Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/02/04/andrew-finch-rip.html
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Really the first fatal swatting? I’m amazed, considering the number of people killed when the police knock down the wrong door.
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Yep that’s the first from a swatting. There was a fake bomb threat fatality but that technically isn’t a swatting.
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What is it about police training that leads to this kind of hair-trigger behavior?
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Fear. The NRA’s very successful campaign to get guns into the hands of as many of us as possible is only one reason the police are afraid for their own lives, but it’s a powerful one.
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Also, police militarization is an outgrowth of that fear. And you know, when you have a hammer…
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And one reason they get away with murder even in the cases when they weren’t genuinely afraid for their own lives, because they can plausibly claim they thought a suspect had a gun.
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If the best defense against a bad guy with gun, is a good guy with a gun; what’s the best defense againse a “good guy with a gun”?
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An independent review of every police force in the US. Not that it has any chance of happening short of a successful anarchist revolution.
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Yea, the Anarchists are gonna take over and pass a law…
…oh, wait.
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You are mistaking no rulers for no rules.
It’s not like there is going to be an anarchist revolution in the first place though.
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"In most of these cases, the city has declined to release the names of the involved officers. "
This in itself is almost as bad as the shootings: Secrecy really does beget tyranny.
Civil servants should not be shielded from their actions in this manner. Our public servants are becoming our masters and this should never be tolerated.
When the “state” considers itself separate and somehow elevated above the people, things have gone sour big time.
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Most “anarchist” groups have pretty elaborate rules and laws and such require an enforcement mechanism or they do not work. There is always an elite or a leadership group. Always.
One such group in the city I live in requires you have been a member for two years before you get to vote or join in decision making, which makes them look horribly silly.
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Apparently, from what i’ve seen from the gun lobby, the answer to any question involving gun ownership is “more guns”…
It is quite bizarre watching this from abroad, as it seems the endgame is every single citizen arming themselves to the teeth at all times 
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Yeah, the only surprising bit was that it took song for there to be a shooting, much less a fatal one (though I suppose when the cops are the ones pulling the triggers, shootings tend to be fatal).
I’m guessing the targets of swattings are significantly more likely to be white and middle class than those caught up in drug busts at the wrong address, which changes the outcomes just a bit.
Being over-armed, poorly trained and having no accountability. This means that when a suspect so much as looks at them sideways, the cops feel like they can safely shoot him with no negative repercussions to themselves. They’re almost always right.
But of course - if we knew the same officer was involved in multiple incidents, that wouldn’t look so good for the police department, would it? And think of the poor cops - if they reveal the names of problematic officers, it might complicate their efforts to immediately get another law enforcement job when they getfired for gross misconduct!
Though they tend to be quiet about cases of the police killing people because “more guns” obviously doesn’t address the issue (and, in fact, just makes cops more twitchy if they assume every suspect is armed).
We Americans do love our “Wild West” fantasies. And I mean “fantasy” as, ironically, 19th century towns, even on the frontier, had much stronger anti-gun laws than we do now.
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I’m from the Wichita area. It sounds like that whole department needs some serious retraining. As I said originally, that distance, combined with officers with rifles, cover, and vests would have made a threat armed with a pistol to be rather low. The fact he was shot with out a weapon presented is ridiculous.
I just read another story of a Wichita cop fatally shooting a 9 year old girl. He as shooting a pit bull, missed, and the bullet bounced off the pavement and hit her in the head. Another fucking tragic incident that shouldn’t happened. Cops in general shoot way too many dogs.
The first person should be on charges of murder, and the 2nd with manslaughter. The lawsuits the PD will no doubt face could have been prevented, possibly, if they had spent that money on better training. (And the right training, before Wanderfound or someone else links to aggressive, military like training some have gotten 
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It must really rankle with the gun lobby that there isn’t some way to get people to update their arsenal every couple of years. “Have you seen the new iGun XI? It has got a thinner bezel on the slide.”
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As silly as letting any random schmuck who walks in the door to make decisions for the group?
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Gosh, yes. Letting any random schmuck who walks in the door make decisions for the group would lead to utter … anarchy.
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