Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon

[Venkman]

It was before the HRT got there when initial contact was made by a few officers. HRT fired in flash-bangs much later after the robot cut the tarp.

There is an iPhone video of it from a neighbor's house:Video (starts at :40 seconds of that)

200 may be what was fired the night before, but it is a sustained barrage from multiple officers for like 12 seconds. Easily over a hundred rounds. 

Ah! Thanks. Not that I was hoping/dishoping it was true, but glad it's based on fact.

[KallDrexx]

It wasn't dark when it happened though. 

True, I forgot about that.  Though when it's light out I would guess it's actually harder to figure out where a gunshot actually came from.

[Morat20]

Again, this is why I'm really, really, really aghast at how much military hardware has crept into police across America.

Sure, I'm guessing cities in the top 10 or 20 have the money, manpower, and size to field an actual SWAT team capable of using that stuff properly in a policing environment. But they're not the only ones getting it, and even the big cities suffer from "Why are we paying out the ass for training the shit out of SWAT for them to sit on their asses?" and either start assigning the guys to other jobs (thus letting their training lapse) or find excuses to use that stuff.

Like what's his face -- that asshole Arizona sheriff and his damn APC.

[Mithas]

Again, this is why I'm really, really, really aghast at how much military hardware has crept into police across America.

Sure, I'm guessing cities in the top 10 or 20 have the money, manpower, and size to field an actual SWAT team capable of using that stuff properly in a policing environment. But they're not the only ones getting it, and even the big cities suffer from "Why are we paying out the ass for training the shit out of SWAT for them to sit on their asses?" and either start assigning the guys to other jobs (thus letting their training lapse) or find excuses to use that stuff.

Like what's his face -- that asshole Arizona sheriff and his damn APC.

I know a county cop who is on the SWAT team. He is a normal patrol officer by day and only does SWAT when needed. I live in Minneapolis/St Paul and that is a top 20 metropolitan area. My guess is most SWAT members are not full time.

[Morat20]

I think if you're not full-time, you probably shouldn't get military toys.

I mean even reservists spent years on active duty and get monthly refreshers -- and they're not deployed anywhere to USE military hardware without more training time to blow the dust off between being recalled and being shipped to wherver.

Sure, national emergencies and such call them straight to duty -- but that's not fighting, they're there for manpower and discipline, not tanks and rifles.

[Ghambit]

You're leaving out the simple fact we can't afford a police state.  As if one overgrown military wasn't enough, now we want two?!   

[Venkman]

Why do we need two when we already have a perfectly fine one coming home?

[Morat20]

Why do we need two when we already have a perfectly fine one coming home?

Those guys are gonna need jobs. What's Blackwater -- I mean Xe -- gonna do when we're doing invading the wrong country?

[MediumHigh]

Ironically a police state would be faboulous for our economy. All that low skilled, "shovel" ready, jobs for anyone coming out of high school and can pass a physical and background check. We would be back to single digit unemployment across the board in a year.

[Tale]

Your police state derail is fucking shit.

[Ghambit]

This is what happens when people watch too much Bill Maher.

[Venkman]

Heh. I'd like to comment but honestly feel like there's a reason this hasn't moved to Politics yet. And I (am trying to) respect that.

[Ironwood]

I think the reason is posts like yours.   

[Sheepherder]

Like what's his face -- that asshole Arizona sheriff and his damn APC.

Umm, this is actually a pretty good example of when a police department could put an APC to use.  A low explosive pressure cooker bomb isn't going to penetrate anything that's proof against pistol rounds, so if you wanted to raid the kid in a boat who may have said devices having an APC to do the approach until you're close enough to toss a flashbang from the top hatch (or whatever opening you have available) would be a pretty ideal way to protect your personnel for all but the last stage.  An added bonus is that a buttoned-up APC would shield your ERT from the concussion of the flashbang as well.

Crates of assault rifles now, that's a fucking crazy thing to be handing out, as the number of rounds that poor fucking boat has absorbed proves.

EDIT: Not that either should get much use.

[MahrinSkel]

As a sort of closing coda, or penance: The Atlantic deconstructs how fast crowdsourcing can go wrong.  One cop mentioned the name Mulugeta over the radio, and some unknown someone mutated that into "Sunil and Mulugeta are the suspects", and we were off and running.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

Because subredditors and others had already convinced themselves about that theory, with zero imposed responsibility on the themselves to show skepticism or restraint. Because it's the Internetz and lolz who would take it seriously and all that. So they were sure of what they would hear, and when someone made the jump to having heard it (whether knowingly prevaricating or not) everyone *had* heard it. Then there's a bit of aw, shucks, egg on my face, sorry folks, but no real change in the habits of mind and expression that led to the mistake, no soul-searching. So it's basically just a matter of time until a crowd of Encyclopedia Browns once again decides that it's got to be Bugs Meany that did it and says so in public, heedless of the consequences of getting it wrong.

[Samwise]

Then there's a bit of aw, shucks, egg on my face, sorry folks, but no real change in the habits of mind and expression that led to the mistake, no soul-searching.

Quoted for posterity:

So wow, it's now likley Sunil isnt the guy eh?  Disappointing.  The Scanner had all but verified him.  Oh well.  Moving on. 

[Goumindong]

As a sort of closing coda, or penance: The Atlantic deconstructs how fast crowdsourcing can go wrong.  One cop mentioned the name Mulugeta over the radio, and some unknown someone mutated that into "Sunil and Mulugeta are the suspects", and we were off and running.

--Dave

The hilarious part about this is that "Mulageta" was mentioned and not "Mike, Mulageta". The "Mike" was radio code verifying the first letter because letters sometimes sound similar. "M as in Mike".

Mulageta wasn't even mentioned as a suspect on the scanner

[Tale]

More about Dzhokhar having no gun: the wounded cop was shot by another cop.

[Ironwood]

Which one was The Bad Guy With A Gun ?

They must have been playing Good Cop/Bad Cop.

 

[Khaldun]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html

Print this one up and put it next to your computer if you're at all inclined to play at being Encyclopedia Brown, Crowdsourcing Detective.