> On Aug. 3, 2022, one officer sent a memo to the acting police captain requesting the couple's home be marked as a "swatter house." The captain declined, saying it could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers.”
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.
I think they'll just take any excuse to LARP as soldiers, play with guns, and bully people. They know they don't have to worry about facing any consequences for their actions so they can do whatever they like.
> 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.
Well, now we have some idea why police can’t find the resources to prioritize retail theft — there’s no budget left after responding to all the fake SWAT calls.
I think they should be more concerned with public safety. If the couple asks them to stop, maybe but if they are slow to respond to those calls because of the history, they're going to get skewered when a real call comes in.
This has a side story from some years ago of Patrick trying to act against the forums organising the swatting... and Cloudflare sending lawyers to explain how they can't help with anything, even though it's their customers. Cloudflare spent actual money on lawyers to ensure someone continues to be swatted. Something to keep in mind next time you choose a vendor. It's not only the police and the individual swatters that are a problem here.
At some point, the responding local police should be held criminally liable. A tiny brass badge should not shield you from having to comply with society's laws.
> At some point, the responding local police should be held criminally liable.
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.
I'm guessing the calls were anonymous, and the police didn't bother tracing the numbers.
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.
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.
Ignoring that "high trust society" is a dog whistle for xenophobia... it still doesn't make sense because in an actual "high trust" society, police officers breaking down the door of an innocent resident will make news the first time. By the third time, people will demand answers about what the fuck is wrong with police training process to make them think they can do this. Preferably, heads will roll.
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.
Having that badge should cause you to be held to a higher level of accountability. Abusing the power given to you by being an officer should mean receiving much more severe consequences.
The trouble with that logic, as the US courts figured out, was that if the police could be held accountable for misdeeds done while allegedly doing their job then so could other public officials, like judges.
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.
It doesn't follow logically at all. The origins of judicial immunity have distinct historical roots, just as Congressional speech & debate immunity has distinct roots.
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.)
> The trouble with that logic, as the US courts figured out, was that if the police could be held accountable for misdeeds done while allegedly doing their job then so could other public officials, like judges.
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.
This is primarily a failure of the police, but second place goes to data brokers and anyone who collects unnecessary data and doesn't secure it. A flood of personal information already leaks illegally through cybercrime and companies not protecting data, and we haven't even stopped the huge legal industry of public-info data brokers. You shouldn't be able to look up an email or phone number and get someone's family and address.
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.
There's so many common sense, bipartisan things like those. A few are are uncapping the house, a federal holiday for election day, stock trading ban for politicians, data broker loophole, warrant requirement for your data on service providers.
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.
It's the CBC reporting on it in here, but the location was Milwaukee.
> 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.
So many replies here are blaming the police but despite how screwed up the situation is there isn’t much they can do. Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.
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
After the first 40 false calls about that address they should probably perform at least 5 minutes of investigation to try to verify if there are actually any signs that a real crime being committed. That kind of "police work" where you figure out who is in the home and what is happening is pretty important.
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.
This police work should be happening all the time, I agree, but it cannot happen during a swat call (there isn't enough time). And if it doesn't yield results, are you to stop showing up?
I mean, yes? After repeated swattings you should at the very least limit your response to driving by to have a look around. Maybe peak into some windows. Maybe see who is in the house and where they are (https://www.policemag.com/articles/first-look-seeing-through...). At most knock on the door politely, apologize profusely for the interruption, explain that you know about the swatting situation and ask if you can take a quick peak around to make sure that nobody is actually holding a bunch of hostages just for the report.
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.
This is an amazing top comment. Like maybe almost anything. So many better options. For one if I were the subject of this harassment I would prefer the cops to never come.
Attempting to target a person that is being harassed is a great way to end up under a tombstone. Swatters are scared ass punks that play games with other peoples lives and not their own.
All you're saying is that likelihood of swatters committing additional crime is low, but there is still likelihood. There can be others taking advantage of this situation (or also mad at the couple), who are in fact willing to commit more serious crimes.
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.
Swatters are little bitches on the internet in some other state hiding behind proxies, not some hardened criminals.
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.
I can't understand why so many people are replying like this. This part of the public service is for quality of life and security. If someone has more of those without the "service", of course they'd want to call it off and assume the risk.
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.
Police is not like most services, where you can hire and fire them at will. If you (or anyone else) called police to complain about a domestic situation, once they're involved, you are no longer in control of when they get uninvolved. I'm not saying "this is good" or "bad", but it is how it was setup, and there were good reasons for this.
The dedication to being unreasonable is truly impressive. A history of dozens of false alarms changes nothing? The only response possible, forever, even if it happens every day, is full SWAT?
If you actually need them, they wouldn't come. Or come and do nothing. As they've demonstrated when parents had to go inside a school to stop a shooter.
Personally, if I need them, I'll drive down to the cop store and let them know myself. Probably get there a lot quicker than the average cop-response time, too.
Iceland and Finland have only 4x fewer guns per capita and they don't have this problem. It's a big absolute number difference, but effectively means the availability is still really widespread.
Oh, you’re right. The US has gun rights so the only sane thing to do is for law enforcement to smash through the same home weekly heavily armed with guns whenever there’s an anonymous tip with no corroborating evidence. There are no better ways to spend law enforcement budget in a city like Milwaukee.
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.
The fact that police shows up late doesn't change the fact that it's still a deterrent that they do show up, and you could be the unlucky one that had police show up in time.
But this seems like a good crime recipe:
1. Swat somebody for months.
2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.
Well before the 55th call they should have started investigating the origin of those calls and find the people making them. I'm not familiar with the US jurisdictions so maybe they are outside the one of Milwaukee police, but the people making those calls are toying with the Milwaukee police too, not only with the two victims. Then there are Federal investigations. Eventually that cost Milwaukee half a million.
Unfortunately, while this is a good story, police doesn't have the power to fish out and stop random internet trolls all around the country. I see a lot of this sentiment "why can't they just", but it's an unrealistic view of what's actually possible. I'm all for it in theory.
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.
Basically, 9-1-1 Dispatch relies on the fact that it's a grievous crime and very unglamorous to make a fake report or troll the operator. 9-1-1 needs to remain as credulous as possible, and err on the side of false positives, lest they gain a negative public image.
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.
> 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?
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.
You have the phone numbers of the residents on hand. When getting a report of a house that's known to be swatted frequently, call both numbers and verify.
> 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.
Do police in the US has any unified system for dispatchers to track the history of incidents/resolutions? Just wondering if they could start making notes there for future calls, I guess it would be useful in general but not sure if they have/allowed to have something like that.
55 times over two years, so basically every two weeks on average?
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?
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
The problem seems to be that a certain tribe of always online far-right leaning sociopaths have decided MacDonald is one of them.
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.
I'm a huge Norm fan. Having watched his many interviews, seen and listened to his stand-up, seen his podcast and netflix show many times, I can say that he was clearly quite conservative, though not a bigot or hateful.
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.
> Having watched his many interviews, seen and listened to his stand-up, seen his podcast and netflix show many times, I can say that he was clearly quite conservative, though not a bigot or hateful.
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.
> These people feel he was part of their little tribe, is what I am saying.
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.
We don't really know if he was a conservative because he was always doing a bit. The only thing we know for sure about him is that he was a deeply closeted gay fella.
Zooming out a bit, it's pretty scary to think of what's coming next if Dems do what seems looming in the mid-terms. The police riots, their willingness to flout the legislative body and cause torment against cities they are nominally supposed to be protecting is going to be deep trouble. Word nothing of what ICE is going to do!
Vought has seized the power of the purse from Congress, and Congress has so far let him get away with it. What happens when Congress starts actually trying to legislate, and the police and ICE just... don't comply seems all too likely a confrontation.
Norm Macdonald would be telling this as a joke and laughing from his grave if it wasn't a tragedy.. It is not April!
" 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'd be putting a big sign out the front of my house explaining the situation to the cops and hoping they stop to read it before they storm in. I don't know if it would work but worth doing something. It's extremely strange to me that there was no coordination for the police to be able to say: "this guy has been swatted before, he's a victim, maybe we shouldn't proceed?"
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...
Read the article. The police were well aware. They're on body/doorbell cams multiple times commenting that "this house always gets swatted" or otherwise acknowledging that the call is probably fake. Then they run in guns blazing anyway. They know. They don't care. They enjoy doing this.
> On Aug. 3, 2022, one officer sent a memo to the acting police captain requesting the couple's home be marked as a "swatter house." The captain declined, saying it could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers.”
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.
I think they'll just take any excuse to LARP as soldiers, play with guns, and bully people. They know they don't have to worry about facing any consequences for their actions so they can do whatever they like.
So much this. I don't know if ever had a "serious" police force, maybe we did or didn't. But surely we don't anymore, what we have know is a joke.
SWAT team had a KPI target to meet. Not enough calls and they get less military surplus gear.
The cops know it's fake, but they enjoy driving over and yelling and waving guns around, so they don't care. From another news article about this guy (https://www.tmj4.com/about-us/lighthouse/people-have-died-th...):
> 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.
Sounds like a FOIA request: how many of those cops are on the “no SWAT” list they refuse to extend to the couple.
Well, now we have some idea why police can’t find the resources to prioritize retail theft — there’s no budget left after responding to all the fake SWAT calls.
[dead]
I think they should be more concerned with public safety. If the couple asks them to stop, maybe but if they are slow to respond to those calls because of the history, they're going to get skewered when a real call comes in.
They'll be slow to respond to a single house.
[flagged]
This has a side story from some years ago of Patrick trying to act against the forums organising the swatting... and Cloudflare sending lawyers to explain how they can't help with anything, even though it's their customers. Cloudflare spent actual money on lawyers to ensure someone continues to be swatted. Something to keep in mind next time you choose a vendor. It's not only the police and the individual swatters that are a problem here.
Not only that, but according to another article, the victim had to pay the stalker/site operator after losing the case.
>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 responding local police should be held criminally liable. A tiny brass badge should not shield you from having to comply with society's laws.
> At some point, the responding local police should be held criminally liable.
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.
I'm guessing the calls were anonymous, and the police didn't bother tracing the numbers.
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.
High trust society and high HDI.
Act now (to reduce potential loss of life) and verify later
> High trust society
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.
I said high trust not high intelligence. Your law enforcement gives blanket trust to reports, because in a high trust society false report is rare.
Ignoring that "high trust society" is a dog whistle for xenophobia... it still doesn't make sense because in an actual "high trust" society, police officers breaking down the door of an innocent resident will make news the first time. By the third time, people will demand answers about what the fuck is wrong with police training process to make them think they can do this. Preferably, heads will roll.
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.
Definitely. But I've at least heard about the people doing the false reports being prosecuted, even if not consistently enough for my liking.
[flagged]
Having that badge should cause you to be held to a higher level of accountability. Abusing the power given to you by being an officer should mean receiving much more severe consequences.
The trouble with that logic, as the US courts figured out, was that if the police could be held accountable for misdeeds done while allegedly doing their job then so could other public officials, like judges.
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.
It doesn't follow logically at all. The origins of judicial immunity have distinct historical roots, just as Congressional speech & debate immunity has distinct roots.
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.)
> The trouble with that logic, as the US courts figured out, was that if the police could be held accountable for misdeeds done while allegedly doing their job then so could other public officials, like judges.
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.
This is primarily a failure of the police, but second place goes to data brokers and anyone who collects unnecessary data and doesn't secure it. A flood of personal information already leaks illegally through cybercrime and companies not protecting data, and we haven't even stopped the huge legal industry of public-info data brokers. You shouldn't be able to look up an email or phone number and get someone's family and address.
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.
We've really got to rein in qualified immunity in this country. That and civil asset forfeiture.
There's so many common sense, bipartisan things like those. A few are are uncapping the house, a federal holiday for election day, stock trading ban for politicians, data broker loophole, warrant requirement for your data on service providers.
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.
Ending the tax preparation industry as well
In Canada?
It's the CBC reporting on it in here, but the location was Milwaukee.
> 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.
The story takes place in the US. The only Canadian connection is that CBC convered the story, and Norm was Canadian.
Milwaukee is in Canada?
So many replies here are blaming the police but despite how screwed up the situation is there isn’t much they can do. Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.
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".
> What real solutions are there?
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
After the first 40 false calls about that address they should probably perform at least 5 minutes of investigation to try to verify if there are actually any signs that a real crime being committed. That kind of "police work" where you figure out who is in the home and what is happening is pretty important.
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.
This police work should be happening all the time, I agree, but it cannot happen during a swat call (there isn't enough time). And if it doesn't yield results, are you to stop showing up?
I mean, yes? After repeated swattings you should at the very least limit your response to driving by to have a look around. Maybe peak into some windows. Maybe see who is in the house and where they are (https://www.policemag.com/articles/first-look-seeing-through...). At most knock on the door politely, apologize profusely for the interruption, explain that you know about the swatting situation and ask if you can take a quick peak around to make sure that nobody is actually holding a bunch of hostages just for the report.
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.
This is an amazing top comment. Like maybe almost anything. So many better options. For one if I were the subject of this harassment I would prefer the cops to never come.
This is just handing harassers a foolproof method for avoiding police intervention if they wanted to harass (or worse) in person.
Attempting to target a person that is being harassed is a great way to end up under a tombstone. Swatters are scared ass punks that play games with other peoples lives and not their own.
All you're saying is that likelihood of swatters committing additional crime is low, but there is still likelihood. There can be others taking advantage of this situation (or also mad at the couple), who are in fact willing to commit more serious crimes.
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.
The swatters then can exploit this to commit crimes against the person, no?
Swatters are little bitches on the internet in some other state hiding behind proxies, not some hardened criminals.
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.
As opposed to the status quo, where the swatters are exploiting the police's behavior to commit crimes against the person?
You would prefer that cops never respond to a call for your address? What happens when you actually need them?
I can't understand why so many people are replying like this. This part of the public service is for quality of life and security. If someone has more of those without the "service", of course they'd want to call it off and assume the risk.
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.
Police is not like most services, where you can hire and fire them at will. If you (or anyone else) called police to complain about a domestic situation, once they're involved, you are no longer in control of when they get uninvolved. I'm not saying "this is good" or "bad", but it is how it was setup, and there were good reasons for this.
The dedication to being unreasonable is truly impressive. A history of dozens of false alarms changes nothing? The only response possible, forever, even if it happens every day, is full SWAT?
If you actually need them, they wouldn't come. Or come and do nothing. As they've demonstrated when parents had to go inside a school to stop a shooter.
Personally, if I need them, I'll drive down to the cop store and let them know myself. Probably get there a lot quicker than the average cop-response time, too.
2A
> wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed
You say that as if most of the world doesn’t get by just fine without any militarized SWAT law enforcement units whatsoever…
Most of the world doesn't live in a country with second amendment.
Iceland and Finland have only 4x fewer guns per capita and they don't have this problem. It's a big absolute number difference, but effectively means the availability is still really widespread.
Oh, you’re right. The US has gun rights so the only sane thing to do is for law enforcement to smash through the same home weekly heavily armed with guns whenever there’s an anonymous tip with no corroborating evidence. There are no better ways to spend law enforcement budget in a city like Milwaukee.
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
Most of the world is sane
> What real solutions are there?
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.
>Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.
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.
The fact that police shows up late doesn't change the fact that it's still a deterrent that they do show up, and you could be the unlucky one that had police show up in time.
But this seems like a good crime recipe:
1. Swat somebody for months.
2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.
>isn’t much they can do
How about: Track down and identify the person making these calls?
Well before the 55th call they should have started investigating the origin of those calls and find the people making them. I'm not familiar with the US jurisdictions so maybe they are outside the one of Milwaukee police, but the people making those calls are toying with the Milwaukee police too, not only with the two victims. Then there are Federal investigations. Eventually that cost Milwaukee half a million.
Unfortunately, while this is a good story, police doesn't have the power to fish out and stop random internet trolls all around the country. I see a lot of this sentiment "why can't they just", but it's an unrealistic view of what's actually possible. I'm all for it in theory.
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.
No one asks them to fish out all the internet troll, just fish out the one that does 55 swatting-call, which, i bet is not that many
Basically, 9-1-1 Dispatch relies on the fact that it's a grievous crime and very unglamorous to make a fake report or troll the operator. 9-1-1 needs to remain as credulous as possible, and err on the side of false positives, lest they gain a negative public image.
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.
Investigating and solving the real root cause ? Who reported the crime, trace back to the troll ?
Easy, have policies for such situations. Just don’t show up like bin laden is hiding in the home if it’s the third fake call of the week.
And because their entire existence is to show up, you have a conflict of interests on how you answer the call.
Exactly. Call the residents to confirm. Drive to the location and look at the place first.
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?
> 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?
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.
...not responding to a swat call for the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth, or fiftieth time...
Fool me 54 times, shame on you. Fool me 55 times, you can't get fooled again.
[An old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee.]
How do you know which one is real?
You have the phone numbers of the residents on hand. When getting a report of a house that's known to be swatted frequently, call both numbers and verify.
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.
No need for residential raids. You know where the person is. Wait outside. Hostages? Wait out of sight. Eventually they come out.
I’m glad you’re not in charge.
Do police in the US has any unified system for dispatchers to track the history of incidents/resolutions? Just wondering if they could start making notes there for future calls, I guess it would be useful in general but not sure if they have/allowed to have something like that.
This is one of those things where someday people will not believe this was common enough that there was a word for it.
the worst thing about all this swatting is the hypocrisy
it's the actual swatting
and the scheming
Wait, before I rush to judgment someone tell me what they said about Normy...
“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."
shockingly mild
These Norm fans sound like real jerks.
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55 times over two years, so basically every two weeks on average?
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?
"Over two years" is "in 2022 and 2023".
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.
Wow.
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
“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."
…i was expecting something significantly more incendiary.
It’s Patrick Tomlinson, I’m pretty sure he’s been a well known “lolcow” for a half decade before that post. He wasn’t targeted because of that.
What do they hate this guy for?
i read that in norm's voice
Norm would have a funny story about this.
Norm Macdonald IS funny though....
He said he didn't do political jokes, except this one, from 2016:
"Americans hated Hillary Clinton so much, they voted for someone they hated even more."
WAS funny. Apparently he died. I didn't even know he was sick.
The problem seems to be that a certain tribe of always online far-right leaning sociopaths have decided MacDonald is one of them.
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.
I'm a huge Norm fan. Having watched his many interviews, seen and listened to his stand-up, seen his podcast and netflix show many times, I can say that he was clearly quite conservative, though not a bigot or hateful.
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.
> Having watched his many interviews, seen and listened to his stand-up, seen his podcast and netflix show many times, I can say that he was clearly quite conservative, though not a bigot or hateful.
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.
> These people feel he was part of their little tribe, is what I am saying.
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)
We don't really know if he was a conservative because he was always doing a bit. The only thing we know for sure about him is that he was a deeply closeted gay fella.
Zooming out a bit, it's pretty scary to think of what's coming next if Dems do what seems looming in the mid-terms. The police riots, their willingness to flout the legislative body and cause torment against cities they are nominally supposed to be protecting is going to be deep trouble. Word nothing of what ICE is going to do!
Vought has seized the power of the purse from Congress, and Congress has so far let him get away with it. What happens when Congress starts actually trying to legislate, and the police and ICE just... don't comply seems all too likely a confrontation.
Thanks for the excellent thread on this William F Fuckley, https://bsky.app/profile/opinionhaver.bsky.social/post/3mxag...
So, this will continue every two weeks?
This happened between July of 2022 and April of 2023. Thirty five weeks.
wouldn't that qualify as gross negligence?
Norm Macdonald would be telling this as a joke and laughing from his grave if it wasn't a tragedy.. It is not April!
" 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."
> from his grave
I didn’t even know he was sick.
I'd be putting a big sign out the front of my house explaining the situation to the cops and hoping they stop to read it before they storm in. I don't know if it would work but worth doing something. It's extremely strange to me that there was no coordination for the police to be able to say: "this guy has been swatted before, he's a victim, maybe we shouldn't proceed?"
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...
Read the article. The police were well aware. They're on body/doorbell cams multiple times commenting that "this house always gets swatted" or otherwise acknowledging that the call is probably fake. Then they run in guns blazing anyway. They know. They don't care. They enjoy doing this.
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Relevant court documents: https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/wiscon...
Seemingly not fake.
*67 just stops the call recipient's phone from displaying caller ID, your phone company still knows what number you dialed