Police were dispatched toward Smith's residence but were called off when they learned it was a false alarm and that everyone inside the home was safe.
Police were dispatched toward Smith's residence but were called off when they learned it was a false alarm and that everyone inside the home was safe.
Special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the prosecution of former President Donald Trump in two federal cases, was the target of an attempted swatting at his Maryland residence on Christmas Day.
According to two law enforcement sources, someone called 911 and said that Smith had shot his wife at the address where Smith lives.
Montgomery County Police dispatched units toward the home but were called off when the Deputy U.S. Marshals protecting Smith and his family told police that it was a false alarm and that everyone inside the home was safe.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incident.
When I was in school you’d get a bomb threat in the county once a year or so but they always caught them.
I'm actually surprised about that. Maybe you went to school at a different time from me? I graduated in 1995. A couple of times a year, some kid (probably) would call in a bomb threat so they could get out of a test or whatever and they never got caught. We had a pay phone right outside the school, which didn't help.
Not sure it could be considered attempted murder, but harm & death are real risks in a swat raid.
Not to mention cost and risk to the officers. It should be a very serious crime. Not sure what crime it is though. I wouldn't be surprised if it were treated the same as filing a false report which would be way too lenient.
I think it's awful, but how do you suggest making changes? The only thing I can think of is tracking 9-1-1 calls, but doing more of that discourages people from anonymously calling in emergencies, which could lead to more deaths.
Er... What? You think they can't or don't already track 911 calls? How do emergency responders give where you are if you can't actually talk while on the phone, like if you're hiding from an intruder in your house?
Calling in a fictional emergency needs punishment. The alternative is wasting emergency service time with impunity, having them off chasing wild geese while someone with a real emergency is dying.
911 calls are tracked. Listen to your local police scanner. Even if someone calls and immediately hangs up, they have a pretty good idea where that person was calling from.
I think @MagicShel meant we should actually use the information we already have, and prosecute it like the attempted murder that it is.
At a minimum tell the responding officers that the call was anonymous and hasn't been verified. I don't know beyond that. Remove anonymity but also seal the records automatically to be unsealed only if the call itself is a crime? But we've had a long time to deal with this and think about solutions, and it's hard to believe we've not come up with a single way to address the issue.
Its crazy to me that people think its the telephone companies that need more regulations here and not the police. SWAT teams shouldn't be going in guns blazing on anonymous calls and any injury or death should be solely their responsibility. By all means try to prosecute the people calling in the first case for misuse of emergency services, if you can identify them, but we all know who pulled the fucking trigger. Police can't both get to decide that they get to selectively enforce the law and then take no responsibility when the injure or kill innocent people.
Die Hard has John McClane making an anonymous report of terrorists, which is then responded to by a single cop who drives by to see if there's anything going on.
When police started buying military surplus and find it's not exciting if it sits in an armory. Here's a blog post that links a good Last Week Tonight from 2014 about it.
It's wild to me that when the phone companies need to bill for a phone call they know exactly who to bill for it, but when it's something like this everyone is helpless because you can't track these things
Love how esoteric this joke is. The only people who get this are nerds old enough to remember or people who watched that one Tom Scott video about phreaking.
So I don't want to bother finding a place to put this where anyone who would do this would see it. I'll just rant here.
Hey jackass. Let's consider the events of christmas day. Smith family sits safely at home. There is no mention of Jack even being informed.
Meanwhile, a mother is having an over-text conversation with her cop husband about how they are missing each other on Christmas Day. Then the cop texts "got to run. another guy with a gun."
Now the cop's wife is at home holding her children with the routine and traumatic thought of "will my children see their dad again?".
Summing up. Smith family fine. Cop family scared. You know a certain percentage of cops' wives are very sympathetic individuals.
You folks have no theory of mind. All I'm saying is that the bootlicker with the great idea of trying ruin the Smiths' Christmas ended up being at best friendly fire in a completely foreseeable way. The swatter is just having cops fight cops.
But stellar point about choosing your own family. Go home to your mom; tell her you're brilliant.