Can somebody tell me how SWATing is even allowed to work? I know that the right to confront witnesses against them only really applies to court trials rather than arrests or police work, but isn't it at least the fourth amendment and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure it affords reason enough for police not to act on anonymous, unverified "tips"?
I know that it is really the assholes on the internet who are attempting to use the police as their enforcers here, but it's also on the police because its militarization and the distrust between it and the public is being exploited here.
An exigent circumstance, in the criminal procedure law of the United States, allows law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to enter a structure without a search warrant or, if they have a "knock and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal. It must be a situation where people are in imminent danger, evidence faces imminent destruction, or a suspect's imminent escape.
If you're on patrol and someone stops you and says that they saw someone beating someone to death in the house right there, the police can force entry. If the person was lying then they are guilty of a crime, but that doesn't mean the cops were wrong to make entry.
Since SWATing usually involved some kind of spoofing to make it seem that the call came from the place being SWATed, or give a real enough call that the Police have to respond. If the call is something they would use a SWAT team for normally then they will, not knowing it's fake.
CNN interviewed political commentator Erick Erickson to discuss an incident in which he had been the victim of swatting. A caller to 911 gave Erickson's address as his own and claimed:
I just shot my wife, so.... I don't think I could come down there.... She's dead, now.... I'm looking at her.... I'm going to shoot someone else, soon. —911 caller[20]
Would you expect the Police not to try to make entry?
An exigent circumstance, in the criminal procedure law of the United States, allows law enforcement, under certain circumstances, to enter a structure without a search warrant or, if they have a "knock and announce" warrant, without knocking and waiting for refusal. It must be a situation where people are in imminent danger, evidence faces imminent destruction, or a suspect's imminent escape.
If you're on patrol and someone stops you and says that they saw someone beating someone to death in the house right there, the police can force entry. If the person was lying then they are guilty of a crime, but that doesn't mean the cops were wrong to make entry.
Since SWATing usually involved some kind of spoofing to make it seem that the call came from the place being SWATed, or give a real enough call that the Police have to respond. If the call is something they would use a SWAT team for normally then they will, not knowing it's fake.
CNN interviewed political commentator Erick Erickson to discuss an incident in which he had been the victim of swatting. A caller to 911 gave Erickson's address as his own and claimed:
I just shot my wife, so.... I don't think I could come down there.... She's dead, now.... I'm looking at her.... I'm going to shoot someone else, soon. —911 caller[20]
Would you expect the Police not to try to make entry? Even in a crazy situation like that, the SWAT team should reconnoiter the situation before breaking doors down. They can surround the house, look through the windows with some binoculars, realize they've been pranked, and leave without destroying someone's home.
Also, if a person like that calls, shouldn't some negotiator try to call them back and talk them down? When they call the number for that address, or call the prankster back, they'll realize it's a joke and save everyone a lot of trouble.
Yes, there are many real cases where they do need to make entry. But a lot of things should be happening between a report and a SWAT team breaking into someone's house that prevent someone's night from being ruined.
Let's say you have a police force that is much more hesitant to send the SWAT team in and smash into people's homes based on reports. This hesitance means they never get pranked, and no innocent home is ever raided. But one time they are too hesitant, and they don't barge in when it was a real incident. That's OK. It's more important that you didn't ruin those other people's nights.
I think part of the problem is the police having a sense of urgency in the issue, especially if the prankster is really convincing or otherwise gives them a reason to believe they're credible. No they don't feel they should scout out the place or make calls because they operate on the principle it is better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Initially during school shootings police were trained to wait, get their full team there, make a slow and careful entry.
Now they train that the few first officers make entry as fast as possible. Why? Because most school shootings are either one or two shooters and the deaths they cause usually happen at the beginning of the incident. The responding officers waiting to make entry has resulted in people being killed while they waited outside to get more forces ready.
I use the above as an example. In SWATing I think the police are screwed either way. If they wait to go in or treat it like a hoax and it was real they will be sued into oblivion in civil court. If they go in hard and it was fake then we already know what happens.
All SWAT teams do recon before making entry. The amount of recon they can do depends on so many factors which can't all be listed here but depend on the total danger of the call, previous history of the location (has it been swated before?), the nature of the buiding, can you see inside? Thankfully, unlike the media depiction, SWAT teams are not trigger happy monsters looking to shoot. There have been zero cases I'm aware of, of a SWATing resulting in someone innocent being killed.
This is not the case with no-knock warrants where innocent people have been killed and I'm not conflating the two.
If we look at this video, while it's not fun being yelled at and certainly not good to have the guns pointed at you, the police didn't kick the door in and throw a flashbang without checking first. I don't see any windows in that video, I doubt the officers could have seen what was happening inside before making entry.
If someone calls and says they are going to kill people and then doesn't answer the phone what do you do? Sure you can call back, but a SWATer isn't going to answer and a nutjob looking to kill may not either.
If you look a this video, specificly the 4th incident, the police come in calmly and politely check the situation out.
What they are not going to do is not check every room and ask every person if they are ok.
In the fifth interaction I'm not sure that footage is from the same incident, they are saying they have a search warrant, which you would not usually have time to get in a SWATing, nor do they need a warrant.
There have been zero cases I'm aware of, of a SWATing resulting in someone innocent being killed.
Lolwtf AaronC, are you really trying to defend sending the SWAT team (aka trained killers), to arrest people that aren't accused of violent crimes or in the process of committing a crime?
There have been zero cases I'm aware of, of a SWATing resulting in someone innocent being killed.
Lolwtf AaronC, are you really trying to defend sending the SWAT team (aka trained killers), to arrest people that aren't accused of violent crimes or in the process of committing a crime?
I don't think he is, but you'll notice they have exhibited much more restraint than a lot of beat cops lately.
There have been zero cases I'm aware of, of a SWATing resulting in someone innocent being killed.
Lolwtf AaronC, are you really trying to defend sending the SWAT team (aka trained killers), to arrest people that aren't accused of violent crimes or in the process of committing a crime?
Hardly. Obviously, actual professional and professionally-acting specialist police have the capacity to use discretion in their response to a possibly emergent and dangerous situation.
SWAT teams are probably well aware in most places in the US that "swatting" is a more common "prank" now than it used to be.
Interestingly, it was often mentioned in phreaking circles in the 80s and 90s as a useful weapon/tool in one's hacker arsenal. Yet, it rarely ever happened until the era of gomergate, kids who have never even heard of a blue box.
There have been zero cases I'm aware of, of a SWATing resulting in someone innocent being killed.
Lolwtf AaronC, are you really trying to defend sending the SWAT team (aka trained killers), to arrest people that aren't accused of violent crimes or in the process of committing a crime?
No, but that's not what I said.
I am not ok with SWATing, people who do it should go to jail. I do not have a problem with SWAT teams forcing entry into a residence when they have too if there has been a report of a crime in progress, in the manners we see in this video. Exigent circumstances are a legitimate reason to make entry into a house without a warrant.
In none of these SWATing cases was anyone in the houses arrested. We're not talking about no-knock raids conducted on the wrong house or other cases where the police have made a mistake, in some cases, willfully. We're talking about SWATing.
Here's the Times article on it. Note all the parts where the article mentions a claim from the police report and that the video shows that the police are straight up lying.
This isn't even the first time we've had conclusive evidence that the police reports in these situations are complete bunk. But people will still defend the police, because...I dunno.
This isn't even the first time we've had conclusive evidence that the police reports in these situations are complete bunk. But people will still defend the police, because...I dunno.
The people who defend this have a vested interest in the current system not changing the system or are fine with the targets of these murders.
Look at a story posted before the video was released. It's impressive how they are able to distort the narrative to justify, and also outright lie (CPR?). Thankfully there is such clear cut video, otherwise this would have just been blown over as other cases recently.
There was a raid and charges brought against two corrupt cops in Detroit recently. I can't find a news story on the net (googling "Detroit corrupt cop" brings up way too much to sift through), but these guys are being charged with robbery and extortion.
Comments
I know that it is really the assholes on the internet who are attempting to use the police as their enforcers here, but it's also on the police because its militarization and the distrust between it and the public is being exploited here.
Since SWATing usually involved some kind of spoofing to make it seem that the call came from the place being SWATed, or give a real enough call that the Police have to respond. If the call is something they would use a SWAT team for normally then they will, not knowing it's fake. Would you expect the Police not to try to make entry?
Since SWATing usually involved some kind of spoofing to make it seem that the call came from the place being SWATed, or give a real enough call that the Police have to respond. If the call is something they would use a SWAT team for normally then they will, not knowing it's fake. Would you expect the Police not to try to make entry? Even in a crazy situation like that, the SWAT team should reconnoiter the situation before breaking doors down. They can surround the house, look through the windows with some binoculars, realize they've been pranked, and leave without destroying someone's home.
Also, if a person like that calls, shouldn't some negotiator try to call them back and talk them down? When they call the number for that address, or call the prankster back, they'll realize it's a joke and save everyone a lot of trouble.
Yes, there are many real cases where they do need to make entry. But a lot of things should be happening between a report and a SWAT team breaking into someone's house that prevent someone's night from being ruined.
This is a similar philosophy to Blackstone's Formulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_formulation
Let's say you have a police force that is much more hesitant to send the SWAT team in and smash into people's homes based on reports. This hesitance means they never get pranked, and no innocent home is ever raided. But one time they are too hesitant, and they don't barge in when it was a real incident. That's OK. It's more important that you didn't ruin those other people's nights.
Initially during school shootings police were trained to wait, get their full team there, make a slow and careful entry.
Now they train that the few first officers make entry as fast as possible. Why? Because most school shootings are either one or two shooters and the deaths they cause usually happen at the beginning of the incident. The responding officers waiting to make entry has resulted in people being killed while they waited outside to get more forces ready.
I use the above as an example. In SWATing I think the police are screwed either way. If they wait to go in or treat it like a hoax and it was real they will be sued into oblivion in civil court. If they go in hard and it was fake then we already know what happens.
All SWAT teams do recon before making entry. The amount of recon they can do depends on so many factors which can't all be listed here but depend on the total danger of the call, previous history of the location (has it been swated before?), the nature of the buiding, can you see inside? Thankfully, unlike the media depiction, SWAT teams are not trigger happy monsters looking to shoot. There have been zero cases I'm aware of, of a SWATing resulting in someone innocent being killed.
This is not the case with no-knock warrants where innocent people have been killed and I'm not conflating the two.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/21/technology/online-swatting-becomes-a-hazard-for-popular-video-gamers-and-police-responders.html?_r=0
If we look at this video, while it's not fun being yelled at and certainly not good to have the guns pointed at you, the police didn't kick the door in and throw a flashbang without checking first. I don't see any windows in that video, I doubt the officers could have seen what was happening inside before making entry.
If someone calls and says they are going to kill people and then doesn't answer the phone what do you do? Sure you can call back, but a SWATer isn't going to answer and a nutjob looking to kill may not either.
What they are not going to do is not check every room and ask every person if they are ok.
In the fifth interaction I'm not sure that footage is from the same incident, they are saying they have a search warrant, which you would not usually have time to get in a SWATing, nor do they need a warrant.
In the sixth one they calmly walk in.
AaronC, are you really trying to defend sending the SWAT team (aka trained killers), to arrest people that aren't accused of violent crimes or in the process of committing a crime?
SWAT teams are probably well aware in most places in the US that "swatting" is a more common "prank" now than it used to be.
Interestingly, it was often mentioned in phreaking circles in the 80s and 90s as a useful weapon/tool in one's hacker arsenal. Yet, it rarely ever happened until the era of gomergate, kids who have never even heard of a blue box.
I am not ok with SWATing, people who do it should go to jail. I do not have a problem with SWAT teams forcing entry into a residence when they have too if there has been a report of a crime in progress, in the manners we see in this video. Exigent circumstances are a legitimate reason to make entry into a house without a warrant.
In none of these SWATing cases was anyone in the houses arrested. We're not talking about no-knock raids conducted on the wrong house or other cases where the police have made a mistake, in some cases, willfully. We're talking about SWATing.
HOLY FUCK
These events are scary as fuck.
http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20150406/PC16/150409558/1268/north-charleston-police-say-officer-who-fatally-shot-man-pulled-him-over-because-of-brake-light&source=RSS
Found this story today. And thought it belonged here. Apologies if its already been detailed.