Recent and related:<p><i>Man dies of a heart attack after minors swatted him over his rare Twitter handle</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900825" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27900825</a> - July 2021 (523 comments)
So evil, and for such a trifling thing. What a shame.<p>> <i>Other victims of the group told prosecutors their tormentors further harassed them by making false reports of child abuse to social services local to the target’s area, and false reports in the target’s name to local suicide prevention hotlines.</i><p>> <i>Eventually, when subjects of their harassment refused to sell or give up their Twitter and Instagram usernames, Sonderman and others would swat their targets — or make a false report to authorities in the target’s name with the intention of sending a heavily armed police response to that person’s address.</i>
I know everyone wants to be upset at the "swatter" but few people seem to be upset that it is even possible. It shouldn't be possible to be murdered from a phone call.
The problem is the militarization of the American police force. I have been on countless raids in both Iraq and Afghanistan and very rarely did we ever do “no-knock” type raids. Most of the time we just surround the compound, throw a banger in the front lawn and ask for the occupants to exit the building. Most of the time they did. So if “no-knock” raids weren’t the status quo in a war zone than it shouldn’t be the standard in American suburbs. This isn’t Fallujah…
Does Swatting exist in any other country that is not the USA? Because I see two problems here, one is the criminal that make the calls, the other is what it seems a severely lack of training of the Swat teams.
That's not an appropriate punishment. This should have been first degree murder. There was intention to create risk of injury or death.<p>Also, there were other crimes committed that should have increased the severity of the crime.<p>1) This was an attempt to rob the victim of the "@tennessee" Twitter handle.<p>2) The perpetrator has done this before.<p>3) This was a false police report that put not only the victim, but also the police force in danger. It also reduced the ability of the police to respond to actual emergencies.<p>Totally underwhelming punishment.
It isn't nearly enough time, he'll be out in 2 years. He fucking killed someone and he's walking away with a slap on the wrist. Fuck that guy.
Darknet Diaries' latest episode covers this exact same scenario. It includes the story of someone getting harassed by cybercriminals through SIM attacks, pizza deliveries, threatening relatives, threatening SWATing, and other evil behavior.<p><a href="https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/97/" rel="nofollow">https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/97/</a>
Coincidentally, the latest episode of Darknet Diaries tells the story of a similar victim.[0] Again, the goal was to capture their Instagram username. Similar antics employed. Fortunately, it doesn’t end in tragedy.<p>[0] <a href="https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/97/" rel="nofollow">https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/97/</a>