What if the guards started shooting at the police for tresspassing if they couldn't identify them in the first second of seeing them? Why did they have to use the helicopter?
That's a real danger with SWAT raids. IF you've got an already violent subject then making them as confused as possible will tend to make things safer for the SWAT team. But if you're sending a SWAT team in against people who aren't already violent there's a chance the subject will think they're being invaded by criminals and try to fight back. Several SWAT officers die every year because of that. And many more people on the receiving ends of SWAT raids.
So, there's a good reason that the way the police traditionally do things, surround a house and ask the people to come out. The US military actually generally does the same thing with insurgents in Iraq. But no police department wants to be the one that "doesn't even have a SWAT team". And once you have one, you have to use it or else how do you justify it to taxpayers?
Unless you're a South American drug lord, I don't think that's how security guards work. You don't get to just shoot wildly at anyone approaching, unless you're being shot at.
If Kim had trigger happy guards like that, that alone would seem a little suspicious. Who was he afraid of?
For that matter, this is a pretty paranoid panic button setup:
“I was on my bed, once the banging started, I pressed an alarm button that is situated right at my bed which was installed in case of an emergency. When I press that it automatically sends a signal to all security guards including Mr [Wayne] Tempero’s room including SMSs to everybody informing them there is an alert.
Perhaps that's just standard operating procedure for a multi-millionaire.
Alarm-Buttons and panic rooms are not so uncommon and often installed in houses of much-more low-key persons then Kim Schmitz. A family friend purchased a house (not a mansion, just a bigger house in a suburban neighborhood) here in germany that was formally owned by a CEO of a mid-sized tech company. And there is a panic button in every room, as well as a hidden room. Why should such a system be uncommon in, from what I remember, the biggest mansion in NZ? I guess it was already there when he bought the place.
Would it have been much different if instead of a button, it was an intercom system, and Dotcom queried his staff as to what the banging noise was?
In one way it does seem comically super-villain-esque, but then, i wouldn't say that Dotcom's impulses were anything more dramatic than anyone hearing unusual noises in their home. It's just, most of us don't have a staff to query, or a saferoom to evacuate to.
Ha. As a NZer I'm not quite sure how to take that.
It's pretty much sheep, some locals, and copyright infringers down that way.
Having a gun for protection in NZ is unusual. That said, he's reached a station in life where some hired professional protection for himself and his family seems relatively sane.
If your wealth is ostentatious and/or you believe you own enough assets to target thieves, I suspect it's not very paranoid at all. For a normal everyday joe, probably.
It is not terribly uncommon for agents of the US government to forcibly enter homes and kill the residents, often under mistaken circumstances. And as this story shows, their reach is extremely broad.
So, I certainly wouldn't classify it as paranoid, in this day and age it seems like common sense.
Expat kiwi here. Unless something has changed in the last 5 years - security personal in New Zealand generally don't carry firearms and I don't believe there is a legal justification for lethal force. We don't have anything like the "Castle Law" found in some US States and gun owners rarely use firearms defensively. Also, if people dressed in black and armed with M4's are knocking on your door you can safely assume it's the Police in NZ.
It's hard to understand why they would raid his house like this.
