75 comments

  • joshumax an hour ago

    > 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.

      autoexec 43 minutes ago

      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.

        aleksandrm 10 minutes ago

        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.

      0cf8612b2e1e an hour ago

      SWAT team had a KPI target to meet. Not enough calls and they get less military surplus gear.

      ndiddy 40 minutes ago

      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.

        0cf8612b2e1e 33 minutes ago

        Sounds like a FOIA request: how many of those cops are on the “no SWAT” list they refuse to extend to the couple.

      parineum 29 minutes ago

      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.

        rectang 9 minutes ago

        Since we’re being totally unreasonable here…

        The obvious solution is for the cops to move in with the couple and point their AR-15s at them 24/7.

  • viraptor 3 minutes ago

    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.

  • valleyer an hour ago

    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.

      autoexec 22 minutes ago

      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 getting much more severe consequences.

      blooalien an hour ago

      > 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.

        pdonis 39 minutes ago

        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.

          vachina 34 minutes ago

          High trust society and high HDI.

          Act now (to reduce potential loss of life) and verify later

            pdonis 28 minutes ago

            > 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.

            yongjik 11 minutes ago

            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.

        rectang 25 minutes ago

        The cops are accomplices and need to be prosecuted now. There’s no need to wait until forever for the cops to track down the false reporters providing them with an excuse to live out their sadistic fantasies and terrorize ordinary citizens.

        valleyer 43 minutes ago

        Definitely. But I've at least heard about the people doing the false reports being prosecuted, even if not consistently enough for my liking.

  • flourish_dev an hour ago

    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.

  • hakunin 29 minutes ago

    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?

      0xfffafaCrash 19 minutes ago

      > 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…

        hakunin 18 minutes ago

        Most of the world doesn't live in a country with second amendment.

          0xfffafaCrash 2 minutes ago

          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 saner options 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 anonymous tip of violent crime without any evidence must necessarily be responded to as legitimate at a level requiring military style intervention. There are just no better approaches

          taytus 15 minutes ago

          Most of the world is sane

      mchanson 25 minutes ago

      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.

        mrmuagi 14 minutes ago

        The swatters then can exploit this to commit crimes against the person, no?

          pixl97 9 minutes ago

          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.

        creato 13 minutes ago

        This is just handing harassers a foolproof method for avoiding police intervention if they wanted to harass (or worse) in person.

          pixl97 7 minutes ago

          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.

        what 16 minutes ago

        You would prefer that cops never respond to a call for your address? What happens when you actually need them?

          fwip 10 minutes ago

          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.

          bdangubic 15 minutes ago

          2A

      john01dav 12 minutes ago

      > 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

      pixl97 14 minutes ago

      >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.

        hakunin 7 minutes ago

        So a crime recipe is:

        1. Swat somebody for months. 2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.

      autoexec 8 minutes ago

      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 house.

        hakunin 6 minutes ago

        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?

      linsomniac 19 minutes ago

      >isn’t much they can do

      How about: Track down and identify the person making these calls?

      mrheosuper 13 minutes ago

      Investigating and solving the real root cause ? Who reported the crime, trace back to the troll ?

      sdf4j 23 minutes ago

      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.

        diydsp 12 minutes ago

        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?

      spicyusername 24 minutes ago

      ...not responding to a swat call for the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth, or fiftieth time...

        chihuahua 20 minutes ago

        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.]

        parineum 21 minutes ago

        How do you know which one is real?

          shagie 12 minutes ago

          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.

      Geonode 22 minutes ago

      No need for residential raids. You know where the person is. Wait outside. Hostages? Wait out of sight. Eventually they come out.

        what 14 minutes ago

        I’m glad you’re not in charge.

  • failbuffer 43 minutes ago

    We've really got to rein in qualified immunity in this country. That and civil asset forfeiture.

      flourish_dev 33 minutes ago

      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.

        quacked 19 minutes ago

        Ending the tax preparation industry as well

      searealist 42 minutes ago

      In Canada?

        shagie 40 minutes ago

        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.

        badc0ffee 39 minutes ago

        The story takes place in the US. The only Canadian connection is that CBC convered the story, and Norm was Canadian.

        SpecialistK 39 minutes ago

        Milwaukee is in Canada?

  • hyperhello an hour ago

    This is one of those things where someday people will not believe this was common enough that there was a word for it.

  • wolfi1 4 minutes ago

    wouldn't that qualify as gross negligence?

  • WSSP an hour ago

    the worst thing about all this swatting is the hypocrisy

  • throwawaymazzie 9 minutes ago

    story seems fake. if it is real, and police will 'swat' any place based on anonymous phone calls... then why doesn't some foreign adversary use *67 and have every VIP person in america swatted 24/7? or important places of businesses? like... WHAT? you could destroy america this way. apparently, they HAVE to swat them, because, as the article says, NOT swatting them would could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers". yeah right...

  • hackernud3s 13 minutes ago

    These Norm fans sound like real jerks.

  • sans_souse 41 minutes ago

    Wait, before I rush to judgment someone tell me what they said about Normy...

      whimsicalism 39 minutes ago

      “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

  • tintor 24 minutes ago

    So, this will continue every two weeks?

      shagie 22 minutes ago

      This happened between July of 2022 and April of 2023. Thirty five weeks.

  • whimsicalism 39 minutes ago

    “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.

  • Teever an hour ago

    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?

  • carimura an hour ago

    Norm Macdonald IS funny though....

      hackernud3s 14 minutes ago

      WAS funny. Apparently he died. I didn't even know he was sick.

      RajT88 44 minutes ago

      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.

        slibhb 25 minutes ago

        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.

  • silverFork an hour ago

    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."

      ks2048 39 minutes ago

      > from his grave

      I didn’t even know he was sick.