Hey, Idiots, Stop Swatting People
from the sore-losers dept
You know what I bet law enforcement folks really hate? This whole swatting thing that sometimes happens. For those of you not aware, swatting is when you fake a call into police that results in a local SWAT team being dispatched to your victim's residence, typically shortly followed up by you getting a not-so-pleasant visit from the authorities. It's a really stupid thing to do, it's dangerous, it's criminal, and it makes you a horrible person. But when it's all over losing in a damned video game, then it's callous on a level too far off the charts to map.
Yes, it's that age-old story of a person who couldn't handle losing in Call of Duty calling in a double murder and getting SWAT to visit the winner's home. I have a pretty sick sense of humor, and a wonderful eye for the profane, I might add, but this isn't funny. People could have literally died. And the authorities aren't going to screw around with this, either.
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice issued a statement on Tuesday's "swatting" incident, calling it an "outrageous waste of law enforcement resources and taxpayer dollars. Through a collaboration with our law enforcement partners, we will use every tool we have to track down whoever threatens public safety like this," it said. "'Swatting' is a serious crime that endangers first responders and those in legitimate need of their help. We will hold any perpetrators accountable and seek restitution for the tax dollars wasted."I imagine that, once this person is found, a hellacious number of charges will be brought against them. Calling in a false report, misuse of public funds/authorities, public endangerment, fraud, blah, blah, blah. In the end, someone is going to have some serious trouble coming their way and they're damned well going to deserve it. Terrifying an entire neighborhood over losing a game isn't even childish, it's evil. Stop it. Bad humans.
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Filed Under: law enforcement, swatting, video games
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The individual got angry that they lost in a video game, so they do something that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they're not only a loser in video games, but life as well.
Before, only they and the person who beat them knew about their loser status, once they're caught, everyone will know.
Poetic justice at it's finest I'd say.
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Because there is money to be made offering services to mess up caller id, and for offering caller id.
Some group being paid by both sides of the equation...
They could track your phone usage to the nanosecond to get extra minutes... but can't seem to stop swatting.
So very odd.
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First and foremost it endangers innocent victims of the SWAT teams.
The reason it swatting is a thing at all, is because of excessive aggression from law enforcement.
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Hmm, on the other hand, what about SWATting Cliven Bundy's place? :)
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The "Secret State Law" guy? http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/the-irony-of-cliven-bundys-unconstitutional-stan d/360587/
I'd SWAT him for gathering fellow sovereign citizens to break the law while claiming he has a right to because .
This is why Second Amendment advocates can't get anything done; they're divided over when to gather to enforce their rights � or their perceptions of what their rights are.
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Re: A valid point here
They are in danger, they are the misplaced danger to the public.
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nuff said
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Ofcourse, in this side of the atlantic, we have a sightly lower chance of being killed by a random cop, so we can laugh at these things
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How
Ok, this was the most dangerous thing a person could have done to another, especially a kid this could have ended up with people being killed.
But where did this swatter get the address and details of the target, seriously if he could get the details from his console or a little hacking then not only is this persons, data available to everyone online but how many others could get a persons details and attack them themselves.
I would think this is either someone the kids knows personally or if not, then one of the top hackers on the internet and that means someone that is going to have covered his tracks.
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Re: How
In the end I imagine this could very well lead to clues for a facebook, or other such pages, where you might be able to find what you need in order to look him up.
I just hope that the loser who did this, gets a serious punishment.
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Re: How
I also had this happen some time ago when I was getting random requests and found that someone had my PSN id on their youtube videos. I found the person on YouTube and had him remove my id. Wasn't hard to find either.
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Aha.
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Poetic justice?
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They are forced to kill them and those swatted are now quilty of traumatizing the swat team.
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So, you are not only responsible for your own actions, but also those of the police as well.
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SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Our police have been becoming highly militarized in recent years -- too much so in my opinion. The number of stories of police bursting in with overwhelming lethal force and applying that force indiscriminately is highly disturbing to me, and I am sure I am not alone. So long as it was only "drug dealers and other scum" who were being impacted, there was little pressure to pull back on such tactics.
But because of SWAT'ing, police now must consider the possibility that the residents of the home or building they are assaulting may, in fact, be completely innocent. That has to impact the way that they execute their raids. It has to reduce the likelihood that they choose to fire tens of shots at someone holding what turns out to be a wallet. And THAT change is good, even while each individual incident of SWAT'ing is terrible.
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Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
They have an armored vehicle, they are going to use it.
Someone being swatted lets them play with the toys, and given the track record of some officers out there one has to wonder if they won't just plant something to make it look like it was legit in the end when an innocent gets caught up in them playing with the toys.
Swatting is a very bad thing, it will not make them behave to protect the innocent just in case.
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Re: Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Totally true. I can't really blame them either. If I had an armored vehicle, I would drive over all kinds of stuff with it.
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Re: Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Right, like when they burst into the wrong place, even if their original target is arguably legitimate.
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Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Until that happens, I hold out little hope that how the cops do things will change in any significant manner.
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Re: Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
With regard to caller ID, I agree that it's rather disgusting that no one gives even passing consideration to how unreliable the identifying data is. I generally don't like authoritarian moves, but how is it that law enforcement hasn't argued that the telecoms have a duty to, at minimum, indicate whether the incoming caller ID is trustworthy? I don't expect them to show the real source of a VoIP call, but is it really too much to ask that they show "VoIP, source may be wrong" when the dispatcher looks at the caller ID? Once so marked, dispatchers could take into account that these calls are less traceable, and therefore temporarily more anonymous, than landline or cellular.
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Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Never mind the fact that cops messing up is something that is rarely ever punished or enforced against. It actually makes SWATting worse for the victims; the police, not so much.
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Re: SWAT'ing Actually Benefits Society
Even disregarding its considerable moral issues it seems unlikely to accomplish anything.
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Sore Loser
and messing with the authority over such things can really screw up their reputation... As well as the police force's.
we're not perfect...
we win some. We lose some... Just learn from the loss and figure how to improve oneself from the said loss.
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IIRC..I saw this story on one of the other Tech sites...
Personally, the vindictive side of me hopes when they do find him, they go in with full Tactical gear and dogs. I want them to pull this kid out of his house smelling like shite because he shite his pants.
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Re: IIRC..I saw this story on one of the other Tech sites...
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Re: IIRC..I saw this story on one of the other Tech sites...
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We've seen this before.
You just know that the immature Call of Duty player is strutting around in a flight suit, fantasizing about being a soldier, and declaring "Mission Accomplished."
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Re: We've seen this before.
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Possible Double Standard
We need more swatting, and more and more, until the world finally realizes the ridiculousness in a blood-hungry police force that sends in air strikes based on anonymous tips.
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Re: Possible Double Standard
That's a small problem.
Supposedly mature adult professionals react without anything like what a normal person would recognize as policing, but more like army platoons in a war zone, that's a much bigger problem.
Not that more and more of those idiot calls need to be made, anyone who doesn't see the problem in the police reaction to this one, won't see it in any others even if it's repeated a million times.
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The issue not being raised here...
The issue not being raised here is that would "swatting" even be possible if were not for the over militarization of our local, even suburban, Police forces?
A SWAT team, with all it's potential lethal force, should take hours to obtain and move into position, not mere minutes. Time to do a bit of investigative police work first.
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Re: The issue not being raised here...
Honestly, I cannot think of a situation in which swat teams have acted inappropriately in quite some time. I can think of some inappropriate deployments of them, but I cannot recall swat killing someone that was not trying to kill them.
I think the bigger problem is all of the non-swat officers acting like they are swat officers when they should just be giving someone a warning for jay-walking.
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Re: Re: The issue not being raised here...
Just google "swat team" "kill" and "unarmed" -- and try counting all the results that come up.
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Re: The issue not being raised here...
Although given that all your police are armed, maybe they shouldn't be sent in at all unless your average trained and armed police officers advise of a situation that they should not be expected to be able to deal with.
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Re: Re: The issue not being raised here...
This was my thought exactly. A SWAT team should not be the first responder to a phoned-in tip. Ever.
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Re: Re: The issue not being raised here...
Hehe, that's part of the problem. We don't have nearly enough actual responsible law enforcement agents.
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SWAT'ing that police yearn for
http://images.dailykos.com/images/78192/large/RTR3L0EB.jpg?1397667337
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Wait
You mean like reporting that you smell marijuana outside someones door?
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Police stops in unmarked cars are illegal in NJ, except
for a handful of grave cisrumstances,
yet nobody is enforcing the EXISTING law.
There is plenty of statutes and case law for swat morons to do due diligence prior, yet nobody is enforcing.
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Danger
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