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Kansas Swatting Perpetrator 'SWauTistic' Interviewed on Twitter (krebsonsecurity.com)
"That kids house that I swatted is on the news," tweeted "SWauTistic" -- before he realized he'd gotten somebody killed. Security researcher Brian Krebs reveals what happened next.
When it became apparent that a man had been killed as a result of the swatting, Swautistic tweeted that he didn't get anyone killed because he didn't pull the trigger. Swautistic soon changed his Twitter handle to @GoredTutor36, but KrebsOnSecurity managed to obtain several weeks' worth of tweets from Swautistic before his account was renamed. Those tweets indicate that Swautistic is a serial swatter -- meaning he has claimed responsibility for a number of other recent false reports to the police. Among the recent hoaxes he's taken credit for include a false report of a bomb threat at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that disrupted a high-profile public meeting on the net neutrality debate. Swautistic also has claimed responsibility for a hoax bomb threat that forced the evacuation of the Dallas Convention Center, and another bomb threat at a high school in Panama City, Fla, among others.
After tweeting about the incident extensively Friday afternoon, KrebsOnSecurity was contacted by someone in control of the @GoredTutor36 Twitter account. GoredTutor36 said he's been the victim of swatting attempts himself, and that this was the reason he decided to start swatting others. He said the thrill of it "comes from having to hide from police via net connections." Asked about the FCC incident, @GoredTutor36 acknowledged it was his bomb threat. "Yep. Raped em," he wrote. "Bomb threats are more fun and cooler than swats in my opinion and I should have just stuck to that," he wrote. "But I began making $ doing some swat requests."
Krebs' article also links to a police briefing with playback from the 911 call. "There is no question that police officers and first responders across the country need a great deal more training to bring the number of police shootings way down..." Krebs argues. "Also, all police officers and dispatchers need to be trained on what swatting is, how to spot the signs of a hoax, and how to minimize the risk of anyone getting harmed when responding to reports about hostage situations or bomb threats."
But he also argues that filing a false police report should be reclassified as a felony in all states.
After tweeting about the incident extensively Friday afternoon, KrebsOnSecurity was contacted by someone in control of the @GoredTutor36 Twitter account. GoredTutor36 said he's been the victim of swatting attempts himself, and that this was the reason he decided to start swatting others. He said the thrill of it "comes from having to hide from police via net connections." Asked about the FCC incident, @GoredTutor36 acknowledged it was his bomb threat. "Yep. Raped em," he wrote. "Bomb threats are more fun and cooler than swats in my opinion and I should have just stuck to that," he wrote. "But I began making $ doing some swat requests."
Krebs' article also links to a police briefing with playback from the 911 call. "There is no question that police officers and first responders across the country need a great deal more training to bring the number of police shootings way down..." Krebs argues. "Also, all police officers and dispatchers need to be trained on what swatting is, how to spot the signs of a hoax, and how to minimize the risk of anyone getting harmed when responding to reports about hostage situations or bomb threats."
But he also argues that filing a false police report should be reclassified as a felony in all states.
"I didn't kill anyone because I didn't pull the trigger"
Wow. No, you just fooled a bunch of heavily armed people into thinking they were going to be confronting an armed and dangerous person who had already killed one person. No way could you have POSSIBLY predicted that situation could potentially lead to a death.
This idiot should be locked away for a very, very long time to think about what he did.
On a separate note - the cops need to be royally reamed. They know swatting is a thing, they know getting the address wrong is a thing... yet they roll up and without any confirmation of what's going on they shoot the guy who answers the door. FFS, no hostage-taking murderer with a gun is going to open up the front door to the police without a hostage in front of them anyway.
10:1 the shooter had bad trigger discipline. Odds are even better that what blame the cops can't avoid will be so thinly distributed that pretty much no punishment results despite the fact they killed one of the people they're charged with protecting.
The killing today in Colorado of a sheriff's deputy responding to a domestic violence call highlights the challenge faced by law enforcement officers.
"Hangin's too good for 'im. Burnin's too good for 'im. He should be chopped into tinesy-winesy pieces and buried alive." Pesky "cruel and unusual" clause.
Probably didn't work out who it was.
This kids fucked. But he's *very* damn lucky Swatting isn't a felony, because Felony + Someone dies is enough to trigger a capital murder case in some states. And even if thats not the case wherever he is, theres a good chance all the cops would need is three felonies and the kid goes away for the best part of his life.
Oh, he'll be doing big time though, count on that much.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The cop who shot and the swatter should share a general populaiton cell for 20+ years for complicity in the murder.
Swatter obviously created a dangerous situation, but this danger was exacerbated by the typical behavior of American cops.
Cops were supposed to be professionals. Instead, they were trigger-happy to save their sorry hides and murdered an innocent man. The cop who shot has blood on his hands and should never be forgiven or seen as anything but a murderer.
The emergency dispatcher who didn't ask the right questions to determine if it was a prank is also somewhat negligent. The call was to the city hall, not 9-1-1, and described a different home than where the murder took place.
He begs to be made an example of, and it should be done pour encourager les autres.
We cannot have that in civil society.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I've read of how some of the responding officers are so adrenaline filled and under trained for the high alert event that they suddenly get involved with that they get..., "over-zealous". That officer never should have had his finger on the trigger, but instead on the trigger guard. Fatal results ensue, unfortunately. Prosecute the swatter, re-train all the officers.
I don't like advertising this guys channel but as its relevant here is an interview a youtuber called Keemstar did with SWauTistic hours before he was arrested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Examples are going to be made of everyone. The kid who did the Swatting. The kid who paid for the swatters services. And the unfortunate cop who pulled the trigger. 4 lives minimum, ruined.
Actually, as TFA points out, filing a false police report (which is esssentially what swatting is) *is* a felony in some juridictions but a misdemeanor in others. It's clearly a misdemeanor in California, but AFAICT can be either a misdemeanor *or* felony in Kansas depending on the severity. Since someone got killed, I'd guess this could fall into the felony category, in which case "Swautistic" could be going away for quite some time if prosecuted and found guilty in Kansas.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
From what I read elsewhere, the kid has been prosecuted and has spent time in jail.
I get the impression, he may not be perfectly mentally healthy.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
How is calling people who are there to protect other people a crime?
That'd be legally acknowledging that you are safer by not engaging with LEOs at all.
Avoiding all contact with American cops DOES keep you safe. US Cops are criminals with badges.
The felony murder rule is:
When a person commits a felony, and as a result someone dies, it's murder.
A classic example would be a robbery. John and Rob plan to rob a convenience store. Rob shots the clerk. John claims "I didn't mean for anyone to get shot - I was just doing an armed robbery". John is guilty of felony murder because a) he was committing a felony and b) it resulted in death. There is a presumption that you know felonies are dangerous, and that you shouldn't commit felonies. So although John didn't WANT someone to die, he was criminally reckless by committing armed robbery, which he knew *could* result in death.
Another, perhaps more interesting example:
John and Rob plan an armed robbery of a convenience store. When they pull out their guns, an armed civilian behind them shots Rob, who later dies. John is once again guilty of felony murder. He didn't plan for Rob to die, but he did know that committing armed robbery could get someone killed.
Nothing was done because law enforcement doesn't take SWATing seriously. It's just a "prank". Local police won't do anything, if they even can. The FBI just dumps your SWATing complains into the nearest dumpster - they're far more concerned with credit card fraud.
Maybe now that someone has died, police will realize this is a thing, that it is dangerous, and that the perpetrators need to have their asses kicked HARD.
I don't think it works like that. Crimes like this are reported to and investigated by local police. The FBI only becomes involved if the crime involves activities that cross state lines or if local police requests their involvements or use of FBI resources. It's only in movies where the FBI shows up, takes over an investigation and sidelines local police. Usually relations between the FBI and local police are quite cooperative in nature. If swatting reports get dumped in the trash by anybody it's local police and that certainly might earn them the interest of state police or even the FBI which would lead to questions being asked. This often boils down to that old American obsession with sates rights and the autonomy of states. In most other countries local police forces ignoring a problem like swatting would have some kind of national police knocking on their door pretty quickly, but in the US individual states have more latitude to do their own thing and thereby more latitude to mess things up (and often they get to mess things up pretty badly) before the federal government can step in and that extends to more areas than just policing. For example, I have severe problems imagining that a state government in Germany could have gotten away with systematically laying waste to it's state finances for as long as Sam Brownback has done with his 'Kansas experiment'.
We ask our friends and neighbors to help watch over town. As a society, we let the people arm themselves as a militia to fight the man "to not take away our freedom's", because "guns are the reason we have freedom", and all the other silly things that are said. We then ask the police to show up with kid gloves on, like somehow they have multiple lives.
If we aren't planning on violently overthrowing the government, then we should store our people killing guns at a safe community place where we all have the combination. In most countries, these places are called things like, The National Guard, or the Army. We could rename it so as to cater to those that don't like ideas that work globally to "American Armed Citizen Gun Storage for Freedom."
If we really do think that we need a violent revolution, then lets get it over with. Those that are in need, let your needs be known now, because this middle ground is killing a whole lot of innocents.
I've never seen anyone need a 15 round clip while hunting an Elk, Deer, Bear's or anything else in North America. I've never seen anyone use a hand-gun when hunting, but maybe pythons?
Our laws are so harsh in this country as it is, that everyone is an example when they get sentenced. Throwing someone in jail for 10 years or 20 years has zero rehabilitation difference if you're only considering them being a "better person" when they get out. I'd argue anything over 5 and you may as well throw away the key. Don't complain when you throw someone in jail, don't help them and then have to support them for the rest of their lives.
This kid and his friends need direct intervention. Anyone on that twitter account should receive a direct phone call from someone that sounds like authority and discuss with them why we don't do this to our fellow neighbors and friends online. That in itself would send a HUGE message...that we actually care about each other, that we treat each other appropriately and out of kindness, and that this is a large community of hundreds of millions, and that we are watching each others backs.
The kid himself needs to face some sort of sentence. He's young though, the news cycle is fast. Any "example" set by him will be quickly forgotten by the masses, only used by the court system to justify harsher sentences for everybody, people won't say "I won't do this cuz that guy got caught."
There is nothing more jolting to people that think they are getting away with things, than at least letting them know "we are paying attention to your vile behavior." Very few internet trolls would publicly do what they currently do. Outing people is a great way in terms of effectiveness and cost.
There are so many things that need to be fixed and addressed, and until they are, they're all hanging chad's in our society. Until we figure them out, these things are going to happen, people will say "more jail time", "more laws", but nothing changes when you don't change the way we deal with life.
--
Karma is a bitch
SWauTistic lied, to law enforcement. Causing some bad actor to go Rambo on someone undeserving. Iâ(TM)m thinking âoeMurder in the First Degree, with Special Circumstancesâ fits the event pretty close.
By other reports, swatter was in LA, CA and made interstate phone call to Kansas. Very likely committed several US Federal felonies (wire fraud, phone phreaking, making terroristic threat) that will trigger Federal Felony Murder. Kansas statute is far more limited. Rare for the Feds to go for the death penalty, but it is probably available.
The police officer did not know the victim, didn't wake up that day planning to kill that victim or anyone else.
I've seen video of many police shootings. They have been trained to be on a hair trigger so they can "get home alive tonight".
That training course was banned but its influence still corrupts police officers to this day.
The thing police don't realize is, the more citizens they kill- the more dangerous their job becomes.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Publicly took credit for bomb threats, swatted repeatedly, has now killed a man. And he gets paid to do some of these.
It sounds like it would probably take 10 minutes to track this guy down, and like he would of been on the FBI's radar long ago.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Robots. Send a quadcopter. How much does it cost?
In our society we have much higher sense of human life value, that included policemen as well. Send a drone first, much closer look at the potential perp.
People portray the situation as black and white. "Pig cop killed innocent man". Watch the video. At that distance it could be that he is protecting his eyes from a high beam, but it also could be that he is preparing to shoot.
That's what this solution for - this type of uncertainty. Any further development from this situation would have decreased the uncertainty.
I suspect the solution to many our so-called political problems ("cop violence", "civilian violence") lies in the technical sphere, not in escalation of violence by incessant "occupies".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Well, score another one for police — why was not the fake caller prosecuted after his very first crime?
Score two for the police. In virtually no other modern western country would the cops have immediately shot a person for just opening the front door. Competent police would seek to contain the situation until they worked out what was going on, get a negotiator, trained snipers etc. Of course the guy in the door was black so never let a chance go by.
People don't want to pay taxes so the cops have to concentrate on crimes such as pot smoking where they can invoke civil forfeiture to make sure of getting a pay check. This also leads to the cops not wanting to spend time on money losing endeavors such as taking their time at a hostage situation when they can just shoot the perp and save time and money including court costs and of course chasing after someone on the internet has no return on the investment.
Related is the for profit prison industry, needed so taxes can be lowered, where they don't want violent criminals in their workshops, rather non-violent offenders who make better slave labourers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
True, but his admitting sending in bomb threats to a Federal facility raises the stakes and he could wind up facing state and Federal charges. I'm sure the FBI will be interested in any evidence KS gets form CA.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
How is calling people who are there to protect other people a crime?
It isn't, unless you know there's nothing they need to protect anyone from. At the very least that's filing a false police report (which is in fact a crime), and besides that, it's abuse of the state apparatus to commit assault (and sometimes worse) for you. In cases like this, the caller should be held criminally liable for any harm or death that occurs, and the abuse of police resources should be counted as an aggravating factor.
Funny how in some Scandinavian countries the penalties are even less and yet there is almost no crime. Your statement appears counterfactual.
The first goal for police should be that all civilian go home alive that night. The police making it home should be secondary to that. That is why they have training and body armor, and they knew and willingly accepted the risk of them not coming home when they signed up for the job.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The swatting part won't matter too much as the guy easily qualifies for at least one count of second degree murder ("a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender's obvious lack of concern for human life"), but they could also tack on charges for endangering each law enforcement officer who responded to the fraudulent report as well.
Plus, with the victim being in another state, it's likely the feds will take over prosecution pretty quickly as it's an interstate crime, so he'll be charged under Federal law whcih is a hell of a lot more brutal than CA state law (and the perp is apparently in CA as there's articles saying the LAPD picked him up). Add in the likely terrorism charges he'll get for making bomb threats against Federal buildings, and supposing the super nerd doesn't off himself as soon as he realizes he's gonna be someone's boytoy for the rest of his life, the guy will certainly never see the outside of a prison or court room again.
That's because it is. In fact, to quote the US government's own National Institute of Justice, and confirmed by a fair bit of research, "The certainty of being caught is a vastly more powerful deterrent than the punishment." It's not the severity of the penalty, but the likelihood of it occurring.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
But they are all stupid, because they don't permit their citizens to just walk around with AK47s whenever they want. Their citizens are being slaughtered by the millions and the gov't just lets it happen.
I read it on Breitbart, so it must be true. And Trump retweeted it. Fact!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
What's with the scare quotes? Are they not really women?
And "the guys inside" can include the guards working at the bank doing the killing, i.e., of one of the perpetrators.
Well, he's been found and arrested already — so much for the "pretty difficult". Police should've shown the same vigor before his actions resulted in a death.
In denial much? Open any article on the subject and browse the comments. For example, from here:
I'd say, the ratio of approval to disapproval there is 1:1...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
IANAL, but I think the GP post is confusing "accessory after the fact" (e.g. helping to hide the body) with some other legal ideas like "strict liability" and/or the "felony murder rule" and/or several other things.
would it mean that he can't be charged if the cop is not charged too?
I don't think that would make a difference. If you commit a felony, and it was reasonably foreseeable that someone would die as a result, and someone does die as a result, that's murder. Other factors - if it was an accident, a lawful killing (law enforcement or self defense) - are completely irrelevant.
For example: If you release a bunch of tigers from a zoo, it doesn't matter that tigers aren't "legal persons" and thus aren't murdering the kids they eat, you're still responsible. If you give someone a massive dose of drugs that makes them go on a violent, hallucinatory rampage the cops might be justified in shooting them, but you're still guilty of the any murders they committed, as well as the murder of the person you dosed. If you do an armed robbery and some wannabe hero shoots a bystander, they might be guilty of some kind of negligence or completely innocent, but you are guilty - period.
Nevertheless, swautistic could use some severe punishment.
Oh, I do agree about that. It probably does do some good to send a message that this is not funny, but some amoral shit that we won't put up with. Then focus on catching a high percentage of those who try this in the future, whatever he winds up getting.
I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
> What on earth were the founders thinking?
They were thinking of agrarian society, and hence they came up with the electoral college, which is ridiculously outdated now but we still have it.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
The problem would be that this is a SWAT team, the 911 call already stated that someone is already dead or close to it (the callers dad), also the only other people in the house should be female, which leads to a situation where it is reasonable to assume the person I front of them is armed.
Some post mortem analysis says the police should have noticed that the person answering the door didn't have a phone in their hand while they were supposedly on the phone with 911, but I would be surprised if that kind of information would work it's way through to the field team if they believe the shooter has neutralized his primary threat (the supposed Dad, who was fighting with his mom).
Take a step back and look at what could have been known by the various parties at the time and I have a harder time "convicting" this police officer. I have different opinions of other scenarios but in this case I fully understand them being on edge.
Thank you for your added information, mine was merely gossip. I stand enlightened on the issue. Thank you.
Gee. Makes you kinda think twice about launching a career as a getaway driver. Sheesh. Now what do I do after I graduate?
As long as you do your job right, surely it doesn't matter.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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