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I got SWAT'ed and handcuffed live while Linux development streaming!
(www.youtube.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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How is "someone called" enough evidence to enter peoples homes and arrest them?
These officers should lose their job,
So (not so) fun fact: Keffals, who was targeted by KiwiFarms for being trans (yes that's all) and got Swatted. She then went to stay with another streamer (EllenFromNowOn) in Northern Ireland. Just for information sake, Northern Ireland is still a bit rocky security wise, Police there still carry guns on the regular. So when she went there, Ellen called up the police and explained the situation to them (they had never heard of Swatting weirdly enough).
Sure enough, someone found her flat, posted her address (with a message referencing a Unionist Slogan, Ellen was from the Catholic Community), and sure enough, the police came. Instead of raiding her all guns blasing (which they normally would) they saw the warning, knocked on the door, saw nothing was wrong, called off the squaddies, and came in to basically make sure everything was okay.
Bare in mind, this was in Northern Ireland, a place where the Police still drive Armored cars and have regular riots, and they handled this better than the Police in London, Ontario.
As an American, I read this, and it made me me want to cry
As an American reading this, I kept wondering when the mayhem and death would occur.
As an American I wondered when the police would be made the victims and the actual victim would either get shot or arrested and blamed.
As an American I got shot while reading this in my Home.
As an American, this line short circuited my brain:
I live in a quiet but growing suburban town that’s closer to rural areas than the nearest city. When I walk my kid to elementary school (how European of us, lol) the police officer working as a crossing guard for the kids still has their gun, taser, bulletproof vest, and all their other gear on.
And it’s not a school-specific thing. You just never see cops without their weapons here. Armed and armored is just part of the uniform, essentially.
Yeah the cops on this side of the pond are crazy, and their leadership staff tend to fall a lot further into the “complete psycho” side of the human spectrum.
Thanks for sharing that story though - the dichotomy is absolutely fucking wild, especially considering we’re talking about Northern Ireland.
How often are police tipped off before hand that someone is anticipating being SWATed though?
That situation is practically unheard of so it's impossible to know how police in the US would respond.
Yeah, that’s definitely a quandary. But in the case of people who know they might be (or have been previously) targeted with that sort of bullshit, it’s a prudent precaution in the US (and Canada too, evidently)
How on earth are these psychos able to find streamers' actual addresses?
In the US, property records are public records. Easy to find someone's address online if you know their full name and the county they own property in.
Go try it!
Regular riots in Northern Ireland. ?
Well, I guess if someone calls and says you have kidnapped a little girl and that they have seen you with a gun, the police can't take a chance that it's hoax. All phone numbers that call the police should be logged and if it turns out to be a hoax, traced, so people who make hoax calls can be arrested and prosecuted.
If they enter his home, and there is no evidence of a crime, then what is the basis for the arrest?
One thing is to investigate the truth of a call, another is to act on it as if it's verbatim truth.
Usually swat teams break a lot of your shit, maybe kill a baby, and then leave without arresting you.
Don’t need to arrest the suspect if they’re dead taps forehead
Oh AND leave you with the bill
Or toss a flash bang in the crib.
After breaking down the wrong door
Was he arrested? I don't see follow up. It only says he was handcuffed which would be standard until they know what's going on.
It's not technically an arrest. In a high-stakes call, the police will typically detain everybody until they can figure out what's going on. That means potential victims as well as potential attackers. It's a safety measure.
They are logged, but swatting people get around it. They are suspicious “looking” calls, but so are bomb threats.
Swatting is pretty much always a blocked number to a non-emergency line. If they are traced it is typically one of those free online voip services. It takes work and access to really get from A to B, which is why it only happens when there are awful results.
In the US at least, 911 gets special access and calling it will always get you to your local dispatch (unless you have voip with the wrong account address). Non-emergency is just a normal phone number. If someone wants to call from out of the area or hide their number, non-emergency is how they have to do it. This is suspicious because in a real situation like “I just shot my dad” or whatever they say, nobody is taking time to look up non-emergency.
Someone calls an emergency number and says "My husband has a knife and he's threatening to kill me!"
Should the operator say "nothing we can do until you provide provide me with some evidence, ma'am" ?
Lmao the cops take four hours to send someone then say she was just being dramatic in that scenario
If this is legal then it's a giant gaping loophole in the system. Not just because it's easy to harass someone but because it sounds incredibly easy for a cop to call in an "anonymous tip" on someone they suspected of wrongdoing but had no evidence to support it. I'm almost positive the Supreme Court has even held that evidence that was gathered in the course of raiding the wrong building is legal as it's an "honest mistake".
In the comments the victim said that the police said it were two emails they got. Not even a call.
He probably wasn't arrested. It sounds like the police handcuffed him while checking whether he was indeed alone and then asked about what he was doing at his computer. After he explained, they asked him to turn off the stream, at which point I would assume he was freed again.
I assume they went on to explain the situation and then questioned him. If there is no evidence of any crime, they will just take his personals so they can contact him on any development. He is the victim of a crime after all.
Man the audacity of that though, they came into his house, interrupted his evening and then asked him to turn off the stream that he's doing. All while he didn't actually do anything wrong.
The entitlement is insane.
How often does it end up saving peoples lives though?
I don't know - but I'm willing to get the instances where people were saved weren't calls from anonymous voip numbers.