Also police helicopters are operated by local/state forces. This is a federal agency which is way out of its jurisdiction.
I mean, they could. And firefighting planes could be rerigged to disperse chemical weapons, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them existing.
>Also police helicopters are operated by local/state forces. This is a federal agency which is way out of its jurisdiction.
I'm guessing it's on loan. It's hardly unusual or questionable for the feds to provide assistance to local police during periods of extraordinary crisis. However justified the people of Minneapolis may be in reacting this way to yet another police homicide, what else are the local police supposed to do now except try to restore order using whatever tools are available? Including drones that can provide immediate information about hotspots, crowds, fires, etc.
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Local-police-...
But really, there's little difference between a lot of civilian and light military aircraft. The Bell 206 that your local news station probably flies around was developed as a military helicopter.
As for Blackhawks I’ve never seen them used by police forces, those in civilian use are not surplus military helicopters or even the UH-60 but rather it’s civilian version the Sikorsky S-70 which are used by fire departments and search and rescue crews.
"There was an armed standoff with police,[5] who lobbed tear gas canisters at the building. The MOVE members fired at them and a gunfight with semi-automatic and automatic firearms ensued.[32] Police went through over ten thousand rounds of ammunition before Commissioner Sambor ordered that the compound be bombed.[32] From a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter, Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound bombs (which the police referred to as "entry devices"[31]) made of FBI-supplied Tovex, a dynamite substitute, targeting a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof of the house.[29]"
Police helicopters are modified civilian aircraft and yet they have been used by the police, through improvised means, to bomb people. The drone over Minneapolis is a MQ-9 reaper, aka "predator B", hunter-killer UAV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper
"In 2006, the then–Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force General T. Michael Moseley said: "We've moved from using UAVs primarily in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles before Operation Iraqi Freedom, to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper."[6]
The MQ-9 is a larger, heavier, and more capable aircraft than the earlier General Atomics MQ-1 Predator; it can be controlled by the same ground systems used to control MQ-1s. The Reaper has a 950-shaft-horsepower (712 kW) turboprop engine (compared to the Predator's 115 hp (86 kW) piston engine). The greater power allows the Reaper to carry 15 times more ordnance payload and cruise at about three times the speed of the MQ-1.[6] "
It's almost like it's some sort of systemic problem
To look at a related question, where do you draw the line between stakeouts and planting GPS devices?
The question should not be some sort of line-drawing based on looking at the narrow capabilities of a particular device or practice change. It needs to be a look at what those capabilities do to the current balance of civilian rights and responsibilities, and whether we wish to live in a world of robotic surveillance and law enforcement.
I suspect it's not actually the case and there was some amount of calculation of the ex-officer's risk of flight, the likelihood that he would further offend, and the need to get some forensics, autopsy, and preliminary tox screen results.
In other words, if a civilian under the same set of facts would have also been arrested 4 days later, I'm fine with it. One criminal standard for everyone. Union rules don't have any place superseding criminal laws (and I haven't seen anyone presenting credible evidence that they do).
https://www.army.mil/article/180593/last_uh_1_huey_a_42_year...
SAR, medevac, fire fightings etc. are all roles that the Blackhawk is perfectly suited for and all for which it has dedicated variants.
As for law enforcement use again I don’t see a problem with it, the use of them is mostly restricted to very special cases (FBI/DEA etc) due to cost of both the aircraft itself and the operational costs.
The Mexican federal police is indeed essentially an army at this point since they engage in paramilitary operations against the cartels.
On the other hand Cobras have no use other than to spray a target with their auto cannon or missiles.
So I was really curious what police force in the US or anyone is operating attack helicopters.
The UH-1 was developed as a medevac helicopter for the US army.
> Studies have found similar levels of depression and PTSD among drone pilots working behind a bank of computers as among military personnel deployed to the battlefield.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/life-as-a-dron...
Is it that they are flying a UAV that was originally designed for military use?
Or is it that they are flying a UAV period?
What if it was a new UAV, designed just for law enforcement? No problems then?
Presumably this UAV has no weapons on it, so I'm unsure what the problem could be unless we just flat oppose former military equipment being used?
It's safer and cheaper to fly a UAV than a manned vehicled - helicopters crash routinely and need multiple crews to keep them on station for extended duration. If it was a decommissioned military UAV that's being repurposed - then the tax payer has been saved a great deal of money as well.
So, what specifically is it that we don't like about this situation?
That’s what the riots are about after all; I don’t think anyone needs it to move quickly, they just need acknowledgement justice is needed and will meaningfully move forward. There was previously no promise of that.
any form of government law enforcement personnel or equipment is drawing anger - regardless of form, function, or origin.
We are talking here about SURVEILLANCE drones.
If you make a given police enforcement mechanism cheaper, it will be used more. What does that do to your average person's sense of privacy/fear/trust? What kind of relationship do we want to have between citizens[2] and its government?
[1] That line is being blurred.
[2] Not subjects
I suppose in those situations, I'd be grateful for some law enforcement presence monitoring the situation and guiding folks on the ground to the most appropriate places needing the most attention.
Fewer problems. Presumably it would be much less capable. The sister comment[1] lays out how dangerous this UAV is, and how powerful. History has shown that the police/military are eager to gain capabilities, and very reluctant to part with them. If use of these very capable military grade drones becomes wide-spread, using them aggressively against live people becomes more probable. And very easy to do — they're already everywhere.
We should also think about how regulated their use should be! These have the capability to just provide 24h surveillance on certain areas, which would erode citizens' privacy greatly.
I'd guess this is a Gorgon Stare drone.
https://longreads.com/2019/06/21/nothing-kept-me-up-at-night...
Same scenario w/ a black guy. how long?
Same scenario w/ 3 Cops and a white guy?
Same scenario w/ 3 cops and a black guy?
I'm betting if you could do a study on all these scenarios of 'time to act/prosecute'... you'd find some major biases.
Would they need to do an autopsy or tox screen when there's video evidence from multiple viewpoints and the entire nation has seen the evidence and cops from other cities are calling for arrests? SEriously, this is clear cut. There is no ifs/buts.
3rd degree murder is also a joke, this is 1st degree, you don't kneel on someone's neck while paramedics and a doctor plead w/ you to stop because you're killing him without wanting to kill him, and not w/ someone you've known for 17 years.
This is a failure of law enforcement, and drone surveillance is a lazy band-aid that they're applying to a situation they themselves have caused.
I certainly don't condone rioting, looting, and setting random buildings on fire. But the police created this situation.
"Needing the most attention"? Bah. The only thing the police should be doing in this situation is standing down, admitting their wrongdoing, and accepting punishment. That will do much more to stop the rioting and start healing the police-citizen divide than anything else they can do. But of course that's not going to happen; police as a whole seem more interested in militarizing and acting above the law.
Let's just assume he was at some recent point trained to restrain in this manner and he can prove it. It is very unlikely he would be convicted since he was following his training and was unaware of the danger. If they were to try to convict him, I would imagine the union would be more than glad to back him up in a lawsuit which he would likely win.
Since he was charged, I'm assuming they've reviewed enough to be confident he was not acting within how he was trained.
> So, what specifically is it that we don't like about this situation?
What potential "mission-appropriate" use is a Customs and Border Protection drone performing 300 miles away from the border in a domestic unrest scenario?
https://www.kqed.org/news/11818476/deputies-blunt-force-neck...
This specific situation? Ya, sure, maybe.
What about the rioting, looting, setting buildings on fire, etc. in Berkeley because some students opposed Ben Shapiro giving a talk? How did the police create that situation?
> The only thing the police should be doing in this situation is standing down, admitting their wrongdoing, and accepting punishment.
How exactly are the police being "punished" by my store being looted by people who don't even know why the riot started in the first place, let alone give any damns about someone being murdered by one police officer.
How is people carrying off 6 new televisions, freshly robbed from a local store, going to stop the rioting and "heal" the police-citizen divide?
One significant consequence of that is it’s way easier to ramp up to a larger scale for whatever they might have in mind.
How so? Public spaces have already been ruled over and over to have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Further, the plethora of surveillance cameras sitting in store windows, people's doorbells, streetlight cameras, and more already surveil anyone in any public area.
Is it just these UAV's are more visible so they make you think about it more?
Unfortunately I feel this is the direction most political conversations go as-of late. Talking right past each other.
To claim the other side has an utter refusal to engage is not just unfair, it's a perfect description of exactly the behavior you have just engaged in yourself. It would be more apt to substitute "utter refusal to engage" with "utter refusal to accept my opinion as fact".
I am the GP poster above. I thought I asked some provoking questions about why we have a problem with a former military drone (presumably demilitarized) flying over a city to conduct surveillance during a time of civil unrest.
Instead of thoughtful responses, this question has largely received criticism and claims that I support state violence. I haven't a clue how this is considered reasonable discourse - and it's no wonder the country grows further and further apart politically.
The ongoing militarization of state level police forces without the democratic consent of the governed for a start?
This comment sounds like it's about attack drones. I concede that it's not necessarily about attack drones; a surveillance drone operator might facilitate and witness a lethal attack, and in that sense "cause" the destruction.
Just playing devil's advocate - but this is democratically consented to.
Your elected politicians have specifically allowed the sale or transfer of retired military equipment to state and local police forces, for multiple reasons but the least-of-which was cost savings vs. scrapping all the prepaid equipment.
Similar, but admittedly not quite the same, to the sale of demilitarized Humvees, tanks and fighter jets to civilians. Or NASA owning and operating former US Navy F/A-18's, B-52's and more... war machines now repurposed for peaceful training and aeronautical research.
We can't allow agencies to borrow equipment and specialists? They should all buy their own, at tax payer's expense?
Would you feel any different if this UAV had been bought by local law enforcement instead of borrowed? If so, why?
1) The guy was armed and leading a high speed chase
2) I don’t think there is a long, long, documented history of cops murdering the unarmed white guys without any real consequence
Just as a random question, how many people do you think know that these guys (https://longreads.com/2019/06/21/nothing-kept-me-up-at-night...) are flying above American cities
I have a suspicion, being a Senator for 40 years sort of removes you from the concerns of everyday Americans.
These are the same Senators (and Representatives) that vote for these measures. They'll never be the target of these surveillance schemes... and when they are, they throw a huge fit[1] because they're supposedly above all of it. They're the same people who ban guns from the public, but own operate and illegally traffic them themselves[2].
They're the same ones that don't have to be strip searched every time they fly, but I digress...
[1] https://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/13/pelosi-alle...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/2...
Are you living in the same country as me? The “governed” love this stuff, and keep voting for the people that do it. Civil liberties has always been something that has to be achieved through anti-democratic means.
I guess it’s not too surprising that you would want to keep an eye out for rioting.
Missiles would be a whole new level of messed up, though.
Same goes for the policing. The amount of separation between the police and the policed, demographically, politically and so on is hard to defend.
I replied to your original comment, indicating my belief that the issue is substantially more complicated than your framing suggested, and briefly explained a couple reasons why. I have several more, if you honestly have any interest.
Your reply was to claim it is just about your property rights - the only relation to my comment was the response hierarchy. I honestly still don't see how that's not a refusal to engage.
One point:
> claims that I support state violence
Well, what do you call what's going on? (I do also consider intrusive surveillance a form of violence, but understand why some think that's dilutive to the term.)
Mass surveillance of any kind is unacceptable, especially in a civilian context
There is. Police disproportionately kill black men, but there is ALSO a long history of cops murdering unarmed white men.
Pervasive cheap surveillance which needn't be attached to a very expensive mobile weapons platform or be limited to just cameras could be a birds eye view of everyone's lives. Good justifiable benefits are obvious. With enough surveillance crime becomes really hard to perpetrate. We can pick out all the drug dealers and make tons of arrests before people adapt. Petty stupid crime like breaking into a car means the eye of Sauron sees you and follows you back to your house. Acts of violence that don't take place inside buildings could prompt an immediate response at least as fast as the cops are capable of dispatching a unit. Acts of violence within a unit could be detected by mikes outside on street corners if we were even more surveillance minded. Perhaps we can train it to detect the sound of a person being beat. I don't like people getting hurt do you? Acts of terrorism or mass violence are even more important to prevent. With enough smarts maybe we can flag people likely to go postal or at least notice what is happening 30 seconds before the shooting starts. 30 seconds before instead of 2 minutes after might make a HUGE difference in body count.
As great as that sounds I'm sure you can think of 100 more dystopian use cases. It doesn't do us much good to treat cars as faster horses and not bothering to consider the implications.
Of course they'll eventually call them "non lethal payloads" :P
The interesting things that could be done when you have a line of sight to these things, a little bit of knowledge of RF modulation and have nothing left to lose…
The New York Times States
> By the end of the night, the authorities said they had arrested nine people, some of them accused of carrying banned weapons. But no major violence was reported.
People remember the consequences of sitting idly by during the rise of fascism. The proper response to fascist light is anger. Almost all the people were able to do this without getting arrested let alone setting buildings on fire.
> How exactly are the police being "punished" by my store being looted by people who don't even know why the riot started in the first place, let alone give any damns about someone being murdered by one police officer.
When order breaks down people a minority take advantage. Everyone knows why the riot started in the first place. You are justly angry about bad behavior but how angry were you when black person after black person was murdered? If you don't want order breaking down punish all the guilty especially officers who murder the citizenry.
There is no cause to review how he was trained or how his actions comport with said training except to prevent it from happening again. There is no scenario which allows you to knowingly cause the death of your fellow citizen without just cause. A police officer is "a normal person" the same laws that apply to me apply to thee. If those whose job it is to enforce the law treat another officer differently it is corruption and cowardice. Cowardice is a character flaw not a justification.
“We have made men proud of most vices, but not of cowardice. Whenever we have almost succeeded in doing so, God permits a war or an earthquake or some other calamity, and at once courage becomes so obviously lovely and important even in human eyes that all our work is undone, and there is still at least one vice of which they feel genuine shame. The danger of inducing cowardice in our patients, therefore, is lest we produce real self-knowledge and self-loathing, with consequent repentance and humility.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
It took 8 minuted for him to die 3 minutes of which he was unresponsive while people warned the cop and asked him to stop. The victim informed the murderer of exactly how he was being murdered and asked him to stop. He called out for his mother then stopped speaking at all while he died in silence. The method he was being killed would have been completely obvious to anyone who possessed a pair of lungs or understood how breathing worked.
Nobody gives precisely one hot damn what manner of training he received. It was obvious he was murdering his victim to a human of ordinary capability. The logical conclusion is that he didn't care or wanted to murder him.
https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1266715217398030336
There does seem to be bias in media coverage and therefore society outrage or lack thereof.
> Philadelphia Police Department Lt. Frank Powell proceeded to drop two one-pound bombs (which the police referred to as "entry devices"[31]) made of FBI-supplied Tovex