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.