You'd think they'd be more concerned about constantly wasting time and resources to constantly send out SWAT to some random couple's house twice a week.
> Exclusive body camera video obtained by TMJ4 shows officers arriving at the couple's home on multiple occasions, even as both officers and the couple acknowledged the calls were fake.
> In one exchange captured on body camera, an officer can be heard telling a colleague, "This guy keeps getting swatted." In another, a body camera recording from inside a squad car captures an officer describing the address as "a known swatting location."
> Despite that awareness, officers continued to respond, at times with a full tactical presence. Body camera video shows one officer pointed a gun at the couple's door on their fourth response in a single day.
>A judge also ordered Mr Tomlinson to pay the anonymous blogger behind the website $23,700 in legal fees.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/sw...
At some point, the people doing the "swatting" (false police call) should be held criminally liable, maybe even for attempted murder by cop. There's definitely a crime being committed there. I'm 100% sure that calling the cops on someone and making a false report is against at least one or two (or maybe even several) laws.
Which does raise the question: why is it SOP for the police to send a SWAT team to a random house based on nothing but an anonymous phone call? At the very least it should take some kind of statement from an actual identified human who can be held accountable if it turns out to be a hoax.
Act now (to reduce potential loss of life) and verify later
Um, no. In a high trust society "swatting" would not be a thing--because people would understand that it's a huge violation of trust. And people who did make hoax calls like this would suffer severe punishment--because that's what a high trust society has to do to people who violate trust like that, in order to stay high trust.
> Act now (to reduce potential loss of life)
Not necessarily, since SWAT teams are generally not noted for their restraint--certainly not if their response on swatting call number 55 to the same house is the same as it was for call number 1.
> and verify later
Okay, let's say this is valid for call number 1. Still, what about call number 2 to the same house? Let alone call number 55? Especially when the owner of the house produces evidence that people had threatened to swat him?
So no, we do not have the kind of society where your logic makes sense; the rare cases where the quick knee jerk response actually prevents harm are more than overwhelmed by the much more common cases where it's a false alarm but the police keep on violating innocent people's rights anyway.
America is one of the lowest trust society among developed nations. People don't trust government officers to do the right thing, like, at all, and they wear the distrust as a badge of honor.
For instance, the judge who refused involuntary commitment for the schizophrenic who killed the woman in Charlotte could be held accountable for their bad judgment.
Judges face almost no consequences for their decisions, and so they think it is right and proper that police should have qualified immunity from similar consequences.
There's an argument it might effect prosecutorial immunity, presuming someone was a stickler about consistency, but it's tough to say because the justifications are arguably based on a poor historical understanding of how prosecutors took up cases. (Historically prosecutors, even criminal prosecutors, were often private individuals paid by the local government to prosecute a case, or even prosecute a case entirely on their own volition. But today many jurists just assume the prosecutor has always and only been a distinct executive office, which if they're well read enough--but not too well read--might think sometimes had some quirks about who filled the office.)
That's not trouble, it's a strong selling point. No public official should be immune from accountability for their crimes. Transparency and accountability would solve a lot of problems. Any public official uncomfortable with the idea of not being able to commit crimes and civil rights violations with impunity isn't fit for the job they have.
The powers that be like phone numbers because they're like a medium-level KYC. In many countries getting a phone number requires ID, and there was a recent proposal to do that in the US. Of course swatting and spam are used as excuses to introduce KYC requirements, but those problems are endemic to phone numbers, and more identity verification just causes more leaks, which gives them excuses to require more KYC.
My idea for replacing phone numbers and email: SimpleX for calls and texts (no accounts and therefore the least PII possible), and Monero micropayments for spam prevention. Most people spend way more on their wireless plan then they'd need to spend in Monero to make the initial connection, for publicly posted SimpleX links.
I fear to think about where we would be without the constitution considering how authoritarian law enforcement is in the US. It's definitely lacking, but I am still grateful for it.
> Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson awarded $575K US settlement from City of Milwaukee
> ...
> It was 1 a.m. on July 25, 2022, and someone had reported a hostage situation at his house in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife, Niki Robinson.
> ...
> Over the course of the next two and a half years, Tomlinson and Robinson were swatted 55 times, despite repeatedly explaining their situation to the Milwaukee Police Department. They sued, and have been awarded a $575,000 US settlement from the City of Milwaukee.
---
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHkRgfYmLrE for the local news (TMJ4) three weeks ago.
We can all say “well, if you get many calls about one location, maybe you should stop showing up” but wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed? The same couple getting swatted one day could get criminals breaking in another, possibly for the same reason even. How can you make the call not to show up if your entire existence and role in society is to show up?
What real solutions are there?
Edit: a bunch of identical responses to this comment with "just don't show up". I know it's easy to sit and judge from the comfort of your keyboard, but do a little bit of thinking. What should the rule be? When is it okay for police to receive a distress call and not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake? Who's responsible for the consequences of not showing up?
Edit2: now people switched to "show up, but softer, knock on the door". Now we can agree, because this comment is about showing up, not about specifics. Yeah, more considerate approach is warranted. To be clear, I agree that police should be punished for violating laws and conduct policies. Yet there is the other side of it, there's still an alert and it could still be real. Police still have to be mind-f'ed into figuring out every time if there's real danger or not.
Edit3: People who say "police can catch the callers" and suggest other triumphant movie-esque feats make me feel like we need an article "Falsehoods programmers believe about police".
For starters, in the general case, try having a larger threshold to go in guns blazing, like trying to verify with the residents first, or just knocking on their door normally to address whatever it was instead of a full on raid. The trauma of being subjected to a SWAT raid is obvious, so they should recognize that and more properly balance it with the harm of not doing one, rather than simply doing it.
Looking at the article's specifics for this specific situation, some options are:
- don't violate the constitutional rights of the victims as a court ruled retroactively happened in this case
- ensure that all officers are professional, as the article says that only some were
- add them to the swatting house list
- have basic dignity, like facilitating the person covering up instead of cuffing them naked on the curb; police and prisons seem especially happy to engage in forced nudity in a general case -- it's part of a concerningly high fraction of police abuse news
At the very least if they want to keep violating the rights of the people in their home by breaking in, after seeing that there's no obvious signs of crime they should probably not immediately drag people outside naked and handcuffed.
I'll give these cops some credit though, at least they managed to raid the correct house 55 times in a row. I don't know who trained these SWAT officers to read house numbers, but they should probably pass that info along considering the countless stories of police raiding the wrong home.
They can always reevaluate the practice if it suddenly becomes commonplace for normal people who have never been a problem before to swat themselves 40 times all so they can finally carry out a real kidnapping in peace.
Serious crimes are generally a low percentage stat in society overall, which is part of the reason why it's so hard to judge "oh, this isn't serious". Most police encounters aren't, except the ones that are.
Going to peoples houses and committing crimes is a risky proposition that could end up with you injured or dead. Hence why these types play games with law enforcement to put other peoples lives in danger rather than their own.
Who cares if police don't show up during the 1 in 100,000 lifetimes chance you need a swat team, when you're getting harassed weekly.
You say that as if most of the world doesn’t get by just fine without any militarized SWAT law enforcement units whatsoever…
All the commenters responding to you are so clueless that they can’t see there are no better systems from a cost benefit analysis. Law enforcement is barred by the laws of man and physics from taking prior history into account when assessing risks and every repeated tip of violent crime without any evidence must necessarily be responded to as legitimate at a level requiring military style intervention on the basis of anonymous testimony. There are just no better approaches
See what is the reaction to the 3rd SWAT call for the local police dept's boss' home. Then apply that to everyone. I'm absolutely sure they can figure that one out.
This is 100% not true in the US. The police have no obligation to show up what so ever as decided by the SCOTUS.
>ne day could get criminals breaking in another
And like in every large city they'll get put on hold when calling 911 and maybe the cops show up 30 minutes later.
> not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake?
As they say, when seconds matter, help is 15 to 20 minutes away.
But this seems like a good crime recipe:
1. Swat somebody for months.
2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.
How about: Track down and identify the person making these calls?
But almost every comment here is incredulously pointing out how inept police is to not be able to solve such an easy/obvious problem. There is nothing easy and obvious about it.
We need one of those "what every programmer should know about time zones" articles about common police and military misconceptions.
At the same time, it costs nothing to pick up the phone and prank them. Any actor from anywhere could do it, and outside their jurisdiction, what can they do? The dispatcher is not empowered or equipped to discern truth from lies over a mere voice line from a stranger. The dispatcher can't even run a CAPTCHA to trap AIs. The public absolutely relies on being believed when they sincerely call that same voice line.
I do, perversely, see the merit in repeated response that simply turns out to be a drill. The merit is both training and public image, if the militarized police want to instill fear and shock and awe in that neighborhood, or on the evening news, then they get it by responding, not by dismissing obvious fakes. How often do you get to test your flash-bang rifle, fire up your bomb-siege-robots, and put a few miles on your urban tanks? It's like a parade on your wedding day, but you've already paid.
Only thing is, there seems to be no financial incentive or reward for the SWATter. Unless SWATting could be used to tie up and distract law enforcement resources as part of a bigger conspiracy, the only endgame of SWATting seems to be a drain on resources.
And because their entire existence is to show up, you have a conflict of interests on how you answer the call.
After circa the first 10 calls it should start to become apparent.
Imagine how many false swats it would take at the police chief's house before the policy got an update?
Currently there is no legal responsibility to “protect and serve” any single member or group of the public.
Just a moral one, due to it being their tax money used.
[An old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee.]
https://youtu.be/WHkRgfYmLrE?si=K-xmC3jgP4AvCht2&t=342
> Patrick and Nikki believe calling known swatting victims before responding would avoid dangerous encounters like this - some of which have resulted in costly settlements paid by Milwaukee taxpayers.
shockingly mild
At what point do the officials involved in this become involved with the criminal harassment themselves? At what point is it legal / acceptable (though unwise) to shoot the armed men entering your house?
This happened between July 25 of 2022 and (I believe) April of 2023.
The lawsuit is at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68293540/robinson-v-cit... and April is the last charge listed in the initial complaint. That's 35 weeks, not 104.
That's insane.
I don't see how the current American legal system can decisively shut this kind of reprehensible abuse of power down.
Everyone has to ask themselves what their personal breaking point is. How many times does a person need to stick a gun in your face and threaten your life before you do whatever is necessary to prevent them from doing that ever again?
Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power. — Malcolm X
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. — Malcolm X
…i was expecting something significantly more incendiary.
"Americans hated Hillary Clinton so much, they voted for someone they hated even more."
He wasn't.
I am being charitable with this assessment, too.
MacDonald was extremely funny, even if you were liberal. His comedy was not political, and maybe that is kind of the appeal to conservative leaning people - some kind of "retro" appeal. If you are wondering what I am getting at, read the book, "The Compleat Practical Joker" from 1953.
There's also more to the story here. Not that it's in any way justified, bur this guy's wasn't targeted only because he tweeted about Norm Macdonald.
This is worthwhile to address. Norm was a conservative, for sure. There's nothing wrong with that.
There is something wrong with anti-social (or sociopathic) behavior. That behavior is not associated with conservatism any more than it is with liberalism. I've known hardcore punks who you'd think would end up solid democratic voters, but nah. It's not so simple.
Norm was not a sociopath, nor someone who was a poisonous partisan or tribalist, as near as we can tell. It wasn't in his comedy, it wasn't in his personal life from what people say.
He wasn't part of the "tribe" which is swatting this family. These people feel he was part of their little tribe, is what I am saying. And they are wrong. He's wasn't.
I think this is an invention on your part. While his comments about Norm MacDonald may have been the inciting incident, the continued harassment of Tomlinson has little to do with them.
This podcast runs through the story, if you're interested: https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-164-the-torture... (starting around 39 minutes)
" he wrote on Twitter, now X: “Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me." "Two weeks later, here I am, you know, on my front porch in the middle of the night, exposed to all my neighbours with shxtgxns......... pointed at my head."
I assume he's in an area with thousands of police like in a big city or something. Would you be safer in smaller towns against this threat or what? It's scary that essentially anyone who can find your address can do this kind of thing. Even though the penalties are severe if you get caught. The bold always find a way...
Seemingly not fake.