police can dick around for hours between receiving a call and taking any kind of action. Just ask the kids at Uvalde Elementary School.
The issue isn’t about time, its about police training that dictates anything that makes them nervous is a target for gunfire. There is no sense of public preservation, its all just Cops-Against-The-World mentality. That’s one big reason why cops will always, always, always shoot the family dog. There’s simply no incentive to treat any animal as something other than a deadly weapon coming for their throats.
The same officers that spend thirty minutes dicking around outside playing one more round of Candy Crush on their phones will dome you through a window because you spooked them.
In a lot of ways, SWATing isn’t a bug in the system but a feature. The ability to basically call in an airstrike on your neighbor creates a sense of terror that keeps people alienated of one another and absolutely horrified of what the local police might do to them.
The problem is that they don’t have time in the situations that get called in to. The nature of the reported crimes demands immediate action.
If they hesitate in those situations it could end like Uvalde.
But surely there’s a practical middle between “shoot first, ask later” and “sit and wait an hour”
“Okay everyone gather up, the plan is we wait around for 30 minutes and start shooting our guns into the air.”
Or how about make a call to the registered number at the address the threat was called in at… then send a car over to verify.
You can literally de- escalate in 60 seconds and verify in as much time as it takes to send swat in to fuck shit up.
But… they have all that swat gear and they want to use it! And fucking shit up is about 90% of policing nowadays.
Wtf is a registered number at an address?
They call, gunman sees caller ID, freaks out, shoots everyone.
If they don’t, gunman lies. They send a cop over. Cop get shot, gunman freaks shoots everyone.
I think the more pressing issues are:
I think if you got a jumpy gunman scenario they’re going to start shooting when the police come roaring into the neighbourhood. A call might lead to a hostage negotiation scenario which will more likely to have people surviving than a gunfight between a jumpy gunman and even more jumpy cops with some hostages in the room.
Sure there are scenarios where a call back probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but the 9/11 operator has a description of the scenario, and I’d think for most of them a call back would be fine.
So, no sweat on the part of the police force then.
Police can dick around for hours between receiving a call and taking any kind of action. Just ask the kids at Uvalde Elementary School.
The issue isn’t about time, its about police training that dictates anything that makes them nervous is a target for gunfire. There is no sense of public preservation, its all just Cops-Against-The-World mentality. That’s one big reason why cops will always, always, always shoot the family dog. There’s simply no incentive to treat any animal as something other than a deadly weapon coming for their throats.
The same officers that spend thirty minutes dicking around outside playing one more round of Candy Crush on their phones will dome you through a window because you spooked them.
Oh yeah, there is a huge issue with that. But I maintain the issue is that the swatters are not being treated nearly as harshly as they should.
In a lot of ways, SWATing isn’t a bug in the system but a feature. The ability to basically call in an airstrike on your neighbor creates a sense of terror that keeps people alienated of one another and absolutely horrified of what the local police might do to them.