Intent matters - in this case I’d argue the guy who made the call is more responsible for the death than the guy who pulled the trigger.

The officer who pulled the trigger was across the street and shot an unarmed man within seconds of him opening the door to see what was happening. That officer decided he was going to kill whoever opened that door before they even arrived. It's laughable to suggest the prank caller is more responsible for the victim's death. I am amazed that more people are not extremely disturbed by law enforcement being able to commit murder without consequences.

Intent to kill with no reasonable evidence that would justify any nontrivial use of force is morally bankrupt. If that’s the new normal in the US, I don’t know what to say. A prank call is a prank call, but the one given the power to project lethal force is fully morally responsible for their decision to pull the trigger. And if that was somehow within their standard rules of engagement, so are their superiors.

A prank call to summon emergency help is still a call to summon emergency help. The intent to prank, the fact that you were "just kidding", has no bearing on the outcome.

Yes, the fault ultimately lies with the person who pulls the trigger, but there's a reason mob bosses are considered murderers when they may have never physically killed someone. It's totally foreseeable that you are throwing an innocent person into a hostile situation; in fact, that's the whole point.

Yeah, I didn’t mean to absolve the swatter. It’s clear that there should be heavy deterrence for such behavior. But I’m not sure he intended to have his targets killed either.

> But I’m not sure he intended to have his targets killed either.

Even assuming they did not, they still knowingly involved their target in a potentially lethal situation. It might carry a lighter sentence than literally going to their target and killing them, but it should carry a significantly higher sentence than e.g. putting flaming shit under their target's doormat.

Yep, involuntary manslaughter, which was indeed among the charges.

Intent is not necessary for murder under common law (and statutory schemes in the US tend to be strongly influenced by the common law); malice aforethought is required, but that can be either intent to kill or depraved indifference; SWATting would seem to fall well within the latter mental state in most cases.

Playing chicken on the road doesn't mean you _intended_ for anyone to get hurt, but it does mean you are unfit to remain in society.

if you are going to judge by their intent then the intent of the prank caller was most likely to give someone a scare, the intent of someone that pulls the trigger is to kill another person

Do you think the policeman who shot him didn't intend to kill him?

It's the context - the sniper thinks they're going to a dangerous hostage situation with somebody who has already killed some people, they're trying to stop someone who is killing people and threatening to kill people.

The caller is intentionally putting an innocent person in a lethal situation basically because the caller is an ass and thinks they're not responsible for what happens afterwards.

I'm not arguing about whether or not excessive force was used or if the police response was wrong in addition to being tragic (very well could have been) since that requires knowing a lot more about the case.

I'm arguing that a lot less nuance is needed to say the caller is responsible. I'd argue they intended to cause harm for bad reasons - maybe not death, but that would have been a known possible outcome.

But the shooter knew that death was a possible outcome as well. He isn't resolved of culpability just because he didn't bother to work out whether shooting was appropriate.

I'm not saying that he is (though he might be), but the situation is different and the intent given the context of what the person is trying to do is different. These things matter in law.

If you're going to presume to take another person's life, you better be completely sure that you're doing the right thing.

It's easy to take a 100% position when you don't have to actually make any decisions. In practice you can rarely be completely sure of anything.

In complicated areas people do the best they can and we try and have systems in place to lead to the outcomes we want. That's why there's complexity around these things in law and the context is important.

the shooter has assumed the responsibility of wielding that power, so the context doesn't absolve them

No, intent doesn't matter at all.

The long held "legal tradition" of establishing intent in US legal process is completely absurd.

You think that the SWAT pointed a gun on a man and presses the trigger completely unintentionally?

No, even with an accidental manslaughter nobody simply walks away from the charge.

All the legal traditions I know consider intent in the legal process and e.g. have multiple categories of homicide differentiated mostly by intent (and secondarily by planning & emotional context).

This. IANAL but the eroding of taking mens rea (intent/knowledge) into account does not bode well for justice in the long-term.

There is a casual relationship between swatting someone and them dying. What's the crime for ordering a hit on someone? This is exactly equivalent.

The hitman always gets off scot-free, right? Because someone else told them to do it

That is not what I'm at all. I'm only responding to the GGP's characterization of the swatter as "just making a phone call".

Who is the hit man here in this metaphor...

> So, wait, the guy who made a phone call is going to prison

As he should

> but the guy who murdered an innocent person has not faced any consequences?

The guy who sent the SWAT team at all, as a first response to a single phone call, should be facing consequences.

And the police in general in the US seem to need to calm the fuck down. Whether the guy that pulled the trigger should be culpable is definitely something that should be examined in court.

Seems like a whole series of bad actors.

There should be a lot of people going to jail over this. There doesn't have to be just one person to take the fall.

I'm not sure your point. It's extremely harmful as it caused the death of an individual. The investigation concluded the officer was not in the wrong.

I disagree with the GP's characterization of the swatter as "just making a phone call", but agree with the point that there should be consequences for the shooter. The investigation into the officer was clearly a farce, given that he shot a man dead without any sign of danger.

I disagree with your characterisation of my characterisation. He didn't just make a phone call.

I was just trying to point out that the person who murdered someone has clearly done more harm than the person who did the Swatting.

That's not at all clear to me. If you put someone into a situation in which there's a reasonable expectation they'll die, and they do, you murdered them. That doesn't absolve another person who may have actually carried out the murder. Responsibility is not zero-sum.

What the call caused was police to show up at the door. That is where the responsibility of the caller ends and it should be punished accordingly.

The police caused this man's death. Citing the investigation as proof the officer was not in the wrong is being obtuse. Look at the body cam video - what you'll see is the victim being shot without any effort to confirm what they were told, and no effort to try to subdue with nonlethal means.

He made that phone call with the intention of causing harm. He is responsible in some part for what happened. I can live with him going to jail.

It is as harmful as paying someone else to assault and possibly kill someone.

I agree. Which you'll note is less harmful than actually assaulting or possibly killing someone.

I'm not saying the guy who made the phone call is innocent! Just that he's less guilty than the guy who pulled the trigger.