
SWAT Team Detains Popular Gamer Who Was Live-Streaming ‘Counter-Strike’ - ColinWright
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/27/swat-team-detains-popular-gamer-who-was-live-streaming-counter-strike/
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weavejester
Given that this could have easily resulted in a death, calling it a "prank"
and suggesting that "Whomever instigated the swatting should be ashamed of
themselves" seems the wrong of language for what is a pretty serious crime.

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mikeash
Seriously. How about, "Whoever committed this crime should go to prison"?

I also object to the headline. It makes it sound like the police raided and
arrested him for playing games.

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cyphunk
you are probably right. it's a crime to abuse civil servants but wow what
timing. right when the US is in the middle of a militarisation of police
debate centered in part around abusive use of SWAT everywhere. In the end
though this particular use illustrates that not all police are animals. Of
course, Kootra is white. Just sayin.

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McDiesel
This kind of thing is just unnacceptable in a free nation.

We're not peons to be treated like animals. "Get on the fucking ground",
"Don't you fucking move" ... these aren't the commands of an officer sworn to
protect the citizens, these are the commands of a power-driven, egomaniacal,
paramilitary police force who continue to abuse their power and assault
private citizens without due cause and without repercussion. A phone call does
not warrant that response.

Police are thugs, SWAT is worse. Its a shame we've come to this as a country,
and nobody seems to care.

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stronglikedan
Not to mention that, after he complied with no signs of resistance, he still
gets a boot in the back from these thugs. The guy even jumps off his back foot
a couple times, just to make sure his entire body weight is on him. Good thing
he could hear them over the headphones, or he'd have likely been shot in the
back. That's the price you pay for not resisting.

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pmorici
I'm curious how it is a police force could be talked into doing something
likes this in the course of a prank. You would hope they would do at minimum a
cursory amount of investigation before taking measures like this.

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anigbrowl
Imagine you called up to report a genuine crime taking place, and the
dispatcher's reaction was 'oh really, that doesn't sound very convincing.'
You'd be furious, and rightly so. If the caller's location is spoofed, which
is not hard to do, and the caller has minimal acting skills, then the police
would be remiss not to act on it.

I really do not care for the prevalence of SWAT teams in the US, but then I
don't care for the ease with which criminals can heavily arm themselves
either.

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angersock
I'm willing to bet more people are harmed by SWAT teams than by heavily armed
criminals using the same class of gear.

A patrolman would've been more than sufficient for this.

EDIT:

Just to make this painfully obvious...had he turned around quickly with a
mouse in his hand, they quite possibly could have drilled him. Is that sort of
risk really something we're okay with?

EDIT 2:

For the downvoters--notice that I said "same class of gear". How many
criminals are actually busted carrying fully-automatic MP5s, assault rifles,
shotguns, and body armor?

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anigbrowl
I'm not making an argument for SWAT teams, just about the difficulty of
evaluating false reports of a serious crime.

 _A patrolman would 've been more than sufficient for this._

That sort of depends on what report was made in the 911 call(s), doesn't it? I
mean, we know now it was just one guy playing videogames at home, but you
can't just call 911 and ask for them to send a SWAT team somewhere. Presumably
the dispatchers were led to believe that something much more dangerous was
taking place.

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ASneakyFox
That's the whole thing really. 911 responders have to make decisions with out
being able to know the outcome ahead of time.

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kghose
I'm with the folks who are wondering at the police response. Aren't they
trained to assess a situation? There is only one person in the room - which is
an office and he's playing on the computer. Is their only training to throw
people on the ground and pin them? Aren't they trained to simply ask questions
and judge from body language and emotions whether this person is up to
something, is armed or acting strange vs just a bystander.

I think this video is very disturbing. It shows we have incompetent police. We
need to train them better. It's very easy to take a bunch of hefty fellows and
give them guns and show them how to shoot people.

It takes more time to train them to assess situations, and approach people
with dignity and respect. I think we should spend this time.

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Glyptodon
It always bugs me when police turn off cameras in situations like this. How is
it not evidence tampering?

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sjtrny
Evidence tampering refers to manipulating evidence once it has been collected
not while it is being created.

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yew
That's 'collected' only in the sense that the evidence has come into existence
and legal proceedings have become a possibility. Speaking only for the US and
as far as I'm aware, it isn't necessary for the evidence to actually be in the
possession of any legal authority or for any legal proceedings to be underway.

Deleting incriminating emails in contemplation of future investigation is
tampering with evidence, for example. I won't comment on police video
recordings - knowledge and intent play a significant role in whether or not a
crime has occurred, here.

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brandonmenc
I love hearing "THE TERRORISTS WIN" from the game audio during this. Apropos.

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angersock
Payday would've been funnier.

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michaelhoffman
The victim has an incredible amount of sangfroid. I'm amazed that he wasn't
freaking out in an obvious way. His follow-up tweet is a bit understated as
well.

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revscat
He was a white male. These things tend towards non-fatal resolutions when this
is the case.

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ASneakyFox
Well not freaking out helps.

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redblacktree
There is an audio[1] that appears to be a recording of the perpetrators of
this "swatting." Twitter handles[2][3] go along with it.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEPRmpUnTgM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEPRmpUnTgM)

[2]: [https://twitter.com/ScrewPain](https://twitter.com/ScrewPain)

[3]: [https://twitter.com/spiky](https://twitter.com/spiky)

