I hope this doesn’t catch on.
“Hello Operator? Send a SWAT team to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there’s a madman occupying the building who needs to be removed.”
They didn’t shoot the dog?
If an emergency call fits a certain pattern that the police will be getting more and more familiar with, they’ll need to ask for the phone number of the person making the call and then call them back for verification before dispatching a response team. It’ll only take and extra 10-20 seconds adn could easily save the life of an innocent person being “swatted”.
“Carter said Jonathan Marshall had gotten into an argument with another Microsoft Xbox Live player online.”
A good reason for guarding your real identity at online places like, well, FR.
Sounds like a good way to get somebody killed (accidentally like).
“The FBI said five suspects were responsible for 100 “swatting” calls in 60 cities, with some of the victims in Texas. “
In that case, that’s all the more reason for the police to verify a phoned in report BEFORE they go in busting down doors.
All I see is another excuse for the JackBoots to use. “We didn’t want to shoot Granny, but we got a call from a neighbor and she did have those very sharp knitting needles, so as we say in the biz...it was a good shoot. You got a problem with that?” What’s to keep a ‘roided up JackBoot from phoning in his own fake “situation” for revenge or to silence a witness? This is a very dangerous precedent.
These prosecutors don’t know the law. Once phones or Internet are used, it’s within federal jurisdiction and fed crime laws apply regardless IFC the swatted and swattie are in the same state.
This form of revenge has been around for quite a while.
In the early 1970s, police nationwide were trained with “Old West rules” as far as their behavior and use of guns went. But after a few police assassinations by radicals, the federal government encouraged and offered support to police departments across the US in adopting “SWAT rules”.
These are tactics reliant on police aggression and frequent gun brandishing, even on slight pretext. And, as we are learning today, they are extremely dangerous, both to the public as a whole, and to police in particular, who are frequently harmed by their own weapons because of reckless behavior.
This was exacerbated by the “War on Drugs”, that resulted in so much police aggression, made worse by the RICO statute making drug busts *profitable* for police departments, that SWAT has become a public menace, resulting in numerous incidents of death, casualties and severe trauma to the innocent citizenry.
And, because the actions are so extreme, they became an excellent opportunity for revenge.
For example, an anonymous call to 1-800-COCAINE could almost guarantee a hostile breaking and entering, with more than one police agency breaking down a door, holding the people inside at gunpoint for hours, while they ransacked their dwelling. Such searches often meant that all food containers were dumped, electrical fixtures were torn out, plumbing damaged, inspection holes punched in walls and ceiling, and all personal belongings scattered about.
Based on an anonymous phone call that had elements the police found interesting, like large amounts of drugs and cash.
A marvelous form of revenge that could leave an entire family devastated, caught up in legal red tape for months, and maybe even having their children taken away, while facing thousands of dollars in repair costs, and without any legal recourse that wouldn’t take tens of thousands of dollars and years in court.
With small odds of the hoaxer being caught and punished.
In fact, the story is probably bs, just cover for the ss.
It’s time for the grown-ups to re-take the world.