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[Loud Whispers]

Also, I'm surprised there wasn't some sort of crackdown on the practice since it was mentioned that it happens as many as 400 times a year, that's a lot of people doing it even if they're a tiny minority of the entire gaming community.

As a minor point of information, while the COD community is pure cancer, this phenomenon neither originates nor is isolated to xbox gamers or gamers in general, being one of those features present to the internet hate machine. It's the lethalest form of infinite pizza delivery/free qu'ran shenanigens that people online direct at people whose publicly available information is... Publicly available.

[EnigmaticHat]

While I get enigmatichat's point about people making honest mistakes, it's all about the intent here. Sure, people do dumb things, but if you're 'swatting' someone, you aren't unintentionally doing it, you're doing it in a way that is intentional.

To be clear because I realize that was ambiguous: my point was that SWAT teams are going to called on false positives eventually regardless, and they need to be prepared for that.  Obviously swatters are making this happen far more often than it otherwise would.  And I don't question that, lethal outcome aside, the trio did this intentionally and maliciously.

[SalmonGod]

For me it's less what-if and more... we allow paranoia as an excuse for everything police do, except suddenly it's ok for them not to be paranoid about the validity of a random phone call that requires a dangerous operation only if true.

For fucks sake, the guy made the swatting call from California, and the victim was in Kansas.  That is OBVIOUSLY not a local phone #, and should be immediate cause for questioning.  Right there, they could have looked up how long family at the address had been living there.  If very long, and the call is coming from an area code severeal states away - probably fake.  I just listened to the second portion of the 911 call, where the 911 operator called him back after he had hung up and he answered the phone with an upbeat "what up".  Also just saw the bodycam footage that was released, and the victim was still in the threshold of his front door when he was shot.  WTF.  This is all kinds of stupid.

[smjjames]

You are aware that there are ways to make a phone call appear to be coming from somewhere else rather than the actual origin, right?

edit: Not sure what checking how long the family had lived at an address would change anything...

edit2: Still, hindsight is 20/20 and there are ways and things that could have been done that might have prevented this.

[SalmonGod]

Looking into that.  I see references to popular ways that swatters mask their phone #s, but not make the # appear like it's from somewhere else.  I know both are possible but thought that was something decently advanced to do.  Wasn't aware how easy and common the former had become more recently.

edit: Not sure what checking how long the family had lived at an address would change anything...

I admit I've never moved out of state, so I don't know what influences changes in phone # associated with that.  But I'd think if they'd lived their for very long yet the phone # is still registered to an area code thousands of miles away that would be a red flag.  Of course, someone masking their phone # yet freely giving their address should be also, imo.

edit2: Still, hindsight is 20/20 and there are ways and things that could have been done that might have prevented this.

This is something I say at my job when I make a mistake that costs the company $50, and it doesn't get me off the hook.

[smjjames]

edit2: Still, hindsight is 20/20 and there are ways and things that could have been done that might have prevented this.

This is something I say at my job when I make a mistake that costs the company $50, and it doesn't get me off the hook.

I didn't say that anybody would be off the hook just because hindsight is 20/20.

[SalmonGod]

edit2: Still, hindsight is 20/20 and there are ways and things that could have been done that might have prevented this.

This is something I say at my job when I make a mistake that costs the company $50, and it doesn't get me off the hook.

I didn't say that anybody would be off the hook just because hindsight is 20/20.

No, but it's something I'm accustomed to hearing to that effect in every case where an innocent person dies in interaction with police.  And it's generally a saying that implies some cause for forgiveness.  So that's how I reflexively take it.

Honestly, swatting as a general practice should be attempted assault with a deadly weapon, if we want to be technical. The case against the officer is a different case.

I agree they are different cases.  The intent was with the swatter.  He's a piece of shit and deserves some serious consequences.

But the root of the problem isn't as clear as that.  Swatting is so popular, because we have a problem with our police being irresponsible in their use of force.

While Tyler Barriss bears responsibility for orchestrating this specific case, the law enforcement institution bears responsibility for creating the larger set of circumstances Tyler operates in.

[Starver]

Given the information the cops were given, I'd be willing to give them something of a benefit of the doubt regarding the instantaneous assessment of whether the victim¹ acted in bemused/confused ignorance of his accused role in inadvertently selling himself as an imminent danger.

There were things that went wrong (and I'm put in mind of Boots Riley's tale, here, except that he knew there could be a misunderstanding) but the spoofed scenario set the armed police (who have to overwhelmingly be prepared for hot situations) up against an entirely unprepared individual (who had no reasonable idea about the hotness happening around him).

And consider asking police attending a genuine potential murder/suicide scenario painstakingly explaining the entire situation to the potential murderer/suicidee to make sure they don't make any false moves whilst establishing the error. Actual potential M/Ss (most of them!) would take the opportunity to finish the job (execute the hostages, light the splashed fuel, take pot shots at any cop or bystander within sight and turn their weapon upon themself if they still found it necessary) instead of being tactically surprised and prevented from carrying out most of their plan.

I have no idea how I'd react to suddenly being confronted at my front door. I have very low odds of being confronted by armed police (UK, not US, plus not being in a location or vocation where anybody would have reason to expect me to be armed and/or dangerous) but armed police will still (even here in the UK) have a much higher odds of encountering an armed offender within each and every situation that they, specifically, have been called in to deal with.  It's an apparently asymetrical instance of game theory, but both skews of expectations are true.


I blame the "service provider", for the SWATting, as prime offender. Coldly having created multiple instances of such a scenario with increasingly refined "triggering" in his spoofs, he was always going to cause more than mere inconvenience if he didn't get caught first. The person who "put out the contract" might possibly have never realised what he was asking for in hot blood, but still was actively complicit and thus covered in whatever the reverse is of glory. I reserve judgement on the intended-'victim' who gave the wrong personal information, though - they have a degree of guilt if they knew they were directing the others' malicious efforts to a real person, but an aimless/undelinerate defensive redirection of such retributions (perhaps suspected, if at all, to be nothing more than the old Fast Food Delivery Overload trick).

For the police shooter, the answer is no easier. To play safe, there should be Administrative Leave and full investigation of the circumstances (for everyone to learn from, even if there's no blame at the end of it) would seem the obvious first step. Depriving the forces of law and order of someone now more experienced in handling these rare situations, at least temporarily, which doesn't immediately help evolve a better response team. One has to hope that the longer-term developments are worth the short-term purging.


¹ Inarguably, regardless of who you consider the perpetrator(s)

[Karnewarrior]

Perhaps the question we should be asking isn't "Why does this happen here?" and more "Why does this not happen elsewhere?"

I haven't heard much in the way of SWATting out of, say, Germany, despite hearing that their police are just as brutal if not more-so than ours. Perhaps we should do the responsible thing and rob them of their good ideas?

[Helgoland]

I haven't heard much in the way of SWATting out of, say, Germany, despite hearing that their police are just as brutal if not more-so than ours.

That information is about seventy years out of date.

Except for that one time a couple years ago that they set a refugee on fire in his holding cell.

[JoshuaFH]

Is it at all reasonable to have recommend that streamers register their names and addresses with local law enforcement, simply on the basis that false accusations might be called on them, to help defuse potential situations?

[smjjames]

Is it at all reasonable to have recommend that streamers register their names and addresses with local law enforcement, simply on the basis that false accusations might be called on them, to help defuse potential situations?

Wouldn't have helped this particular case which was a fake (as in not the players) address.

[SalmonGod]

Inequality marches on.

Jeff Bezos now world's richest person, and set to hit $100 billion net worth pretty soon.

Article talks about the Giving Pledge.  How all these billionaires have signed up to pledge to give away half their wealth.  But this was started in 2010, and the net worth of everyone who's signed on continues to skyrocket dramatically.  I have little faith in their ideas of charity.

[Sheb]

Perhaps the question we should be asking isn't "Why does this happen here?" and more "Why does this not happen elsewhere?"

I haven't heard much in the way of SWATting out of, say, Germany, despite hearing that their police are just as brutal if not more-so than ours. Perhaps we should do the responsible thing and rob them of their good ideas?

Well, our police tends to look first and shoot later.

[Zangi]

I'm pretty sure many pets were shot, as is standard safety-for-police-procedure during these swattings.

As it is though, police can't ignore calls making a convincing case of 'murder is about to happen'.