I wonder what FB's policy on this will be going forward. In many ways, these livestreams are a public good and provide transparency and additional accountability in these situations. If people elect to stream them, it seems wrong to shut it down. On the other hand, perhaps there is a public good in not showing an ongoing live police operation?
I think I'd lean toward not agreeing to shutdown such streams, unless perhaps it's a hostage situation or terror event of some kind. (Getting into squishy definitions there, I'm sure, which is why I qualify it provisionally.)
As to this particular incident... I wish the deceased hadn't resisted. It seems in this case the police exercised much more caution and restraint than has been the case in many other recent examples of shootings. And I think one thing generally stands: if you threaten to kill a police officer and especially if you do so while holding a weapon (or certainly pointing it at them), you're likely to be shot.
From a Facebook abuse and law enforcement operations perspective, if this happens more often it will become a huge pain in the ass. They have procedures in place to provide geolocation and such for urgent subpoenas and warrants (example: a kidnapping in progress). The level of stress that the FB team responsible for this ticket queue must experience is immense.
It's a strange wish, because the only reason the police were intertsted in arresting her on Aug 1 was because she steadfastly rejected and resisted police authority previously. This was specifically a micro (idiot) rebellion against govt authority, there were no other (non-derivative) issues involved.
Are you saying that I'm Monday morning quarterbacking? I was trying to ask questions and share possible approaches, without saying anything definitively prescriptive.
A Monday Morning Quarterback doesn't leave a lot of question or uncertainty. That's the kind of the point. They take potshots post facto and frame what "should've" been done as obvious or what happened as ridiculous/blatantly stupid. I don't see how my comment can reasonably be read that way.
I'd ask that you either explain your rude remark in rational terms, or apologize if you don't think you have a great rationale.
I don't know. Is a child under their mother's care considered a hostage in standoff circumstances? I have no idea. And note that my question was on whether it being a hostage situation should affect the policy or not... so I'm open to the possibility that it was, obviously.
Also, you didn't at all address the question about whether it makes sense to stop streamings in the event of a police encounter or not. If not, when shouldn't it be allowed? I think, at least in many states, you do have the right to record police encounters, especially if it's on your own private property or in a public place. But maybe I'm mistaken?
Perhaps you can read more carefully, think more carefully, behave more civilly, and try again.
> Monday morning quarterback: A person who analyzes the mistakes they made they day after they've made them. Derived from complaining over quarterbacks on monday morning after the sunday game. [0]
People who watch a football game Sunday night and then talk shit at work on Monday about all the things they would have done differently if they were coach/quarterback/etc.
>The definition of a Monday morning quarterback is someone who is always criticizing and saying how he would have done something better or differently after the event has passed.
If she had shot herself, or her child, or one of her neighbors, while she was in an unstable mental state, people would be outraged that the police had not done anything to prevent it.
It's also intolerable in a society with the rule of law that someone could opt out of being subject to the law by waving a gun around and refusing to comply with a lawful order from the police. If that worked, everyone would do it. It would be impossible to enforce the law.
If she didn't have a child with her, maybe they could have waited her out. They had already been there for quite a while before they decided to act. But to suggest that they just walk away and come back later is absurd.
Sure, but isn't it just as intolerable in a society with the rule of law that people are executed without a trial? There have been lengthy standoffs between the police and people trying not to pay their taxes (Google "police standoff taxes" for lots of examples; here's one: https://www.policeone.com/standoff/articles/1805292-It-was-l...). These standoffs don't typically end in death for the person under arrest.
I find it interesting that serving such warrants is done in the home vs. catching them outside. It seems like backing someone into a familiar corner (their home) would be like backing a wild animal into it's den.
You know that being confrontational and absolutist doesn't help anything and is part of the reason why it's hard to have discussions like this in a reasonable way nowadays, right? Goes with the territory if this is Facebook, or reddit, or Twitter, I guess. But let's keep the insults, pigeonholing, and irrational black-and-white thinking off of HN.
>Is people getting served really more important than people's lives?
She wasn't just being served court documents, the police were executing a bench warrant, meaning the police were there to bring her into jail. Moreover, the officers went into this knowing this woman was charged with 4 misdemeanors including resisting arrest, and then she didn't go to court and that is why they were there. Execution of bench warrants is one of the most dangerous jobs of law enforcement, even against non-violent defendants, its probably not good policy to tell officers to execute bench warrants...unless defendants threaten you with violence, in which case, not only don't bring the defendant to jail on the bench warrant but don't charge them with the new crime either.
It would be like saying, is giving a seat belt ticket more important than lives? Of course not, but that doesn't mean pulling a gun on an office is your way out of a traffic ticket.
If executing a bench warrant is so dangerous, maybe police should be more careful about how they serve them. For example, surveil the target and approach when the target is not holding a gun.
Yeah it would be great if police had resources so they could do surveillance for every defendant who is issued a bench warrant for failing to show up to court. Alternatively, it would be even better if the defendant's saved us all those tax payer dollars and a) showed up to their court hearings, or b) turned themselves after they were mailed the warrant and remove the need for the police to execute the warrant.
Unfortunately, unlimited police funding and hoping all defendants appear in court/surrender themselves are not real solutions. To put the issue in perspective, take the State of NY, at any given time there are going to be well over 1,000,000 open arrest warrants. At that scale even with all the resources and all the care in the World, police are not going to eliminate either officer or defendant deaths completely when warrants are executed. Just look at the society we live in, this defendant was being encouraged in real-time on Facebook to do something that ultimately resulted in her death and the child being shot. As a side I would really like to see these the alleged posts encouraging her not to surrender peacefully, depending on exactly what was said these individuals could in theory be charged with significant crimes themselves.
At this point the target has proven to be EXTREMELY unstable and is an enormous hazard. The kind of hazard you would call the police on because you would be afraid of them shooting someone.
I guess this shows that people on HN do not understand these situations as much as they think they do.
That's basically the balance that government makes, with the answer typically being "sometimes". Is people's electricity service more important than people who die from air pollution? Is getting on an airplane one hour faster more important than people who die from terrorism? There are no easy answers.
> According to a police report from the March stop, which the department released after the shooting, Gaines was stopped when an officer saw that in place of a license plate she had a piece of cardboard on her vehicle. The cardboard declared, “Any Government official who compromises this pursuit to happiness and right to travel, will be criminally responsible and fined, as this is a natural right and freedom.”
The sovereign citizen stance is accurately characterized by the term "gobbledegook." It is predicated on the false legal theory that the US federal government has no legal authority on citizens that claim they are only beholden to individual states. This viewpoint is based on the original Articles of Confederation, while ignoring or disregarding the authority of the Constitution. It also employs fictions such as the assertion that courts that have gold-fringed flags are courts of Admiralty and therefore are illegitimate.
There are some opinions that should rightfully be disregarded.
Maybe you should read up on Sovereign Citizen stuff. It is literally gobbledegook, based on making up linguistic stuff like claiming that 'understand' means 'stand under [to make a contract]'. Some of it is free-association verbal gibberish based on sound similarities, strongly reminiscent of schizophrenia's 'word salad'.
I don't see it as an attack on their views in general (though the sovereign citizen stuff is pretty odd, IMO) but that those sorts of people tend to ramble in an extremely weird way. If you haven't seen this specifically then think of a sort of madder, less coherent version of Glenn Beck or Alex Jones.
Nobody deserves to die (unless you believe in the death penalty I guess?). However, threatening to kill people, and exhibiting signs of extreme instability and violence, makes someone a danger that needs to be neutralized.
If that person pulls a gun on the police during that process, they are not likely to end up in a good spot.
I agree that the outcome could have been predicted, and I would not have acted in the same way she did.
But let's have some empathy: she was in her home, and some folks came to her home and attempted to remove her, with threats of violence. She didn't believe they had legal authority to do that.
What would you do in that situation, with those beliefs?
I live in the US. Let's say there's a law I disagree with. If I break that law, and police officers take action to enforce it, I'm still capable of cooperating with the officers and working through the system, using my rights as a citizen to achieve as fair an outcome as possible.
Now let's say I disagree that police officers have the right to enforce the law, and that, in fact, the entire legal system doesn't apply to me, and it infringes on my fundamental rights as a human being. I don't need to work through the system, because the system doesn't apply to me! Well, that sucks -- I still live in the United States, where the power of the law is ultimately backed by a large citizenship that does believe that the laws apply to them, and also by an incredible military force and globally connected political powers.
Clearly, saying "the law doesn't apply to me," while I'm living in the US, is about as useful as saying "the rules of physics don't apply to me." In the interest of self-preservation, while pursuing my ideologies, I might abscond to some country that does not have political ties to the US, and obtain citizenship there. Heck, I might just find my own island in the middle of nowhere and live out the rest of my days in the peace of my own personal government. Great! Everyone's happy!
However, essentially declaring war on an institution far more powerful than yourself, while the institution has both the self-interest and ability to enforce its laws isn't so much "exercising your personal ideologies" as it is "a symptom of an insane person with no sense of self preservation"
There are refugees all around the world that are fleeing from the ideologies of their own governments. That's within their rights as human beings. However, it's a symptom of insanity, not personal ideology, to believe that the laws of the country literally don't apply to you while you're there. This is why we don't often see these refugees driving around the streets of their home country, disobeying (relatively) minor laws in an extremely attention-getting way, trying to pick fights, and then threatening to shoot cops. I'm sure there are examples of this, but I'll just say the same thing in those cases -- that's not political ideology, it's insanity. And when insane people wave guns around, they get shot.
It's not gobbledygook to disagree with the government. (Is the Declaration of Independence gobbledygook?) It's only gobbledygook if you expect a police officer or court to be persuaded by your reasoning. Gaines defended her sovereignty with her gun, just like the US and MD government does. Unfortunately for her, the MD government used it's guns more preemptively, aggressively, and effectively.
Her sovereignty had absolutely no legal standing. Declaring oneself above the law does not automatically make it true. Neither shooting at police officers.
We read a lot about police violence but, in this case, I'm inclined to believe they acted very reasonably.
I think this is a very unfortunate situation, but the thought of Facebook disabling her account at the behest of the police, that doesn't feel right. We seen that we cannot always trust the police perspective in shootings, so instead of disabling the account, perhaps Facebook should have instead continue to record the feed but disable the comments.
"Mr. Zuckerberg sir, an incredibly violent and hostile individual with a gun is livestreaming a standoff with the police. It's very likely this livestream will involve somebody brutally dying or getting horrible maimed. Also, this stream could jeopardize an important police operation underway to neutralize this dangerous person. Should we pull the stream?"
"No! Of course not! The internet is the land of Freedom! Hosting this content isn't bad for us at all!"
Entertaining strawman, but a sane 'no' would look more like "There's no reason to think the stream will lead to maiming, and you're just lying to me when you say that the subject streaming her own view could jeopardize the police operation."
Edit: I think I misread the first sentence, I suppose you meant a content warning rather than cause and effect, but that's not a great reason to turn off cameras pointed at police.
Why not? cutting off the lines of communication is pretty standard procedures in standoff situations.
Before cellphones they would just cut the landlines, I don't understand why they couldn't just use a jammer to cut her off instead of going to facebook but putting a media blackout on such situations isn't wrong.
If you think about it from Facebook's perspective though, do you really want to be responsible for broadcasting a video where the women, her child or a police officer is shot or killed on camera?
FB isn't responsible; they are a platform. The person broadcasting is "responsible". And even if they were, yes, why should that be a problem? At worst it'll be flagged mature (and deleted?).
Slight concern that the developer on ACLU's behalf is something called Quadrant 2, Inc, which seems to be owned by an individual operator as opposed to a larger established company. Not sure what the company's track record or policies are.
But just an aside there. This is cool to see and great to have as a reminder.
This is going to get upvoted because of the title, I really hope that people read the actual article before posting. The worst part is that this women put her children in extreme danger and had a history of instigating police and threatening extreme violence through social media.
Furthermore others on social media actively encouraged her violence which directly led to her death and serious injury to her children. It reminds me most of the school shooting in Oregon where the attacker was actively encouraged on internet forums to commit the act. Though like in that incident I think this women would have acted the same regardless.
An alternate explanation is a woman was protecting her child from a threat --real, perceived or otherwise. Poor choice? Probably. But I think you've only explored one side of the story and a lot more information has become available in the last 12 hours.
A shotgun is not a reasonable way to protect oneself from a state. The state probably has more police officers than you have bullets. You'll only make it worse.
I wonder if there was a way to resolve this standoff without her death. I.e. letting her shoot all the shotgun shells she has, or just waiting until she gets tired and slips up, gets hungry, etc. Yeah, it requires a lot of patience but hey, you can save a human life. I don't think she would have harmed her kid so waiting in cover seems like a relatively safe thing to do?
Someone shooting at the police is a clear and present danger to everyone's life and needs to be neutralized as quickly as possible. "Letting her shoot all the shells she had" sounds like a cute scene in a movie, not reality. You don't know what the shells will be able to penetrate, whether bystanders in nearby apartments or on the street are at danger, etc. The preservation of her life stopped being a concern when she pulled a deadly weapon and most certainly when she opened fire.
Agreed. Especially if you consider that she was originally being served a warrant for a relatively minor offense, which she hadn't even been convicted of.
if police are about to shoot, and have good cause to, then it would seem reasonable that they be allowed to use sleep gas or tranquilizer, similar to what doctors use during operation. Seems better than killing them.
Downside could be lawsuites against the police for "damages" that the sleep gas caused.
As nice as it would be to have a reliable nonlethal alternative to firearms, there simply are no nonlethal weapons capable of stopping someone who is presenting an immediate threat. Tranquilizers and anesthesia are administered by an anesthesiologist, a doctor trained to determine a dosage based on a person's body mass. Too much of a dose, or even administering it too quickly can cause serious complications, or even death. Even under the controlled environment of an operating room 1/20 patients die under full anesthesia a year.
Sadly, the most reliable method of stopping a person presenting a threat is with a firearm.
Definitely questioning that 1/20 figure, I had full anesthesia with a surgery earlier this year and I'm pretty sure I'd be informed of that kind of risk.
...everyone's reliably incapacitated, and most people survive? (potentially everyone with adequate medical care which was not provided in that situation)
What is the rationale for news outlets not showing an ongoing police operation? Is it so that the suspects / perpetrators can't use the external information against the police? If so, does that rationale applicable when it is the suspect / perpetrator broadcast their own available information?
I don't know the background for these policies, so asking the first question non-rhetorically.
> [...] camera crews filmed the actions of the officers from the German apartments, and broadcast the images live on television. Thus, the terrorists were able to watch the police prepare to attack
Yes, I believe that has been cited that it gives the suspect or person of interest a way to evade/respond to police if the media are broadcasting information. For example, in this case, if we believe that the woman was holding a shotgun pointed at the police and the media reported that police were bringing a battering ram to break down her door, she might use that information to her advantage to escape, commit suicide, etc.
It is also the reason why broadcasters do not show field invasions from fans in football (the real football). There are some people with very loose screws in their heads. Claiming fame with stupid shit like that totally justifies it in their mind.
Invasions dropped very substantially after the TV stations enacted this policy.
The normal justification (the only I've heard) for that is you don't want to give the suspects an advantage. Clearly that justification doesn't apply when the suspect is the one livestreaming it.
The negotiator is going to try to work with the suspect. If the suspect is communicating with people online that could undermine the negotiations and make the situation much more dangerous for both.
Obviously there are many creeps on the internet. They can taunt, prod, confuse, mislead and provoke the already unstable person, in a nerve wrecking situation, with a gun in his hand.
The mere fact that s/he is broadcasting takes away power from the negotiator.
I think this is an excellent point. I have freedom of speech, but if I were to stand outside the house of an active hostage situation and yell "You can do it! Don't give in!", I'm sure there'd be no issue in silencing me.
Live streaming has amazing potential for keeping law enforcement accountable. With events like the death of Philando Castile it seems many of us have realized this. I think we've been slower to realize what potential live feedback may have.
Input received from other viewers that would hinder the police. "Don't forget to check the backdoor", "Your safety is on", "They won't shoot if your child is in front of you".
"More than seventy years ago, Congress made a choice to take that option away from local authorities. It conferred jurisdiction on the FCC and the state Public Utility Commissions to provide oversight, and gave everyone a federally protected right to access the phone network. That right applies to all phone networks, whether wireline or wireless."
I would put forward that it is because live-streaming on social media is not the same as using the phone line. When Facebook chose to shut down her account (which is within its rights) then she still had access to the phone line.
The federally protected right to access the phone network is unaffected. There is no federal requirement that would require Facebook to only shut down an account after receiving a court order.
Also, using a police scanner while committing a crime carries an additional penalty in certain jurisdictions. Probably along the same lines as far as rationale goes.
>“She was intelligent, strong, determined, beautiful. She was a dedicated mother, an awesome friend. She was determined to enlighten people. There’s not enough accolades I can give her,”
A mother determined to endanger the life of her son in a firefight with police. Though it seems it may not have been her fault that she turned out that way. Quite sad.
Where he was live streaming to Facebook while being shot by police. If the police can prevent streams like these from being seen, it gives them a huge legal advantage. It means the public won't be able to see what happened and can't put political pressure on DAs to prosecute cops. It's much better for them if they can keep that footage internal to Facebook, the police force, and the DA if at all possible.
Police aren't allowed to jam cell phones, so why should they be allowed to do this? Making the cops' jobs easier isn't something that always benefits society. (I'm totally for the cops in this case, but still they shouldn't be able to censor like this.)
I think this is a good point. I wonder if livestreams could be enabled but perhaps comments/feedback could be disabled or invisible to the poster. This could also address concerns that external viewers might feed a suspect/perpetrator intel on the police operation which might impinge their efficacy in an already difficult notice.
This incident didn't really have anything to do with Facebook. The cause was buried in an offhand remark in the middle of the article: apparently the woman's behavior was a result of brain damage from lead paint. The headline should have been 'Lead paint claims yet another victim'.
You're thinking rationally, which isn't a strong suit of these scum that get pissy about ambiguous police-involved shootings, and conclude that ambushing and murdering police officers is a valid response.
I wonder what FB's policy on this will be going forward. In many ways, these livestreams are a public good and provide transparency and additional accountability in these situations. If people elect to stream them, it seems wrong to shut it down. On the other hand, perhaps there is a public good in not showing an ongoing live police operation?
I think I'd lean toward not agreeing to shutdown such streams, unless perhaps it's a hostage situation or terror event of some kind. (Getting into squishy definitions there, I'm sure, which is why I qualify it provisionally.)
As to this particular incident... I wish the deceased hadn't resisted. It seems in this case the police exercised much more caution and restraint than has been the case in many other recent examples of shootings. And I think one thing generally stands: if you threaten to kill a police officer and especially if you do so while holding a weapon (or certainly pointing it at them), you're likely to be shot.