
Fatal Call of Duty Swatter Pleads Guilty to 51 Charges - evo_9
https://kotaku.com/fatal-call-of-duty-swatter-pleads-guilty-to-51-charges-1830434368
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rhacker
No matter how much you want to blame the police for this, keep in mind that if
you did this in a thousand neighborhoods with many different police officers
and jurisdictions, many many many more people would die. In my eyes nearly 99%
of the guilt is in the man that falsely called this in.

That doesn't mean more training couldn't hurt, but at a certain point,
training in a live situation will always go out the window. People are not
perfect.

~~~
izacus
> No matter how much you want to blame the police for this, keep in mind that
> if you did this in a thousand neighborhoods with many different police
> officers and jurisdictions, many many many more people would die. In my eyes
> nearly 99% of the guilt is in the man that falsely called this in.

No, sorry, but the first task for the police is to protect innocent civilians.
Even if it causes harm to the policemen themselves (this is why they get all
those jackets and equipment). Murdering them is not protecting, how can you
defend the type of police that goes and kills a gamer in his house with no
other proof than a phone call?

~~~
rhizome
_Even if it causes harm to the policemen themselves (this is why they get all
those jackets and equipment)_

On the other hand, the First Rule of Policing is "get home for dinner."

~~~
LunaSea
I'm a software developer but maybe I should get payed as a police officer on
top my regular wage since that's my rule as well.

Actually, you might as well give me a raise because I haven't killed anybody
in the process either.

~~~
CompanionCuuube
The primary oath of doctors is "do no harm". Maybe you should get payed as a
doctor too since that's your rule as well. You haven't killed anyone due to
medical error either so you also deserve that raise.

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adamnemecek
> That officer did not face charges.

Here's a crazy idea, maybe the police should reconsider their approaches in
these situations. I don't understand how this is even possible.

Why isn't there more steam behind this?

~~~
obmelvin
> Barriss pretended there was a hostage situation at the Wichita house that
> previously belonged to Viner’s Call of Duty enemy.

While this is terrible, police have no choice but to operate under the
assumption that the 911 call is in good faith. From what I read, the police
seem to have been acting appropriately for a hostage situation. I would
certainly be wary of ruses to make me drop my guard if I thought I was
entering a hostage environment.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _police have no choice but to operate under the assumption that the 911 call
> is in good faith._

You say that, but... they do. How many hostage calls are real, vs. fake? Why
don't police approach all cars they pull over with their guns drawn?

~~~
obmelvin
I don't think that is a fair comparison. In most situations there is no reason
to presume danger when you pull over a car. If you are responding to a hostage
call, well then you very well should assume it is a dangerous situation.

> How many hostage calls are real, vs. fake?

How do you propose verifying if a situation is real vs fake short of entering
the premise prepared for a real situation?

~~~
cremp
Caller area code.

For starters; he had to call a general, city line, to get the public (non-
local, 10 digit) line for the dispatchers, so he could actually call the '911'
(three digit) line.

From what I gather, The area code itself is a give-away.

If you say 'what about people who just moved, but haven't changed their number
yet,' then I'd say that the dispatchers (should) be able to see if it was a
honest 911 (three digit), or the public line (10 digit.)

~~~
rhizome
_Caller area code._

Easily spoofed, and the phone company will laugh in your face if you ask them
for the billing address of the person who called you at 10:37pm on Nov 12,
2018.

~~~
schoen
I believe that the defendant in this case _did_ frequently spoof caller ID, so
relying on that wouldn't be particularly helpful. But 911 operators _do_ also
already receive more information about who is calling them, and perhaps the
quality of that information can be improved and augmented.

(I think this is tough in the general VoIP case because the Internet itself
supports anonymity and location transparency—which in my opinion are usually
good things that are not primarily used to murder people. Even if VoIP
operators verify some kind of information about subscribers' identities before
allowing them to establish service, it's not completely clear what they should
ideally report to 911 services in all cases because they'll presumably never
be certain of the end-user's identity and location at a particular moment. And
for other purposes, users of the phone network might want to reduce how much
the phone companies know about their whereabouts.)

~~~
rhizome
_But 911 operators do also already receive more information about who is
calling them, and perhaps the quality of that information can be improved and
augmented._

Yeah, I didn't say the information didn't exist, I'm saying the phone company
makes it basically impossible to get, and certainly the most difficult for
home customers.

 _because the Internet itself supports anonymity and location transparency_

I don't care. If you're calling me, I should be able to find out who's paying
for the call, and the phone company knows this info. Sure, there's still an
"over 9000 proxies" bug, but that's not the problem. The problem is
robocallers and telemarketers, and I should be able to configure my line to
block every call that originates from any portion of that billing entity.
Heck, when I describe it that way it could be blockchain'd!

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jackconnor
"Viner had lost a reported $1.50 on a bet" \- that's truly insane to do this
over less than the price of a king-sized Snickers bar.

------
RickJWagner
I can't imagine why this guy would think it's remotely ok to do such a thing.

Nobody should ever, EVER misdirect police or emergency responders in such a
way. There are all kinds of downsides and NO upside.

Was this guy raised by animals, or is he some kind of sociopath? Either way, I
hope enough publicity is raised that anyone else remotely considering such a
stunt is discouraged.

