Live data from Hacker News

Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

wired.com

241–250 of 419 posts

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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They evolved out of warehouse guards and slave patrols. This is not accurate. The timeframe is not wrong; it is true that the concept of the modern police, at least in the US, was largely based on the Peelian model created in London in the 1820s. But saying it evolved from "warehouse guards and slave patrols" is ahistorical. Most modern police forces modeled after London's Metropolitan Police replaced night watch s…

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…

For the warehouse guards, to summarize, you're saying that night watchmen and city watchmen were de facto warehouse guards before the formation of professional police forces? That seems a far cry from "evolved out of warehouse guards". Police still put resources into protecting property, but this does not make them "warehouse guards" any more than resources put on petty crime make them "cutpurse chasers" unless you're just making rhetorical points.

For the slave patrol point, I would appreciate a single example of this phenomenon. Is it the claim that there exists at least one professional police force that was created to replace a "slave patrol", which previously performed some subset of the civil duties of police officers? I have not been able to find an example; can you point me to one?

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

#242
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

2023 which was the peak had homocides at 14,244.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/249803/number-of-homicid...

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

#243
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.

If they can be summoned by just placing an anonymous phone call with an unverified claim, that might be a problem though.

This. There are valid reasons to have the big guns, though I still think we’ve overreached. It is terrifying that a damn teenager managed to trick the cops into whipping out the big guns hundreds of times.

Despite that the teenager will likely be going to jail, the most damning indictment is of the police forces that were repeatedly co-opted by the teenager. It should really take something much more clever to trigger this kind of systemic response repeatedly.

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

#244
post #153
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How many police officers do you know? Have you been on a ride along or attempted to understand their job? Swatting victimizes the police as well, they’re responding to a potential hostage situation and do not have the benefit of hindsight. I guarantee these officers are horrified that the man was innocent and frustrated that they were put in this situation. I encourage everyone who is adamantly “ACAB” to go on a ride…

man who do you think joins swat teams

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

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever that means Look, if you're not even willing to understand the argument, your refutation of it is toothless at best, worthless at worst. Not to mention, your own claim is vague and without evidence. In point of fact, there's plenty of evidence to the counter. There are ample studies to choose from, but from just this year: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/police-budget-crime-...

Are you willing to understand the argument? What does militarization mean? Because I’ve seen no evidence of police responding to a crime scene with an Apache helicopter or a howitzer. It’s remarkable that completely obviously false claims of militarization are accepted here. As for your link: the claim made by the “study” is false since it is ignoring virtually every obvious confounding factor to claim that the numbe…

Them receiving surplus military gear is one aspect.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/06/1...

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

#246

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

> The militarization of law enforcement and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. Do you mean for the US, rather than the human race? Some of us live in countries where the only weapons most cops carry are truncheons and tasers.

The weapons are orthogonal to the culture; most of the police abuse volume is in beating, arrest and confinement, property destruction and confiscation, etc. The shootings make news, but lots of people don't get shot and still suffer lasting material consequences

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Are we still spouting this nonsense? They do come from the mid 1800s. Modeled after the London Metro Police All of the above is true. In the US, slavery enforcement evolved into police forces and police forces were modeled after UK police. Many police forces, many origin stores. https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/36/3/did-american-pol...

The article you point to is explicitly debunking the idea of slave patrols evolving into police forces.

> The claim that modern police originated from slave patrols is a dangerous slur designed to delegitimize policing ... Bad policing must be criticized, but we should not do so by resorting to historically flimsy myths, especially myths that unfairly tarnish the reputations of those in law enforcement and cast aspersions on their motives.

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

#248
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair question, but I would also like to ask "What the f** is wrong with cops?". Receiving an anonymous call claiming some not-particularly-plausible threat at a particular location probably DOES deserve a police investigation. I see no reason why it impels police to drag people from their house in chains, threaten to shoot them, or actually shoot them. If police responses were reasonable and proportionate to the plau…

Yeah wtf is wrong with cops being on edge when they think they're responding to a mass shooting. How dare they! Future headline: Police ignore mass shooting because they thought it was a prank

'there's no way to stop this' says the government of the only country where this happens regularly.

source: the onion [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_...

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

#249

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

[flagged]

A very interesting piece on the history and development of modern policing https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/sarah-seo-how-cars-tra...

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever that means Look, if you're not even willing to understand the argument, your refutation of it is toothless at best, worthless at worst. Not to mention, your own claim is vague and without evidence. In point of fact, there's plenty of evidence to the counter. There are ample studies to choose from, but from just this year: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/police-budget-crime-...

Are you willing to understand the argument? What does militarization mean? Because I’ve seen no evidence of police responding to a crime scene with an Apache helicopter or a howitzer. It’s remarkable that completely obviously false claims of militarization are accepted here. As for your link: the claim made by the “study” is false since it is ignoring virtually every obvious confounding factor to claim that the numbe…

You seeing no evidence of it firsthand != A refutation. It's a globally decried phenomenon unique to the American Police Forces.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-9-11-helped-to-milita...

https://apbweb.com/2023/10/the-use-of-military-assets-by-u-s...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/05/why-are-some-u...

The driving force behind it is this LESO; established to facilitate the "1033 Program", which transfers excess weapons, equipment, and vehicles from the United States Armed Forces to civilian law enforcement agencies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Enforcement_Support_Office

From 1997 until 2014, $5.1 billion in military hardware was transferred from the DoD to local American law enforcement agencies. 1/3rd of the equipment was brand-new.

Post reply on HN