3 ms·

>I don’t understand why you want to let the swatters off the hook. They should absolutely be going to jail. Because they're irrelevant to the situation. The sw

>I don’t understand why you want to let the swatters off the hook. They should absolutely be going to jail. Because they're irrelevant to the situation. The swatters could be a compulsive person with mental illness. Or dozens of different people, because it become some internet fad or something to target this person, that's impossible to stop. Or untrackable "hackers". The police has no excuse to come in SWATing in the first place without verification of the actual situation, much less keep swatting additional times, and in no civilized environment would it do it even 10 times, much less 47.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
Irrelevant? I don't know about that. Shutting down communities (as in shutting down a subreddit in this case) is not a popular idea but I wonder if it's not the only viable response. I think communities can police themselves if there is an incentive to do so (or rather disincentive not to). I know of plenty of communities with strict rules of conduct because frankly they worry about being shut down. Any community around MAME for example will likely have rules against "asking for ROMs".
- coldtea 3y ago
  The community here is just the chance source of this particular case. In another case it could be whatever else responsible. But the police response is a systemic issue, however. It's open to be exploited similary by any other actor.
dave4420 3y ago
They’re not irrelevant to the situation. In fact, they’re the people who have malicious intent. Can’t catch them all? Catch the ones you can, make an example out of them. That should in no way be used as an excuse not to get the police to behave themselves as well.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >They’re not irrelevant to the situation. In fact, they’re the people who have malicious intent. Let's put it this way, they're not irrelevant to the particular situation, but they're irrelevant to the real problem, which is the "open for abuse" system of SWATing, and the problematic management it gets from the police. Fixing that helps society at large (plus helps this guy). Whereas getting those guys just solves this particular guy's problem.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    I just want to highlight: we really need to do both. Police response to these types of calls is faulty. The Milwaukee police are definitely particularly deficient in continuing to fall for this and not taking corrective action. But there's myriad ways to harass people through proxies-- SWATing is only one. We need to be put in the effort to catch and punish people engaging in these stalking and harassing behaviors, because we'll never harden our society against all of these. We have laws in place for this type of thing, but that's not to say that law enforcement generally cares.
  - dave4420 3y ago
    Why can’t we do both? Edit: It would take _years_ to get the police to put their house in order. So why not go after swatters as well in the meantime? Most swatters are repeat offenders. And once the police have cleaned up their act… do you believe former swatters will quietly become law abiding citizens? I don’t. They’ll find some other way to ruin people’s lives, hopefully a less dangerous way. We could also ask, why do swatters swat in the first place anyway? How could we prevent them from wanting to do such a thing?
    - coldtea 3y ago
      >So why not go after swatters as well in the meantime? Most swatters are repeat offenders. Who said we're not? We already have laws and procedures for that. It's the abuse of SWAT that we don't really cover well.

JKCalhoun 3y ago

Irrelevant? I don't know about that. Shutting down communities (as in shutting down a subreddit in this case) is not a popular idea but I wonder if it's not the only viable response. I think communities can police themselves if there is an incentive to do so (or rather disincentive not to). I know of plenty of communities with strict rules of conduct because frankly they worry about being shut down. Any community around MAME for example will likely have rules against "asking for ROMs".

coldtea 3y ago
The community here is just the chance source of this particular case. In another case it could be whatever else responsible. But the police response is a systemic issue, however. It's open to be exploited similary by any other actor.

dave4420 3y ago

They’re not irrelevant to the situation. In fact, they’re the people who have malicious intent. Can’t catch them all? Catch the ones you can, make an example out of them. That should in no way be used as an excuse not to get the police to behave themselves as well.

coldtea 3y ago
>They’re not irrelevant to the situation. In fact, they’re the people who have malicious intent. Let's put it this way, they're not irrelevant to the particular situation, but they're irrelevant to the real problem, which is the "open for abuse" system of SWATing, and the problematic management it gets from the police. Fixing that helps society at large (plus helps this guy). Whereas getting those guys just solves this particular guy's problem.
- mlyle 3y ago
  I just want to highlight: we really need to do both. Police response to these types of calls is faulty. The Milwaukee police are definitely particularly deficient in continuing to fall for this and not taking corrective action. But there's myriad ways to harass people through proxies-- SWATing is only one. We need to be put in the effort to catch and punish people engaging in these stalking and harassing behaviors, because we'll never harden our society against all of these. We have laws in place for this type of thing, but that's not to say that law enforcement generally cares.
- dave4420 3y ago
  Why can’t we do both? Edit: It would take _years_ to get the police to put their house in order. So why not go after swatters as well in the meantime? Most swatters are repeat offenders. And once the police have cleaned up their act… do you believe former swatters will quietly become law abiding citizens? I don’t. They’ll find some other way to ruin people’s lives, hopefully a less dangerous way. We could also ask, why do swatters swat in the first place anyway? How could we prevent them from wanting to do such a thing?
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >So why not go after swatters as well in the meantime? Most swatters are repeat offenders. Who said we're not? We already have laws and procedures for that. It's the abuse of SWAT that we don't really cover well.