Posted on 12/24/2007 7:14:48 AM PST by LibWhacker
Dispatch for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office received a call June 12, 2006, by a man claiming to be Jim Proulx of Alvarado. The caller said he was high on hallucinogenic drugs and had killed several family members with an AK-47 submachine gun. He threatened to kill remaining family members unless he was given $50,000 and safe passage out of the country.
Sheriff’s deputies and Cleburne police, including the police SWAT team, surrounded Proulx’s home about 1 a.m.
Proulx hadn’t shot anyone and had no hostages, officials soon discovered. Instead, he was sound asleep when officers arrived. It was a hoax. Proulx had been swatted.
“Swatting” refers to falsely reporting an emergency to police that results in a SWAT response to a location or making false reports to send other first responders to a physical address.
Proulx, who could not be reached for comment, became victim to a conspiracy U.S. Department of Justice officials said began around November 2002 in which hundreds of victims nationally and internationally were swatted. The false calls resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses, according to U.S. district court documents.
Swatters manipulate computer and phone equipment to make it appear the emergency calls are coming from their intended victim’s home.
Several defendants in the swatting conspiracy — none of whom are Johnson County residents — recently pleaded guilty in the Dallas U.S. district court. The defendants are Stuart Rosoff of Ohio, Chad Ward of New York and Jason Trowbridge and Angela Robberson of Houston. They were charged with conspiracy to use access devices to modify telecommunications instruments and to access protected telecommunication computers.
All await sentencing, and all face up to five years in federal prison, a $250,000 fine and payment of restitution, according to court documents.
U.S. Attorney Richard Roper of the Northern District of Texas and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert E. Casey announced the guilty pleas, which were entered in October and November. Federal agencies, telecommunication providers and law enforcement officials from more than 40 state and local agencies participated in the investigation, both said.
“This type of criminal conduct represents a risk to public safety,” Casey said. “Thus far, injuries resulting from the criminal conduct have been limited to a few individuals, however, it is only a matter of time before serious bodily injury or death to individuals or law enforcement results from this type of conduct.”
Such crimes waste time and resources, Casey said, because officials responding to false reports are unavailable to respond to real emergencies.
“The public can be confident that the Department of Justice is working to ensure that those who commit these kinds of cutting-edge cyber crimes are held accountable,” Roper said.
Investigation into the conspiracy and other unindicted co-conspirators continues, Roper said. He urged anyone who knows of people who are swatting to contact their local, or the Dallas, FBI offices.
No other Johnson County residents have been swatted, Cleburne Police Chief Terry Powell said.
“These type of incidents can easily cause injury to innocent people,” Powell said. “We’re just glad that the people responsible are behind bars.”
When a citizen causes someone to be swatted for a bogus reason, he faces criminal charges, fines, and payment of restitution. But when a police officer or police informant causes someone to be swatted for a bogus reason, no charges are filed, no fines imposed, and no restitution is ordered to be paid.
Of course this SWATTING is less effective than the disgruntled wife SWATTING, which takes place when the wife calls the cops and tells them you are barricaded in your garage workshop with several weapons and have threatened to harm anyone who comes near.
Point of order: an AK-47 fires rifle-caliber ammunition, and is therefore not a submachinegun.
It’s not even a monetary thing. This could be deadly. The way some SWAT teams act nowadays in terms of making entry? Somebody could be sound asleep and wake up to the sound of their door being broken in, and if their instinct is to grab for their gun in self defense...
}:-)4
Looks like the punishment to SWATTING is a "BITCHSLAPPING".
Just another attempt to give hallucinogenic drugs a bad name.
Because the media does not print a big picture of the Judge who signed the warrant. This is where the problem starts, Judges who sign warrants for these keystone cops to go out on escapades.
but if the home owner shoots and kills a cop. its the homeowners fault of course.
God forbid the cops actually think someone wouldnt defend themselves.
would of loved to of see nthe look on the cops faces when they heard the pump the shotgun.
Quite likely that the swatters didn’t know that (or care).
Quite likely the swatters don’t even know the term “submachinegun” and this is just a newspaper writer unsuccessfully trying to sound technical and knowledgeable. I just felt like being pedantic.
And you might add, we don’t have but a handful of true AK-47s in this country. Not that anyone would ever gather that from the media. They intentionally blur the distinction. We have rifles styled after the AK-47. No machineguns (AK-47s) sub or otherwise loose on the streets or in the hands of gang bangers.
LOL.
Well, if we want to be really precise, (real) AK-47’s aren’t even machine guns, but assault rifles, correct? Though I think a lot of assault rifles and battle rifles got lumped into the “machine gun” catch-all under some federal laws...
No machineguns (AK-47s) sub or otherwise loose on the streets or in the hands of gang bangers......................................UH, you just might want to rethink that statement somewhat.
Why?
That's an interesting charge. I expect the authorities couldn't make anything else stick. Lying to police officers isn't a crime and filing a false police report requires, I believe, an actual written document.
I want to know how they manipulate the phones so the caller ID comes from the swat recipients number...I thought they went in to the PSAP as DID’s and the caller ID comes from the #5ESS
They are not legally available, but a few turn up now and then. They are used in a very small percentage of crimes, but from the MSM’s coverage you’d think every gangbanger and wannabe is toting an arsenal of fully automatic assault rifles.
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