There needs to be insurance for police, just like there is for doctors. Once an individual cop has repeated judgements against them they won’t be insurable, instead of the current result of them moving to a different city.
How about firing them and sending them to jail?
There should be a national license that can be revoked making officers ineligible to hold any position in law enforcement anywhere in the country.
I think judges are often overlooked, they are the barrier stopping an internet troll from sending a small military on to your property on a whim. Too many false swatting should lead to a judge mandatorily stepping down, especially if there are casualties.
I've long promoted this idea as well. They should be insured, backed by the union's pension plan. They have <i>zero</i> skin in the game.<p>The other thing that would help immensely would be to revisit qualified immunity. Conceptually its perfectly understandable -- failures can happen that are not their fault and they should not be on the hook for that.<p>But in these times, it's just <i>full immunity</i>. They can do whatever they want and only in the most heinous crimes where they didn't have the opportunity to destroy the evidence they only then do time.<p>One last thing should be noted: the War on Drugs is designed to <i>create</i> crime and is weaponized against the citizenry. "Dangerous" drugs aren't illegal to protect you, they're there so they can fuck you over.
They need to get sued _hard_ and lose millions, as well as have cops put in jail before real change happens. I feel sorry for this kid but he's doing the right thing.
Taxpayers will just foot the bill. These cops need their personal funds taken, and before they blow it all on legal bills defending themselves from criminal charges.<p>Come to think of it, this is America dammit. Cops should be licensed, bonded and insured, and if their training or records aren't up to standards they don't get covered. We have higher standards for plumbers and pest control than we do police.
This. If truck drivers have to maintain safety records, if firefighters require certification and training, cops do too. To hell with this implied immunity bullshit, either they are correct in enforcing the law or they aren’t.
This guy needs to be compensated for his pain and suffering, his economic losses due to his disability, and for the care he'll need for the rest of his life. Jailing the people whose negligence is responsible for his injuries doesn't help him.
By that logic we shouldn't lock up murderers either. After all, it won't help the person who's already dead.
Jail isn’t about helping victims.
> cops put in jail<p>Right. The real justice comes from treating this incident like you would if there were no municipal coffers at play, and simply punish criminals for criminal action.
Real justice when it comes to swatting is multi-faceted.<p>Sure, the person making the bogus call to police should suffer some consequences vis a vis jail time.<p>However, swatting only works because police regularly take a shoot first and ask questions later stance. They go from an anonymous tip about an ongoing crime at an address to shooting up said address in short order without any effort to verify a crime is actually taking place, perhaps in no small part due to the fact that qualified immunity ensures they'll never see any consequences for any property damage and/or casualties which occur as a result.<p>I'd liken it to initiating a gang hit, except at least in the gang hit, the gang members responsible for carrying it out have a chance at facing some accountability.<p>Cops need to face the possibility of (at minimum) termination and even jail time for recklessly endangering civilians, and cop training needs to be fundamentally changed to eliminate this "us vs. them" mentality seen in so many of those in blue.
> kid<p>The man is 24 years old.
I don't understand why more police agencies aren't being super careful with this stuff, especially if they're being sent to a house / location where no other crimes have been reported. It would be one thing if you have a call to a house that's had domestic violence calls, other shootings, etc. Instead, they're just getting a call and thinking, "Oh no! Danger!" and running in, guns blazing. I love the protection from the police but sometimes I'm afraid they don't think intelligently and instead just react.
A lot of them _want_ to be able to go in guns blazing and not having to be careful. They're living out a Warrior fantasy.
There is something like 50 million police-public encounters annually. Stuff like this is exceedingly rare.<p>So while Pima PD should be held responsible, and those cops should face criminal charges, it's logically non-nonsensical for this to make you terrified of police (or the other 5-10 similar stories annually). I mean cars are genocidal military dictators by comparison.<p>The downstream effect of this is people doing incredibly rash and stupid things because they think the cops are just going to start blasting them during a traffic stop ("I need to shot them/run away because I am dead anyway").
There are hundreds of billions of person-to-person encounters annually and almost all of them end just fine, yet people feel the need to:<p>1. Come up with a beautiful story about how they need to have guns to defend themselves.<p>2. Come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who improperly uses violence in such encounters.<p>Encountering a cop is one of the most dangerous 'mundane' things that can happen to you. ~One in 50,000 encounters ends with someone dead.<p>Going on 50,000 drives is unlikely to send you to the morgue.
Why would they? What downside do they face? Cops get paid bonuses for raiding houses, they get bonuses for seizing money and valuable goods, they get bonuses for charging people with crimes. While they face almost zero consequences for abusing and extorting people, can lie with impunity, and often even get away with straight up cold blooded murder. Corruption within their organization is almost completely ignored and they hire people based on how sociopathic and unempathetic they are and enforce those traits in "training" even more because harsh draconian enforcement brings in the largest amount of money for cops and courts.<p>Unless you live in a community where the median income is $200K+, the primary funding for cops is through charging people with the easy crimes that they can't afford lawyers to fight, often drugs because they have massively inflated fines and fees. And the next best source of funding they have is special grants and programs which are often doles out based on how "dangerous" an area is, and killing "criminals" makes an area seem more dangerous and deserving of special funds and recognition and fancy armaments and killing toys.
Some protection!
A lot of police departments in the US pay to send their officers to seminars where speakers tell them that they’re Literally Warriors. Cops with Punisher tattoos aren’t being ironic, they think about finishing a shift of playing Temple Run on their phones like catching the last helicopter out of Saigon.
They aren't being super careful because there's no cost to being careless.
Police agencies arent the only ones alone to take blame here, the judges who on a whim sign these warrants should face liability or be removed from their position if there are casualties as a result of a false report.
This happened to me in 2021 minus the being shot part. Called local PD to inform them; still had a full police response, luckily was renovating house but still.
whoa. feel bad for the people of tuscon, because they didn't do anything wrong, but holy shit this case looks absolutely awful for the city and i hope they lose. big.
SWATing is a very common thing so police depts should be aware there's always a risk of it happening<p>Take the call seriously, but be prepared it's not what you think it is, especially if you see a shocked gamer sitting at their computer monitor with no apparent hostages
It really seems like something that could be fixed with proper training and protocol, when police forces the world over don't have this issue.
It's a problem elsewhere too, albeit less violent, you just don't hear about it.<p><a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-dev-swatted-live-during-a-development-video-stream" rel="nofollow">https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-dev-swatte...</a>
Time to start a new company, Swatly.ai, which listens in on 911 calls and warns police if they may be responding to a SWATting attempt. Working on integrating into their firearms so they won't fire unless the AI thinks it's load-bearing.
More sensibly, their insurance could just toss a clause in and charge higher premiums to cover for this, while adding some conditions to help prevent it.
And then on the side they sell "metadata" to insurance companies and anyone else willing to pay...
It explicitly said in the article that he pulled out a gun. He shouldn't have been swatted, obviously. That said, if you pull out a gun when police are responding to what they believe is an active shooter, the chances of you being shot are extremely high.<p>Additionally consider what would have happened if this had been an active shooting and they simply disregarded the phone call.
> It explicitly said in the article that he pulled out a gun.<p>A gun that he legally owned and had every right to have on his person as an unknown individual was breaking into his home. If police don't identify themselves they should expect an armed population to meet them with guns in hand. It's their responsibility to assess the situation, understand who the occupants are, and respond appropriately. Smashing a bedroom window with a shovel and then "indiscriminately" firing into it is not a reasonable response.
It also says that he heard glass breaking, thought they were criminals, grabbed a gun and hid behind a door.<p>If you’re going to mention the gun fact, why not provide the whole context?
I assumed everyone also read the article if they're commenting on it, but I fail to see what additional that context that adds; I can't imagine he was pulling it out because it was time to oil it. Police were responding to an active shooter call, and this guy pulled out a gun.
No. You are beyond wrong. Personal firearm ownership is a constitutionally protected right, just as protection from unreasonable search (as this was). Arming oneself when someone breaks into your house is beyond reasonable. Police should expect residents to be armed and shouldn't be breaking into residences.<p>And please, stop blaming the victim.
I suspect he pulled it out because he heard someone breaking into his house.
From TFA:<p>> Melendez did grab a "legal, registered" gun once he heard the glass shatter, Sethi said, but he ducked behind a partially closed door.<p>> He believed someone connected to the hackers was breaking in, Sethi added.