A teenager “serial swatter” from California is believed to be responsible for hundreds of swatting incidents and bomb threats throughout the US according to a pretrial detention motion. Now he has been extradited to Florida to face charges for a swatting incident at a m...
When I was in high school I thought I was going to be a cop. Mostly because I was an unoriginal idiot and a friend wanted to be a cop. Went so far as to go through the explorers program where you hang out with cops and they show you stuff. You go on ride alongs. Spend a lot of time with cops.
As it happens about half the guys teaching this program were swat.
They were drooling for any excuse to suit up and kick down doors.
This was 20 years ago, at the time they'd tell you that 90% of officers never use their firearm on duty.
It colors their perception of any situation. Affects their decision making.
Could this be a prank? Maybe. But could I put on the armor and kick in a door? I mean they did call in a threat....
I mean the main reason they do that is they have to take it seriously. If they decided to ignore anonymous tips, then how many actual situations would they fail to prevent and handle.
Swatting is just taking advantage of the fact that they have no choice but to take it seriously.
That being said, if it's a place that gets swatted regularly or a place that's likely to be swatted due to various reasons they should have precautions in place with people they can trust in order to double check before acting, or at least be prepared to go in with their guns still holstered.
The problem isn't that the police respond, it's how they respond. The fact that the police themselves are so dangerous to the presumptive victim on whose behalf they're responding -- as tacitly acknowledged by "swatting" being treated as a serious crime going beyond mere misuse of police resources -- is the much bigger problem here. Frankly, going after swatters is at least 50% a misdirection tactic: an attempt to shift the blame away from the reckless police.
Patrick Tomlinson was swatted over 40 times in 2023 alone. It took WAY too many times before the police would simply knock on his door and ask him if everything was okay. You'd think after the 4th or 5th time they might figure it out.
Until they figure out what is happening, if anything at all, the SWAT teams certainly stand the chance to do more harm than good. How about some recon first? Deaths are happening, and if nothing else innocent and completely bewildered people wind up with police guns pointed at their heads. Most of the time it's cleared up but the victims are left with "Oh sorry folks, someone called and said there was a hostage here."
I don't know what they could do with a mosque. I think it is a very valid assumption that someone could be in there with a gun and a very valid assumption it could be an asshole "pranking".
Be nice to see some harsh criminal penalties for people who SWAT and maybe some more advanced tech like cameras in the building they can plug into and see.
Do they actually send a SWAT team? I just assumed that was the term but they actually just trigger a high priority multi officer response based on what they say.
If you make the stakes high enough in the 911 call, absolutely. You don't want cops to waste time checking things out if a real hostage situation is playing out of whatever.
I guess when they're in a country where mass shootings happen frequently, they respond as if they're going to get shot at.
Not that it justifies their actions all the time. Not even close.
But the guy was sending reports knowing that the chances of someone getting harmed were high, that's pretty much pushes him into terrorism territory tbh.
Filion also targeted high schools, historically Black colleges, mosques, FBI offices and FBI agents, and made threats to bomb military bases and the Pentagon, the state attorney’s office said in a court filing.
Gee, I wonder where that list of targets came from.
I mean yeah but is no one gonna mention that you have to live in a weird shithole where the special forces run your door in to shoot whoever because some weirdo can dial a phone number?
We, Americans, don't mention it because we know. Also, that is addressed in another part of the comments, I know the structure of the comments makes that hard to know.
What are we going to do about the police? Not a thing.