In some cases an unarmed person can present a deadly threat. Though not from across the street.

This is almost never the case when there are multiple armed and armored police present.

What kind of investigation would you suggest take place before hand about a situation where there is supposedly a person with hostages who has already killed one?

A situation that doesn't include the "supposedly" qualification you make. A single anonymous source on a non-911 number without corroborating reports of gunfire is not sufficient cause to shoot a man on his porch.

Here's an idea -- fly a drone around the house and look in some windows. Knock on a neighbors door and ask if they heard a gunshot. Establish the identity of the reporter - how does the reporter know what is happening? Is the reporter physically proximate to the area?

> A single anonymous source on a non-911 number without corroborating reports of gunfire is not sufficient cause to shoot a man on his porch.

No one is arguing that.

> Here's an idea -- fly a drone around the house and look in some windows. Knock on a neighbors door and ask if they heard a gunshot.

That sounds great. Until there is an actual hostage situation, and police waste their time doing this and a hostage is killed, at which point people will be asking why they didn't kick the doors down if they knew someone was being held in there.

> Establish the identity of the reporter - how does the reporter know what is happening? Is the reporter physically proximate to the area?

The reporter claimed to be the person who killed his father and was holding other people hostage. How would you confirm if the reporter was physically in the area? E911 includes location reporting, but this can be spoofed(I don't know if it was in the situation)

This isn't the movies, cops should never be kicking down the door in a hostage situation. They should be guarding the perimeter and trying to talk to the perpetrator.

I'm curious - how much training do you have in SWAT tactics? Where did you get it from?

Assuming it is zero, would you in whatever field you are in accept advice from someone who has zero experience in the field?

Do you think SWAT tactics are designed with minimizing civilian casualties? Or SWAT team casualties?

Which is exactly what happens in the movies - die hard for example.

It was the only realistic part of the film.

The video below shows how the British police handled a high-risk incident - a report of a mentally ill man wandering the streets in his pyjamas, brandishing a handgun. The suspect is believed to have returned to his flat by the time they arrive on scene, so the officers literally knock on his door and politely ask if he has a gun.

With the right training, American officers can behave in exactly the same manner.

https://youtu.be/LKVyu1sodOU?t=3m35s

Could be a simple as calling the suspects phone or knocking doors at neighbors. If the suspect answered the phone and said he was asleep and said he would be happy to show the officers around his house, maybe things would have gone differently.

Did you listen to the audio? The person calling 911 was the supposed suspect he claimed to have killed his father, so I'm not sure how you would contact the suspect without just getting the same 'prankster' again.

Knocking on doors of the neighbors sounds great, but does it give you any useful information if no one heard a gun shot? What if he shot his dad in the basement, or the walls of the house are thick enough to block the sound. You still need to go in and check even if every neighbor said they didn't hear anything. Also, knocking on doors wastes what may be valuable time in a real hostage situation.

Calling the house won't get the "prankster" again. If you call the house and the same person answers making the same threats, that's confirmation that the situation appears to be serious (most likely someone attempting suicide by cop though).

If the person who answers tells you that nothing is wrong, and that no one called the cops, then swat team can be a bit more careful about keeping their safeties on.

I still don’t see how calling a phone number associated with that address and seeing who picks up could hurt anything.

This phone call could’ve occurred while SWAT was deploying to the scene.

They only could’ve gained by doing this.

If it was real, and the hostage taker picked up, he could say everything was fine. What do you do then? Calling seems like a good idea but I'm not sure it provides any actionable information.

You're making an amazing effort to dream up new worst-case scenarios that could justify the speediest, least hesitant response. Great imagination and creativity, but you're violating Occam's razor by multiplying entities, ie inventing new facts to rationalize an illogical position. Yeah, maybe the murder could have taken place and the neighbors would be unaware of it because it occurred in an almost soundproof basement, but how do you know the house even has a basement?

Sure, you want to get police into position as quickly as possible, but you can also direct other people to investigate at the same time. And instead of just yelling directions at the guy from a distance when he came to the door, they could have tried asking questions when he appeared.

I mean, you can just as easily imagine other non-threatening factors. What if it was real, but the person at the door was actually one of the hostages who had been released but was scared and disoriented? What if it was an innocent person who was deaf? Police in Oklahoma shot a deaf guy 3 months ago even though people were yelling at the officers to tell them he was deaf. Police know what swatting is, and it's a common enough term that newscasters can use it in a sentence these days, so why didn't they consider that possibility?

I realize you're trying to be objective, but almost every one of your posts on this subject actually depends on a logical fallacy.

I said the police could only have gained from calling. You have not provided a scenario in which it would further endanger lives. Even if it didn’t provide “actionable” info, it wouldn’t hurt to try and some semblance of doubt around the veracity of the initial claims could be forwarded onto the SWAT team.

Then you tell your team there is a high likeylhood of a false call, and maybe they don't keep their fingers on hair triggers.

In this case, the supposed hostage taker was the 911 caller.