Swatting Arrest

[Ben]

That person is the kid who mad the SWAT call.

Separate from the cop discussion, let's not even call him a kid. I'm guilty, at my age, of calling 20 somethings "kids" myself in normal conversation, but I think it's important to note this was a 25 year old adult.

He wasn't a still developing, half-baked child. He was "fully baked" as Judge Judy likes to say, and needs to fully pay for his crimes as an adult with no, "he just wasn't mature enough to know better" talk by the usual suspects - the same people that say you're a "kid" at 26 so you can stay on mommy and daddy's health insurance, or that a 19 year old murderer is a "teenager".

[230RN]

I was kind of shocked to find he (assuming guilt) was 25 years old:

Everone's being kinda cautious about it, but it looks like the call might have come from Tyler Barriss, 25. He was arrested Friday in Los Angeles in connection with the Wichita incident.

If it weren't for the inevitable negative effects on the officers involved, I wouldn't mind hearing about a couple of SWATters reaching for their waistbands when arrested. :grrrr: :eyeroll:

Terry

I don't watch Judge Judy, but I liked that "fully baked" description.

[cordex]

"Unwilling to accept what is offered as true." Isn't that a poster child for what went wrong here? The cops accepted that the guy at the address they were sent to was a murderer and incipient arsonist, based on nothing more than a telephone call. I don't know if the dispatcher saw a spoofed phone number that appeared to be from the address they were at. If they did, so be it. If they didn't, and didn't check back to see where the call actually came from, more shame on them.

So you don’t know what exactly they did, but they did it wrong.

The point is, swatting today is a known phenomenon. Every police department in the country has to know that it happens, and their response plans absolutely need to account for the possibility that any call may be a swatting call. They also need to account for the possibility that every call may be genuine. That complicates their job. I know that. Life today is more complicated for everyone than it was a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, even twenty-five years ago. That's life.

It isn’t just that it complicates things, it is that the response for one situation is likely to get someone killed if it is the other.

We cannot accept the death of this innocent man as just another case of collateral damage because the police were just doing their job. That doesn't work. An innocent man is DEAD.

Is this an argument from principle or an emotional argument stemming from your bias against police?
If I were to turn up an innocent person killed in an accident when an ambulance or fire department were driving to a false call would you react similarly in blaming the paramedics and firefighters and demanding they disbelieve any emergency calls?

Sometimes (and again, unlike the crystal ball owners here I can’t say from the available evidence if this is one of those times) everyone can react entirely reasonably and rationally and the situation can still turn out badly.

[Hawkmoon]

Separate from the cop discussion, let's not even call him a kid. I'm guilty, at my age, of calling 20 somethings "kids" myself in normal conversation, but I think it's important to note this was a 25 year old adult.

Heh, heh. The owner of the range where I shoot often refers to acquaintances as "kids." I always think of a "kid" as being a younger guy, teens up to maybe early 20s. So imagine my surprise when he one day introduced me to a guy he had often referred to as a "kid," and who turned out to be a 50-year old, 300+ pound man with his own FFL, his own security business, and who was a member of the security department at a nearby university. The next time I saw Chris by himself I called him on it.

"Oh, sorry. Yeah, I call everybody 'kid.' "

[Fly320s]

Separate from the cop discussion, let's not even call him a kid. I'm guilty, at my age, of calling 20 somethings "kids" myself in normal conversation, but I think it's important to note this was a 25 year old adult.

He wasn't a still developing, half-baked child. He was "fully baked" as Judge Judy likes to say, and needs to fully pay for his crimes as an adult with no, "he just wasn't mature enough to know better" talk by the usual suspects - the same people that say you're a "kid" at 26 so you can stay on mommy and daddy's health insurance, or that a 19 year old murderer is a "teenager".

I agree.  For some reason I thought he was a teen.

[tokugawa]

I would like to know if the cops did ANY recon at all- a phone call to a neighbor, a quick driveby, anything.

 To say that cop did nothing wrong -he killed an innocent man. How much more wrong can you get?

 The defenders of the cop are all, "in his shoes, how was he to know, etc". Are you willing to give the unwitting victim the same defense? He just walked out his door to see what was going on, BLAM, because he did not do, or did, something some panicky person with a gun interpreted as a threat.  

 The main question here is this- are we now in a place, where to stay alive, it is necessary to have perfect instant clear understanding of what a cop says, and instant exact obedience to demands.
 
    Would you endorse this shoot if the man was deaf?  Impaired with a few beers? What if the orders from several cops conflicted?
 
 how perfect does a citizen have to be to be allowed to live?
 
 A cop was on patrol in my area a few days ago. I stopped to talk with him and for the first time in my life I stuck both hands out the drivers side window so he could see them.
 
 
 

[BlueStarLizzard]

okay, say the call was a legit call, not a Swatting and the cops *didn't* shoot the guy when he made a gesture with his hand?

Except the house was soaked in gasoline and the gesture was a lit zippo getting tossed down.

How many of you would be bitching about the cops not acting fast enough to stop psycho guy from torching innocent woman and her two children?

[Ben]

Would you endorse this shoot if the man was deaf?  Impaired with a few beers? What if the orders from several cops conflicted?
 

That's actually good food for thought. While my dad is not deaf, he's very hard of hearing, and if he walked out the door to cops yelling at him, he wouldn't understand what they were saying and would likely walk towards them to hear them better, possibly with his hands at his sides. I guess he'd be dead.

[zxcvbob]

okay, say the call was a legit call, not a Swatting and the cops *didn't* shoot the guy when he made a gesture with his hand?

Except the house was soaked in gasoline and the gesture was a lit zippo getting tossed down.

How many of you would be bitching about the cops not acting fast enough to stop psycho guy from torching innocent woman and her two children?

THAT is why they have "qualified immunity".

[just Warren]

okay, say the call was a legit call, not a Swatting and the cops *didn't* shoot the guy when he made a gesture with his hand?

Except the house was soaked in gasoline and the gesture was a lit zippo getting tossed down.

How many of you would be bitching about the cops not acting fast enough to stop psycho guy from torching innocent woman and her two children?

We wouldn't even notice because there is no way the cops will admit that could have stopped it but chose not to.

They'd say something like "we just didn't get there in time" or "our view was blocked, we could not see what he was doing" so they'd let themselves off the hook and how would anyone else know?

[230RN]

We get frequent, say every six weeks on average, night time visits by the fire-rescue squad here. (Senior Citizen's building.) They pull in the long driveway with no sirens and pretty much all you can hear is the diesels.

I stepped out once to see which apartment they were "visiting" and found I was blinded by all the lights they had on my whole part of the building.  (Apparently to illuminate the apartment numbers?)

Reading this thread, I was thinking if they ever had the police out there on a raid, I would not be able to see what was going on and which apartment they were "after" without shading my eyes and possibly making suspicious movements.

So, not cops, but similar lighting circumstances.  And naturally, I'd have been backlighted by standing by my door.  And naturaly, I'd have brought my hands down to hold on to the balcony railing while I was trying to figure out what was going on.

Boy, I sure hope none of my neighbors deserve any visits like that from the police themselves and everybody hollering things simultaneously like come out with your hands up, down, hands behind your head, turn around, get down, stay where you are, walk backwards to me, scratch your left ear...

Sort of like a square dance caller.  Swing your partner, doesy-doe, round and round, just watch her go... Now she spins you widdershins, and you're dizzy on your pins...

Huh?

And I might innocently step out my door with my long-barreled cane in hand.

Kerblammity !

Terry

[cordex]

I would like to know if the cops did ANY recon at all- a phone call to a neighbor, a quick driveby, anything.

Would it change your opinion if they did?

To say that cop did nothing wrong -he killed an innocent man. How much more wrong can you get?

I've tried to be pretty clear that I'm reserving judgement on whether the cop acted inappropriately, but you're still missing the idea that a bad outcome can result even if everyone is behaving in a reasonable, rational, responsible manner.

The defenders of the cop are all, "in his shoes, how was he to know, etc". Are you willing to give the unwitting victim the same defense? He just walked out his door to see what was going on, BLAM, because he did not do, or did, something some panicky person with a gun interpreted as a threat.  

Still don't know if the victim made any bad moves or not, but even if he did, the situation was not one of his making and ultimately - as with the Shaver case - I don't hold him responsible for his death even if he did make a bad move.

The main question here is this- are we now in a place, where to stay alive, it is necessary to have perfect instant clear understanding of what a cop says, and instant exact obedience to demands.

Hyperbole much?  Cops in the US kill about 500 people per year in total.  Most of them are plenty deserving, but let's pretend that all of them are tragic situations like this one.  That means that 99.99984709% of the population managed to survive the police.

That's a heck of a lot better record than we have with physicians or sedans.

    Would you endorse this shoot if the man was deaf?  Impaired with a few beers? What if the orders from several cops conflicted?

"Endorse"?  No.  Consider justified?  Possibly.
Realistically, some people are at greater risk of all manner of dangers because of physical disability or pharmaceutical impairment.  A deaf, blind, elderly, sleepy, or drunk person might be more likely to step in front of a car or fall off a building or drown in a retention pond or turn the wrong way on a one-way street, or get pulled into a lathe or fumble a chainsaw, or get eaten by a bear.  Police making a mistake when doing their job is a risk (a vanishingly minor risk, as it turns out) which can be exacerbated by various kinds of impairment just like lots of other stuff.  It's on my list of things to worry about - especially as someone who carries a gun - but so far down the list of realistic concerns that it hardly rates mention.

If this same guy had stumbled into an ER showing symptoms of a particular malady, but when the ER doc administered treatment the patient died because of a reaction that the doc couldn't have known ahead of time, would you advocate crucifying the doctor because an innocent man died?  I don't recall our freshly minted champions of the innocent dead raising a fuss about the multiple year-over-year increases in traffic fatalities - many of whom were innocent people who made a single tiny mistake and ended up dead for it.

[tokugawa]

I am having a hard time finding anything ,"reasonable, rational or responsible" about the police actions.   That is my exact concern.

   "Reasonable and responsible" might be a call, "Mrs Jones, , we have reported suspicious activity next door to you. Have you heard or seen anything unusual? Yelling, gunshots, that sort of thing?" or "sir, we received a 911 call from your residence, is everything OK? May we talk to your wife"? 

 I know it takes time. A few minutes, maybe, while the cars are rolling. It is not a "hang around outside for an hour ala Orlando while the shots continue." , which seems to be implied as a counter to any request the police stop and engage their brains for a moment.
 

 Or maybe a drive by of an unmarked car to have a quick look around.

 Or maybe more than a nanosecond before an apparently unarmed guy is shot from ambush. 

 Problem is, you send out a bunch of amped up guys, tell them Genghis Khan is holed up with Charles Manson, and the whole place is wired to go with the orphans and the widows, and you get to a place where it becomes very hard NOT to shoot someone, either by poor trigger discipline, or by trigger happy cop, or by good cop who just can't think straight under the adrenaline surge. Swat teams are just a bad idea, full stop. Too much for 99.99 percent of the time, and way too over rated for a real threat.



 

 

 
 
 

 



 


 

[KD5NRH]

How many SWATting calls are responded to every year?

Well, if there's been one in this little 41,000 person county, I'm betting there are a hell of a lot of them.  And a green deputy in this modern Mayberry handled it without even raising his voice.

Here's a statistic you can probably guess pretty easily; how many eyewitnesses on 911 give all the tactically relevant facts with any substantial degree of accuracy?  And yet the cops are willing to risk the life of anyone they happen to meet at the wrong time over that information.

Charging in like a raging bull without at least a little quiet recon first is how unnecessary deaths happen, on either side.

[Scout26]

I am having a hard time finding anything ,"reasonable, rational or responsible" about the police actions.   That is my exact concern.

   "Reasonable and responsible" might be a call, "Mrs Jones, , we have reported suspicious activity next door to you. Have you heard or seen anything unusual? Yelling, gunshots, that sort of thing?" or "sir, we received a 911 call from your residence, is everything OK? May we talk to your wife"? 

 I know it takes time. A few minutes, maybe, while the cars are rolling. It is not a "hang around outside for an hour ala Orlando while the shots continue." , which seems to be implied as a counter to any request the police stop and engage their brains for a moment.
 

 Or maybe a drive by of an unmarked car to have a quick look around.

 Or maybe more than a nanosecond before an apparently unarmed guy is shot from ambush. 

 Problem is, you send out a bunch of amped up guys, tell them Genghis Khan is holed up with Charles Manson, and the whole place is wired to go with the orphans and the widows, and you get to a place where it becomes very hard NOT to shoot someone, either by poor trigger discipline, or by trigger happy cop, or by good cop who just can't think straight under the adrenaline surge. Swat teams are just a bad idea, full stop. Too much for 99.99 percent of the time, and way too over rated for a real threat.

And what if Mrs. Jones didn't answer the phone?  Even though I live close to my neighbors (typical sub-urban subdivision), this time of year with houses buttoned up and well insulated, I doubt if I would hear a (handgun) gunshot from inside their house, especially if the TV were on, or I was wearing earbuds/(noise cancelling) headphones listening to music.

The unmarked car that rolls by can see nothing as the drapes/blinds are drawn.

The report was that there was an armed guy.  And that he HAD killed someone, and was going to kill all the others either by shooting or by arson.   Again, it's easy to look back in hind-sight and say "They should have known."  And that's the problem.  You need at least 70% of all the information* to make a good decision.  Most the time the police are lucky to have even 5% of the information needed.  In this case the police had 0% of the information, because everything was completely wrong.

What I'm saying is that given what information the officers had and the guy's action, it's not a bad shoot, nor is it a good shoot.  It's a tragedy for everyone involved.  Also as cordex pointed out, the fact that only one shot was fired shows that the police had tremendous discipline in not unleashing a fusillade after that first shot. 

The guy that called the police does, however, deserve murder one and the death sentence.


There was a similar situation recently in Peoria, only Didntdonuthin was hit with 18 bullets.   http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/peoria-police-shoot-bank-robbery-suspect-after-standoff#stream/0
The local NAACP et al., is all up in arms about "Excessive force"  Yet, as a friend of mine pointed out: "What do you do in armed encounter like this?  Fire three times and assess the target.  Six cops, 18 bullets, do the math."






*-  http://mwnation.com/40-70-colin-powell-rule/

[KD5NRH]

There was a similar situation recently in Peoria, only Didntdonuthin was hit with 18 bullets.

Yeah, strikingly similar in every way...except that, you know, he had a gun and they saw it, along with multiple witnesses from the original robbery.  Oh yeah, and they spent a couple hours trying to resolve the situation without violence.  Just as much alike as a fluffy pillow and a crusty truck stop toilet.

[sumpnz]

Not saying I agree with it all, but some salient points are raised here.

http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/blog/index.php?itemid=441

[cordex]

I am having a hard time finding anything ,"reasonable, rational or responsible" about the police actions.   That is my exact concern.

   "Reasonable and responsible" might be a call, "Mrs Jones, , we have reported suspicious activity next door to you. Have you heard or seen anything unusual? Yelling, gunshots, that sort of thing?" or "sir, we received a 911 call from your residence, is everything OK? May we talk to your wife"? 

What did the police and dispatch do in this particular situation prior to making contact with the occupant?

I know it takes time. A few minutes, maybe, while the cars are rolling. It is not a "hang around outside for an hour ala Orlando while the shots continue." , which seems to be implied as a counter to any request the police stop and engage their brains for a moment.

Not that it is a bad idea to gather additional information, but what exactly would calling the neighbors prove?  A negative answer doesn't mean a murder hasn't taken place.  As scout pointed out, a pistol shot may not even be audible from within a neighboring household.  A random dispatcher calling the reported murderer who has additional victims at hand is a ridiculous idea unless you're dead set on not taking the call seriously.
 

Or maybe a drive by of an unmarked car to have a quick look around.

Which proves what?  If Mrs. Jones didn't hear anything and the unmarked car doesn't see anything do you just send Barney up to pound on the door and hope for the best?  Your brilliant ideas for what would be reasonable, rational and responsible work fantastically only on a false report, but would almost certainly get people killed if it was real.  

Problem is, you send out a bunch of amped up guys, tell them Genghis Khan is holed up with Charles Manson, and the whole place is wired to go with the orphans and the widows, and you get to a place where it becomes very hard NOT to shoot someone, either by poor trigger discipline, or by trigger happy cop, or by good cop who just can't think straight under the adrenaline surge.

 So instead they should do what?  Not tell the responding cops what the caller said?  You're long on criticism and KD5NRH-quality suggestions, but you've clearly not put much work into thinking them through.

Swat teams are just a bad idea, full stop. Too much for 99.99 percent of the time, and way too over rated for a real threat.

I'm of mixed feelings on SWAT teams.  They're certainly overused and too many departments have them when they don't need them.  That said, when the report is for a barricaded murderer with multiple hostages, it's pretty hard to argue that they aren't a reasonable tool.

[Hawkmoon]

The report was that there was an armed guy.  And that he HAD killed someone, and was going to kill all the others either by shooting or by arson.   Again, it's easy to look back in hind-sight and say "They should have known."

I don't think anyone here is saying they should have known. I think many of us are saying, "They should have asked / questioned / verified."

And that's the problem.  You need at least 70% of all the information* to make a good decision.  Most the time the police are lucky to have even 5% of the information needed.  In this case the police had 0% of the information, because everything was completely wrong.

And the real problem is that, although it transpired that they had zero percent information, they proceeded as though they had 100 percent information.

Also as cordex pointed out, the fact that only one shot was fired shows that the police had tremendous discipline in not unleashing a fusillade after that first shot.

I maintain it shows that one cop had his finger on the trigger and the trigger already halfway pulled when he should have been in "observe" mode. I believe (yes, I understand that makes this my opinion, not fact) that the reason there was only one shot is that none of the other cops had their fingers tensed on the trigger, so that one shot didn't result in a barrage of sympathetic fire because it most likely resulted in twenty officers looking around and saying "Who *expletive deleted*ing fired that shot?"

Basically, the guy who fired the shot was totally out of his OODA loop. Remember the OODA loop? Observe - Orient - Decide - Act. Watching that video multiple times and looking at the lack of elapsed time, IMHO the cop who fired the shot shorted his OODA loop to a OA loop -- Observe ==> Act. No orientation, no decision. Again IMHO, it was one of two possibilities: Either (1) his finger was already tensed on the trigger and the shot was an involuntary jerk; or (2) he was predisposed to shoot, so no orientation or decision was needed, the decision was already made in his mind so the instant he saw movement he fired.

Bad shoot.

The guy that called the police does, however, deserve murder one and the death sentence.

That we can agree on.

[Scout26]

Not saying I agree with it all, but some salient points are raised here.

http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/blog/index.php?itemid=441

Again, the officer shot not because he was afraid of getting "smoked", but because he was trying to prevent the innocents from being shot.  

And as much as I like Mr. Williamson, comparing being a soldier to being a cop is comparing apples with mushrooms.    As a soldier, I knew who the enemy was and that he was trying to kill me ALL THE TIME.  I also had a pretty good idea of where he was, and what he was capable of and what he was going to do to try to kill me.   As a cop, I almost never knew where the bad was, nor what he was capable of doing. I've had to go from trying to help someone injured to actively fighting them to prevent them from hurting/killing me, all in the blink of an eye.   Go to a domestic and try to calm people down.  And then for fun, arrest one or both.  (HINT:  When you separate them to find out what's going on, don't allow either into the kitchen and make sure there are no weapons present.  P.S.  Lots of common household crap can be turned into an improvised weapon before you know it.)

And I've been both.   And every time I had to respond to an emergency, it was never about me, it was always about how I can make things right and help people.  "Going Home" never crossed my mind.

Same with comparing them to Firefighters.  There is ZERO requirement that save every building.  There is ZERO requirement that they rush into every burning building.  If someone dies in a fire, the firefighters do NOT get blamed for saving everyone.  More often then not, the Firefighters will do what they can to prevent the spread of the fire, not save the structure.  The attitude is "Insurance will pay for it."  These days if a Firefighter dies in line of duty, it's because it's an accident, or he did something he should not have done or failed to do.

Cops have to go to the scene.  They can't go, "Once he kills everyone, if he doesn't burn himself to death, then we'll arrest him." Firefighters for the most part know "There's a fire in that building".  Cops often don't know that even much.  The fire isn't (usually) going to jump out and start shooting a people (cops and/or innocents).  And again, the cops had bad information.  If firefighters have bad information, they load back up in the truck and go back to the station as there is no fire.  

And yes, there are some differences between this and what happened in Peoria.
1)  Time of day.  Peoria was broad daylight, Wichita was at night.  
2)  Didntdonuthin in Peoria had not taken a life.  In Wichita, 911 was told he had killed someone.  Once that boundary is crossed, the use of lethal force is allowed.
3)  Peoria didn't pour gasoline all over the house.  In Wichita, 911 was told that he was ready to burn everyone.  And since the murder boundary had been crossed, (and the gasoline had aerosolized), you simply can't risk trying to wait them out, as even he doesn't Flick his Bic, the longer the they wait the great the chance of accidental ignition.  

And I agree with cordex  

I'm of mixed feelings on SWAT teams.  They're certainly overused and too many departments have them when they don't need them.  That said, when the report is for a barricaded murderer with multiple hostages, it's pretty hard to argue that they aren't a reasonable tool.

Yes, they are overused, but this is PRECISELY the situation that SWAT teams were created for.  


Again, it wasn't a good shoot, but the cop did nothing wrong based upon the information provided.  

[MechAg94]

I am not as hot about this as I was the other day, but I still think it is a bad shoot (innocent guy was shot by police so I find it hard to define any other way).  I am just not sure it is criminal or unjustified without more concrete info on exactly what happened.  

The problem I run into is I don't know what SOP changes could be made to prevent this that don't have negative issues in other ways.  The courts always say the cops are not responsible for anyone's personal safety.  So I think it would be best if the SOP the cops use stay on the side of not killing innocent people rather than being the cavalry riding to the rescue.  

[Scout26]

I don't think anyone here is saying they should have known. I think many of us are saying, "They should have asked / questioned / verified."

And I keep asking "How to do that in such a way that it doesn't get people killed in a real instance ?"  

And the real problem is that, although it transpired that they had zero percent information, they proceeded as though they had 100 percent information.

They acted based upon the information they had.  Are they supposed to act as if every 911 is a lie ??   The only way 911 works is if they presume that the information provided is truthful.  In this case it was a lie.  

Deputy Chief Troy Livingston of the Wichita Police Department said that 911 emergency response “is based on the premise of believing the caller: When you call for help, you’re going to get help.”

I maintain it shows that one cop had his finger on the trigger and the trigger already halfway pulled when he should have been in "observe" mode. I believe (yes, I understand that makes this my opinion, not fact) that the reason there was only one shot is that none of the other cops had their fingers tensed on the trigger, so that one shot didn't result in a barrage of sympathetic fire because it most likely resulted in twenty officers looking around and saying "Who *expletive deleted*ing fired that shot?"

Or he may have been the only one with a shot.  Again, for all the cops knew the murder/homicide boundary had been crossed.  At that point, shooting the perpetrator is authorized to save innocent lives.  

Basically, the guy who fired the shot was totally out of his OODA loop. Remember the OODA loop? Observe - Orient - Decide - Act. Watching that video multiple times and looking at the lack of elapsed time, IMHO the cop who fired the shot shorted his OODA loop to a OA loop -- Observe ==> Act. No orientation, no decision. Again IMHO, it was one of two possibilities: Either (1) his finger was already tensed on the trigger and the shot was an involuntary jerk; or (2) he was predisposed to shoot, so no orientation or decision was needed, the decision was already made in his mind so the instant he saw movement he fired.

Quite the opposite.  The Officers did the first two steps.  Once his hands dropped, the officers can't take the chance that he's not going to do something bad and that the other people in the house are going to die.  

Bad shoot.

That we can agree one.

Sorry, I disagree.

[/quote]

Here's the 911 call and the video: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html

Red and blue flashy lights.  Suddenly, illuminated and give command to show your hands and walk this way.  Again, the officers don't know everything is BS.  

[Scout26]

I am not as hot about this as I was the other day, but I still think it is a bad shoot (innocent guy was shot by police so I find it hard to define any other way).  I am just not sure it is criminal or unjustified without more concrete info on exactly what happened.  

The problem I run into is I don't know what SOP changes could be made to prevent this that don't have negative issues in other ways.  The courts always say the cops are not responsible for anyone's personal safety.  So I think it would be best if the SOP the cops use stay on the side of not killing innocent people rather than being the cavalry riding to the rescue.  

So not respond to hostage situations or domestic disturbances or anything more then traffic accidents (but even those can go pear-shaped) ??  Then why even have police ?? 

Traffic accident ??  Go fight it out in court with their (or your) insurance company.   Other then that, I'm good with everyone being responsible for their own safety and welfare.

[MechAg94]

And I keep asking "How to do that in such a way that it doesn't get people killed in a real instance ?"  

They acted based upon the information they had.  Are they supposed to act as if every 911 is a lie ??   The only way 911 works is if they presume that the information provided is truthful.  In this case it was a lie.  

Or he may have been the only one with a shot.  Again, for all the cops knew the murder/homicide boundary had been crossed.  At that point, shooting the perpetrator is authorized to save innocent lives.  


Quite the opposite.  The Officers did the first two steps.  Once his hands dropped, the officers can't take the chance that he's not going to do something bad and that the other people in the house are going to die.  

Sorry, I disagree.



Here's the 911 call and the video: http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html

Red and blue flashy lights.  Suddenly, illuminated and give command to show your hands and walk this way.  Again, the officers don't know everything is BS.  

Do you really think it is 100% okay for cops to come to someone's home and put them at gun point and shoot them if they don't behave just right all on what is essentially hearsay?  No, I don't think they should assume the 911 call is correct and truthful.  Stepping back from this incident, you are basically saying if someone makes a report to police against you, your rights are meaningless.  IMO, the only reason police tend to do just that is because completely fake 911 calls are don't happen very often.  

[MechAg94]

So not respond to hostage situations or domestic disturbances or anything more then traffic accidents (but even those can go pear-shaped) ??  Then why even have police ??  

Traffic accident ??  Go fight it out in court with their (or your) insurance company.   Other then that, I'm good with everyone being responsible for their own safety and welfare.

So if you have an traffic accident tomorrow and the other person calls 911 and says you are drunk and threatening them, you think the cops should show up and with guns drawn solely on that call without any observation of the scene or your behavior to provide some verification that it is true.  I really doubt you would want that.  

I would say most cases don't require anything but some observation and thought as police approach.  I just think there is a big difference between what police see themselves and what they are told about by someone else.  The sad part is I am not entirely sure that changes this incident or not since I haven't see much other than the original video.