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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

#221
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> This is a vague claim made by the anti policing activists Probably a conclusion people come to when they compare US police looking more like the US military every day, while their local police doesn't go in that direction at all. At least that's true for me as a person living in Spain but sometimes seeing the really crazy equipment US police seems to have.

Having semiautomatic rifles or armored vehicles isn’t militarization. Private citizens can get those too. Police forces don’t have M1 Abrams tanks or F35s or nuclear carriers. This claim that the police are problematic is an entirely emotional activist response to a few incidents. That sentiment then led to hyperbolic claims like militarization.

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

#222
post #169

I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked. Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if - Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy - First response training that's even moderately appropriate - Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties - Empathy for all humans - Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by…

These are not "Anonymous" calls though. The SWATer kids call into 911/e-911 centers using a spoofed number of the victims.

> using a spoofed number of the victims.

Open telephone system security holes seem as much a malpractice as the militarization of police.

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

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Groundskeeper is a more dangerous job than being a cop. The lack of training and toxic culture of policing is far more dangerous to cops than criminals are. The average US citizen simply does not, and should not, trust the average cop.

Danger =/= high stress/pressure situations

Even if that were true, and it's not, it would be mitigated by better training and careful psychological filtering.

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

#224
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. It’s good that law enforcement have the tools to deal with serious threats. You’re just throwing around a fear word. The big guns are hidden from sight anyway, and only brought out when need be. We don’t need any Oct 7th type attacks happening on home soil.

> We don’t need any Oct 7th type attacks happening on home soil. Well homegrown attacks happen DAILY. "Averaging almost 50,000 deaths from firearms annually". But no, once they're not on the news like the Oct 7th attacks where, it's fine I guess. https://www.statista.com/topics/10904/gun-violence-in-the-un...

The number you’re citing is much higher than the number of firearm-related homicides on your linked page; I believe that’s because it includes suicides, which are not relevant to this conversation.

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

#225

In Europe this would have been a completely different story. It's highly unlikely (compared to the US) that a SWAT team equivalent would kill anyone. The guy could have got away with 5-7 years max. I know it's a museum, but I prefer to live here.

It seems statistically rare (highly unlikely) that a SWAT team would injure or kill someone in the US too. I can only find references to 3 - of which only 1 is a result of a direct shooting by law enforcement. The other two are a shooting of law enforcement and a heart attack.

Here is my reference for 3 events in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du...).

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. In the US, police officer does not even rise to top 10 most dangerous jobs. Groundskeeper is a more dangerous job than being a cop. The lack of training and toxic culture of policing is far more dangerous to cops than criminals are. The average US citizen simply does not, and should not, trust the average cop.

Danger =/= high stress/pressure situations

But a very large percentage of the "high stress/pressure" of being a police officer in the US is literally manufactured by the police themselves.

For instance, several officers have been treated for severe symptoms after coming into contact with fentanyl. Except that there is no way, biochemically speaking, the kind of contact they had with fentanyl could have produced anything resembling those symptoms. It was an entirely psychosomatic reaction, brought on by the police's own utterly false propaganda about how terrifyingly dangerous fentanyl is.

Similarly, so much of their "high stress" is because they expect to be attacked/shot/killed at any given moment even when, by any reasonable analysis, they are 100% safe. Furthermore, a lot of the actual danger to them is manufactured by this exact phenomenon: they expect a physical confrontation, so, in order to ensure they "win" it, they create it, striking preemptively in one fashion or another.

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

#227
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a vague claim made by the anti policing activists Probably a conclusion people come to when they compare US police looking more like the US military every day, while their local police doesn't go in that direction at all. At least that's true for me as a person living in Spain but sometimes seeing the really crazy equipment US police seems to have.

Having semiautomatic rifles or armored vehicles isn’t militarization. Private citizens can get those too. Police forces don’t have M1 Abrams tanks or F35s or nuclear carriers. This claim that the police are problematic is an entirely emotional activist response to a few incidents. That sentiment then led to hyperbolic claims like militarization.

[dead]

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

#228
post #43

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.

It wouldn't be a problem, if the "heavily armed response team" was properly held to account when they killed innocent people. Cops kill people on the basis of ludicrous anonymous phone call because they know they'll get away with it when it turns out to be false. And they like it that way. There needs to be a few very public cases of entire SWAT teams getting 20 year sentences. ACAB

I’m finding very few cases of actual Swatting itself leading to deaths.

Here is a reference for 3 events in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du...).

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

#229

The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[flagged]

> They evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols.

Are we still spouting this nonsense? They do come from the mid 1800s. Modeled after the London Metro Police, where there were so many slaves to catch. American cities soon imitated, based on how many slaves were recovered.

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

#230
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some night watches were public safety distributed among community members, they were often there to protect the goods of merchants rather than protect the ordinary citizens of an area from petty crime. As merchants grew, and their goods became more valuable targets, the merchants would hire on guards, but saw the opportunity to turn the existing night watch systems in place to their favor, essentially insisting…

>>> That concept is from the mid 1800s. They evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols. >> This is not accurate. > I do not claim that's in the history of all depts, but across the south there are many cases of patrols becoming formalized into police departments. What percentage of current police departments were conversions from slave patrols? What is the source of this data?

>> And slave patrols led directly into being police departments in some parts of the US.

> What is the source of this data?

https://duckduckgo.com/?hps=1&q=police+departments+were+conv...

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