Ridiculous Police News (Specific events)

[Qalbert]

/thread ladies and gentlemen. Qalbert has taken the mantle. Because he is so violently oppressed by the police, is in great fear because the police have scary weapons that can kill (which statistically is an impossibility due to his privilege), and believes so strongly that the police are the heart of the corruption of America, this day, he is going to make a difference!

Today, he will step away from his computer, and put on his cape. Today, he will step outside and jump in to his Batmobile. Worry not, fair citizen! Qalbert will save you! He will gladly take the hour out of his busy schedule to help you change your tire! He will gladly rush in with his mighty powers of "Non-Violent Restraining" to subdue that rapist sticking it in your vagina in that dark alleyway! He will gladly stand watch to ensure you don't asphyxiate on your own vomit as he waits for an ambulance because he found you laying facedown in a gutter!

He will use his newfound momentum to establish a group to rid the world of tyranny, oppression, and villany. The police are no more. Felled by the hands of those they swore to protect, a new breed of enforcer is here to save the day! Dun dun dun daaaaa! He is Qalbert! Here to save you all from the despicable police officers who ruled this country with an iron fist!

There. I just spruced up that fantasy world you just created. Jump on in there and be the good little sheep. Pretend it's not there and pretend you're an oppressed little lamb. Don't worry; even if you don't want it, the sheepdog will still be there to protect you, little sheep.

jesus christ could you be any more mad and delusional

[Quicklet]

Tell this to those dead kids in Connecticut. Oh wait, you can't. Sorry.

No ones life was fucked up in a "Swatting" incident, so your argument is invalid.

I just need to chime in to say that there is a difference between an active shooter event or a bomb threat in a public location with multiple 911 calls vs a single call regarding a private residence with vague or ambiguous information. Not that the private residence calls should be taken any less seriously, but it's clear that many departments still are unaware of the practice of swatting and need to be briefed on the practice and possibility so that they can better assess the best response required. In addition to the Adam Lanzas of this world, there are also people who will take advantage of current police protocol regarding raids in order to harass and frighten people for fun, and that is an equally troubling thing.

[Nephlite]

jesus christ could you be any more mad and delusional

I am a cop, after all. Want to see how far the rabbit hole goes?

I just need to chime in to say that there is a difference between an active shooter event or a bomb threat in a public location with multiple 911 calls vs a single call regarding a private residence with vague or ambiguous information. Not that the private residence calls should be taken any less seriously, but it's clear that many departments still are unaware of the practice of swatting and need to be briefed on the practice and possibility so that they can better assess the best response required. In addition to the Adam Lanzas of this world, there are also people who will take advantage of current police protocol regarding raids in order to harass and frighten people for fun, and that is an equally troubling thing.

This is true, in theory. The reason why they treat it seriously every time, is because that one time you think it's a joke, it turns out to be real (Crying Wolf). Maybe people are dead or fleeing for their lives and no one else could call? You know why VA tech was so bad? Half the student population didn't even know there was a mass shooting.

On top of that, people think it's easy to track a phone number and run it to get information. It's not CSI here. Hell, in my city, if I wanted to check the location of a phone or track a number, I have to call the phone company which takes hours. 911 isn't a magical system that's untrickable. It can easily be fooled by any number of different methods. Calling people back? In the time it takes for people to track down and see if it's legit, more lives are lost. It's just not that simple.

Plus, how many people work in a police setting as a call taker have any sort of technical know-how other than the basic responsibilities of picking up a phone and typing in to a text box? My own dispatchers can't even fucking google addresses on the computers right in front of them and instead look at a map on their workstation.

[Qalbert]

The problem is there are a worrying number of examples of shit going wrong and people's situations getting fucked up, whether it's as "minor" as a home invasion and broken shit, or more severe like injuries or death. Rather than admitting that "hey maybe something can be improved to fix this" you just provide a bunch of strawmen of "well it could have been another *really bad news incident*" and "it doesn't matter if innocent lives get fucked up we're trying to save innocent lives". I parroted your point back at you to try to show you how ridiculous it was. No, all police don't need to be thrown out, or not respond to crime scenes, that's ridiculous. But what's also ridiculous is you sticking your fingers in your ears when people point out very legitimate concerns and flaws and going "LALALA CANT HEAR YOU WE ARE SAVING LIVES AND ALSO MIGHT DIE"

I get that being a cop can be hard, and feel really dangerous. I do. But that doesn't excuse any of the bullshit that's been going on, and just waving it off as "the price of security" isn't acceptable. I'm not a genius, I don't know enough about things to propose a solution, but the current state of things is deeply flawed, and something has to change, and the first step to that is admitting that there's a problem and looking for an actual answer to them, not just shrugging it off/denying problems exist.

[Nephlite]

I get you, dude. I feel the same way. I think no-knock raids have their place, but something has to be done to prevent small kids from getting hurt. I hate stories of police brutality, of cover ups, of corruption, and of all the other BS. It makes me and the guys who try to do good and make a difference look bad. I want change. I want federal legalization of marijuana. I want the war on drugs to end. I want to wear a body camera. I don't want people to die. I want reform, and more training, and safer methods to subdue criminals, and to not get shit on because some other fuck nugget 3000 miles away did something stupid.

I HATE the generalization bullshit game. I hate it when I contact a black person and get called a racist and "You stopped me cause I'm black!" bullshit. I hate that people who have no idea what it's like to be a cop and dismiss my point of view as I'm being too paranoid or I'm a crybaby or whatever. I REALLY hate it when people scream allegations of bigotry, brutality, or other crap without a shred of proof. I hate that people want the police to be prosecuted like citizens, but skip due process and the right to a fair trial. I fucking hate my coworkers who support All Sharpton and the other politicians who are using this Michael Brown shooting as political cannon fodder to further some bullshit adgenda that has nothing to do with anything.

Most of all, I hate that people have immediately jumped to a conclusion, and the faith in our system has fallen so low, that they won't even wait until the investigation is over before passing judgment on a person who may be innocent.

Say what you will, I don't care. I don't give a fuck about Darren Wilson or Michael Brown. Both of them fucked up as far as I can tell. Shame that both of their asses didn't die. Maybe then I wouldn't have had to lose so many friends over this retarded ass shit.

[Qalbert]

said this in the other thread too, but I think a lot of it is leftover frustration and anger at irl people. my parents are both super conservative southern baptist type people, and are constantly being casually racist about stuff, parroting fox news as gospel, and so on, but i'm not in a position to yell and tell them they're ignorant fuckwits so I think a lot of that anger gets brought over to lesser offenders here, which is bullshit on my part, so I'm sorry about that.

[Nephlite]

It's okay. No worries.

The only thing I want, is to provide some awareness and insight from the other side. I think aside from the three of us around who are on BG who are known, I'm probably the most vocal and don't have to worry too much about a social media policy. If I throw out a perception, a tactic, or some procedure, I do it to raise awareness and try not to get too emotional about it.

Edit: also sorry for being a dick. I'm pretty passionate about my job so, I tend to get a bit terse when I talk about it.

[hey]

Plus, how many people work in a police setting as a call taker have any sort of technical know-how other than the basic responsibilities of picking up a phone and typing in to a text box? My own dispatchers can't even fucking google addresses on the computers right in front of them and instead look at a map on their workstation.

I hope you're defending this.

Calling people back? In the time it takes for people to track down and see if it's legit, more lives are lost. It's just not that simple.

ITT: What is multitasking. It is that simple. Call them back while you assemble your swat team. Don't fucking tell me there's not a single person with one minute free to make a damn phone call before/while heading to the location. We aren't talking about a one man super hero. You have an entire police force. While a few people get ready to raid the place, others can investigate. Take everything seriously, fine, but that doesn't mean don't investigate too.

[Nephlite]

You're 100% right, and it works in theory. In theory, a dispatcher should be handling one call at a time. A dispatcher should also be a police officer and not a civilian to follow up on those things. Or maybe, Dispatch should be right next to the police instead of 20 miles away so they can hand off the info.

Also, there's only been what? Two instances of a spoof? What if they don't answer the phone? It's a pretty complicated process. It's also a much harder job to be a police dispatcher. Imagine you're one of ten people taking calls from over 2,000,000 people.

[hey]

You're 100% right, and it works in theory. In theory, a dispatcher should be handling one call at a time. A dispatcher should also be a police officer and not a civilian to follow up on those things. Or maybe, Dispatch should be right next to the police instead of 20 miles away so they can hand off the info.

Also, there's only been what? Two instances of a spoof? What if they don't answer the phone? It's a pretty complicated process. It's also a much harder job to be a police dispatcher. Imagine you're one of ten people taking calls from over 2,000,000 people.

Okay, so get an actual police officer to investigate.

[Nephlite]

I'm sure they tried to investigate as much as possible. Intel starts as soon as the call comes in. The only difference is: what do you do when you can't call anyone? Assume the worst. Time to lock and load.

[hey]

I'm sure they tried to investigate as much as possible. Intel starts as soon as the call comes in. The only difference is: what do you do when you can't call anyone? Assume the worst. Time to lock and load.

If you call and they don't answer, assume the worst. If you don't bother calling at all, then it's you've screwed up. I understand you don't always have the luxury of doing a thorough investigation, and sometimes you need to act immediately, but you still need to do the best you can in what little time you do have. Calling back is quick and easy to do, not much excuse for not doing it.

[Quicklet]

I've seen probably several dozen reports of swatting in the past year or two. It mostly happens to celebrities and public figures, but people have done it to streamers, etc. to harass / troll. It happens often enough that most tech-related sites have run multiple articles on the practice by now, and even some mainstream media outlets have run stories on it.

In fact just a month or two ago you had someone swatting multiple people on twitch and then re-streaming their audio as it happens / posting about it on twitter. One guy who's fairly well known in the speedrunning community had police surround his house (unbeknownst to him initially) while he was streaming, and didn't realize what was going on until his mother came in to tell him about it. A big chunk of it was captured on stream. Luckily the police seemed to handle things well in that instance, but even then, they more or less had to have him explain a lot about what was going on and help get them some information on the guy who was doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO5zbqxP41c

Even in this situation where things were resolved appropriately, it's a frightening experience for the people who have it done to them.

[Acevalefor]

Nephlite, I took a few things from the conversation with Qal, hey, and whoever else was involved.
1. You finally admitted there is a problem and it is multi-faceted. Bravo
2. There have been hundreds of swatting incidents in the last year. It's receiving national media attention now and has since begun to decline because of that attention. Maybe the solution is simply making people aware of swatting and the problem will go away.
3. It takes you an hour to change a tire. You need some training from AAA. Talk to Brill. I got out of the business. 15 minutes is your new goal time.

[Melena]

Nephlite, I took a few things from the conversation with Qal, hey, and whoever else was involved.
1. You finally admitted there is a problem and it is multi-faceted. Bravo
2. There have been hundreds of swatting incidents in the last year. It's receiving national media attention now and has since begun to decline because of that attention. Maybe the solution is simply making people aware of swatting and the problem will go away.
3. It takes you an hour to change a tire. You need some training from AAA. Talk to Brill. I got out of the business. 15 minutes is your new goal time.

Swatting probably won't go away until you see some people spend a good chunk of time in jail along with a nice fine.

[NynJa]

Is this real? People are complaining when the police respond to phone calls? Are these the same people that complain about a slow response time?

Even if they did realize the call was from a different country, should they ignore the possibility of them telling the truth? Hey, this guy says he saw hostages, but lets not bother going out there just yet.

"Hey we have a phone call from Singapore saying he saw hostages in a residential complex in NYC, we better send the swat team out there."

Theres a difference between sending a car and sending an armored truck.

[Acevalefor]

Swatting probably won't go away until you see some people spend a good chunk of time in jail along with a nice fine.

A lot of the people swatting celebrities are getting caught but I don't know what the outcomes were after their arrests.

In other news, a follow-up to the Walmart killing of a black guy carrying a pellet gun: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...m_hp_ref=crime

His attorney claims, after seeing security camera footage, that he was shot without warning, "shot on sight" is how he described it. One of the officers involved has already been cleared and is back on duty.

[Melena]

Those camera's don't pick up audio, so not sure how they managed to come to that conclusion.

[Acevalefor]

Those camera's don't pick up audio, so not sure how they managed to come to that conclusion.

Hence why I mentioned that one officer has already been cleared. I don't know how they could come to that conclusion either unless it's obvious like the officers coming around a corner and opening fire with his back to them or something.

[quannum]

I don't give a fuck about Darren Wilson or Michael Brown. Both of them fucked up as far as I can tell. Shame that both of their asses didn't die.

both sides, guys.