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Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

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Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#101

Post by jrmg »

jmye wrote: post #93
jrmg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the word to call it ‘regular’. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

That’s more than two people per day. But sure, let’s nitpick the definition of “regular” because that’s absolutely the important issue, here.

Perhaps I made my point a little tactlessly - what I meant to imply is that people shouldn’t live in fear of this. While it happens too often, it’s still extremely uncommon.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#102

Post by jdietrich »

jrmg wrote: post #79
ClassyJacket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the word to call it ‘regular’. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

It's an apples-to-oranges comparison for all sorts of reasons, but England and Wales has a population of about 60 million and averages about 3 fatal police shootings per year. From that perspective, 'regular' sounds like something of an understatement.

Swatting just isn't a thing here - our armed officers are trained completely differently and held to much stricter standards regarding the use of force. American police do have to deal with much more widespread gun ownership and higher rates of violent crime, but that's only one half of the equation.

Policing in the US is exceptionally fragmented across thousands of agencies, with no consistent standards of training and supervision. Even if there was a clear political mandate to reduce the number of police-involved shootings, there's no effective mechanism to change how policing is carried out on the ground.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/319246/police-fatal-shoo...

https://www.college.police.uk/about

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#103

Post by stavros »

jrmg wrote: post #101
jmye wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s more than two people per day. But sure, let’s nitpick the definition of “regular” because that’s absolutely the important issue, here.

Perhaps I made my point a little tactlessly - what I meant to imply is that people shouldn’t live in fear of this. While it happens too often, it’s still extremely uncommon.

The (bigger) problem is that that's the tip of a much larger police brutality iceberg. It's not like the police is 99.9% pleasant and helpful and then just murders the occasional person, the murders are indicative of a disturbing police culture.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#104

Post by Manuel_D »

jrmg wrote: post #79
ClassyJacket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the word to call it ‘regular’. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

Of those 1000 people, the vast majority are armed and actively threatening either the public, the police officers themselves or both.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#105

Post by jakelazaroff »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #89
ClassyJacket wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This is a mischaracterization of what actually happens in the us. Using sensationalism doesn't help, instead let's focus on the actual numbers and be constructive on how to decrease them. In 2023 it's estimated police killed around 1,248 people. Notice I said killed vs Murdered as words matter. Out of that only 104 were unarmed. Now without looking at each case or example here, you can still account for the mass majo…

> In 2023 it's estimated police killed around 1,248 people. Notice I said killed vs Murdered as words matter. Out of that only 104 were unarmed. Now without looking at each case or example here, you can still account for the mass majority of police interactions ending in a death, the civilian was armed at a minimum.

Does the Second Amendment not exist? Which other constitutional rights do you think we should use to justify these murders?

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#106

Post by stavros »

mlinhares wrote: post #95
stavros wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a US cultural thing to either avoid blaming the police for anything, or make excuses for them. Brutal police behavior is seen as either acceptable, or what even desirable . I've seen reddit posts where a protester slightly taunts the police and gets pepper sprayed in the face, and all the commenters were gleefully saying things like "fuck around and find out", without even thinking that maybe there wasn't enough…

Exactly this. There's no fixing the system when there is no onus on the police to act like they care. They enter a home that was a victim of swatting and kill everyone? Tough luck, "it's part of the job", "we told them to stand down and they didn't", "we couldn't risk the life of the first responders". There's always a reason as to why police violence is fine. Its almost as if the police isn't really there to protect…

> Its almost as if the police isn't really there to protect normal people.

Well, it's not. Even here, the function of the police is to enforce the will of the state, not to protect people. The protection is a side-effect of the enforcement, but enforcement can also be things like terrorizing minorities.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#107

Post by rgmerk »

plagiarist wrote: post #22

It should really not be possible for a single anonymous phone call to dispatch a heavily armed response team to break down someone's door. Aside from that, people who do so are despicable. 20 years is a light sentence. Taking money to put people in situations that could easily become deadly.

To be ever so slightly sympathetic to American cops, unlike just about anywhere else in the developed world, it is plausible that the person behind the door is armed with anything up to an automatic rifle, and any random person they stop may be carrying a concealed firearm.

Given that, if I was busting down doors in the US, I’d want to be armed to the teeth, equipped with the best body armour money can buy, and wouldn’t waste a lot of time on niceties until I was sure that nobody was going to attempt to kill me.

Blame the Second Amendment as currently interpreted.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#109

Post by [deleted] »

bigiain wrote: post #49
luckylion wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reasonable and proportionate response? "Swatting" isn't really a thing in Germany, but we've always had other disproportionate responses to single phone calls. One call (or even an email) that threatens to blow up the air port, or some particular air plane, and it's shut down for hours until they've looked in all the places you could hide a serious bomb (presumably, I have no idea what their "okay, I gues…

I'm pretty sure that the US is unique in it's propensity for SWAT teams to shoot first ask questions later. Same way as the US is the only nation in the world where it's impossible to prevent weekly school mass shootings.

[deleted]

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#110

Post by xboxnolifes »

bloopernova wrote: post #10
throwaway81523 wrote: post #5

I'd be interested to know if any actual SWAT operations happened from these calls. I know that it does happen sometimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Wichita_swatting?wprov=sf...

The video of the Wichita shooting was, to me, the most clear cut example of how poorly police can respond to a swatting call. Guy comes out to his porch, having no idea what's going on, and within only a few seconds of time and 2 commands to show hands and walk toward the police, is shot and killed.
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