Yeah, yeah I can.

It was a mistake, nobody was hurt. It's actually rather laughable.

I mean, it takes place in Savage, MN.

Two words that don't belong in the same sentence, let alone with cookies and TV.

Yea, it's traumatic. But if you're that week minded that you can't handle getting "arrested" then maybe you should go see a therapist or something.

I was at work and we had an issue with one of the servers going down. My boss was one the phone with me trying to resolve the issue, it took three hours. Why? Cause I miss heard t for p, and I still have a job. It's a simple misunderstanding.

She was held at gun point after being polite and making cookies. Not to mention the search the SWAT team probably made of her house.

No, I cannot blame her.

I think it is ridiculous for suing someone for trying to do the right thing. And we wonder why so many people are apathetic and not likely to step in even when they see someone being attacked in broad daylight. Sue the Good Samaritan. This is precisely why I am not likely to jump in and help anyone in trouble.

.....That's messed up. How can anyone get busted when that "fresh cookie" smell is in the air? Tip: offer SWAT some next time they break your door down!

Hey, at least they apologized about it.

IDT would have just left their rep for dead....

It was unprofessional and reckless. Not only did they traumatize the poor woman, but they wasted the resources of a police force. Sue the pants off them.

@lorddave: I guess from now on, no police, firemen, or medics should be dispatched until they can triple-verify an emergency. That should make people happy.

I'm normally against frivolous lawsuits, but since this is DirecTV I will make an exception :)

@nwogoldberg99: Huh? I don't think you understood my post or what this story is about. Try again.

not the police's fault at all. directv's installer, though kidding, is as fault for this. this can be likened to pizza delivery drivers that get executed for no good reason. @everyone that thinks this isn't traumatic: have you EVER had a gun pointed at you? let alone pointed at you after you made a batch of oatmeal raisin? she will probably need a lot of help to trust police from now on and when you can't trust them it's kind of scary.

No, the dispatcher should have asked ONE QUESTION ('you're being held hostage?') and made sure that he got some kind of response. Apparently the dispatched couldn't do that. DirecTV does deserve to be sued for this... getting held at gunpoint is NOT a gentle experience.

If you've never been held at gunpoint before STFU. You have no business saying it's not a problem until it's happened to you.

What idiot dispatcher thinks "we are being held hostage until we are done" sounds like "We are being held hostage until we are gun."

And how does that even make sense? I am gun. You are gun. We are gun.

@erock0: @bokononist: Yes, I've been held at gunpoint on two separate occasions. One involved the police pulling me over, after having mixed up two digits in my license plate. Having police officers yell and scream at you, etc, while you are trying to understand and cooperate isn't a fun experience, and I wouldn't with it upon anyone who didn't deserve it. But did it induce some life long trauma and distrust? Absolutely not. They were doing their job and they made a mistake. I wasn't physically hurt, so that was the end of it. By all means if she was physically hurt in this case she should pursue legal recourse.

I also disagree with both of you who claim that "if you have never ______ then you have no right to talk." That's ridiculous. I guess fortunately for me I've had a gun pulled twice, so my opinion is twice that of anyone who's only had it done once. Give me a break.

Fire the dispatcher for having a "Boston" moment, then give the poor woman free tv for life. Done. and Done.

Of course, the woman probably is on a terrorist watch list now, so she's safe so long as she doesn't tune into Al-jezeera. God bless America.

The Pyles should skip the lawsuit. Just ask for free lifetime service with all the premium channels.

If you hire someone stupid enough to joke about being held hostage you deserve to be sued. You done joke around about guns in airports or yell fire in crowded places. This is no different than those situations. Only a lot less people were affected. I dont know that I would sue the company but the idiots making the jokes, oh yes.

From the article:

The lawsuit claims that police were aware there was not a hostage situation involving a gun before Pyle was called by a Scott County dispatcher and asked to come outside and talk to police. Yet, the lawsuit alleges, officers ordered her to the ground at gunpoint and handcuffed and interrogated her.

If the Pyles are telling the truth, then the police are very much at fault here - more so than DirecTV.

"Hello, DirecTV corporate? This is Minnesota dispatch. We're being held liable until we're not dumb..."

I can understand when a phone representative might think the other party is under duress, but this whole thing stinks^h^h^h^h^h^h reeks of some droids doing everything "by the book".

Well if the DirecTV dispatcher loses her job I'm sure she could find instant work with Boston emergency (or is it?) services.

No good deed goes unpunished.

@Smashville: Also, is saying "gun" really enough to get a SWAT team strike nowadays?

Really, the issue here isn't that there was a misunderstood phoneme; the serious issue (that I think IS lawsuit-worthy) is that the installers told dispatch and told the police that there was no hostage situation, and the SWAT team cuffed her at gunpoint ANYWAY. The article makes clear that virtually everyone was aware that there was no hostage situation, and yet the cops went ahead with the bust.
That's not a misunderstanding; that's willful aggression.

Unless you've ever seen a swat team in action you cant really blame her, these dudes are highly trained and sit aroun for 89 out of every 90 days. They come in hot and kick shit, break shit and make really scarry threats and noises.

Hell yeah, cover your P's and Q's dispatch.

@Wormfather: actually, I'm fairly certain that most, if not all, SWAT team members also double as regular officer-types.

Otherwise: there was a distinct lack of common sense on the part of both the dispatcher and the police involved. "Willfull aggression," indeed.

What? You people don't really think the police are here to protect & serve do you? I wouldn't trust my nephews with *any* of the people I know in law enforcement.

For those of you that are laying the blame on the police... Do you really think that defusing a possible/suspected hostage situation would be as simple a sending one of the hostages out to the cops and saying "Never mind!"? Really? If that were the case, then from now on, all hostage takers would have to do is simply take two hostages, and send Hostage A out to send the police away with a threat of death hanging over the Hostage B. That would make bank robberies a smidge easier, I would think.

The police did what they had to do to ensure there was no threat to the installers. I personally believe the problem was with the DirectTV dispatcher. As was mentioned before, there should have been a clarifying question (or questions) before the dogs were loosed.

It's interesting to see this website advertising "SWAT Supervision and Management
Patrol Operations and Tactical Responses" in Savage, Minnesota. Some of the things covered are:

"...this program focuses on responding to special threat incidents, such as violent barricade/hostage situations, and providing recommended responses and tactical solutions that result in a professional resolution. It also emphasizes criteria for selecting personnel; forestalling civil liability issues; maintaining personnel;..."

Maybe some refresher training would be good for the team that ran that particular mission.

http://www.theiacp.org/Training/Courses/index.cfm?action=v...

Well, they do hold you hostage to your contract. But, aye, this made me crack up.

@Peeved Guy: You put it perfectly. If anyone is at fault, it is DirecTV.

We're being held hostage by Wal Mart's unbeatable low prices! And the RIAA's uncanny reasoning and logic and ethics!

GUN!