SWAT Raids Counter-Strike Player Live on Twitch
- Thread starter IanDavis
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Oh did he now? I'm sure his defense lawyer is going to absolutely love that. Seriously, that is utterly unacceptable. Not only did they endanger someone for about the most petty conceivable reason, they've also put themselves in a situation where the police are less likely to respond to complaints from anyone using that phone number. Way to go, you utter ********** ****.Th37thTrump3t said:
I don't get the prank pizza call either; it's not as if the recipient is on the hook for the pizza. Best case scenario is a minor annoyance to a corporate chain, but more likely you've (depending on the size of the order) just wiped out the days profits for the pizzeria, and worst case royally screwed the delivery person. In any case, none of the victims are even the target of the angst.Gearhead mk2 said:
Shadow-Phoenix said:
Alright there, Judge Dredd, you may want to calm down just a little bit....
Although such threats should be taken very seriously. One would think that they would investigate before storming a random house with lethal weapons. Especially in the US where there is a huge risk that the person living there is armed even if they are innocent. Btw, what happened to the old "Surround the house and use a megaphone to give them a chance to surrender"? Surely acting like actual police and not a mafia hit squad would bring down the number of innocent lives being lost.RatherDull said:
SanguiniusMagnificum said:
OT: This is actually the first time ever heard of this being done as a prank. What a dumb fucking thing to do, like seriously, what kind of douchebag would do shit like this?
I was actually under the impressions that the calls tend to allege an imminent danger situation with an armed assailant eg "HELP!!! He has a knife and is trying to kill me and my children". If it is a real call, the police cannot afford to wait and when they go in they have to be prepared for walking into a lethal situation.Angelowl said:
Ashton Kutcher. I remember "swatting" becoming famous when he started to "swat" some celebrities on Punk'd. Because obviously calling a team of heavily trained, trigger-happy, dog-killing (seriously, these guys apparently have a "shoot on sight" mentality when they see a dog during a mission) paramilitaries just for the lulz is considered comedy gold by some people....Kungfu_Teddybear said:SanguiniusMagnificum said:
OT: This is actually the first time ever heard of this being done as a prank. What a dumb fucking thing to do, like seriously, what kind of douchebag would do shit like this?
This is why we can't have nice things. I'm fucking sick of this kind of shit, and I honestly CANNOT believe that ANYONE could be THIS petty and stupid. I know people think the phrase is dumb, but this is the shit that makes me lose faith in humanity. THIS KIND OF CRAP is one of many reasons why I, and so many other people these days, are so fucking cynical.
That did not look like a legit raid... no actual SWAT team would casually strolls through the house checking once under the bead during a damn raid. It is possible he calmed them down but I would far sooner call this a cosplay prank.
And if we aren't clear why someone would even do that, this stream is now advertised on almost every gaming site.
And if we aren't clear why someone would even do that, this stream is now advertised on almost every gaming site.
Or the guy who tried to hold up a police station with his 'gun' being his hand stuffed in his pocket.zalithar said:
On topic... wow. This is pretty awful stuff to do. Dangerous,, wasteful... whether your being spiteful over losing a game or just doing it for the Lulz... not good. not good at all.
Well, in a country where Police Officers get gunned down at the rate of two per week and mass shootings take place at the rate of one every other month, I can understand why the Police would be particularly humourless about these things.Zulnam said:
Sods law says that the first time you don't take a phone call about a kid with guns threatening to murder everybody at face value is the one time it's completely true.
Having said that, they do need to figure out a way of screening these calls somehow. When it's happening enough to have it's own name it's happening too much, plus ultimately it's the Police who come out of it looking paranoid and violent.
...and this is why the whole "win or else" mentality needs to die alongside "the customer is always right" and "EA has our best interests in mind" as valid points of view...
As nielas already said, Swatting usually involves fabricating an immediate murder in progress, or an active shooter on on the property, something that pretty much every law and procedure in the Western world requires you to go in as soon as possible, and be prepared for a deadly situation.Angelowl said:
Surrounding the house and calling in with a bullhorn is only done if the situation involves hostages, and a hostage taker willing to make demands, in the case of an active shooter or ongoing murder, surrounding the premises basically just allows the killer to murder everyone inside before generally killing themselves after everyone on the premises is dead.
Swatting is something that's been around for awhile, and those who do the research generally know what to say to get SWAT to show up armed, they aren't calling to report that the homeowner is growing pot, as that won't result in a SWAT team kicking down the door. Swatting pranksters know that you have to make it look like people are already dying and the perpetrator is heavily armed to get the response they desire.
The police aren't acting like a mafia hit squad when they respond like this, they are acting in defense of their own lives and those around them. They don't want to end up like the multiple murders that happen every year that involve cops responding to reports on more minor crimes, and get gunned down by panicking homeowners or criminals when they show up to a house and just knock on the door, they especially aren't going to take half measures if someone is reporting an active shooter in the vicinity.
Situations like this might be able to be mitigated if dispatchers make it a habit of tracing phone calls to make sure they are coming from in the vicinity, or at least making sure that the calls are coming from the same city, but I don't know the technical hurdles that might be involved in something like that, and that would only really stop people from swatting people in different cities, and even then only if they are using a landline as cell phones would generally take too long to trace before the SWAT team has already shown up.
From what I've heard and read, it was multiple people that were behind this particular instance, not just a singular person. I get a feeling even in cases where it is a single person, they probably call multiple times, just to make sure their little "prank" works.Zulnam said:
EDIT: Why did you post this when I went to go back and add something, computer?
Depends on what the crime was reported as, if it was a bomb threat, then no, they likely would have done a more thorough check, but if the report was a hostage situation or active shooting, then yes, the SWAT has no real reason to do a thorough search if the homeowner can prove their identity and report that the call wasn't made by them. A lot of it is up to police discretion, but nothing in that video looked out of the ordinary compared to what I've seen in the past out of our local police. Hell, even if it was a bomb threat, if a hoax can be clearly established early on, then the police have the authority to stop searching whenever they want.Smooth Operator said:
To share a personal story, my father once had the SWAT team called on him because he carried an old rifle he recieved from his godfather into his business to show off to an employee of his that was a Vietnam vet. A lady in the building next door saw him and called the police to report that she thought it was some crazy guy who was going to shoot up an office building.
The SWAT team promptly showed up and pretty much entered the building where it surprised the hell out of my father, but after explaining the situation to the SWAT team and the sheriff outside, they had a good laugh about it, took some pictures with him holding the gun, then left without searching the building or anything beyond that. EDIT: he did have to fill out a police report on what the events were to his recollection, but that was pretty much it.
Thank you, both of you. That makes a lot more sense and gives them a lot more credibility. My viewpoint was/is tainted by the cases where they take the wrong house, storm in and start killing people because the inhabitant dared to pull a gun in self defense.EternallyBored said:
Can they track down the phone number afterwards when it has been confirmed to be a hoax, to arrest the one who made the "joke"?
It's understandable, SWAT teams are intimidating as hell, and there are certainly valid fears surrounding the stories of SWAT raids gone bad, with innocent people or officers dying or being shot over something stupid. Police aren't perfect, and there are certainly cases where excessive force has been inappropriately used and I would even agree that some areas of law enforcement could use some policy changes, especially in the War on drugs.Angelowl said:
On the flipside, pretty much every officer I know is inundated with stories, or personally attended the funeral of a coworker that was shot during a home visit, because the situation was more serious than the officer believed, or they were taken by surprise after entering the home. In most cases, SWAT calls amount to very little, the situation is almost always defused without shots being fired or anyone dying. Something like 95% of all hostage situations involving SWAT and police are resolved without death to anyone, the scary rifles and armor are there for safety and most times SWAT manages to resolve situations without violence.
As with this case, the police likely came in saw nothing was wrong, did a cursory check to make sure there weren't any hostages stuffed in the closet, then left after confirming with dispatch that nothing was out of order. Police in many areas know what swatting is and I've seen some of the state issued memos released that warn departments about the practice and to be aware that false calls are always a possibility.
As for tracking the phone number, if you make a call serious enough to get SWAT called out, then they will usually try to track the number down. With landlines this can be pretty easy and fast depending on the circumstances, and it can be quickly chalked up to a prank if someone is calling from a landline in another city. If that call comes from a payphone then the chances of catching the person are pretty much zero, except in cases like this where it looks like someone admitted to doing it over Twitter. Cell phones are another matter entirely, and while they will generally try to trace it, it takes quite a bit of time, and involves triangulating roughly where the initial call came from and would only take place well after SWAT has shown up and assessed the situation. Unfortunately, most prankster will likely be caught because they bragged about it somewhere or they used a home landline, any caller with even a modicum of knowledge about how calls are traced can likely circumvent the police, unless they do something serious enough to get the FBI after them, most precincts outside of major metropolitan cities will likely lack the means to reliably catch such people.