Police, including SWAT, should always assume people are innocent. And they should always strive to minimize violence, if you can avoid pulling your gun out it's a lot safer for everybody, cops and criminals alike.

Let's not pretend that there are many elaborate well armed hostage situations like you see on TV. Mostly it's drunk deranged desperate people who needs to be talked out of a bad situation. Few hostage situations are organized, most of them are just sad cases...

No, the police are trained (correctly) that any shooting is shooting to kill. There have been various people arguing that the US military rules of engagement are actually stricter than the police ones, e.g. http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/03/deadly_f... - because the military operating in Afghanistan are dependent on the fragile support of the local population.

Edit: the rules of engagement used by the British Army in the occupation policing of Northern Ireland: http://mikeb302000.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/rules-of-engagemen... - these required at least one of positive identification of a weapon, incoming fire, or a verbal warning.

One reason swatting is not done so much in Europe is that cops react in much different way.

And somehow in your mind this makes the caller less guilty of the death that results.

In the few worse cases, it will mean some lost time, because the first responder cops will have to wait for assault teams. But in the 95% cases were a SWAT team wasn't need, it prevents unnecessarily violence escalation. And there are many more lives saved by non-escalation than lives lost to intervention delays.

Also, SWAT teams are considered elite forces (almost?) everywhere; but in some countries, elitism is based on sharpshooting abilities, in some others it's based on good judgement, clear-headedness and restrain.

One reason swatting is not done so much in Europe

Swatting is the act of making the prank call. It has nothing to do with how the SWAT team handles it. Nowhere have I argued that European police wouldn't have handled it better. That is a completely separate question from the question of how often these calls get made and why.

That's pretty anti-climatic, as a prank, and that's why nobody will bother making it.

General police violence in the US is not a justification for saying the caller should not be held responsible for their part in this.

I don't see people saying he should not be punished. They say that cops needs to change.

Focusing on his punishment is like adding yet another hack into badly engineered system - it makes people feel good and makes one bug go away, but it does nothing to address root cause which is bad system.

Me asserting that it isn't okay to let him off the hook is not the same as me saying the system as a whole is fine and does not need reform.

Arguing with me from that angle amounts to putting words in my mouth.

Police should be trained not to rely on firearms. The gun is a last-ditch option to protect the cop's life, not a way to neutralise citizens.

When a police officer shoots, he ought to shoot to kill, because there are very few and extreme situations that grant him the legitimacy to shoot. Very few officers experience such situations, not even once in their career.

Policing has very little in common with soldiering, and vice-versa (although we wrongfully use our soldiers as cops in foreign countries, with unsurprisingly poor results).

And you do? Based on which expertise.

> A kinder, gentler SWAT team is one not actually prepared for the serious situations

This is false dichotomy , nobody is asking for 'kinder,gentler' swat team, we are asking for professional who can professionally appraised the situation before using lethal force. It's about precision not about kindness whatever that means in this context.