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Two More 'SWAT' Calls in California -- One Involving a 12-Year-Old Gamer (ktla.com)
In January an online gamer in California was arrested after at leat 20 fake emergency calls to police, one leading to a fatal shooting in Kansas. But this week in California there's been at least two more fake calls:
- A 12-year-old gamer heard a knock at his door Sunday -- which turned out to be "teams of Los Angeles police officers and other rescue personnel who believed two people had just hung themselves." The Los Angeles Police Department "said there's no way to initially discern swatting calls from actually emergencies, so they handle every scenario as if someone's life is in danger," according to the Los Angeles Times. The seventh-grader described it as "the most terrifying thing in my life."
- 36-year-old David Pearce has been arrested for falsely reporting an emergency at a Beverly Hills hotel involving "men with guns" holding him hostage. A local police captain later said that the people in the room had not made the call and in fact might have been asleep through much of the emergency. The Los Angeles Times reports that there's roughly 400 'SWATting' cases each year, according to FBI estimates, adding that "Some experts have said police agencies need to take the phenomenon more seriously and provide formal training to dispatchers and others to better recognize hoax callers."
Meanwhile, in the wake of a fatal shooting in Wichita, Kansas lawmakers have passed a new bipartisan bill increasing the penalties for SWAT calls. If a fake call results in a fatality -- and the caller intentionally masks their identity -- it's the equivalent of second-degree murder. "The caller must be held accountable," one lawmaker told the Topeka Capital-Journal.
If there is really no way for a 911 dispatcher to tell that a call is arriving from somewhere outside the local area through a commercial VoIP service, that is a shameful state of affairs that needs to be addressed. Probably all SWATing hoaxes involve that kind of proxy to reach the target dispatch, and probably vanishingly few legitimate emergency calls use those services.
If a dispatcher sees a VoIP call that indicates a high risk of violence or strongly points to heavily armed response, that should be good grounds to watch out for a hoax.
Congrats to the LA police for not killing any innocent people when responding to those incidents. Keep it up.
Anything that elicits an armed SWAT response should be considered an attempt to kill the SWATee.
There is no other reason you'd send an armed response team into a situation that split second decisions mean more people may die.
Once swaters start publicly getting 20+ years for single swat attempts it'll put off a fuckton of others.
If there is really no way for a 911 dispatcher to tell that a call is arriving from somewhere outside the local area through a commercial VoIP service, that is a shameful state of affairs that needs to be addressed. Probably all SWATing hoaxes involve that kind of proxy to reach the target dispatch, and probably vanishingly few legitimate emergency calls use those services.
If a dispatcher sees a VoIP call that indicates a high risk of violence or strongly points to heavily armed response, that should be good grounds to watch out for a hoax.
You should NOT rely on data from UNCONFIRMED and potentially unreliable sources to initiate violence against another human being. This is a training issue- not an issue with someone placing a fake 911 call. What this does is it misplaces blame and diverts responsibility for shooting someone to that other than the shooter. The person who placed the fake call should be held responsible for abusing resources- not a murder committed by a poorly trained or over-reactive officer. But no, we can't ever hold the people with guns responsible for there own poor decisions, officers in blue can't ever make mistakes. They're our "heroes". The sad fact is government kidnaps and murders more people every year than all the serial murders and terrorists combined. The problem isn't prank calls or terrorism. It's poor training and an excessive number of police and military personal.
Take every call seriously, but don't shoot the first person within two seconds of him walking out the door. Far too many cops are scared chickenshits, or get-their-gun-off types, neither of which has any business being a cop or possessing a firearm.
Back in the day they wouldn't just kick the door down and go in with tactical teams every time they got a call. Obviously use SWAT when you need "Special Weapons And Tactics"... but if what you actually need to do is send some officers over to knock on a door.. .maybe do that instead.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I haven't followed much of these stories, I see lots of media and commentaries but no personal knowledge of situations calling for a SWAT team. It seems to me these events begin with one phone call from a single person that leads police to response like the military, similar to something looks funny so call in a airstrike with a few 2000lb bombs. If approaching this like the military, have a recon team to assess the situation before calling in the big stuff that leads to huge collateral damage. Or treat it like a crime instead of a war.
mfwright@batnet.com
America does not need SWAT teams. We don't need an occupying army with tanks and machine guns rampaging through our city streets.
Disband all SWAT team is now! Return to civilian policing!
For that once-a-year situation that's too much for normal cops to handle, that's why we have a National Guard. In the other 99.999% of the situations there is no need for a paramilitary response.