Plan B Forum

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/famil ... li=BBnb7Kz

Someone gets "SWATted" because of an online game dispute, and gets murdered in cold blood on his front porch by a trigger-happy cop.

Officers screamed at Finch (the hapless victim) to put his hands in the air, but Livingston said the 28-year-old father of two young boys moved a hand toward his waistband. An officer, fearing Finch was reaching for a gun, fired a single shot. Finch died minutes later..."

And to all this I say bull shit. I'm beginning to think that most law enforcement officers are horribly under-trained for their job. An innocent person under stress, and not knowing what the police action is about, isn't going to be hearing much with all the conflicting orders being barked out by the hit squad.

"To protect and serve"... the mother of all ironies.

I think I be only thing that will “save” the gamer is he’s probably a minor.

Maybe not; I heard on the radio last night that he is 25 and is being arraigned in Los Angeles. He also had a record of making false bomb threats and call to the fire dept., etc. A real class a jerk.

Well that was the high end of the age range I was guessing and yes as the age goes up the far more unsympathetic the guy becomes. Really just about everyone who or know better this guy seems to be a real piece of work.

There is SOOOO much wrong with the entire situation that it's pathetic. Here are some examples: They are now admitting that the swatter was still on the phone with the dispatcher for 16 minutes after the cop, who was across a wide street, murdered the young man with a single shot to the head. He died instantly, despite earlier reports that he died at the hospital. At that distance, the killer cop could not clearly see what was going on through his rifle's scope. The actual SWAT team had not arrived. Those on the scene were not highly trained in "hostage" situations. They MIGHT have been able to defuse the situation, if it had been one. Anyone knowing that the dispatcher was still on the phone with the idiot in California would have realized that it was a swatting situation. One radio call to those on the scene would have had a completely different ending. He said he was in a single story house. It's a BIG house. The swatter's call originally came into city hall, not 911 dispatch. It had to be transferred. That is said to be typical of swatters who can't call 911 in any given city. After the killing, his family members had to climb over his body on the porch with THEIR hands up to be handcuffed and taken into custody. (?) (Of course, they are cops. They can do no wrong.)

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/ ... 41289.html

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/ ... 46389.html

Editorial: http://www.kansas.com/opinion/editorial ... 92279.html

http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/ ... 36829.html

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/kansas ... fhid=11129

There is a LOT more found by doing a search for Finch, the deceased's last name.
http://www.kansas.com/search/?page=2&q=Finch

I hope his sons never have to worry about their finances. The city would not want me on that jury. (Of course, they are cops. They can do no wrong.)

His swatter would not want me on his jury either. It's been a few years since I've been on one. Maybe it's my turn, but I don't think they allow volunteers.

There have been at least two other local police killings in the last couple of years that many members of the public considered to be very questionable. Both times the cop involved was absolved of any wrongdoing. (Of course, they are cops. They can do no wrong.) One shooting involved a lady cop from 50 feet with a scoped rifle. She probably couldn't see what was going on either. It was snowing. She shot her victim twice before he hit the ground. Again, dead at the scene, but carted to the hospital to be "pronounced". The young man involved had been reported by his father to be armed with a knife. No gun. He put his hands down, probably to pull up his sweat pants. No knife was found. His father was standing near him as he died. That's it. Don't EVER lower your hands around a Wichita cop, or you will be executed.

To be fair, if a cop anywhere tells you to keep your hands up, don't every lower them no matter how much you want to. Not to say that it's easy to do--but a simple reflexive action (like pulling up your pants) could result in a tragedy.

One thing I was wondering--I don't think the swatter was in Wichita at the time--wouldn't the caller ID at the 911 center show that? And wouldn't any out of area call be suspect?

"wouldn't the caller ID at the 911. . ."

Yes, exactly. That is why swatters DO NOT call 911. Read mg's post carefully.

Go to sources about the physiological changes that one's mental and sensory processes go through under extreme stress. Your vision changes, your hearing changes. Your sense of time passing changes. Say you are a ordinary law-abiding white father of small children in a small town. You have never had any experience with violence beyond dodge ball in middle school. Without training and practice, it is entirely possible when faced by a bunch of vehicles around you with flashing lights, a bunch of guns pointed at you,Voices shouting instructions from behind barriers and you CANNOT understand instructions to do any thing. You just do not process this massive input of very scary data.

snailgate.

BP--I read that to say that he could not directly call 911 from outside the area, but when it was transferred I would think that the 911 system would still show where the call originated from (or if it could not, it should).

As for your second point, no argument there; who knows what would occur under stress. Under similar circumstances, I would hope I would act in a way to help me, but I have no illusions that I definitely would. and while cops are (or should be) better trained to deal with situations like this, I think many succumb to the same pressures and get trigger happy or act impulsively. It's amazing what you will do when acting under the influence of massive shots of adrenalin, which is why more training and the presence of senior officers at these scenes is critical.

Big RR wrote:BP--I read that to say that he could not directly call 911 from outside the area, but when it was transferred I would think that the 911 system would still show where the call originated from (or if it could not, it should)..."

I assumed, maybe improperly, that Tyler Barriss, the asshole accused of making the swatting call, was quickly apprehended due to his phone number being traced by the mayor's office.

I imagine someone could trace it, and did; but why the 911 operator didn't know (and suspect a scam) is beyond me.

Burning Petard wrote:Without training and practice, it is entirely possible when faced by a bunch of vehicles around you with flashing lights, a bunch of guns pointed at you,Voices shouting instructions from behind barriers and you CANNOT understand instructions to do any thing. You just do not process this massive input of very scary data.

snailgate.

I've made this point before in another context, but the huge number of flashing LEDs in any emergency situation nowadays is counter productive. They blind you (or at least they do me when I am driving by an accident) so much that you cannot see what you are doing. It's information overload. They need enough lights so that (a) they can see what they are doing (b) I can see well enough to drive by in safety and (c) everyone can see a signal from, for example, an ambulance which is pulling away from the scene. The video of the victim on his porch looked to me as if he was moving his hands to shade his eyes so he could understand the situation. The chances of his getting a handgun out of his waist and getting an effective shot off without careful aim was zero.

As for the out-of-area phone number, there are many, many people nowadays who will get a cell phone while living in one place and then move to another city or another state far away and never bother changing their phone number. (E.g., my 40-y-o daughter, who has lived in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan, all without changing her St. Louis phone number.) So that wouldn't necessarily be suspicious.

Spot on. My brother has a North Carolina phone number in Seattle.

I was thinking that might be the case, but I would imagine that modern technology could easily provide at least the state a caller was calling from pretty easily (at least if the crime shows are accurate), and it would make sense for the 911 operators to have access to that. At least, now that swatting is becoming more widespread, they should get that capability.

There is also, of course, spoofing...as used by the scammers. (I got a call that claimed to be from my own number recently.)

Jarlaxle wrote:There is also, of course, spoofing...as used by the scammers. (I got a call that claimed to be from my own number recently.)

Jaraxle nailed it. Apparently the swatter did use that spoofing technique. Those in the know can make their phone's number appear to be ANY number they want. I get calls several times a week that appear to be from my area code when in fact they are from all over the country. Even India, I suppose. They want to help me with my student loans (?) or my high credit card interest (?) or my lumbago (?), or libido (?).

If you see a number pop up that you do not recognize, it may well be fake. I got one today from an out of state area code. I often answer those with "Who do I know in wherever"? Answering with "hello" will trigger a robo call to begin its spiel. If you say something else, it will often hang up. I have eight numbers saved in my cell phone as Bogus 1 through Bogus 8. I don't bother to answer those.

I have close to thirty blocked.

I haven't bothered blocking them (though I often answer and then immediately hang up without saying anything) because there's no point: they'll just use a different number the next day anyway. And yeah, I've gotten calls that appeared to be from my own number, too. And of course spoofing long ago made the so-called "Do Not Call" lists obsolete.

Why does spoofing seem to be so easy to do, and so hard to prevent?

It’s not the mission of 911 call center dispatchers to be suspicious of or question callers reporting emergencies; beyond the primary mission of helping people in distress and intervening in criminal acts in progress, imagine the liability exposure if the operator decided to second guess a caller based on something as innocuous as an out of area phone number and thus failing to send EMTs, FD or PD timely to a genuine emergency?

Police wear bulletproof vests and engage in very regular firearms training and target practice; I don’t think it’s too much to ask for them to wait a bit longer before they execute anyone whose hands drift near the waistband in an extremely stressful encounter - don’t even get me started on how often the claims of a weapon sighting or threatening gesture are totally fabricated by the pig. Somehow a great many other countries have police who are trained and able to deescalate such situations the great majority of the time without ever drawing a firearm. These reckless killings will continue to happen at an alarming rate unless or until we start putting these fuckers in jail where they can hang out with the people they’ve wrongly imprisoned with fabricated evidence and coerced false confessions.