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Watching a "Swatting" Slowly Unfold
netbuzz writes That online gamers have been victimized has unfortunately allowed us to see what "swatting" looks like from the perspective of the target: terrifying and potentially deadly. A similar type of criminally unnecessary SWAT scene played out Saturday night when a caller to police in Hopkinton, Mass., claimed to be holed up in the town's closed public library with two hostages and a bomb. The library stands within eyesight of the starting line for the Boston Marathon. An editor for Network World, there by happenstance, watched for two hours, and, while it was a hoax and no one was hurt, his account highlights the disruption and wastefulness these crimes inflict.
A better compromise would be for cops to not go in guns blazing, as would be the case in most of the developed world.
... why is nobody asking how come the police is so easily provoked into taking hostile, deadly enemy action against the population it is supposed to protect and serve?
Why does every police corps down to the stupid little podunk ones have at least one trigger-happy SWAT team on the ready, as well as sometimes quite a lot of surplus army equipment? Isn't one army enough?
Because, you know, those things are there and therefore will be used, and against anyone. The crime of wilfully provoking the police against someone else is bad, but it wouldn't half as bad if the police was so overly happy to play along.
Police SWAT teams are now tools of escalation, not of de-escalation. Don't blame sickminded pranksters for the damage the police knowingly and wilfully add to their sick pranks. Both ought to know better, the police moreso.