Call of Duty gaming community points to ‘swatting’ in Wichita police shooting
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.<p>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.<p>I'm with Ken "Popehat" White: what the gamer did here is homicide. We can argue about the degree.<p>† <i>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</i><p><i>Later</i><p>It turns out there's already a concept in US law that captures this:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder</a>