I would blame two factors for this shooting. The first is the extreme irresponsibility of both people involved in the prank call - the first for providing a fake address, and the second for going through with the prank. The second factor would be that the police officer apparently interpreted a man lowering his hands to waist-height as a threatening gesture.
America has a severe problem with how police interpret "threatening gestures", because in America, almost anyone can be carrying a gun and almost any motion with the hands towards a place where a gun might theoretically be concealed can be interpreted as them reaching for a gun. And officers are trained to shoot first. That's how innocent people get shot in the doorway of their own homes.
But, as said, the ultimate responsibility lies with the pair who instigated the call in the first place. Swatting is an incredibly dangerous practice, and too many assholes do not realise this.
Hawk of Battle said:
How... does this happen? Like, the guy doing the phone call was claiming HE was the one with the gun, according to that video in the second link, and presumably gave the wrong address, that he got from the guy he was pissed off at. But he was calling from a completely different address right? Do they not check where the phone call is coming from and see something doesn't add up? Shouldn't they have gone to HIS address?
Phone tracing isn't usually done that quickly. Police don't have devices on hand that trace cell phone calls to their point of origin. They would have to get in touch with the service provider and find out which cell towers were being used and then take a guess at the location from there.
They could get the billing address of the cell phone's owner fairly quickly, but that's just the billing address. It isn't reliable at all. If the police are assuming they're dealing with a criminal, they will assume the billing address is inaccurate.
In an emergency situation, where you are literally deploying a squad of guys as the call is being made, none of that is feasible.