• ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 hours ago

    Everyone blames swatting on the person who called in a fake report, but swatting only works because the are idiots. Someone actually decided to bring 20 cars to an house legally owned by an 85 year old with a single unverified repot as their only evidence.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 hours ago

      It’s not that they’re idiots, though many cops are. It’s that they don’t get punished for falling for a SWATting attempt.

      If you could lose your career if you fell for it, they’d try a lot harder not to fall for it. But, instead, they never face punishment for being overly aggressive, and might face punishment for not being aggressive enough in the case of a real emergency.

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 hours ago

      In fairness, the police don’t have a list of who is in every house at all times. They don’t exactly have X-ray vision. All they know is that they got a call saying that someone is holding someone at gunpoint in this house.

      Of course, 20 cars is comically overkill

      • Leon@pawb.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        6 hours ago

        This sort of overreaction isn’t rare though. People have died from it.

        It’s also not exclusive to the U.S. We had a guy here in Sweden who got assaulted and practically kidnapped by masked men in the middle of the night. Guy thought he was going to die, and didn’t find out that they were police until they got him in the car and drove to the station.

        What was his horrible crime? He’d shared images via Yahoo mail of him and his 30 year old boyfriend having sex. Some American organisation trawled through Yahoo mail, flagged these images and videos as possible CSAM, and forwarded it to Swedish authorities. Our authorities, instead of you know, doing any kind of investigation, or summoning the guy to the police station, or even just arresting him in a calm and peaceful manner, decided that sending masked goons to raid his home in the middle of the night was the way to go.

        • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 hours ago

          Oh yeah, I’m fully aware. My own city made national headlines in my country a few years back when bastard pig Justin Rapp shot and killed Andrew Finch. SWATting should be considered attempted murder, and if a pig murders someone during a SWATting, they should be charged as well.

          Fun fact! Bastard pig Justin Rapp sued the city when they placed him on leave, and won. Now he’s a detective whose salary is paid by my tax dollars. Fuck the police