The Terrifying, Already Forgotten JFK Airport Shooting That Wasn’t

August 16, 2016 6:45 AM

"When the first stampede began, my plane had just landed" - NY Magazine features a personal experience with Sunday's false reports of a shooting at JFK airport in New York City. "Horrifying" video of the police response, which is being investigated.
posted by AFABulous (123 comments total)

They were incredibly lucky that no one died.
posted by AFABulous at 6:47 AM on August 16, 2016 [11 favorites]

I was stuck on the runway in DC for four hours, so I haven't forgotten it yet.
posted by zutalors! at 7:10 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

5-0's immediate response looked impressively swift and on point. And yes, now everywhere (sadly) feels like a militarized zone.
posted by Bob Regular at 7:13 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

horrifying
Not sure what was expected instead of this? Negotiator droids?
posted by thelonius at 7:22 AM on August 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

There was another "shooting" that seems like it likely didn't happen this weekend at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh that resulted in a stampede that sent people to the hospital. America's gun problem is so bad, we don't even need the actual guns to hurt people anymore.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:27 AM on August 16, 2016 [41 favorites]

Every single friggn time walking up to a bored security agent (who is often as not likely a reasonable person in a reasonable environment) I quietly chant to myself, make no jokes, make no jokes.
posted by sammyo at 7:30 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

Police seem to always operate in the mentality of "shoot first, ask questions later," not bothering to verify the facts of a situation before taking drastic action. This is the entire reason that "swatting" is so successful as a harassment tactic.
posted by indubitable at 7:34 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Were those tactical shorts?
posted by fairmettle at 7:35 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Horrifying" video of the police response, which is being investigated.

I'm assuming the "horrifying" is in quotation marks because there wasn't really anything horrifying about it, outside of the fact that it is horrifying that they have prepared for this scenario? This whole sentence reads very strangely, because it seems to imply something was wrong with the police response and it seems the investigation is into what prompted the 911 call, not how the police responded.
posted by nubs at 7:36 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm assuming the "horrifying" is in quotation marks because there wasn't really anything horrifying about it, outside of the fact that it is horrifying that they have prepared for this scenario?

Yeah, agreed. That's pretty much textbook how I would expect the police in 2016 to respond to what they think is an active shooter in an airport.
posted by penduluum at 7:40 AM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, agreed. That's pretty much textbook how I would expect the police in 2016 to respond to what they think is an active shooter in an airport.

But why was this their first response rather than ascertaining whether there was an active shooter in the airport?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:46 AM on August 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

I found it horrifying. Call me crazy, but I believe police should not be pointing guns at anybody who isn't a credible threat to them. They can have weapons drawn and ready, pointed at the floor or ceiling, sure, but not at the people they're supposed to be protecting.
If any of them are afraid this approach will endanger their lives, I suggest a new line of work for these "brave heroes".
posted by rocket88 at 7:52 AM on August 16, 2016 [54 favorites]

But why was this their first response rather than ascertaining whether there was an active shooter in the airport?

I assumed that was exactly what they were doing. Moving through the airport methodically, instructing bystanders to get down and out of the way, all while prepared to engage if necessary. How do you ascertain whether or not there is a shooter without sending someone in to look?
posted by double bubble at 7:57 AM on August 16, 2016 [17 favorites]

I found it horrifying. Call me crazy, but I believe police should not be pointing guns at anybody who isn't a credible threat to them.

Fair enough. I guess I'm just conditioned to expect something different when I see "horrifying" and "police response" together in the same sentence. Which is its own level of "horrifying" in the early 21st century.
posted by nubs at 7:58 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

They can have weapons drawn and ready, pointed at the floor or ceiling, sure, but not at the people they're supposed to be protecting.

And of course it's easy to know who to protect because the innocent bystanders always have on approved innocent bystander apparel and the bad guys wear the regulation bad guy uniform.
posted by double bubble at 8:02 AM on August 16, 2016 [10 favorites]

I found it horrifying. Call me crazy, but I believe police should not be pointing guns at anybody who isn't a credible threat to them. They can have weapons drawn and ready, pointed at the floor or ceiling, sure, but not at the people they're supposed to be protecting.

You're not crazy. Anyone who is even the faintest bit acquainted with weapon safety will tell you that the first rule of handling a gun is "don't point it at anything you don't intend to kill." As an 8-year-old kid at the gun range with my father, he made it a point to impress on me that the moment you've aimed a gun at someone, you have committed the moral (and probably legal) equivalent of attempting to kill them. It is literally the first thing you learn, well before someone hands you the (unloaded) machine meant to kill things.

Of course, as the past decade has shown us, there is a completely different set of rules for law enforcement.
posted by Mayor West at 8:06 AM on August 16, 2016 [79 favorites]

And of course it's easy to know who to protect because the innocent bystanders always have on approved innocent bystander apparel and the bad guys wear the regulation bad guy uniform.

Perhaps the police should not have guns at all, but rather should run at a shooter in waves, Zapp Brannigan-style, until they can subdue him.
posted by indubitable at 8:06 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

sorry guys - I have vehemently disagree with those second guessing the police response. They aren't playing Pokemon Go. They were working what was thought to be an active shooter situation (you'll notice the very loud and ambiguous bang/crash/whatever at the beginning). That looked like a well-trained group of professionals executing their crisis response plan with great success. How do we know it was a success? No one was killed inadvertently. Success. Mission accomplished. Well done. Keep up the good work.
posted by double bubble at 8:18 AM on August 16, 2016 [15 favorites]

How do we know it was a success? No one was killed inadvertently.

This is basically the lowest possible threshold for success I can imagine.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:20 AM on August 16, 2016 [85 favorites]

That's pretty much textbook how I would expect the police in 2016

I found it horrifying.

It think it's possible for both of these things to be true. Like, the police response did look reasonable, but I know I would be terrified in that situation. Especially the first video on the Esquire link where it's just loud bangs, then lots of yelling without context of what's going on -- I'd be terrified if I were in that situation. That doesn't mean that the police did anything wrong -- they were there to stop an active shooter, not protect people's feelings.

Call me crazy, but I believe police should not be pointing guns at anybody who isn't a credible threat to them.

Are you sure that that was actually happening? Because when I watch the videos, I see cops with guns drawn facing the floor, or pointed at people who weren't complying with the order to get down. And given the elevated level of alert that the cops were (understandably) at, I can see non-compliance as a sufficiently "credible" thread to want to be prepared to react.

Of course, as the past decade has shown us, there is a completely different set of rules for law enforcement.

I know that this was meant to be at least partially facetious, but when it comes to the gun safety rules that laymen use as a shortcut for keeping everyone safe, I think that the training that cops/military folks (are at least supposed to) get leaves more room for nuance. So yeah, if I point a gun at someone, I can't necessarily trust myself not to fuck up and pull the trigger by mistake -- but it's not my job to be able to subdue a threat in a split second so I don't need to learn any other way.
posted by sparklemotion at 8:21 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

It seems to me like an excellent measure of success for a false alarm.
posted by double bubble at 8:21 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

On the upside, it does lift my spirits every time I step out of my car.

"Why are you dancing around?"

"I didn't kill anybody on my drive here!"
posted by indubitable at 8:21 AM on August 16, 2016 [13 favorites]

And today I received an email inviting me to an on-demand webinar for "How to Survive a Mass Shooting in Your Workplace." This is fine.
posted by Existential Dread at 8:21 AM on August 16, 2016 [21 favorites]

Perhaps the police should not have guns at all

Seems to work for a lot of countries.
posted by iamck at 8:22 AM on August 16, 2016 [14 favorites]

I think that the training that cops/military folks (are at least supposed to) get leaves more room for nuance.

Military folk here, trained and qualified as Expert on four weapons systems. "Don't point it at anything you do not want to kill" and "Keep your fucking finger off the fucking trigger" are still Rules One and Two.
posted by Etrigan at 8:25 AM on August 16, 2016 [96 favorites]

Seems to work for a lot of countries

Unarmed police aren't common outside of the U.K. In my experience, but there must be at least a few other places like that.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:26 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I know that this was meant to be at least partially facetious, but when it comes to the gun safety rules that laymen use as a shortcut for keeping everyone safe, I think that the training that cops/military folks (are at least supposed to) get leaves more room for nuance.

Excellent training indeed.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:29 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Unarmed police force is a wonderful idea. But maybe not quite practical in a country where citizen gun ownership is like a religion. Here's hoping though...maybe someday...
posted by double bubble at 8:29 AM on August 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

Military folk here, trained and qualified as Expert on four weapons systems. "Don't point it at anything you do not want to kill" and "Keep your fucking finger off the fucking trigger" are still Rules One and Two.

Yeah, but evidence continues to mount that if you're not a police officer, there's a substantial number of police who will gladly kill you while out and about.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:31 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Stop! Or I'll shoot.... you a strongly-worded letter on my good stationary!"
posted by dr_dank at 8:34 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

maybe I'm missing something - but it seems to me that being prepared to shoot in a crisis situation is very different than someone being trigger happy during a routine traffic stop.
posted by double bubble at 8:35 AM on August 16, 2016 [11 favorites]

Were those tactical shorts?

Maybe a bicycle cop who dismounted?

What struck me was if the cops were yelling out to get on the ground with their guns drawn I doubt I'd be pointing a camera at them - that seems like either an incredibly brave or silly thing to do - can't work out which.

Otherwise the video seemed a fairly clinical response - it does scare me that in an airport situation you could legitimately have large groups of foreign language speaking passengers who are trying to work out WTF is happening. Maybe some of the folks in the video who seemed to be milling around / strolling down the hall. I'd hate to be caught up in one of these situations (even if a false alarm) but imagine it all happening in a foreign language you don't speak........terrifying
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:37 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Not to mention the police are screaming get down on the ground while aiming their guns straight ahead. So if people are getting down on the ground then literally none of the police aimed a gun at a person.
posted by DynamiteToast at 8:38 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

As always, there's this weird dynamic where when police are involved, non-compliance earning an instant death penalty is treated as reasonable, when in any other situation it would be recognized as utterly insane.
posted by indubitable at 8:42 AM on August 16, 2016 [53 favorites]

> maybe I'm missing something - but it seems to me that being prepared to shoot in a crisis situation is very different than someone being trigger happy during a routine traffic stop.

The problem is that when police are trigger happy during routine traffic stops, it undermines trust in the idea that the police can correctly identify a crisis situation in which being prepared to shoot is appropriate.
posted by ddbeck at 8:44 AM on August 16, 2016 [26 favorites]

It's horrifying because those dudes were one trip/stumble and accidental shot away from murdering lots of bystanders.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:45 AM on August 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

As always, there's this weird dynamic where when police are involved, non-compliance earning an instant death penalty is treated as reasonable, when in any other situation it would be recognized as utterly insane.

As a society, we have normalized extralegal executions. The rest is just fodder for ad views.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:47 AM on August 16, 2016 [10 favorites]

It's horrifying because those dudes were one trip/stumble and accidental shot away from murdering lots of bystanders.

Or, if they were prepared to shoot anybody who ignored the order to drop to the ground, one set of noise cancelling headphones or daydreaming hearing-impaired person.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:51 AM on August 16, 2016 [25 favorites]

And today I received an email inviting me to an on-demand webinar for "How to Survive a Mass Shooting in Your Workplace." This is fine.

If it's anything like the one at mine it's a video that goes like this:

1. If you are at a desk, hide under the desk.
2. If you are in a conference room, try to block the door/tip over the table/ hide behind the table.

What's so funny about that is that all of our cubicles are near-impossible to hide in (there is no spot out of someone's line of sight) and our offices/conference rooms are all glass, so you can be crouching behind a conference table or desk and be fully visible and shoot-able at almost any angle. Pretty sure those glass walls will shatter when shot. Also our conference tables and desks are huge and not flip-able at all.

So basically, you can best survive by calling in sick that day.
posted by emjaybee at 8:51 AM on August 16, 2016 [16 favorites]

I used to think the prospect of widespread panic was overblown. As in, The Government knows about The Thing but won't tell us because it might cause A Panic. I used to be skeptical about that. And I still am, I guess, but it gets harder when things like this happen.

It's true, maybe, in more ways than one, that the terrorists aren't doing anything to us that we're not doing to ourselves. And that includes making us fearful and twitchy.
posted by Flexagon at 8:54 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

The cops are basically running down a corridor where it is possible (they don't know) that someone could be hiding behind a pillar, or a store display, and pointing a gun at them, or maybe just waiting for them to pass by and then start shooting randomly.

Could this have been handled better? Should there have been some sort of a 'plan'? Should people have been informed? Should these cops be armed? - I don't know. But this is what the cops were doing. I'm not sure if I would do that.
posted by carter at 8:56 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The fact that there was no attack at the center of it was both the weirdest and the scariest part — that an institution whose size and location and budget should make it a fortress, in a country that has spent 15 years focused compulsively on securing its airports, in a city with a terrifyingly competent anti-terror police unit, could be transformed into a scene of utter bedlam, stretching out from all eight terminals across the tarmac and onto the adjacent highways, by the whisper of a threat.

Well, duh. We've spent all this time and money to get ready for something even if that something is nothing.
posted by chavenet at 8:57 AM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

Imagine traveling through an international airport without knowing the local language, and having this happen.
posted by thelamest at 8:58 AM on August 16, 2016 [14 favorites]

So if people are getting down on the ground then literally none of the police aimed a gun at a person.

How about the aformentioned bike cop in shorts who is pointing is gun behind him while holding on to the guy in front of him and looking forward? You can see it right at the end of the video. I understand the response. I still don't agree with it. This is where we are at now, when we hear a loud noise. Guns and terrorism have us jumping at shadows. Mission accomplished.
posted by Roger Dodger at 8:59 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

How would people suggest the police respond in the event of a perceived active shooter threat at a crowded airport?
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:00 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

How about the aformentioned bike cop in shorts who is pointing is gun behind him while holding on to the guy in front of him and looking forward?

Is that a gun? I didn't think so. It's got a really weird shape if it is, I just thought it was pepper spray or something...
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:01 AM on August 16, 2016

So if people are getting down on the ground then literally none of the police aimed a gun at a person.

Your argument here seems to be that anyone who can't hear, understand, and comply with the police in an instant while people are screaming all around them is literally not a person.
posted by Etrigan at 9:02 AM on August 16, 2016 [16 favorites]

The problem is that when police are trigger happy during routine traffic stops, it undermines trust in the idea that the police can correctly identify a crisis situation in which being prepared to shoot is appropriate.

I wholeheartedly agree. But I've not yet reached the point at which I can see all response by a US based police force as irresponsible. In fact, I believe recognizing and praising a job well done is as important as demanding answers and justice when police are in the wrong.
posted by double bubble at 9:03 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

emjaybee: So basically, you can best survive by calling in sick that day.

One training I saw recommended having heavy blunt objects to throw at the attacker, such as canned goods.

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with fruit cocktail.
posted by dr_dank at 9:03 AM on August 16, 2016 [33 favorites]

Yah that's fair, my bad. It's been years since my (hunting license) gun safety course and I guess I've watched too many American action movies lately, but the police actions just seemed like what I'd expect. Oh well.
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:04 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

If the scene in the NYMag article is described accurately then that sounds terrifying. The police response video didn't look terrifying to me and I didn't see anything excessive from the police, but there isn't all that much to see in the videos. There seems to be a lot of leaping from 'the police had guns out' to 'the police were this close to shooting hundreds' which seems unfair in a case where nobody was hurt and the situation seems to be handled well.

The Esquire article is trying for new levels of hyperbole though. It opens with "Daily mass shootings are the new normal in America." This seems to be a different definition of either 'daily' or 'mass' than mine.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:07 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

From the article: Or people could’ve just freaked, unprompted, on edge from months and years of terror hysteria. On September 11, there were awful miscues among the first responders, but the accounts of what it was like for those inside the building, below the planes and before the buildings collapsed, were like inspiring morality plays — orderly descent down the stairs, with people passing on the left. Fifteen years later, we know better than not to panic.

I disagree with this. Aside from being preciously New York-centric, it ignores the larger point. Fifteen years and dozens (scores?) of mass shootings later, we're a culture with collective PTSD and we are primed to panic. This incident sounds like it was set off by one or two people who mistakenly thought they heard gunfire. Can you blame them? I work on a college campus, and every time I hear a loud bang or a loud pop, my first thought is "Did that sound like gunshots? That kind of sounded like gun shots. I don't hear anyone screaming, though, so it must not have been gunshots."

We hear about either small- or large-scale shootings on at least a weekly basis. The real kernel of this story isn't about whether the police reacted rightly or wrongly. It's that in forays out into the public world, a not-insignficant number of us, either consciously or unconsciously, worry that we will be the victims of or witnesses to gun violence. It's maybe even an expectation more than a worry. And that is seriously fucked up.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:13 AM on August 16, 2016 [13 favorites]

It opens with "Daily mass shootings are the new normal in America." This seems to be a different definition of either 'daily' or 'mass' than mine.

According to the FBI definition of mass shooting, there have been 243 mass shootings so far in 2016. Today is the 229th day of the year. On average, there is more than one mass shooting per day. You don't hear about most of them because people have become inured to this level of gun violence in the U.S. and it is no longer considered newsworthy.

Data from Gun Violence Archive, "Mass Shootings - 2016".
posted by grouse at 9:20 AM on August 16, 2016 [52 favorites]

I found the video deeply unsettling but I wasn't on board with labeling it horrifying until the last few seconds. But that cop at the end (at 1:01), with his gun pointed behind him while not looking where it was aiming? There is no scenario where that's okay.
posted by Mchelly at 9:22 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fair enough grouse. I guess my definition of 'mass' was different. It's a whole different kind of sad that I didn't consider 4 people injured and none killed a 'mass shooting' event.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:25 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

How would people suggest the police respond in the event of a perceived active shooter threat at a crowded airport?

I'm interested in the details of those 911 calls, because other than that, we're talking about a reaction to... a loud noise? If this is enough to qualify as "a perceived active shooter" then I'm very worried about our collective nerves.

Are the calls online, or transcribed somewhere that I'm missing in my under-caffeinated morning search?
posted by rokusan at 9:25 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with fruit cocktail

I remember Richard Dreyfuss mocking this notion after Marsha Mason was mugged in The Goodbye Girl.

But seriously, the possibility of being caught in a human stampede terrifies me, having been caught in a couple tight situations myself, and reading about the worst in recent history (the Hartford Circus, Hillsborough, etc). The behavior and reactions of the various authorities in this one do not inspire confidence.
posted by Rash at 9:32 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Did that sound like gunshots? That kind of sounded like gun shots. I don't hear anyone screaming, though, so it must not have been gunshots."

From the accounts so far, it sounds like an escalating game of whispers. The first 911 caller reported gunshot sounds... later callers seemed to be calling to report/ask about gunshots and people running and screaming.

I'm flying today and this is like the only topic anyone nearby is discussing, too. So odd.
posted by rokusan at 9:33 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
posted by Pendragon at 9:48 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I do think the situation sounds horrifying and hopefully, if it ever comes to it, I will not panic. But I probably will. I'm not so clear eyed in dangerous situations.
posted by double bubble at 9:48 AM on August 16, 2016

They really need to train the police to say please.

Also not point their guns behind them when they are looking forward. There's a reason Barney Fife had to keep his one bullet in his pocket.
posted by Catblack at 9:52 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

The thing that terrifies me about it is the described second stampede from the NYMag article, apparently triggered just by seeing a woman in a hijab screaming. The reporter describes there being little to no police presence where he was; I shudder to think what might have happened to that woman if there had been.
posted by Errant at 9:54 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

Like a lot of liberals, I’d spent the last couple of years more or less loathing the police, after a lifetime of feeling suspicious and uncomfortable; suddenly, I felt this desperate, yearning love for them. This is when you want the police; this is when you want to love the police.

Speak for yourself. ::sigh::
posted by Splunge at 9:55 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm assuming the "horrifying" is in quotation marks because there wasn't really anything horrifying about it,

Those are my quotation marks, the original article didn't have them. I didn't want to seem like I was editorializing.
posted by AFABulous at 10:02 AM on August 16, 2016

I don't know what I'd really do in a crisis situation but I think I'd rather take the risk of getting shot than trampled in a stampede. I'm small so I'd be the first to go down.
posted by AFABulous at 10:10 AM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

non-compliance earning an instant death penalty is treated as reasonable

No one was killed here, and had a police officer shot someone accidentally, or wrongly, the whole reaction would be very different.

"Don't point it at anything you do not want to kill"

The appropriateness of this dictum in a tactical situation like sweeping for a possible active shooter requires a bit of finessing, I think. In a combat zone it's easy to say "pointing = killing". Sweeping through a crowd of people, ready for one of them to be hostile and to respond quickly, requires pointing and not killing, which is exactly the sort of thing you can train for, and these officers apparently did. Also, it was mainly the lead cop pointing ahead, while the others pointed down, which makes sense--point will like encounter a shooter first.

The whole problem with trigger happy cops is that people are being killed because the cops are crap cops, untrained or unvetted or unstable. This is a very different situation from a SWAT team carrying out a specific protocol.

That dumbass bike cop pointing his gun generally behind him, though... he needs an ass-reaming on weapons handling.
posted by fatbird at 10:14 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

I don't think that the police response is all that indicative of American culture. In the wake of Istanbul and Brussels, airport police are going to be under a state of heightened alert, and you know they've repeatedly gone over "How can we respond" scenarios.

I'm not a fan of the pokice in general, but the vulnerability of airports makes it basically a worst-case response scenario at this point.
posted by happyroach at 10:16 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

i was in a (false alarm) situation like this at ben gurion airport in tel aviv, a few short weeks after a string of terrorist bombings in jerusalem in 1996. i don't speak hebrew. suddenly i was aware of a wall of humanity running in my direction and screaming. there was no time to think - i simply turned and ran in the same direction, ahead of the crowd, until we all exited the terminal. bizarrely, seemingly as one, we all stopped, caught our breath, and deduced that we were safe. but nothing was really clear or authoritative. it felt like a manifestation of a generalized sense of anxiety that was in the air at the time.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 10:17 AM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I would think we had enough surveillance cameras in an airport to find out pretty easily if there's an active shooter or not without shutting down the entire borough of Queens first.
posted by bleep at 10:23 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have no problem with the police action in this video once they have decided that it is an active shooting scene but why did they decide this? Because it wasn't. There were no gunshots.

1. Check twitter
2. Check video cameras on scene where gunshots supposedly happened.
3. Radio in to security near where caller said
4. Send a freaking drone flying around the airport checking to see if anything crazy is happening.

All of this takes about 10 minutes. Yes that may be a long time if there is really an active shooter. But on balance given how easy it to cause a mass panic that then means you now have NO way of telling what's going on.

The real problem that this scenario confirms however has nothing to is: What do you (as the police or Port Authority or TSA or whoever the f is supposed to be in charge do if you suspect its a false alarm? What do you do when you are SURE it's a false alarm. Clearly there was nobody in charge here or whoever was in charge had no plan whatsoever.

I'm way more afraid of a panicked crowd trampling (or turning on!) some innocent vulnerable person than I am of terrorism.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:24 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's not how many cameras you have, it's how many people watching them--and not having enough to review basically all the live feeds quickly means you don't really have eyes on things.

I know there are cities that have bullet detection systems where it's basically a bunch of open-air microphones high up and spread around that ping on gunshot-like noises and can triangulate quickly. Is this something that couldn't work in an airport or enclosed space?
posted by fatbird at 10:26 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

i simply turned and ran in the same direction, ahead of the crowd, until we all exited the terminal.

Which, if this was a real terrorist incident the terrorists may have factored that into their plan - it's what they want you to do - and then they detonate a bomb at the exit of the terminal to kill people that they didn't kill already.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is a very different situation from a SWAT team carrying out a specific protocol.

Yeah, a SWAT team has many more guns and bullets.

Even if you don't want to consider swatting in your calculus of which situations are different from which, try googling "swat team raids wrong house" some time. "Specific protocols" can still get fucked up.
posted by Etrigan at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2016 [7 favorites]

How is it possible that security guards were just standing there screaming at people without any information? Isn't that the entire point of their existence? To at least have an evacuation plan? Just the thought of this whole thing makes me want to fire everyone.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:29 AM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

A few years ago I attended the downtown fireworks in Detroit with my partner when I was maybe 3 months pregnant. We had been talking to a family who was posted up on the same stretch of Jefferson we were. When the fireworks started, a wave of people started running at us from the east, apparently mistaking the echoes of fireworks off buildings for gunfire. There was no shooter.

The people we had been talking to disappeared down the road, but my partner and I braced ourselves against some railings. Even though we did not run - I am not a good runner - the urge to run was strong. On a deep level, my brain was just screaming, there's no way all these people are wrong. Though we reacted in a more 'rational' fashion by staying put, it was definitely an act of discipline and not some gut reaction.
posted by palindromic at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

If that was what they were using (bullet detection software) they'd still get a false alarm. I mean it's not like you need 100 people staring at camera feeds. 911 call comes in. "Is something going on over at "whatever sports bar?"" "Nope, just some happy people." It's gotta be faster to bring up that feed than to mobilize an army of cops.
posted by bleep at 10:30 AM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

According to the FBI definition of mass shooting, there have been 243 mass shootings so far in 2016. Today is the 229th day of the year. On average, there is more than one mass shooting per day. You don't hear about most of them because people have become inured to this level of gun violence in the U.S. and it is no longer considered newsworthy.

Data from Gun Violence Archive, "Mass Shootings - 2016".
posted by grouse at 9:20 AM on August 16
[15 favorites −] Favorite added! [!]

Sadly most mass - shootings are either domestic violence carried to the awful conclusion of mass murder or mass murder suicide, or they are workplace violence.
These are awful but since domestic violence and workplace violence are ( in my opinion wrongly..) considered 'private matters' they aren't as newsworthy. A good bit of the workplace violence really is domestic violence carried out in the workplace, rather than say a dispute about pay, scheduling or promotions getting out of hand, making it even less newsworthy.
Violent and trigger happy as our society is, we don't have all that much political terrorism.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 10:32 AM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's kind of funny that these cops are conducting a sweep, and not even bothering to look in the bathroom. It's not like there aren't enough of them that one could peek in the door.

Entirely "reasonable" if the "reason" is theatre.
posted by klanawa at 10:41 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

That video is terrifying. As I said, I was sitting on the runway in DC while this was playing out, and we were told there was a shooting at first. the captain basically said they had no information besides that, but we all had our seat TVs and phone access and everything but no one was really talking about it except Fox News, which was like being reported to by a five year old, seriously.

By the time I got back to JFK a lot of people were sleeping in the airport, probably because so many flights had been cancelled. Even just seeing that was pretty crazy. It had been a little over an hour since the airport was reopened and four hours since the incident, so there wasn't a crowd outside at the cab stands.

The whole thing was really eerie. The fear, confusion, exhaustion was palpable.
posted by zutalors! at 10:47 AM on August 16, 2016

Okay, I realize this is crazy talk, but if we're talking about the main terminal and not the ticketing area, how did an active shooter get in? I mean, we're spending billions of dollars on security theater to keep the guns out of the gate area. So presumably, if someone can get in with a gun, they have to have gotten it in from somewhere.

If the police believe that is a credible threat, enough to send men in with guns drawn instead of checking first, then the TSA is demonstrably broken and we need a new security solution. I mean, I think the TSA is a joke, and most news articles I read seem to say that the TSA is a joke, but if even the police don't believe the TSA can do their jobs, why do we have them there again?
posted by Mchelly at 11:13 AM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

No security apparatus is 100% effective. There is always the chance that someone will breach it. So the perceived existence of an armed individual inside the security zone is not a de facto acceptance that the TSA is a complete failure. That's not to say it isn't - they really suck! - but that logic isn't sound.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:21 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

Potential gun men/terrorists should just start calling in fake attacks instead of performing them and get the police to do the job.
posted by klue at 11:49 AM on August 16, 2016 [6 favorites]

British person here. First, we've had armed police in airports for years. It was the first time I ever saw a policeman with a gun. Second, the guys in the video just... don't look like they know what they're doing? There are so many places that they haven't looked at, they don't seem in a properly organised group, it doesn't seem to be something that has been practiced. While I've never been in a shooting false alarm I have been in a number of bombing false alarms (IRA mainland bombing campaign), and the response always came across as calm and practiced. My friends in Northern Ireland who have worked in newspapers and in retail have told me that they all had protocols in place for any terrorist action, and again, knew what to do. It's less the guns, and more the air of complete disorganisation and lack of training that's disturbing.
posted by Vortisaur at 11:49 AM on August 16, 2016 [15 favorites]

Yeah the cops seem terrified. It's not a good look.
posted by zutalors! at 12:01 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

This ain't no party.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:02 PM on August 16, 2016

This ain't no party.

Where is our protest music these days? Must Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar do everything?
posted by zutalors! at 12:20 PM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

There is always the chance that someone will breach it.

You design it so that someone could breach it. Stopping all possible attacks at the outer perimeter would be wildly impractical. So there are layers, and inside each layer the threat model is reduced and focused. Inside the building, you're not looking for truck bombs. Inside the terminal checkpoint, you're not really looking for backpack bombs and handguns (hopefully).

You can, of course, always fail at that. (ahem, TSA)
posted by ctmf at 12:23 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

My decision to not create any humans and release them to fend for themselves in this world was a sound decision indeed.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:28 PM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

So there are layers

Which is the Israeli model, iirc.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 12:34 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Some of the criticism of the police here seems pretty uninformed. They are not searching bathrooms because it is pretty obvious to them that they are not currently in an area where a mass shooting has taken place. Their assignment at the moment is to move through the building and communicate where victims and active shooters are, not to conduct a methodical search for hiding gunmen. Some controller is directing them towards the last reported location of shots fired and collecting information from them about what they see.

Presumably the perimeter of the airport is already secure, so the gunmen are not going to escape. To suggest that they should be sitting in a room reviewing hundreds of video camera feeds or Twitter while there are multiple reports of gunshots in a major airport is utterly ridiculous.

I'm as critical of police misconduct as anyone, but I'm pretty sure multiple witness reports of shots fired is a pretty good basis for sweeping the building with guns drawn and fingers off the trigger, which appeared to be the case here.
posted by Lame_username at 12:59 PM on August 16, 2016 [9 favorites]

It wasn't witness reports of a shooter. It was people reporting loud noises. If cameras aren't good enough to use in this situation then what are they good for? If it's more time consuming to consult them than send living people (cops) running into danger blindly I dunno that doesn't seem right to me.
posted by bleep at 1:03 PM on August 16, 2016

There were already living people potentially in danger - lots and lots of stranded passengers. Should they have fended for themselves while people reviewed tapes? Had there been an active shooter, that would have been the wrong decision. It is super easy to criticize the response after the fact, knowing that there was no gunman, but they didn't have that info.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:17 PM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

Looking at tapes doesn't make sense, but I still feel like I can criticize the response, which basically looks like the police were panicking and waving their guns at people indiscriminately.
posted by zutalors! at 1:23 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

I couldn't finish the first link. the sense of rising panic and claustrophobia was overwhelming.
posted by supermedusa at 1:43 PM on August 16, 2016

How would people suggest the police respond in the event of a perceived active shooter threat at a crowded airport?

Not running around in a clump down a corridor while shouting and waving guns about, with only a cursory check at whether or not there actually is a shooter hiding somewhere in that chaos of airport mall shops, especially not like the last guy in that video, looking forwards while pointing your gun backwards.

Had there been a shooter anywhere near them, they would've been a relatively easy target and not actually all that able to return fire without hitting civilians.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:46 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

It seemed like the cops were the biggest threat in the entire situation.
posted by zutalors! at 1:49 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can't tell is this is an actual account from a veteran, or a flashlight ad.
posted by Roger Dodger at 2:16 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm not saying go pull out a bunch of vhs and tediously rewind them while people are getting shot. I'm saying if calls are coming in why can't the security team see what's going on in that area instantly? How is that not as good as sending people in blind, guns blazing, and shutting down the entire airport and all the surrounding highways over nothing?
posted by bleep at 2:53 PM on August 16, 2016

From Rodger Dodger's link:

Five impatient minutes into the baggage carousel wait, at least half a dozen officers ran into the area, guns drawn, yelling “Shots fired, active shooter, everyone run! Run for your lives!” As you can guess, this didn’t encourage an orderly departure.

I'm reluctant to second-guess people in a crisis, but I don't think this would have been good advice even in a genuine attack.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:03 PM on August 16, 2016 [5 favorites]

I don't understand some of the reaction here. There's so much talk about what might have happened if... There is a lot of speculation here about what was so very close to happening. To me it looks like a terrifying situation for all involved and that the police handled it pretty well. I understand disliking the police. I dislike the police a lot of the time, but when a situation like this happens and all is well with nobody hurt at the end, can we at least look at it as a small success?

How is that not as good as sending people in blind, guns blazing, and shutting down the entire airport and all the surrounding highways?

I'm all for debating the way this was handled and if there was a better way to determine and handle any threat, but no guns at all were blazing here.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 3:09 PM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

I could be wrong, but to me the guy in shorts looked like the designated spotter. Like, yeah lack of control over his handgun is a valid criticism, but it looked like this was an organized sweep. It's also weird to criticize them for not checking every single possible hiding spot. This was a quick and fast pass-through to gain control of a chaotic situation, they needed to cover a lot of ground and vet a lot of people in a short amount of time.

I guess trust mefi to criticize SWAT when they are poorly applied (no-knock raids, unarmed drug-busts, etc), but I'm not sure if a lot of the criticism here is actually valid for this type of maneuver. I guess I need to see input from actual professionals first.

All of this takes about 10 minutes. Yes that may be a long time if there is really an active shooter.

They had at least two reports of shots fired. 10 minutes would be a criminally long lag time. That said, I don't disagree that some sort of verified confirmation check should be put in place before a full on lock-down is instituted.
posted by Think_Long at 3:31 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

By the luck that everyone was able to cooperate and didn't seem suspicious.
posted by bleep at 3:31 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

Re cops: "I believe recognizing and praising a job well done is as important as demanding answers and justice when police are in the wrong." -double bubble

I saw a video of one rescuing some ducks. That was pretty chill. All of the extrajudicial killings I'm much less ok with. Is this good balance?
posted by booksarelame at 4:36 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, my intense distaste for the glaring flaws of modern American law enforcement notwithstanding, I'm disinclined to rag on the police involvement in the video, with the possible exception of the tail man in the shorts, as noted. This is clearly not a careful sweep, but a group trying to make quick progress through an area -- without fuller context, it's hard to know exactly where they were headed and whether this was an attempt to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, or intended to be an explicit rapid scan. (This is all the more reason not to judge hyperbolicly from the limited video we have.) They do not appear to me to be in a "panic" as some people describe above, and are effectively and safely, to the extent possible, clearing a large public area.

There is plenty of criticism to be laid here, and analysis of the general failings of our culture, but I would focus more on the apparent lack of training of airport security, the absence of an effective crisis protocol at a major international airport, and the complete failure -- surprise! surprise! -- of the usual security theater stooges to be useful than on the actions of a group of LEOs who are entering an unknown situation with every reason to believe that the public, and they themselves, are in danger.

Or, if you wish, spend some time reflecting upon how we as a nation are currently living in a state of constant low-level fear of threats both inside and out, and how well that lines up with how literal "terrorism" got its name. Then reflect upon how the coverage of this is actually treating it more as a potential mass-shooting than a potential "terror attack", but it's "terror" just the same. Spend some time discussing how responsible the gun lobby and their lobbyists are for creating this environment versus the culpability of a bunch of disorganized men in a desert halfway around the world -- and which of them may have more bearing upon the mind of the sort of disaffected angry young man that perpetrates crimes like Orlando.

There's lots to think about. I'm actually fascinated by the longer-form NY Mag story and what it says about the madness of crowds. But for once, let's give the guys who were doing a frightening, critical job and doing it, on the basis of all evidence, about as effectively as possible a break. In this case, they're just about as fucked over by the world around them as we are.
posted by jammer at 4:47 PM on August 16, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm less critical of "the cops" and more critical of the absolutely chaotic emergency response that had passengers mobbing in restricted areas and stampeding into jetways 20 feet in the air with no plane at the other end. It's really fortunate no one was killed.

There should be some hard questions asked, like why the police spend all their training time and taxpayer dollars LARPing Rainbow Six and not planning for basic crowd control.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:49 PM on August 16, 2016 [8 favorites]

"Run for your lives!"
- "Run where?"
"I don't know! Just run!"
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:40 PM on August 16, 2016

Re cops: "I believe recognizing and praising a job well done is as important as demanding answers and justice when police are in the wrong." -double bubble

I saw a video of one rescuing some ducks. That was pretty chill. All of the extrajudicial killings I'm much less ok with. Is this good balance?


No.

In fact, it sounds very Trumpian of you. As Obama pointed out, for an entire election to be rigged, it would require every single local polling body to be corrupt. I recognize a lot of police forces have serious issues, but I'm not quite ready to declare police as a whole racist, irresponsible and negligent.

Assuming you weren't joking.
posted by double bubble at 8:46 PM on August 16, 2016

I saw a video of one rescuing some ducks. That was pretty chill. All of the extrajudicial killings I'm much less ok with. Is this good balance?

Oh, come on, these are two entirely different things.

One: Police are called into what they are told is an active shooter situation in an airport, which is not like, wildly out of the realm of possibility, and sweep and clear it without any casualties. Crowd control was an issue, but I'd encourage anyone harping on that to research the difficulties of managing large crowds when they aren't under the impression that there is someone trying to shoot them. Not a solved problem. Could be done better, like most things.

The other: A flippant point that, at best, criticizes the (awful) genre of "See! Not all bad!" cops being nice videos. Ducks are not a threat to people's lives though, and no one was trying to make cops look better here. A point made in bad faith.

I haven't seen anyone use this to apologize for, excuse, or in any way say that this forgives any extrajudicial killings, all I've seen is people saying that maybe when the police do actually do their jobs correctly, especially in a confused and chaotic environment with way less info than we have now, just maybe we should not treat this as a massive failure? I don't really see how the outcome could be better. No one got hurt, some flights got delayed.

This isn't some heroic act of massive importance that absolves all police of all crimes, but it sure doesn't feel like another massive fuck-up to me. Treating it like one seems knee-jerk to me.
posted by neonrev at 8:48 PM on August 16, 2016 [2 favorites]

Neonrev - thank you. What you said. It seems to me that that a lot of the logic expressed here says, the police have often used extreme measures irresponsibly so this response in this video is obviously irresponsibly executed.
posted by double bubble at 8:58 PM on August 16, 2016

This isn't some heroic act of massive importance that absolves all police of all crimes, but it sure doesn't feel like another massive fuck-up to me. Treating it like one seems knee-jerk to me.

There's always going to be a conflict between those who believe in Cooper's Rules, and those who don't. But for me, it's Safety First, Last, and ALWAYS.

Just like launching space shuttles, you can normalize unsafe risks and get away with it, until you don't get away with it.
posted by mikelieman at 10:35 PM on August 16, 2016 [3 favorites]

( The unsafe risk being militarizing the police and having them treat us as "Civilians", despite them being civilians )
posted by mikelieman at 10:36 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

( The unsafe risk being militarizing the police and having them treat us as "Civilians", despite them being civilians )

I agree with this in the vast majority of circumstances that people encounter police, traffic stops and the like. Being treated as an other, as a person in occupied territory is a terrible way to run a police department, and this is a massive issue. This is a critical issue. This is an issue not directly related to what happened here. Police in countries without a police shooting problem respond similarly to similar attacks, armed police (or military) sweeping a building, guns out and aimed.
I don't agree with this in a situation that is reported to be an active shooting in a crowded public space, one that is high on the list for terror attacks around the globe. We live in a world where there are, unfortunately, times when having police (and most of these guys were SWAT, a different animal to street police, with different issues.) act functionally as a military unit is the most expedient and ultimately the safest course of action.

If this had been a situation where there actually was a shooter, and police had responded late waiting for confirmation of a problem from non-professional airport security, I think there'd be a different tone to this. But at the end of the day, some people got a call, went in assuming the worst, reacted appropriately to the people inside, not shooting anyone, and clarified the situation. This is, of course, their jobs, but I don't see a reason to castigate anyone for doing their job. Looking at ways to make it better, sure, but that doesn't require calling their performance bad. These guys actually did walk into a building expecting to get shot at, and did their jobs to at least the base level of competency. That's just fine. They did fine.
posted by neonrev at 11:42 PM on August 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

I would have expected JFK to have a plan for this. An appropriate plan might have included things like "identify the location of the alleged attack; seal it off; despatch security personnel to the scene of the attack". It might have extended to sealing other terminals and other areas within each terminal, too: that would have prevented the second and subsequent panics from spreading.

It looks to me as though no plan was implemented, and as if each group of security personnel were basically improvising their response. I hope they get their act together fast, because now any potential attacker knows what an easy target the airport - after what, 15 years and a trillion dollars - is.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:02 AM on August 17, 2016 [4 favorites]

JFK is the 5th busiest airport in the US, is the main international airport of the US, spans over 800 acres of terminal area, more than 60 times the size of an NY football stadium, includes multiple distinct structures and terminals. To have a 'plan' for 'this' would have to include contingencies fit to secure and defend an area the size of a small town, with vastly different problems, against an insane multitude of possible attacks, without causing panic. They must also do this while communicating with multiple other security forces, and in a state of information overload.

They had reports of gunfire and injured people in two terminals. They shut down both, rerouted flights, and went in to investigate. The only people injured were injured by, and the only major problem was, the crowd stampeding in fear, a reasonable response for them all things considered.

I submit that planning for everything and controlling the terrified is a far more difficult job than it is given credit for. I don't think it's possible. No plan withstands first contact, and I'd honest to god rather there be a vague plan for different situations that can be changed on the fly to a specific situation than a rule book that purports to know the correct response to an unknowable number of events. Whatever plan they had worked just fine, and I'm confused as to how that is inadequate here.
posted by neonrev at 12:53 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

What is the better outcome people want? A video of other human beings devoid of emotion acting in a robotic display of some ideal of 'police action', based on perfect information gleaned from some omniscient surveillance room? A plan to instantly calm and direct a mass of people speaking different languages and with different experiences and fears to the safest of all possible escape routes, pre-planned to accommodate any possible scenario?
If our main issue here is crowd control, and I can't see any other reasonable issue, then look at the number of people trampled in Black Friday sales, an eminently foreseeable event with fewer variables, zero suggestion of danger, and only the motivation of cheap goods to encourage the masses. If handling this sort of thing were so easy, wouldn't that be a non-issue?
posted by neonrev at 1:00 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

To have a 'plan' for 'this' would have to include contingencies fit to secure and defend an area the size of a small town

Given the resources we've spent, I do not consider this unreasonable.
posted by mikelieman at 4:33 AM on August 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

If this had been a situation where there actually was a shooter, and police had responded late waiting for confirmation of a problem from non-professional airport security, I think there'd be a different tone to this.

It's possible to send in a police officer, or several officers acting together, without them screaming at everyone and drawing down on hundreds-to-thousands of random people.

In doing this the cops would have been less safe against a shooter, should there have actually been one.

Doing things that are less safe is their job, especially when doing something less safe helps prevent a/further panic and limits situations where one accidental discharge means that the group of officers will, in all likelihood, just fire wildly into a crowd of people.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:37 AM on August 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's possible to send in a police officer, or several officers acting together, without them screaming at everyone and drawing down on hundreds-to-thousands of random people.

In doing this the cops would have been less safe against a shooter, should there have actually been one.

Screaming at everyone to get down is designed exactly to make the police less safe and the public more safe. They are drawing attention to their presence and hoping that it will attract the attention of any shooter to them. Because the result will be shots fired in their direction, the instruction to get down promotes safety of the bystanders. Everything the cops do is not wrong-headed.
posted by Lame_username at 8:05 AM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

> By the luck that everyone was able to cooperate and didn't seem suspicious.

Just because some people have overreacted in similar situations doesn't mean that's the default and it's only by some luck it didn't happen here. The people in my office are working quietly at their desks today only by the luck that a disgruntled employee didn't come in this morning and open fire.

>Doing things that are less safe is their job, especially when doing something less safe helps prevent a/further panic and limits situations where one accidental discharge means that the group of officers will, in all likelihood, just fire wildly into a crowd of people.

I have a problem with "in all likelihood" here. Yes, cops have been shooting people and incredibly few of them make any sense and I don't think it's ok for anybody to be shot by cops. Though it may be unavoidable in some circumstances that doesn't make it ok or something that we should have to accept. But to leap from that to assuming the most likely action by police is firing wildly into a crowd of people is going too far.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 8:30 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

Doing things that are less safe is their job, especially when doing something less safe helps prevent a/further panic and limits situations where one accidental discharge means that the group of officers will, in all likelihood, just fire wildly into a crowd of people.

I have a problem with "in all likelihood" here.

When was the last time you heard about a person being killed by the police firing once?
posted by Etrigan at 8:48 AM on August 17, 2016

When was the last time you heard about a person being killed by the police firing once?

Rarely, but that wasn't what I was saying. Firing multiple times at a person is different from firing wildly into a crowd. Also I still won't accept that the default is firing at people. If it was we'd have even more police shootings than we do today.

When was the last time you heard of police firing wildly into a crowd of people at an airport?

Or a more fair example might be: Why after police were actually shot in Dallas did the other police not open fire wildly on the crowd if that is in all likelihood the outcome? There were officers with guns there. They didn't open fire on the crowd in a very tense situation with an active shooter and a lot of unknowns.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:19 AM on August 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm not trying to second guess the police or say that they did anything wrong here. I just find it unfortunate that this military-style response to imperfect information created real trauma for people, even though there was no shooting in the first place. Isn't okay to wish for or suggest a better way? What do cops do in countries where they don't have sidearms? I assume they send someone to do a visual inspection before they break out the guns, but I don't really know.
posted by Roger Dodger at 12:17 PM on August 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Now there's been a similar incident at LAX. (autoplaying video)
posted by AFABulous at 3:40 PM on August 29, 2016