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Vancouver Area Teen Sentenced To 16 Months For Swatting
An anonymous reader writes: A 17-year-old from the Vancouver area in Canada has been sentenced to 16 months in youth custody and 8 months under supervision in the community after pleading guilty to 23 charges including criminal harassment, public mischief, extortion and uttering threats. The teenager was responsible for a number of swatting calls across the United States and Canada — mostly of female gamers. The judge told him, "It appears that when real life became too hard you retreated into the online world and became increasingly socially isolated. While you may think you enjoyed greater success in the online world, that success was an illusion. You were left with severely limited social skills and a significant educational deficit."
That's because you don't understand Canadian law. That is actually a fairly harsh term for a young offender in Canada.
The other option would have been moving him to adult court. That's a pretty big uphill battle for the prosecution, as they would have to prove how society would be better served potentially throwing him in jail until 27.
He's a stupid kid, and really needs to be treated as such.
"SJW" doesn't mean anybody who is for social justice. I'm for social justice! I want people to stop hating and harassing each other.
"SJW" is the term for those who do bad things in the name of social justice. They harass and threaten people who don't tow their very narrow definition of what is right. They become confrontational and angry if you so much as suggest they might be wrong about someone.
People who are for social justice? They're awesome.
Social Justice Warriors? They can be as bad as the guy this article is about.
You can recover from a SWATing in a few weeks, months if it hit you particularly hard. But 16 months in jail is basically making sure the rest of his life is seriously restricted and damaged.
Really? Being the victim of SWATing seems like it could cause lifelong psychological damage - let alone the danger that you're sending HEAVILY ARMED people over to someone's house. I think 5 years would be a better sentence for him. Sounds like he's already pretty damaged anyway. "the judge noted a psychiatric and psychological assessment that she said painted a picture of a deeply troubled young person who is a high risk to reoffend. The report suggested the teen has minimized his crimes and blamed the victims, showed no remorse and was motivated in the pleasure the trouble he inflicted on his victims.The report described him as having an emerging narcissistic personality disorder."
There's a limit to how far "What might have been" goes in the criminal justice system.
In Arizona, there is a rather precise limit, and it is a serious crime. Saying that section B is relevant seriously questions the restraint and professionalism of the raiding police officers, but a class 1 misdemeanor has a 6 month maximum sentence.
13-1201. Endangerment; classification
A. A person commits endangerment by recklessly endangering another person with a substantial risk of imminent death or physical injury.
B. Endangerment involving a substantial risk of imminent death is a class 6 felony. In all other cases, it is a class 1 misdemeanor.
It should be a serious crime. I haven't maintained otherwise. I just questioned that it should be a ten year prison sentence level of serious. That's over the top even by American standards of jurisprudence. In New York State, assuming no prior convictions, you need a class C felony to reach that kind of sentence. For perspective, class C felonies include robbery, burglary, criminal possession of a weapon, soliciting or supporting an act of terrorism, assault on a judge or first responder, or an attempt to commit a class B felony. There's some non-violent crimes in there too, primarily fraud that reaches a certain dollar amount.
IANAL but the closest charge we would have here to fit swatting would probably be falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, which is a misdemeanor. A reading of the law would seem to support bumping it up to first degree if someone is killed as a result of the false report, which makes it a class D felony.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Actually I have. My home was raided in June of 2010 because I was involved in a protest of Koch Industries. A boycott to be specific, but they accused me of being a part of a DDOS. I had PTSD for a while, but most of it was linked to my complete ignorance that our police and federal police were pretty much the most corrupt entity ever, and sadistically violent. So I'm well aware that it is a big deal, but I wouldn't send somebody to jail for swatting somebody for more than a month or two.
ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
i haven't seen Black mirror but i read the summary on wikipedia...
if her memory is wiped and she doesn't remember it the next day then what really is the point in doing it again?
she doesn't remember it, so it happening again to her isn't any additional punishment for her. to her every day is the first time. which means, really she has a one day sentence. and when/if they finally stop wiping her memory she will just wake up to find herself X days/years older and having only had this one really bad and confusing day.