Sam Altman: Why Hardware Could Yield the Next $10B Startups - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/25/sam-altman-why-hardware-could-yield-the-next-10-billion-startups/ <comment><USER3> The reason that a larger number of hardware startups have recently appeared is quite simple - these are mostly actually software companies. Modern hardware that a startup might produce - IoT stuff, small computers etc - <USER2> essentially bare-minimum hardware wrappers around black-box chips.

The complexity of developing hardware is driven by the number of discrete components used. Every additional resistor is a resistor which can be fitted wrong. Every additional analogue circuit built using discrete components is a huge risk. To build cheap hardware, you avoid all that as much as possible by building PCBs which just wire up highly functional ICs.

In essence your hardware company then becomes a software company.

<comment><USER4> > The complexity of developing hardware is driven by the number of discrete > components used

Sorry, that's not even close to being true.

Interesting how on HN "hardware" seems to mean "a board with chips". You know, like a Raspberri Pi. That is one type of hardware but not, I dare say, where the $10B (and maybe even $10M) startups would exist.

We are developing two hardware products right now. One is an innovative fire fighting system and the other a CNC machine. The complexity in these designs has very little to do with what chips you place on a board. For example, we expect to have to run three to six months of FEA simulations to validate aspects of the fire fighting system and then have to iterate through several design candidates over several months.

Beyond that there are regulatory issues that could up-end any design if you don't know what you are doing.

Packaging. I almost forgot packaging. Man, that can consume months of testing. You can design a beautiful product only to have it damaged during transportation due to incorrect packaging.

Oh, yeah, you also have to have good software.

Nah, harware isn't just about chips on a board.

<comment><USER5> Packaging is best thought of as another hardware product itself. Form and function have to be design-gineered, and materials and parts and assembly have to be corralled into a schedule and budget.

The idea that software is eating hardware, while true on some level for some class of products, is also what leads to lots of startups with solid software backgrounds offering a beautifully designed product that suffers from cost overruns, delays, mechanical and firmware bugs (you think having to test an app across a couple of phones is a pain, try field testing your smart lock). "Move fast and break things" is very different from the mindset needed to build hardware.

Be mindful of the perspective of the authors when reading these tragedies: [https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of- kreyos-...](https://medium.com/@stevekreyos/the-rise-and-fall-of-kreyos-new- ac4e2d847964) [https://medium.com/@Haje/how-a-half-million-dollar- kickstart...](https://medium.com/@Haje/how-a-half-million-dollar-kickstarter- project-can-crash-and-burn-5482d7d33ee1)

<comment><USER4> Right, I didn't mention such things as thermal and environmental testing. How is your widget going to work in an Icelandic winter or at the peak of summer in Death Valley? How about dirt, grime, dust, vibration and humidity, rapid cycling, cycles per day, drop, impact?

The list is huge and highly dependent on the product being designed.

About ten years ago a company owned by a friend of mine shipped a machine worth $800,000 to Japan. The packaging/crate was not designed correctly. The machine suffered irreparable damage during transportation. No, there was no penetration of the crate. It was purely inertial loads on components that were not supported for transportation. They bent. It was probably a combination of forklifts, trucking, port container handling, etc. The machine was a total loss. The insurance company was not happy.

<comment><USER6> Also: EMC testing, RFI, etc. Certified by a test lab that will cover both North America and Europe.

On shipping: these days it's pretty common to ship everything with mechanical accelerometers in the packaging that trigger on high loads so you can tell when the crate has been dropped. Crazy how often it happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am a broken record. So many brilliant people (RMS comes to mind) have fallen into the trap of thinking that hardware dev for general computing (not including rocketry and other such hardware) is so inexpensive that it's going to be super easy. But that's not the case [1] because hardware is a totally different beast than software. It won't be any more open, or any less expensive; at least, not for a long time.

[1]: [http://www.mauve.plus.com/opensourcehw.txt](http://www.mauve.plus.com/opensourcehw.txt)

<comment><USER8> It is becoming more open and less expensive.

The point is that the tools for prototyping, simulating, assembly, and manufacturing are becoming much cheaper. Along with the fact that people are sharing more.

I agree that there is no substitute for RTFM. That will always be required. Although, it's layers of abstraction in hardware too. Just like software libraries and frameworks: if someone has published a circuit that includes some subsystem I need, I can very likely ctl+v much of it into my own design without having a full understanding of it. Which is the entire reason why an industry around ICs can exist at all. It's just that more people are sharing now than ever before.

Pick and place machines are now becoming accessible at low cost (see Fire Pick Delta/LitePlacer). This addresses many of your assembly errors and mitigates costs.

I can't construct a reasonable argument against your points E, F, and G, which seem to all equate to "something unlucky and magical happened that broke your prototype".

<comment><USER5> Yes, manufacturing is getting cheap enough that the average person can get themselves in a mess of trouble now. It's still got a ways to go before it's cheap enough that they can get themselves out of that mess.

<comment><USER9> I feel like "number of people able to get themselves into mess of trouble > number of people able to get themselves out of mess of trouble" is a pretty solid premise throughout time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not until software lottery tickets quit returning 10x+.

Who, in their right mind, would invest in hardware? NRE kills--especially in _mechanical_ engineering which actually seems to be regressing. Machining companies now charge a fortune for things which my grandfather used to do _by hand_ in his garage in about an hour. Not to mention how _long_ it takes to get an injection mold (14 weeks is not uncommon).

For the price of a couple injection molds, I can flog a gaggle of stupid 20-somethings living in squalor for about a year. No contest as to which has a better probability of cashing out.

In addition, who is going to buy out a hardware startup? Hardware really doesn't fit the Yahooglezoft strategy, so now your exits are very limited. Even worse, hardware acquirers tend to be rational about things like costs and profit.

Finally, everybody who does hardware tries to create the cloud back end and then get _anybody else_ to do the hardware while they extract the rent.

So, longer timelines to cash out with higher risk. Yeah, don't think so.

Now, the _upside_ is that if you do manage to get a product out, you have an actual _barrier to entry_. 2 guys and a dog in the Ukraine can't just clone you.

While I love the manufacturing incubators, they don't solve the fundamental problem of not knowing how to run machines. The existence of a CNC machine or a TIG welder doesn't magically make you a machinist or a welder. Being able to run a CNC machine doesn't mean you know how to make an injection mold.

Most people fail horribly simply at making a PCB board, and those are _totally straightforward_.

Read Andrew "bunnie" Huang's blog for a taste of all the little sh*t that can go wrong in manufacturing: [http://www.bunniestudios.com/](http://www.bunniestudios.com/)

<comment><USER11> I agree. Software is easy to work with because you can reboot. With manufacturing, you can not.

I heard a quote from someone discussing war.

When a war is about to break out 1) amateurs start talking about strategy. 2) Professional start talking about logistics.

Google can be a milti billion firm because they can go from 1 to 10 (in customer #, capacity) easily. With manufacturing, that's just physically impossible.

And physics doesn't lie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> @sama actually addressed HW on his recent AMA here [0] but as with software startups, you have to broaden your view of a hardware startup -- if you include ventures focused on fundamental semiconductor technology, both analog and digital; tools for design, prototyping and verification; semiconductor intellectual property as well as end products, there are quite a few potential $10B opportunities[1]. I believe @sama is considering the full range of investment options. Not all investments in this segment are capital intensive.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238839) [1] [http://blog.semiconductors.org/blog/what-end-use- application...](http://blog.semiconductors.org/blog/what-end-use-applications- drove-semiconductor-sales-in-2014)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is calculated valuation (not market cap!) the only metric relevant to a VC when talking about the size of a company?

What about MRR, YRR, profits, number of employees, revenue/profit per employee?

The only ones profiting from high valuations are VCs' themselves. Therefor one should be really skeptical when reading such articles.

<comment><USER14> Valuation is people's best estimate of discounted future profits. It's true that the discount rate varies with macroeconomic changes, but rarely by as much as a factor of 2 over the last 20 years.

When trying to express the long-term potential of a business, a factor of 2 is noise. You're lucky if you can get the number of digits right.

MRR/YRR measures the business today, but the long-term prospects are more interesting.

Number of employees or revenue/profit per employee don't measure business potential. Some huge businesses (Wal*mart) have low revenue/employee. Some small businesses (specialty consulting) have high revenue/employee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are a few companies around that have the resources to copy the product of any moderately successful hardware startup. Apple, Samsung, Xitomi, Microsoft, and others can just straight up clone the clever parts of your hardware and wrap it in a package that you could never afford to compete with. That obviously doesn't mean you can't have any success - building a $hundreds- of-millions company is definitely possible, but taking it to the $billions will be a few orders of magnitude harder.

[1] Fitbit did movement tracking well, and now there's Microsoft Band, Nike Fuelband, etc. Pebble popularised smartwatches and now there's Moto 360 and Apple Watch. And so on. And Fitbit and Pebble weren't the first movers in their markets, there'll be smaller companies who failed by being too early.

<comment><USER16> This maybe true of consumer product companies, but a lot of "hardware" companies aren't either consumer or product companies, they are service companies. For example, SpaceX builds neat hardware, but sells launch services. They deliver a complete service with their own hardware + software + services.

This is becoming more and more common model in many industries, and is a much harder business to copy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like Sam's line: "I always tell my partners that our job is to fund all the companies we can that can be worth $10 billion or more. That's such a difficult constraint we can't have any other constraints."

<comment><USER18> They should put that statement prominently in the YC application materials.

<comment><USER19> I think this might be a statement more honoured in the breech after looking at the YC15 alumni.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The softwarization of hardware is the key trend, agreed.

The software-defined radio/network/storage etc are happening quickly now.

For the low-end hardware, e.g. the IoT field, the wearable market etc, the software is also key, for instance, they need the cloud platform to be effective and useful these days.

We just need more workshop/factories to turn the (low quantity) hardware- design into real products with high quality, which is still very challenging and a bottleneck.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not trivializing the article, or it's point. Interesting though is that the subject (hardware) reminded me of an app I wrote that lets me quickly model system availability on my phone. My astonishment at the time was that such a simple modeling tool isn't available in any app store (maybe today, couldn't find anything a year or so ago).

There are sooo many tools, let alone basic productivity apps that just don't exist yet. And here we are, breathless and panting, moving onto the next big thing - hardware, biotech... Hey its all good stuff. Except for the part where I can't create a simple DB-like table on my phone and have that sync (securely!) with my other devices - _without_ making me create a Dropbox account, or wanting to up-sell me in the app, or get all social on me. Basic, simple and _honest_ apps. Like the Code Vault app I had on my Nokia Communicator in 2001.

</comment><comment><USER22> Im looking forward to tabletop micro-foundries that can create ICs. Its a ways off and I'm sure people will say it is impossible, but it will happen eventually and then it will be very obvious how similar software and hardware are.

I think you have to anticipate a gradual movement towards total programabiltiy of reality.

</comment><comment><USER23> $10B? That's awfully large, and closing the door on a lot of ideas. What if you just want to solve an important problem by selling a product profitably and don't want to grow to enormous size? I guess you look somewhere other than Y Combinator to get started.

<comment><USER24> If you're outlook is a $10M or even $100M valuation, VCs and even angels would not interested.

<comment><USER25> Plenty of funds would be happy with exits in the $100M range. The billion dollar exits or IPOs are the exception, not the rule and a $50M exit is a damn sight better than a failure. Of course it all depends on when they joined that particular party, the later in the game the higher the exit would have to be to make those investors happy.

<comment><USER26> Certainly they would pop a bottle for that 100m exit when it happens, but at the funding stage there is a case to be made for chasing deals in markets large enough that a 10B exit is at least possible. Because 10B _might_ happen and that does a lot to the EV calculations. Even if it doesn't, some might think that startup has a better chance for reaching the 100M mark sooner.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building C Projects - <AUTHOR> http://nethack4.org/blog/building-c.html

<comment><USER2> By contrast, the Plan 9 C compiler does use the header when linking. Header files contain a prama statement with library name, removing the need for linker flags.

See: [http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/comp.html](http://plan9.bell- labs.com/sys/doc/comp.html)

<comment><USER3> And when Rob Pike decided to create Go from that compiler, he just got rid of headers.

<comment><USER4> Because the Go team did the right thing by adopting modules, which are as old as C in the computing world.

<comment><USER5> What do you mean by "modules" here?

<comment><USER4> Go actually calls them packages.

I just prefer the term modules, as it was introduced by Mesa and CLU in the 70's.

Only languages based on C's primitive toolchain rely on basic separate compilation of translation units with textual includes for symbol definition.

Modular languages, that make use of better toolchains, couple the concept of separate compilation, with strong type checking across compilation boundaries and compiler managed metadata for the exported symbols.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the explanation. Do you think the idea of implementation/interface separation, that C and Java allow easily, is also better in Go?

<comment><USER4> I didn't got your question.

Java packages are not that different from Go packages, in terms of CS concepts.

Except for the set of issues that are debated to death about Go, the language is quite modular in Mesa tradition.

Given Oberon's influence in Go's design[1], maybe you will find these books interesting,

From [http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/](http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/) check "Algorithms and Data Structures", "Project Oberon", "Compiler Construction".

From [http://ssw.jku.at/Research/Books/](http://ssw.jku.at/Research/Books/) check Object-Oriented Programming in Oberon-2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > instead of writing yet another wrapper around yet another set of poorly > standardised existing tools, I'm using aimake, a build system I wrote > originally for NetHack 4

Not sure I'll be able to use aimake, as it's not invented here ;-)

On a more serious note, it sounds a bit strange to claim this isn't built on other tools -- he uses various compilers and linkers, and other utilities for installation etc. Eg CMake might not be perfect, but at least I couldn't find any kind of rationale for why cmake or tup might not work perfectly fine for the purpose? Maybe I skimmed too quickly?

<comment><USER7> The author wanted a build system which does not ultimately generate a bunch of Makefiles. CMake and GNU Autotools both rely on Make to do real work.

<comment><USER8> Was there any reason for that beyond ideology?

<comment><USER9> I think he said that make solved only a small, relatively easy part of the problem, and he didn't want to have to work around the limitations of make and the syntax of makefiles. He also mentions that different make implementations have different idiosyncrasies that he'd have to work around. Also, I think he wanted to preserve more information about the dependency tree between the various steps, instead of having multiple tools each making their own half- assed (or completely manual) attempts at deducing that information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Considering the glut of C build systems (often built on top of GNU Makefiles) as proof that this is a complicated field, this is a surprisingly undiscussed aspect of programming. Thanks for this link!

</comment><comment><USER11> For the preprocessing part of the problem this might be useful: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8356100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8356100)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is probably the first time I really get what is happening during a build (despite having written a few C programs and Makefiles). Thanks for writing!

</comment><comment><USER13> If anyone ever finds a linux C program that doesn't quite do what they need, my advice is this as I've had great success with it in the past modifying ntfs3g and the like..

Download the source package and open it in NetBeans! For what I needed clicking build JUST WORKED. For my purposes it was a short trip to adding some new arg commands and modifying functionality, then building and packaging it back into a .deb ready to go. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but NetBeans was pretty fantastic for this just 2 years ago.

<comment><USER14> That won't always work, because often there are OS specific files. E.g. different implementations of "mmap" for Unix and Windows or strlcmp and snprintf implementations for platforms that don't provide them their self.

Also often certain headers need to be generated by the build system ("config.h.in" for version information, "export.h.in" for export macros).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> An interesting treatise, however the entire "Standard directory detection" part gives me the willies.

</comment><comment><USER16> For goodness sake, keep writing these type of articles! I am now digging into "Memory management in C programs" and I hope the rest of the articles are as good as these two.

</comment><comment><USER17> _" The algorithm used by the vast majority of preprocessors is very simple: the preprocessor has a hardcoded list of directories, which the user can add to, and the preprocessor will scan them in sequence until it finds the file it's looking for. In the case of include "file.h", it will also scan the directory containing the source file."_

At least for gcc, that is not quite correct. It also has a _list_ of user directories.

The user list starts as a list containing only the current directory, but can be extended with command-line options. See [https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Search- Path.html](https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/cpp/Search-Path.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> > C is a compiled language[...]

Not off to a great start :/

<comment><USER19> Eh?

Um...that's true?

<comment><USER20> Compiled vs interpreted is not a property of the language. It's a (vague) property of a particular implementation.

<comment><USER21> > Compiled vs interpreted is not a property of the compiler.

I assume you meant "language." You're of course correct, but if ever there were a language that deserved to be called "compiled," C is it. It truly was designed to be compiled, and who in their right mind would bother interpreting it?

And before you ask, no, people who debug C are rarely in their right minds. :)

<comment><USER22> > ...who in their right mind would bother interpreting it?

Um... me?

[https://code.google.com/p/picoc/](https://code.google.com/p/picoc/)

<comment><USER6> That's really an interpreter (as opposed to using a bytecode vm or some such)? How does it deal with memory allocation, alignment etc? And (I don't have a proper dev setup on hand) -- the obvious question -- can it run itself, in itself in itself? (And itself in tcc in itself?) ;-)

<comment><USER22> It's a real interpreter. It runs directly from the source code - it doesn't even store a parse tree or bytecode. Memory allocation and alignment is done in the standard C ways. It's designed as a scripting variant of C so it doesn't implement 100% of the C standard (eg. bitfields), so no it's not self- hosting.

<comment><USER6> Fascinating, I'll have to look at it more closely when I've got a usable command line available. I would not have thought it was feasible for a useful subset of C -- but then I tend to forget that it is a rather simple language at heart (eg: after running the pre-prosessor).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage long list of emails? - <AUTHOR> I have 2 databases, one for registered users and one for all purchases ever done. I get an updated csv weekly for each one, yeah I know.
I'm looking for an easy to use tool where I could load both csv files and visually do queries to answer questions like:
"Show me all emails from registered users that completed purchases in the last 30 days"
or
"Show me all users that never purchased anything"
Currently I load these 2 in a database and perform queries manually. Another colleague just load them on Excel and do lots of VLOOKUP calls.
Is there a tool available to do this kind of analysis quickly and easy, preferably visual? <comment><USER2> Microsoft Access is built for this sort of work.

Or so I've been told. I don't use it. I usually start with a SQL database myself. But you said you wanted something visual.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every database provides an way to generate queries and reports.. It will be an GUI tool to make admin tasks more easier.. Install Yours..

</comment><comment><USER4> How would any tool know what report you need? MySQL is free and has reporting tools, so you can build reusable reports</comment>


Neuro Data Without Borders - <AUTHOR> https://www.nwb.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Various associated github repos at: [https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/](https://github.com/NeurodataWithoutBorders/)</comment>


New Variant of Proof of Work – Proof of Rental Work - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/proof-of-rental-or-shared-work-d7150965edf6?source=linkShare-ed4df2e82bfb-1529685732 <comment><USER2> If you own a single resource with co owners its probably a security. Might was well just open a company.</comment>


Ask YC: How to become an accredited investor - <AUTHOR>

I am submitting this under a different username to remain anonymous.
I understand the qualifications of becoming an accredited investor - $1mil net worth or $200,000 in income for two previous years.
Here is what I am unclear about:
Is there some organization to contact, form to fill out, or approval process to obtain "accredited" status?  Or are you accredited "automatically" when you meet the requirements?
I'm asking because I am interested in possibly attending future YC demo days.
Thanks for any assistance. <comment><USER2> There is no organization or form to fill out (at least in the abstract).

You either do or don't meet the criteria.

In a funding round, you will likely be required (a) to fill out an Investor Questionnaire or (b) make formal representations and warranties that you meet one or the other of the two criteria for individuals.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd heard 300K not 200K. And if you're married it is total joint income. It's automatic

<comment><USER2> Either one's individual income over $200K in each of the two most recent years

or joint income with that person's spouse in excess of $300,000 in each of those years

plus a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you to all who responded.

</comment><comment><USER4> No.</comment>


The Mysterious Life of Birds Who Never Come Down - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2020/07/29/magazine/vesper-flights.html <comment><USER2> >I didn't want to leave [the bird] there, so I took it home, swaddled it in a towel and tucked it in the freezer.

Mhmm... what?

</comment><comment><USER3> comments a few days ago, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23996730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23996730)</comment>


What We Know About Last Week's Accident - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-we-know-about-last-weeks-accident <comment><USER2> I wouldn't be surprised if this was caused by operator error more than the vehicle considering the stories I've read in the past. I know I've done some dumb things to avoid focusing on the road like using an orange to have the autopilot go for hours on road trips.</comment>


Call of Duty gaming community points to 'swatting' in Wichita police shooting - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/12/kansas-man-killed-in-swatting-attack/ <comment><USER3> Two things can obviously be true at the same time: that "police officers"† are improperly keyed up as if they're shock troops preparing for a battle, and that calling in a false report with the hope that it will provoke an armed response is effectively an attempt at homicide.

To me, the (standard) overreaction by the police makes arguments minimizing what the gamer did here even harder. Unless you live under a rock, you're aware of the controversy about armed police response in the US. Surely this gamer knew that, and called a fake report in anyways --- one involving an active shooter and a hostage.

I'm with Ken "Popehat" White: what the gamer did here is homicide. We can argue about the degree.

† _really, in almost all cases in the US, "assault officers", and we should separate the two concepts, stop hiring new assault officers, and start hiring a new class of less-armed police officers_

 _Later_

It turns out there's already a concept in US law that captures this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved- heart_murder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder)

<comment><USER4> > really, in almost all cases in the US, "assault officers", and we should > separate the two concepts, stop hiring new assault officers, and start > hiring a new class of less-armed police officers

The reason that cops are so nasty in the us is because there are so many guns. It's a different environment than other Western countries, and calls for different police tactics.

Unless guns are removed from the equation somebody is going to die. Either use a heavy handed police force, and civilians will die, or use a police force with a lighter touch and police will die.

<comment><USER5> Or,

1\. use _expendable_ police materiel to scout out the situation of a dispatch in advance of sending in any actual police bodies (e.g. police drones with fancy optics.)

2\. send people in heavily _armored_ rather than heavily _armed_. If you can make your SWAT team immune to bullets (such as by, say, encasing them in an Armoured Personnel Carrier), then they're not going to be feeling threatened and shooting anyone.

#1 is pretty universally useful. You can figure out who has guns and who doesn't.

#2 is more situational, because our best solution for heavy armor right now—APCs—have no good way of entering your tenth-floor apartment. This is why I'm constantly checking up on the progress of military robots and powered armor: the more invincible you can make something, the _less_ it needs to actually kill anybody to do its job. The ideal here is a combination of robot- police and human-in-exosuit police that don't even need guns, because nothing they are sent to deal with is ever really that dangerous to them.

<comment><USER4> Here is a video of a cop getting shot while trying to apprehend a man on a motorcycle (maybe NSFW): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqoYMOkuYc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXqoYMOkuYc)

The motorcyclist has a gun in his pocket, and shoots the cop without warning.

How will your proposed solutions are going to do anything in that situation?

Sorry to rant, but this attitude of an amateur thinking they know better than all the professionals who have been doing their job for many years, and can propose quick fixes that will solve everything, is ridiculous.

<comment><USER6> I have a real hard time caring about cops' fears in such a scenario. Innocent until proven guilty is a time-honored maxim of the U.S. justice system, and a cop deciding to kill you completely invalidates that.

Is being a cop scary? Hell yeah and I feel bad for those folks, but if you don't want to constantly be in fear of your life, get another job.

Put cops who murder innocent civilians in jail. End of story. This shouldn't even be a debate in the U.S.

EDIT: Since I had the goal posts moved on me, I want to make it explicitly clear that a cop should be allowed to kill in self-defense, just like any other lawful citizen.

<comment><USER4> > Innocent until proven guilty is a time-honored maxim of the U.S. justice > system, and a cop deciding to kill you completely invalidates that.

Consider two civilians. If A shoots at B, and B shot back and killed A, should B go to jail for murder?

Now just because B happens to be a cop, does he lose all his rights?

<comment><USER6> > does he lose all his rights?

You've just created a pure strawman. Cops should never lose their rights! I am not making such an argument, and I don't see how you got there from my points. I would never argue such a claim.

The cases I'm talking about are not self-defense. They are like the story above. If A murders B, and A is a cop, then A should go to jail regardless of the fear A had in that situation. But this is not what happens in the United States. Cops don't go to jail for shooting perfectly innocent people because the cop can claim they were afraid for their life and _thought_ that B had a gun.

If I'm a civilian, that defense doesn't fly. But if you're a cop, then it does work. That is a flaw in our justice system that needs to be corrected because a perfectly innocent man can be killed by the state and no repercussions are felt.

The state should never be able to kill an innocent man. If they are shooting at you, they aren't innocent. But if you think they have a gun (especially in an open-carry state like Kansas or Texas) then they are innocent and should not be killed.

EDIT: I am saddened by the downvotes. Does the state have the right to kill innocent people if those people own a gun? Doesn't the second amendment protect against this? I simply do not see the legitimate argument for allowing such behavior. This just seems like rabid tribalism for police.

<comment><USER4> I don't think I understand what scenario you're talking about. If you're talking about the scenario I posted a video of, I think you are completely off base.

If you're talking a cop straight-up murdering someone, and it getting covered up, then, of course, that's wrong.

I think there is a lot of gray area between these two scenarios, however. I also think if there was a ban on guns that would solve most of it.

<comment><USER6> The scenario at hand in the OP, where a cop murders a completely innocent man through mistake. I agree that a ban on guns would likely solve the problem in the video that you posted.

My point was that your video seemed out of place since the actual issue is that cops in the U.S. are held to a different standard for murder. If cops were held to the same standard, then they could be held accountable for their crimes and some of the public outrage would be alleviated.

If (for the sake of argument) the amount of guns in this country were significantly decreased via a ban and the police still held to a different standard, police would still be able to kill an innocent person out of fear for their life. Racial biases could also cause a cop to be more fearful in a situation and still kill an innocent person without consequence.

I also think that changing how police are prosecuted for crimes is much easier than repealing the second amendment in the U.S. (although both would face fierce opposition).

<comment><USER4> > My point was that your video seemed out of place since the actual issue is > that cops in the U.S. are held to a different standard for murder.

That video was part of a specific response refuting the idea that if the cops just used drones and body armor, there wouldn't be a problem anymore. I did in no way intend to imply it was a counterpoint to the main story. I don't know why it's being perceived in that way.

> I also think that changing how police are prosecuted for crimes is much > easier than repealing the second amendment in the U.S. (although both would > face fierce opposition).

Yes, but that runs into the trade-off I was talking about. Either you have a heavy handed, "shoot first, ask questions later" style police force, or one with a lighter touch. In the first scenario, more civilians are killed. In the second, more cops.

Only by banning guns can you reduce casualties on both sides.

<comment><USER7> How would take the guns out of circulation already? There are millions of them out there and a whole tribe of diehards who will never give them up, and on top of this an entire industry around it -- the amount of people that die from this problem isn't worth the political capital and sustained decision maker attention needed to push this through compared to everything else that could be done using the same limited bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My mom rented out a concrete slab in her backyard in August to a few guys living in a RV. They have access to the garage which has water and a full bathroom. And I ran electric and Ethernet to their RV.

They are not supposed to come into the main house without knocking. They do not have keys.

It is like pulling teeth to get them to pay rent and utilities. They hit one of the peoples car that lives inside the main house and refused to fix the broken taillight. The part is 40 bucks and I can replace it. But they refuse.

And this has escalated over the last few weeks. The police have been called three times over the RV guys behavior. I told my mom to get a restraining order to get them out fast but for some reason refuses.

So the eviction process has started. And they were not happy. I was there the other day and was getting the space heater in the bathroom going so the pipes don't burst and overheard them saying that when they leave they should, "SWAT the bitch".

And my mom rents out a room to a forty year old guy on disability that they say has a mental capacity of a 12 year old. He is somewhat impulsive. If the cops poured in he would not understand what is going on and would probably get shot.

I went with my mom to the police station to tell them what I overheard. So hopefully before they send a SWAT team a note pops up that they were warned about this and it is probably false.

<comment><USER9> I've thought similarly about people who are feeling the threat of being swatted informing local authorities of the possibility but that presents another problem. The police aren't going to 100% trust people calling in to say, "Hey, if anybody calls you to say I'm doing something illegal I am calling you to tell you right now that I'd never do anything like that!" and it makes me feel that forewarning them might pose more problem than not. The entire situation is sticky and grimy and I agree with Krebs that the punishment for causing a swatting incident needs to be a felony in all 50 states.

<comment><USER10> If you go to the station and give your id, make a statement and they verify where you live and who you are?

<comment><USER11> Do they really have a process in place to check if addresses are on a 'do not SWAT list' before sending in the cops? How is such a list maintained and verified? Who approves changes to it? How long do addresses stay on it and what's the process for removing them?

There is no such thing as a 'do not SWAT' list, and there is no such process in place.

<comment><USER10> Yes you might be surprised but the police keep notes/tabs on the community. If you call something in or otherwise inform them you will be in the system which would alert them.

<comment><USER9> In the heat of the moment (police suddenly getting a dispatch for a murder / hostage situation at a local residence) I hardly believe anyone involved is going to have the time to thumb through notes like that. Maybe in a really small rural community but I can't imagine there would be much chance of things going properly in any sort of larger municipality or city.

<comment><USER12> The dispatcher will type in your address into their computer and will _immediately_ see and read these notes.

<comment><USER13> Are these notes available as part of a freedom of information act request? Because one should be able to have written verifications these notes exist for when the inevitable breakdown in communication occurs and the note is not passed along to first responders on the scene.

<comment><USER12> I would assume so.

Of course various dispatchers will be running different software so this may not be universally supported, but these notes are a pretty basic feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A lot of people have been talking about the evil of this one individual kid, or the irresponsibility of the police department, but there's another aspect being glossed over here:

The first thing I thought when I read this article was, "Wow, the toxic Call of Duty community finally killed someone."

I've been playing CoD WW2 online off and on since it came out last month. I have been astounded by the behavior of many people in those games. Players with racist and genocidal names who spout horrible things on chat about minorities. Threats of real world physical and sexual violence. Homophobia and misogyny. And of course just childish spamming and yelling and cheating and complaining and other nonsense.

It is a terrible, terrible community.

It does not surprise me at all to see it escalate to actual real world violence.

Yes, the kid who made this particular call should be punished. And the police department needs to be held accountable too.

But the root of this problem is the CoD community, and to some extent the gaming community at large. I don't know how to fix it, I don't know how you get an entire community to start treating each other like human beings -- but that's what needs to happen.

<comment><USER15> As much as I hate CoD and wish the issues you highlighted were limited to the CoD community, they are not.

The behavior you described fits many if not most online, semi-anonymous, young, male majority communities. CoD is just one community in that bucket.

Edit:

> I don't know how to fix it, I don't know how you get an entire community to > start treating each other like human beings -- but that's what needs to > happen.

Hang out around a group of young guys and you'll realize that the groups you described are just an amplified reflection of IRL groups of similar makeup.

If you want to fix this type of behavior you have to change it at a much deeper level than online gaming communities because its a mindset.

People do it mostly for the laughs - even the extreme idiotic shit like SWAT calls... just like they do extreme idiotic shit IRL like fraternity initiations that get people killed. IMO the stuff you're describing is systemic.

<comment><USER14> I haven't seen the same level of vitriol in most other games. I also play World of Warcraft (off an on, hop in every other year or so), Dota 2, Company of Heroes 2, and a few other games. I'm also active in a couple different gaming communities online. Yes, there are toxic players in each of those other games but nothing as extreme or as densely-packed as in Call of Duty. (Dota 2 is probably the worst, but most of the toxicity is just complaining about game-related issues. I've never seen physical threats or racism/genocidal chat.)

<comment><USER15> I will say that BF1 in-game text chat on PC can get pretty bad (reminds me of the old IRC days), however I don't see physical threats much (only one threat in the last 4 years) -- however when I played halo 2 online it was constant trash. Are your experiences with console or PC players?

<comment><USER14> PC, I don't play console games.

And like to be clear, I think you're right that it's a bigger problem than CoD. Absolutely. The toxicity in the other games I play isn't okay either. It hasn't been as extreme or concentrated as CoD, but it's definitely a problem too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Although the toxicity that is a regular and observable part of the CoD community is awful, I'm having trouble coming around to many of the comments who view the caller as of equal responsibility as the police.

911 is an open API with no authentication. It cannot possibly prove guilt. Therefore, in a society which values innocence absent proof of guilt, police are bound to treat anyone they encounter by dint of information from 911 as innocent.

Also, it is not unlawful to carry a firearm in the USA nor in Kansas. Therefore, even if this person had been wielding a firearm, they are still to be regarded as innocent.

I'm actually of the mind that it makes sense to _intentionally_ subject 911 to incorrect information (like we do with the TSA) in order to audit and pentest it.

We need a society where incorrect information given to open, authless APIs never leads to anyone's death.

And in fact, in this case, the officer who fired a weapon is, to my way of thinking, the only person at fault for this murder.

The caller is certainly an asshole and is even culpable for homicidal intent, but I don't think that their conduct is tantamount to murder - more like involuntary manslaughter. After all, with the exact same intent and the exact same conduct, they can reasonably expect that the other party is killed only a very small percentage of the time, and in every such case there is another more directly culpable party.

I'm also concerned, despite solid reasoning from many other commenters here, that any deference to the police officer in the form of pointing to mistaken information is a roadblock to advocacy of police reform.

In short: when the state murders someone, it's the state's fault. It doesn't make for a peaceful and just society to hold the state to the same low standard we hold some idiot CoD player.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, my first thought was "Anyone can summon cops to shoot me with just my address?". Should society get a CVE entry for that?

If there was a magic button in the world that killed someone every time it was pressed, I'd be much more concerned about getting rid of the button or enacting societal change to keep the button under protection than I would care about tracking down people that pressed the button. Sure, some degree of that is good to discourage it too, but if the button remains out in the open, easy to press, and pressed by more people than actually do get captured, then something isn't right.

<comment><USER18> On a side note, you might like a movie called The Box (2009).

Basically a couple receives a box with a button and pressing it will give them $1 million but a stranger somewhere in the world will die at the same time.

I don't remember if it's any good but your scenario reminded me of it.

<comment><USER19> There was also an episode of _The Twilight Zone_ with the same plot [0]. Based on a short story by Richard Matheson.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_(The_Twilight_Z...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_\(The_Twilight_Zone\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Body cam video:

[http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192229414.html](http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192229414.html)

It appears that he was shot from _across the street_ as he raised an arm. It sounded to me like an order was given to fire (or a voiced, mistaken observation, like "gun!"), rather than a purely organic reaction by the shooter to a specific provocation. In any event, it's unthinkable to me that an uncorroberated "threat" like this, at that distance and with no observable, immediate threat to others in the home, justified firing at that point.

<comment><USER21> The psychopath swatter and the trigger happy cop both need to spend time in prison. Perhaps they can share a cell?

<comment><USER22> No need for the cop to be in jail.

<comment><USER21> It's important, for society, to ensure the cop never kills again.

Unfortunately firing him is not enough -- he will almost immediately be able to get another job carrying a badge and a gun unless he has a criminal record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> According to the article, allegedly two Call of Duty players were threatening each other over a $2 bet. One call of duty member gives the other a fake address when the other threatens to SWAT him. Police go to the fake address and shoot somebody. Guy who got shot couldn't have possibly prevented the situation and is ironically the least at fault of anybody involved.

<comment><USER24> I recently saw a comic/meme that portraits the situation in the US like this: Waste your life inside playing computer games or go outside and get shot.

There is some sad truth in this comic as this case shows. Here, just opening the door got him shot.

<comment><USER22> That is not life in the US at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "A male came to the front door," Livingston said. "As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon."

This has absolutely nothing to do with Call of Duty, full stop. The issue is the threat de-escalation training used by the Kansas police and their inability to safely and competently serve the general public. "hostage situation" does not translate to "shoot to kill." The proper response is to establish a perimeter, establish communication, and work to neutralize the situation without a violent escalation.

<comment><USER26> A cop who perceives danger when there is absolutely none, and results in the death of an innocent person, should be fired with prejudice.

<comment><USER27> I think he should face some jail time or community service or something. We give these punishments for crimes of much more innocent nature. Taking someone's life is pretty much one of the worst things a human can do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think there's enough blame to go around: 1) police send an entire SWAT team because of ONE anonymous phone call, even though they should know by now that people abuse that ability 2) the gamer guy who made the phone call.

Kind of reminds me of bomb threats -- how many people who actually place bombs make a phone call first? It's almost like if a bomb threat is called in, you can be sure there's no bomb. I remember my high school years ago kept getting bomb call threats, and eventually started ignoring them, figuring it was a student making the calls.

<comment><USER29> I think the IRA usually warned of a bomb a few minutes before it going off, so that it would cause a lot of inconvenience, a lot of material damage and relatively little human casualties.

<comment><USER30> Not anonymously though. They had a system to authenticate their threats to the police.

<comment><USER31> I hadn't heard that. I googled 'ira ireland authenticating bomb threat' and found this short read...

[http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-19/news/mn-50393_1_code-...](http://articles.latimes.com/1997-04-19/news/mn-50393_1_code- words)

I thought it was interesting to find the information via a 20 year old online newspaper article, instead of a link to Wikipedia or some more recent rehash of the information presented in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Clearly the guy who made the false call committed murder and should be charged as such. However, there should also be civil and possibly criminal liability for the officer and department.

SWAT should be held to a far higher standard for weapons use when they have time to show up at a location in force, in full gear, with superior training, and take up a defensive position before starting the engagement, vs. what I'd expect of a solo officer encountering a suspect on the street. If you're in cover, with a team of other people also in cover, all behind rifles, wearing level III or IV hard armor, with massively overwhelming force, immediate medical support, and technology, you have time to wait to see if a furtive movement into a waistband is pulling out a handgun. Even if someone is reaching for a handgun, it's probably not going to be an aimed shot at the 4x3" or so of exposed target you're presenting at 10-25 yards, and you should be able to take your shot in 0.2 seconds or so from seeing the cue. And yes, this might increase the risk to SWAT officers by a small amount, but it's already a very low risk, so even doubling that risk, if it halves the higher risk to the public during SWAT callouts, is the correct choice. And it's probably more like doubling a very tiny risk while 100x reduction in risk to innocent people and halving risk to criminal suspects.

The whole justification of giving these teams massive amounts of weapons, armor, and other equipment is so they'll have overwhelming force and will be able to apply more discretion. We don't want the fight between police and bad guys to every be anything close to "fair". It should be like an adult breaking up a couple of children fighting, where the goal is to avoid injuring them.

There's a separate problem of SWAT being used for a lot of no-knock drug warrants and other stupid things, but the solution there is to decriminalize drugs and get rid of those searches.

</comment><comment><USER33> Common sense ways this could have been avoided:

1) Interview neighbors: "Did you hear a gunshot tonight?"

2) Get more info from the caller. "How do you know this detailed information from inside the house?", "Where are you so we can talk to you face-to-face?", "Can you describe the house?"

Anyone can call 911. It is an unreliable source of information by default. I understand that the police want to act quickly in a dangerous situation but there has to be some parallel fact checking happening that can suss out the facts before someone gets killed.

<comment><USER34> I don't understand how any of those points would help at all. Number 1 is irrelevant and number 2 is easily handled. "Oh, neighbor didn'r hear a gunshot? Well let's put down the guns and knock on the door nicely instead". Come on now.

<comment><USER35> > "Well let's put down the guns and knock on the door nicely instead"

And why not? In the same situation in Europe, this is what would happen. Regular cops would confirm the situation first. And it works. Units similar to the SWAT do exist, but I've never heard of them being dispatched directly after an anymous call.

"if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail...", and well, the SWAT is pretty much a hammer in this kind of situation.

<comment><USER36> If the call goes on for 20 minutes in great details on an ongoing hostage situation with already multiple casualties, I certainly expect the European SWAT to show up as soon as possible.

I'd personally be shocked if it were any difficult to get a hold of the GIGN, the RAID, the DGSE, the GCHQ or the UK SWAT when necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Greeeeeeeeeat. So we can go down the rabbit hole of dissecting SWATting and criminal culpability of those who SWAT, but I'm sitting here wondering how safe we are in general.

Cops get addresses wrong on warrants and execute SWAT raids on the wrong house. I recollect at least one innocent guy killed this way. Let's see what a quick Google search turns up:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2017/10/31/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2017/10/31/botched-police-raid-roundup-miss-police-wont-release- names-of-police-who-shot-innocent-man-toledo-cops-kill-dogs-after-allegedly- raiding-wrong-home-5th-circuit-allows-lawsuit-for-botched-raid-in)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2017/07/2...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2017/07/26/police-shot-and-killed-a-man-while-trying-to-serve-a- warrant-at-the-wrong-house)

[https://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7083371/swat-no-knock- raids-p...](https://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7083371/swat-no-knock-raids-police- killed-civilians-dangerous-work-drugs)

If a person directs a dog to maul another person, the person is responsible and the dog needs to be put down. If a person reports a hostage situation that directs SWAT to raid a home where somebody dies, the person directing the action must be accountable and the police who killed in error must be, at minimum, removed from police work. A police officer who shoots an unarmed person has positively proven their unsuitability for the work. I'd like to see the officer charged with negligent homicide, but as case after case has shown, the US public is unwilling to convict officers.

</comment><comment><USER38> It looks like the police shined high beams in his eyes, causing him to reflexively raise his arms to block the bright light. Another officer shot him for raising his arms.

Screenshots: [https://imgur.com/a/gLFrv](https://imgur.com/a/gLFrv)

Once you know to look for it, it becomes obvious that this is what is happening when watching the video.

Video: [https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.htm...](https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192244734.html)

I don't know whether the police can be 'legally' pinned with criminal culpability here, but there is no doubt that they royally fucked up. No amount of presence of mind on the part of this guy would have prevented an entirely uncontrolled, reflexive action in response to them shining incredibly bright HID lamps in his face.

</comment><comment><USER39> Juries are told not to focus on the shooting, but to think if the officer believed his life was in danger. If the officer thinks his life is in danger its acceptable use of force under most department policies TO KILL YOU.

Most people in stressful situations do not follow orders well, people are not trained to "jump" on yelled orders. Barking orders at a confused/drunk person is the worst thing you can do. People are not trained to even think about their hand location except while pulled over, hands on the steering wheel.

But, we also do have criminals who do go for weapons.

I guess we just need better training and to have cameras, because each shooting is different, could be bad cop, bad training, bad situation or justified, nobody knows.

<comment><USER40> It says a lot that a supposedly professional's feelings doing his job are more important than some uninvolved random persons life. Any warzone's ROE are stricter than what US-cops are allowed to get away with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Seems one solution could be for officers to use loudspeaker to state why they are outside, and give very specific protocols for safely exiting the residence. Possibly offer a communication channel to dispute validity of their arrival. I imagine they have the phone number of the land-line or cells within a certain radius of the residence, along with social media profiles they could examine to 'profile' participants in the situation and assess validity. You can't have a system that solves the problem 100% and is immune to being gamed by criminals, but with data and clear lines for communication it seems you could pretty easily create a reliable 'safety net' for people caught up in fraudulent 911 calls without exposing the responding officers to any risk.

<comment><USER42> FWIW, I'm hearing-impaired (though not deaf) and I'm reasonably certain that if I ever end up in a situation with cops pointing guns at me, for whatever reason, I will end up dead.

 _Edit_ I'm responding to the point about using a loudspeaker, in case that wasn't clear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Another victim of swatting, John Crawford [0], because I'm getting tired of the media saying this has been the first victim.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_John_Crawford_II...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_John_Crawford_III)

<comment><USER21> I don't know if I'd call this a swatting but it is definitely a classic case of Ohio police murdering black people.

1\. Cops didn't order a single verbal command before Officer Sean Williams shot him to death -- first murder.

2\. A woman in the store had a heart attack and _died_ as a result of their insane recklessness -- second murder.

BONUS: Knowing there was no gun they still interrogate his girlfriend in custody for 90 minutes. At the end of the interrogation they let her know Crawford died. Months later she dies in a car crash.

Zero charges for anyone involved. Everyone in the department should be facing prison for not taking action against murderer Sean Williams, it was obvious he was far too dangerous to wear a badge much less carry a weapon:

> Beavercreek police officer Sean Williams used force 10 times more than the > staff average during his first eight years in the department. His 36 > "response to resistance" incidents from 2006 through 2013 does not include > the Aug. 5, 2014 shooting death of John Crawford III at Walmart.[0]

He was not fired.

[0] [http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/crime--law/officer- who...](http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/crime--law/officer-who-shot- crawford-led-department-use-force/aBw3Il9c9CKB5uVAOVwC5J/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I just want to say I've cross trained SWAT and other LEA's, and other countries militaries etc while I was in the military, and as a combat vet I cannot express how scary some of these groups are due to realizing the makeup of their teams. Lack of trigger control, lack of tactics, too little training, and fragile egos combined with a "war" mindset results in this sort of thing. The kicker is you would be amazed at how many of the swat guys I met were noncombat pog's in the military who wiggle their way onto SWAT to make up for their lack of combat oconus.

We need to be addressing these issues at the training and policy level, but the thine blue line needs to be busted up first. I knew an old school LEO who had done undercover and cartel work, and even he complained constantly to me about the death of the concept of the "peace officer".

Police forces are way too eager to be in a war zone and they are going to keep doing this shit until the public stops them, the ultimate irony is that most of these incidents are because the war-wannabes are actually cowards who get scared as shit at every blade of grass and end up emptying magazines for no reason... Essentially SWAT is mostly just COD players who grew up but couldn't handle war if they got what they think they wanted.

Its like they never heard of an OODA loop.

Oh, and let's not let this opportunity to talk about how much the cops protect rich corporations and pillars of the community at the expense of everyone else... Their pinkertonian origins make things like CIA working with them against occupy wall street that much more disturbing.

Oh and one more thing. Many of the bad escalation of force policies and training are because a huge amount of these guys get cross trained by Israelis...and I'm just going to let the implications of that sink in.

<comment><USER21> First paragraph got my upvote. Then I got to this part:

> Many of the bad escalation of force policies and training are because a huge > amount of these guys get cross trained by Israelis...and I'm just going to > let the implications of that sink in.

Wait what?

<comment><USER44> Yeah, lots of your local leo, for some reason usually sheriffs, make trips to Israel for training, or have them come to the US for it, and their methods are much more "war" oriented than American ones should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Why is callerID spoofing possible or legal? That's a rhetorical question BTW, I don' think there is a legitimate use for that or even blocking it.

<comment><USER20> Spoofing caller-ID is easy using VOIP (as phone scammers well know), but 911 does not use caller-ID per se. Landlines use ANI/ALI.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1)

<comment><USER46> This is why swatters often call non-emergency police numbers instead of 911. In this case the swatter called Wichita's City Hall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I haven't read all the comments here, but I am rather disturbed by the high focus I have seen so far on the _police violence_ angle which largely glosses over the horror of an individual abusively and maliciously dispatching enormous power with a single prank call. That power is supposed to be available as protection, not as your personal means to settle an incredibly minor vendetta or whatever.

<comment><USER48> It is absolutely disturbing that an individual would do that, but cops should be held to a much higher standard of morals and responsibility than civilians.

<comment><USER47> I don't happen to think that expecting the police to be ever more perfect while the ability of ordinary civilians to intentionally fool them climbs will solve this problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> "Los Angeles man arrested in 'swatting' call that preceded fatal police shooting in Kansas" [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-arrest-man- suspe...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-arrest-man-suspected- swatting-preceded-deadly-police-shooting-n833576)

</comment><comment><USER50> In all seriousness, this is the biggest reason that I don't use Twitch. I know the risk is low, but all it takes is a single troll somewhere in the world to find my CV or a WHOIS record.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, it's irresponsible to tell the truth in your WHOIS. That information is a perfect start for launching a social engineering attack as well.

<comment><USER52> hope you don't live in Germany then [http://www.mth- partner.de/wettbewerbsrecht-anwalt/cyber-law-...](http://www.mth- partner.de/wettbewerbsrecht-anwalt/cyber-law-about-the-legal-requirements-e-g- imprint-your-german-website-must-adhere-to/)

<comment><USER53> You're not at risk of getting SWAT'ed in Germany, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Honestly, we can only wonder how much more will the US regress in it's undeveloping. Remembered about the 'hypernormalization' Adam Curtis documentary. So much fucked up stuff and people still try to find ways to justify, to treat this status quo as sane, and by this I mean a lot of things, not just the odd freak incident. Eh, sad..

</comment><comment><USER55> I am petrified of SWATting. I am in the Crypto world, and number of crazies / anarchists I deal with is insane.

What steps can I take to protect my home from SWATting attacks?

<comment><USER56> Move to a country that doesn't send storm troopers trained to kill you at the slightest 'provocation' (and often without) based on a single phone call from a blocked number, and then later exhonorate your killer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> _"As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon."_

Oh... ok. So the takeaway is, when someone pounds on my door at 3AM, it's safer just to not answer in case it's the police and an officer _discharges his weapon_ (A lovely euphemism that shifts blame away from the officer).

In fact, any time you get a knock at the door, it's probably best you retreat to the farthest corner of your house and lay down with your hands on your head because that's basically the only way you can maximize your chances of not getting blown away for responding like a rational human being.

</comment><comment><USER58> It says "department policy is to give the officer paid leave".

Maybe a reward for murder isn't the best solution.

<comment><USER59> It's not a reward. /u/thatsnotmynamesir details exactly why that's the policy.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/1s01lr/mos...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtectAndServe/comments/1s01lr/most_common_myth/cdslvma/)

Sub-quote:

>Even then, the Administrative Leave isn't fun. The take your badge and gun and you are basically on house arrest between the hours of 8am and 5pm on weekdays. You cannot leave your home without permission of your superiors, even it its just to go down the street to the bank or grocery store. You must be available to come into the office immediately at any time for questioning, polygraphs, or anything else involved in the investigation. Drink a beer? That's consuming alcohol on duty, you're fired. So even when officers are cleared of the charges and put back on the street, Admin. Leave still isn't "paid vacation."

I encourage anyone to read the entire comment, as it explains much more about the process. Given that the review process can reasonably multiple to many weeks, it's not unreasonable for that time to be paid. If we're being honest, most people are not in a good enough financial position to pay 1 or 2 mortgage payments without any money coming in the door.

If it were unpaid time, why would I as a police officer want to volunteer to serve in the parts of town which are more rough?

If someone accused an officer of sexual harassment, the response would probably be the same - paid administrative leave. If 5 people came forward with completely untrue complaints against an officer sequentially, they could bankrupt the officer who literally did nothing wrong.

<comment><USER60> A regular person who commits a murder will be sent to jail, even if he is later exonerated. A cop goes home and continues to collect his income.

How is that not a reward?

<comment><USER59> For a regular person, the potential to _need_ to kill somebody isn't part of their job duties. Of course there are _very_ limited times where it's appropriate to do so.

<comment><USER60> > the potential to need to kill somebody isn't part of their job duties

This is true. However, I interpret it as yet another reason why police should be systemically held to a stricter standard for unjustified killings: they know they are far more likely to get away with it, so the process of investigation should be a deterrent in itself to counteract the low likelihood of punishment.

Think about this case for a second. The chief gave no information about whether the victim was carrying a weapon or threatened the officers. The victim was surrounded by cops and yet there is no immediate clarity about precisely what happened.

Cops are a fraternity, and they deal extensively with the justice system. There are systemic benefits that they enjoy due to this. Many cops have gotten away with murders that were documented on video, and witnessed by other cops.

To counter this, you have to construct parts of the system as a deterrent to killing nonthreatening people. That may make the job more dangerous, but it's better to put a trained officer in danger of being attacked, than to put an innocent and clueless civilian in danger of being gunned down by a careless SWAT team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I hope the pranksters are charged with murder.

<comment><USER61> What about the officer that shot the guy? What about the person responsible for dispatching a whole assault team based on a single call?

<comment><USER49> The shooter will be investigated, and likely survive the investigation.

The pranksters are the root cause, the reason this house came under the awareness of the cops at all.

<comment><USER62> You really need to look at this as two separate incidents.

The police could end up at the wrong house for any number of reasons not all of which are malicious. There is no excuse for the actions of the police officer. The manner in which the SWAT team arrived at the house does not in any way change the culpability of an officer for their actions.

The prankster also has culpability here since they did what they did with the intent to cause harm and they should also be held accountable. To say the prankster is the root cause though is non-sense. The root cause of the man's death is the police's unprofessional handling of the incident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Here are some statistics, to help put things in context.

There have been 976 people shot and killed by police this year. "Three out of five of the people shot and killed by police were armed with a gun, while fewer than 1 in 10 were unarmed." [0] Note that the category of armed with something other than a gun seems very context dependent (being armed with a knife or vehicle is a wide range of life threatening to someone armed with a gun).

"As of Thursday, 128 officers have died in the line of duty this year, with 44 shot and killed." [1]

While this is not enough data to get a good false positive/false negative (is there any data on how often SWAT responds appropriately? Talks down an armed, threatening person or similar?), it gets us partially there. While all incidents such as this one warrant a response, I feel that a societal response needs to be based on how frequently this happens, in context with total number of events (ie: 10% requires a much different response than 0.1%)

[0]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police- shoo...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police- shootings-2017/) [1]: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/12/28/number- office...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/12/28/number-officers- killed-2017-hits-nearly-50-year-low/984477001/)

</comment><comment><USER64> It's really sad but a lot of things went wrong here. I really hope the person who called in the swatting goes to prison for murder. The person who gave the wrong address, I think they should also get a prison sentence for what they did. Giving an address to someone who they know is trying to do harm, should be illegal, but I'm not sure which law would cover this. Finally, it's sad how things went with the cops. If cops fear for their life they are going to protect themselves. They just want to go home to their families.

I have no numbers to back this statement up, but one would assume that cops draw their weapons often, and of course we hear about the times when they have to discharge them in stories like this one. I'm not saying all cops make perfect decisions all the time and there are no bad apples in the force. But I'd assume that cops just want to get home to their families safe every night.

</comment><comment><USER65>
      "A male came to the front door," Livingston said. "As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon."

      Livingston didn't say if the man, who was 28, had a weapon when he came to the door, or what caused the officer to shoot the man. Police don't think the man fired at officers, but the incident is still under investigation, he said. The man, who has not been identified by police, died at a local hospital.

This seems quite unusual. Looking at details, Wichita KS has a population of 380K. Perhaps they don't see much of hostage situation and were ill prepared for it. Would be interesting to see the results of investigation. Also there were studies that looked at how stress could result in these kind of scenario. IIRC, one of the triggers were being on a suicide watch/dispatch call.

</comment><comment><USER66> Can someone elaborate how response to hostage threat works in US?

Here in India, depending upon the situation, one of the security forces(police, paramilitary, Army, special forces, swat, etc), or combination of them, respond, and first cordon off the area.

Then, the alleged criminals/terrorists are asked through loudspeakers to surrender. If they do, good. If they don't, and start shooting on security forces/civilians, then they kill them. How does it work in US? Was this guy not asked to surrender?

</comment><comment><USER67> Yeah I'm going to go with I'd rather chance dying in a incredibly low likely- hood 'active shooter' situation than face possible death from prank phone calls. The probability you are going to be in an active shooter situation * the probability that a few minutes of investigation would make a difference in your survival approaches zero.

</comment><comment><USER26> When a police officer kills an unarmed man, the excuse of feeling endangered should never be allowed, since the officer was never in danger. At the very least, this police officer should be fired because they committed the ultimate sin: incompetence in their job resulted in the death of a completely innocent person.

I think we should take away this excuse from cops to kill innocent people with a flimsy excuse like this. They should show actual danger before being allowed to shoot people. Just feeling in danger should not give them any protection. The Arizona cop who killed a man crawling on the ground is a prime example of this. If it results in some cops hesitating and getting injured, then so be it, that's what happens when this privilege is abused the way it has been over the last 10 years. Better a few cops get injured that absolutely innocent or unarmed people getting killed.

</comment><comment><USER68> I was impressed by the civility of the comments on the BK site even given the strong disagreement. That's refreshing!

</comment><comment><USER69> Police should start using social engineering for fact finding. Simply call and ask "Just confirming that "Supposed Hostage" placed an online order for 10 pizzas". Or something of that nature to listen in on background noise and voice patterns.

</comment><comment><USER70> I personally think his punishment should be long enough to be some kind of deterrent to this, perhaps 10 years in jail?

Apparently there is something like 400 of these swatting incidents in a year. So while it sucks that the person died, most of the blame does actually belong to the swatting culture, not the police officer.

Think about it, 400 incidents in a year * 5 years this has been going on = 2000 high stress events involving 5 - 10 police officers = 10000 to 20000 police officers with weapons cocked and ready to fire at people.

So 1 out of 20000 police officers makes a mistake - yes its the culture that caused this, and when this number hits 40000 or 100000 what will the body count be?

</comment><comment><USER71> I'd love to know if the cop that pulled the trigger is ex-military.

Also, how did the cops "know" that the guy answering the door was the perp and not a hostage?

</comment><comment><USER72> What I can't help thinking is that when in Las Vegas Paddock was shooting people, it took the police more than an hour to get in (shooting started at 10:05pm, police entered Paddock's room at 11:20pm). But when the police sees a regular citizen, unarmed, without any signs of anything bad going on except a report on the phone made by unknown person, the person gets shot almost instantly.

</comment><comment><USER73> People in diverse communities "don't trust the local mayor, they don't trust the local paper, they don't trust other people and they don't trust institutions," writes Putnam [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_multiculturalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_multiculturalism)

</comment><comment><USER74> >Swatting needs to stop, and unfortunately as long as there are few consequences for swatting someone, it will continue to be a potentially deadly means for gaining e-fame and for settling childish and pointless ego squabbles.

Penalties are hardly an effective deterrent to crime. As with all forms of undesirable/antisocial behaviour, proper education would be far more effective.

</comment><comment><USER75> Here is some food for thought: Look up the number of "deadly swatting incidents" outside of North America, they don't exist. This is a phenomenon which, in its severity, is pretty much exclusive to the USA, with some cases also happening in Cannada, but that's about it.

Does that mean that police in other countries don't get fake calls? They also get them, but they usually react to them in a somewhat more reasonable manner which prevents the worst from happening.

The same doesn't seem to work for US police due to cultural differences (abundance of firearms everywhere) and the resulting police mentality (better shoot first than to get shot first).

In that regard, some of these "pro-gun ownership" and "guns are not the problem" comments here are simply mind-boggling, still denying a problem exists. A problem pretty much everybody recognizes as such, except for the people who still think that their AR-15's will prevent the US from becoming some fascist police state.

Not a week goes by where not another totally absurd case of irresponsible gun owners end up getting somebody killed or hurt: Babysitters getting babies killed [0], dogs shooting their owners [1], parents getting shot by their own toddlers [2], heck even when people are meeting at church to discuss a shooting spree, they end up shooting each other by accident [3] it's a collection of absurdities that wouldn't be possible anywhere else, but in the US it seems to be considered "normal".

At least that's the only way I can explain how some people still pretend there isn't a problem. It becomes especially grating when these very same people use countries with high ownership rates (and pretty strict regulations) to argue for their case of "everybody should have a gun!", straight out of the NRA meme book. Case in point: Citing Germany and Switzerland as examples for societies where "high gun ownership and low crime" exists, while at the same time completely ignoring the massive gun-regulation laws in said countries. Similarly: Hitler could only take over because he banned all the guns, when in fact he did the exact opposite to arm his SA thugs.

[0] [http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/23/justice/texas- babysitter-g...](http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/23/justice/texas-babysitter- gun-death/)

[1] [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/27/dog- accidentally-...](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/27/dog-accidentally- shoots-owner-with-a-9mm-pistol-yes-you-read-that-correctly/)

[2] [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/toddler-shoots- mom-...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/toddler-shoots-mom-dead- baby-diaper-cops-article-1.2023300)

[3] [http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-accidentally-shoots-wife- church...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/man-accidentally-shoots-wife-church- discussing-weapons-churches/story?id=51221000)

</comment><comment><USER76> How on Earth do the gamers get the other player's actual physical location? Is it IP? I thought that could get you close but not an exact address. And, more importantly, what can people playing online do to prevent their address from leaking?

<comment><USER77> My guess:

Google the hopefully unique username.

Find the first and or last name (Facebook).

Find the state and or city.

If you have the name and the city you can find the address.

My friend's 11 year old is already in THE database.

If you search for his first and last name and city you get his parent's address and home phone number.

Welcome to the Brave New World!

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Although swatting is horrible practice, the sign of the bigger problem is that US police force is so trigger-happy that it is easy to trick them to kill innocent people. I can't imagine this happening regularly in most of Europe.

</comment><comment><USER79> Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, cops are lynched by a mob of blacks and arab thugs for daring to respond to a call for help (Champigny in France on New Year's eve).

It's a different part of the world...

</comment><comment><USER80> How can Kansas justify funding their swat teams after this?

</comment><comment><USER81> Kansas has felony murder and the death penalty, so let's home they find a way to get the swatter executed. Will set a strong example for others.

<comment><USER82> We're talking about "gamers", right? Why wouldn't this "example" simply result in innocents being framed as SWATters?

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Maybe the cops should not execute people after a phone call? It's kind of weird that there are more blame for the negative action of someone who places a prank call Than for someone who murders another human being. Just because they wear different clothing?? By the way the reason they don't fix the issue of trigger happy cops and the reason they send an entire SWAT team for a prank call is simple. It is because it's good for business. (That is the business of selling weapons)

</comment><comment><USER84> What if terrorists use this idea and start making hundreds of fake calls everyday?

</comment><comment><USER85> I'll be having a talk with my kids about the consequences of 'swatting'

</comment><comment><USER86> why did post on arrest of the swatting dhole get only 2 votes?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16035079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16035079)

</comment><comment><USER87> Why the cops shoot first and ask questions later?

</comment><comment><USER88> Can this be classed as murder for hire?

Edit: misunderstood the $1.5 bet was just the game not the SWAT

</comment><comment><USER89> Regardless of how it started, the article makes it sound like the man was shot immediately upon exiting his front door. Will be interesting to see the body / dash cam footage, so that we can have another 3 days of outrage over police action in the US and then return to the status quo.

<comment><USER90> All it takes is for that person to reach in its pockets or to carry a long black stick for such an accident to happen. SWAT isn't regular police, they are trained to deal with active shooters. If such a situation happen, you are to exit with your hands in the air (when asked) and then get on the ground without resisting as they restrain you. Anything else will put your life in danger.

They came in with the following information: "a call that someone had an argument with their mother, that the father had been shot in the head and the shooter was holding his mother, brother and sister hostage."

It is my belief that those officers did nothing wrong. It was not a trigger happy cop reacting badly to a traffic stop. It was officers that acted on information that were planted by a malicious individual. The prankster is the one that needs to go to jail for this.

\---

Edit:

Yes, the situation wasn't _right_. That doesn't mean that the officers on the ground were in the wrong.

There is a more systematic issue going on, you can't put all the blame on the door kickers.

Quoting @matt_wulfeck's comment on another comment thread as he made the same point as I did but with better wording:

"Adrenaline and poor training lead to situations like this.

The department should be held responsible even though it was an individual who made the fatal mistake.

As for the person who called in the swat team, it's clearly murder."

<comment><USER91> It's crazy that as a citizenry we allow our police to operate in this manner. Kansas is a constitutional carry state, in which all adult citizens are legally allowed to carry a pistol on their person without a permit.

Why should the presence of a firearm, or the reach for a pocket or "long black stick", be a death sentence for a citizen? Why do we allow state actors to behave in this way at all?

<comment><USER92> I know this sounds weird, but it's almost as if there were some kind of correlation between a populace having a shitload of guns, and more gun deaths.

<comment><USER60> Police everywhere have a shitload of guns.

Are you arguing that the police are more likely to kill people at random in areas with higher amounts of gun ownership?

I'm not sure I follow you.

<comment><USER92> > Are you arguing that the police are more likely to kill people at random in > areas with higher amounts of gun ownership?

Cops have to make split second decisions with their own lives on the line. In a country where it's very likely that the person they're interacting with in a tense situation could be armed with a gun, it's going to make them more likely to shoot.

Perhaps not quite so relevant to this particular case, as the caller said the person was armed, but I think this would have played out differently in a lot of other countries.

<comment><USER60> > this would have played out differently in a lot of other countries.

This is precisely why the USA needs to reform its approach to police use of deadly force.

<comment><USER92> Sure, I think there's progress to be made, but the police - not wrongly - <USER2> more worried about getting shot at than in most other countries.

<comment><USER60> There are other countries with similarly high rates of gun ownership and divergently lower rates of police firearm deaths.

The problem is in the police culture towards discharging a firearm, not the greater ownership of guns. American society bears much of the blame for lionizing cops instead of scrutinizing them.

Many cases of police officers killing innocent civilians involved civilians who were either fleeing, submitting, or already subdued and pinned down. Cops in the US tend to be exonerated for using deadly force, even when the victim could not arguably have endangered others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> The innocent victim was the absolute least suspicious target the SWAT team would ever encounter and they couldn't even see it. They were blinded and under the control of a social engineer. It's pretty awful and twisted that someone would make the call, but who are these government assassins and how do we stop them?

<comment><USER94> It's pretty insane that in our fear we have basically created a dial a murder service for anyone to make use of.

<comment><USER95> I didn't ask for it - did you? Please be careful of the language you use when asserting something belonging to society. 100% of the time, the tyranny of police is not something the people ask for.

Dial-a-murder shouldn't be a thing - we need 100% body cam coverage and real repercussions for law enforcement officers that kill innocent people. How do we achieve this when the system is so corrupt?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> We changed the URL from [http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192111974.html](http://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article192111974.html). That one has the advantage of being the regional newspaper coverage, but the Krebs article (found via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16032329](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16032329)) seems a bit more substantive. If people object, I'm happy to change it back later.

</comment><comment><USER97> So I see many people in this thread talking about "improving police procedures" a concrete example of that would be treating with suspicion any call that comes through any means other than 911.

This person called a city government office, not through 911. Someone in the city government copied the phone number to call back and had 911 call them back. This should be incredibly suspicious. Why wouldn't the person just call 911? It seems to me some means like calling a local government is the only way someone from outside of the area would be able to SWAT someone else.

</comment><comment><USER98> The casual evil perpetrated by children (regardless of age) with no concept/concern of consequences.

<comment><USER99> To me, this is the equivalent of blaming a person when a fanatic kills in response to some perceived offense to their belief system written by that person.

There's absolutely no way that an anonymous call alone should lead to a death except in a freak, extremely rare accident.

<comment><USER100> Fault isn't a binary thing. It's the parent's fault for not raising their children better, it's the children's fault for not knowing better, it's the police's fault for shooting, it's everyone else's fault for perpetuating a society in which this happens.

<comment><USER99> Moral fault? Possibly, but minor. But I certainly don't think it should be a legal fault - at most, a fine for wasting the police's time.

<comment><USER98> I'm sorry, wait, what? Swatting should be at most a fine? I hope I misread that.

<comment><USER99> Nope, you didn't.

<comment><USER98> This should be the legal equivalent of involuntary manslaughter. I certainly hope that's how it is prosecuted.

<comment><USER99> I agree with that - the cops should definitively be prosecuted under that charge.

<comment><USER98> I honestly don't know how to respond to your level of moral apathy towards the person who initiated a series of events that could predictably, and indeed did, lead to the completely unnecessary death of an innocent person and traumatization of a family and a police force and a city.

The police definitely share some blame, but swatting is absolutely abhorrent. It is not a victimless crime, it is not a casual prank, it is unacceptable, and your indifference is incomprehensible.

<comment><USER53> You forget that in any normal - I repeat, NORMAL - country, police would not have killed an innocent person no matter what.

I get sick when I think that one phone call and a random address can get INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS killed. Is this the American idea of being the greatest nation on earth?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>