This is what happens when a Twitch streamer gets "swatted"

The report says that he was a responding patrol officer authorized to use a rifle. He was stationed as “long cover” for the rest of the responding officers during the raid. That may actually be worse, because he doesn’t do it day in and day out.

I’ll just say this, because i don’t know…

Is policing safer because of police militarization or despite militarization? We can’t very well say policing is safer than being a construction worker and then advocate getting rid of all the military style hardware, when it is the military style hardware and policing tactics that has made it safer. (Setting aside the social effects of militarization of the police as a separate issue).

I’ll say this, the current trend to decreased police mortality and injury far extends beyond the current trend towards increased militarization, by decades. This despite large increases in the number of officers.

So, clearly, the police militarization is not the cause.

I will also note that the number of deaths had a jump in 2016, but dropped back in 2017.

As a workers’ comp attorney: I’ll add this: don’t ignore the fact that a hefty chunk of all police deaths in any year are not from violence confrontations with suspects but from traffic accidents and as the general rate of auto-accident deaths has declined, so has the police death rate.

Between that and the overall decline in violent crime I think those factors are much more likely to be the cause of the decline in police deaths than the increase in training police to be confrontational and aggressive. (I no longer use the term “police militarization” b/c I feel our current military is actually much more disciplined and professional than our current police forces. I can only wish our police were as well trained/well disciplined as our military.)

On top of that I personally feel like the change to training police to be confrontational and aggressive actually increases the danger to police: by getting right up on top of suspects shouting with guns drawn I feel like they are putting themselves right under the guns of our overly-armed society. I consider the current trend in police culture to be a toxic mess of Fox-style fear/hatred-exaggeration, plus for whatever reason an apparent increase in both machismo and insecurity by the police.

I actually feel like training the police to scout situations better ahead of time, de-escalate the conflicts that can be de-escalated, and handle people with mental problems better, will not just make citizens safer, but will also make police safer.

Edit: moderators, is it maybe time to move this thread to P&R? When I finished typing I went to P&R to look for my post and was like “oh wait, this is in Games”. This thread has really shifted over to a P&R thread IMO.

Yes, it’s tough, and the reality is it is hard to have any substantive discussion to the questions brought up by Wyndwraith and others without going into P&R.

Please move this to P&R!

We need remotely operated or automated police response units - totally apathetic to race and quite happy to confirm being shot at before returning fire.

It would be interesting if the topic of police shooting unarmed people, or police sitting on people and suffocating them, had been explored in an old Western film or show.

A post was split to a new topic: Should politics in videogame discussions be avoided or separated?

We need remotely operated or automated police response units - totally apathetic to race and quite happy to confirm being shot at before returning fire.

They already tried this in Detroit. It didn’t work out.

Well, this guy wasn’t swatted, but this is sort of the Twitch-meets-police thread, and this alleged dipshit got to meet the police for allegedly beating up his girlfriend–while streaming Fortnite–after she suggested he take a break from the game.

“I’ll just commit this crime on stream, where it automatically keeps a record of it.”

He was just creating some unique content on his stream - twitch doesn’t have a dedicated channel for assault yet.

Next up: periscoping a bank robbery.

So disturbing.

I also made the mistake of reading the comments on the Kotaku article and youtube clips. Remind me never to read the comments on a youtube clip of this nature.

You could have just stopped there.

I could have. But then there’s the small percentage of clips with great comments sections pointing out to enriching content.

Well at least there’s proof it happened.

Fucking asswipes still think this shit is funny.

https://charlieintel.com/2017/12/29/dispute-call-duty-wager-leads-death-28-year-old-man-kansas/

Two individuals got into a heated argument over a UMG Wager online after a loss in the match. During the heated dispute, one of the individuals involved provided the other with a fake address for where he resided. The other individual decided to send the location to a known swatter. This known swatter is reportedly the same individual that called in a fake bomb threat at CWL Dallas event earlier in December. The swatter called in a fake scenario to the local police. Swatting has been a problem within the Call of Duty community.

This is a year old. There are tons of posts about this and the resulting guilty plea and, I think, jail sentence, in this very thread.