Norm Macdonald would be telling this as a joke and laughing from his grave if it wasn't a tragedy.. It is not April!
" he wrote on Twitter, now X: “Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me."
"Two weeks later, here I am, you know, on my front porch in the middle of the night, exposed to all my neighbours with shxtgxns......... pointed at my head."
> On Aug. 3, 2022, one officer sent a memo to the acting police captain requesting the couple's home be marked as a "swatter house." The captain declined, saying it could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers.”
You'd think they'd be more concerned about constantly wasting time and resources to constantly send out SWAT to some random couple's house twice a week.
I think they should be more concerned with public safety. If the couple asks them to stop, maybe but if they are slow to respond to those calls because of the history, they're going to get skewered when a real call comes in.
> they're going to get skewered when a real call comes in.
Maybe the police should ignore anonymous calls for that house.
The couple is likely fine with the police not going there for anonymous calls. What's the danger here, they are being held captive and the only call that notices the police is anonymous?
Well, now we have some idea why police can’t find the resources to prioritize retail theft — there’s no budget left after responding to all the fake SWAT calls.
At some point, the responding local police should be held criminally liable. A tiny brass badge should not shield you from having to comply with society's laws.
Having that badge should cause you to be held to a higher level of accountability. Abusing the power given to you by being an officer should mean getting much more severe consequences.
The trouble with that logic, as the US courts figured out, was that if the police could be held accountable for misdeeds done while allegedly doing their job then so could other public officials, like judges.
For instance, the judge who refused involuntary commitment for the schizophrenic who killed the woman in Charlotte could be held accountable for their bad judgment.
Judges face almost no consequences for their decisions, and so they think it is right and proper that police should have qualified immunity from similar consequences.
> The trouble with that logic, as the US courts figured out, was that if the police could be held accountable for misdeeds done while allegedly doing their job then so could other public officials, like judges.
That's not trouble, it's a strong selling point. No public official should be immune from accountability for their crimes. Transparency and accountability would solve a lot of problems. Any public official uncomfortable with the idea of not being able to commit crimes and civil rights violations with impunity isn't fit for the job they have.
It doesn't follow logically at all. The origins of judicial immunity have distinct historical roots, just as Congressional speech & debate immunity has distinct origins.
There's an argument it might effect prosecutorial immunity, presuming someone was a stickler about consistency, but it's tough to say because the justifications are arguably based on a poor historical understanding of how prosecutors took up cases. (Traditionally prosecutors, even criminal prosecutors, were often private individuals paid by the local government to prosecute a case, or even prosecute a case entirely on their own.)
55 times over two years, so basically every two weeks on average?
At what point do the officials involved in this become involved with the criminal harassment themselves? At what point is it legal / acceptable (though unwise) to shoot the armed men entering your house?
I don't see how the current American legal system can decisively shut this kind of reprehensible and abusive of power down down.
Everyone has to ask themselves what their personal breaking point is. How many times does a person need to stick a gun in your face and threaten your life before you do whatever is necessary to prevent them from doing that ever again.
Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power. — Malcolm X
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. — Malcolm X
This is primarily a failure of the police, but second place goes to data brokers and anyone who collects unnecessary data and doesn't secure it. A flood of personal information already leaks illegally through cybercrime and companies not protecting data, and we haven't even stopped the huge legal industry of public-info data brokers. You shouldn't be able to look up an email or phone number and get someone's family and address.
The powers that be like phone numbers because they're like a medium-level KYC. In many countries getting a phone number requires ID, and there was a recent proposal to do that in the US. Of course swatting and spam are used as excuses to introduce KYC requirements, but those problems are endemic to phone numbers, and more identity verification just causes more leaks, which gives them excuses to require more KYC.
My idea for replacing phone numbers and email: SimpleX for calls and texts (no accounts and therefore the least PII possible), and Monero micropayments for spam prevention. Most people spend way more on their wireless plan then they'd need to spend in Monero to make the initial connection, for publicly posted SimpleX links.
At least 6 people and me are not very smart. While my SimpleX solution could be good for spam prevention and would definitely be good for privacy, it would totally enable even more swatting.
There's so many common sense, bipartisan things like those. A few are are uncapping the house, a federal holiday for election day, stock trading ban for politicians, data broker loophole, warrant requirement for your data on service providers.
I fear to think about where we would be without the constitution considering how authoritarian law enforcement is in the US. It's definitely lacking, but I am still grateful for it.
So many replies here are blaming the police but despite how screwed up the situation is there isn’t much they can do. Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.
We can all say “well, if you get many calls about one location, maybe you should stop showing up” but wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed? The same couple getting swatted one day could get criminals breaking in another, possibly for the same reason even. How can you make the call not to show up if your entire existence and role in society is to show up?
For starters, try having a larger threshold to go in guns blazing, like trying to verify with the residents first, or just knocking on their door normally to address whatever it was instead of a full on raid. The trauma of being subjected to a SWAT raid is obvious, so they should recognize that and more properly balance it with the harm of not doing one, rather than simply doing it.
After the first 40 false calls about that address they should probably perform at least 5 minutes of investigation to try to verify if there was actually any signs that a real crime is being committed. This kind of "police work" is pretty important. At the very least after violating the rights of the people in their home by breaking in, and seeing that there's no obvious signs of crime, they should probably not immediately drag them outside naked and handcuffed.
I'll give these cops some credit though, at least they managed to raid the correct house 55 times in a row. I don't know who trained these SWAT officers to read house numbers, but they should probably pass that info a long. There are countless stories of police raiding the wrong house.
This police work should be happening all the time, I agree, but it cannot happen during a swat call (there isn't enough time). And if it doesn't yield results, are you to stop showing up?
See what is the reaction to the 3rd SWAT call for the local police dept's boss' home. Then apply that to everyone. I'm absolutely sure they can figure that one out.
Well before the 55th call they should have started investigating the origin of those calls and find the people making them. I'm not familiar with the US jurisdictions so maybe they are outside the one of Milwaukee police, but the people making those calls are toying with the Milwaukee police too, not only with the two victims. Then there are Federal investigations. Eventually that cost Milwaukee half a million.
Unfortunately, while this is a good story, police doesn't have the power to fish out and stop random internet trolls all around the country. I see a lot of this sentiment "why can't they just", but it's an unrealistic view of what's actually possible. I'm all for it in theory.
But almost every comment here is incredulously pointing out how inept police is to not be able to solve such an easy/obvious problem. There is nothing easy and obvious about it.
We need one of those "what every programmer should know about time zones" articles about common police and military misconceptions.
It's not easy, it's an investigation. I expect them to start with interviewing the victims, which will probably point them to some internet forums. Then it's about reading forums and identifying people and a zillion of other things that I can't think about because it's not my job (and so I already wrote too much.) Of course those investigators have other things to do but so do those SWAT teams. It's a DoS against the police.
If 911 can track calls, that would help, but I have no idea if they can, even in my own country.
> What should the rule be? When is it okay for police to receive a distress call and not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake? Who's responsible for the consequences of not showing up?
Currently there is no legal responsibility to “protect and serve” any single member or group of the public.
Just a moral one, due to it being their tax money used.
Just for context, many urban police departments won't show up for a myriad of calls they deem "non-emergency". The fact they always respond to swat calls is suspect and probably has to do with padding their numbers so they can justify more spending and overtime.
Unfortunately this problem is pretty widespread. The typical solution is for the victim to establish a relationship with the PD which enables the PD to quickly confirm the report with the victim via an alternate channel prior to dispatch. I suspect this is what households with private security put in place. The ultra-wealthy and super-prominent politicians seem to avoid swatting despite drawing more public ire than Patrick Tomlinson.
Are you kidding me the real solution is not breaking down someone's door after the fourth call in one day from anonymous reports. How many legitimate hostage situations have taken place in Milwaukee in that four year period? Even one? I think there's been maybe one in the same time period here in Chicago, a city five times the size. How is it even remotely reasonable to think that these are legitimate reports after the first handful of fakes, let alone FIFTY??
When there's a known pattern and you've talked to the people being targeted and you have a totally reasonable suspicion there's no real threat (which the police admitted) then it is reasonable not to respond.
story seems fake. if it is real, and police will 'swat' any place based on anonymous phone calls... then why doesn't some foreign adversary use *67 and have every VIP person in america swatted 24/7? or important places of businesses? like... WHAT? you could destroy america this way. apparently, they HAVE to swat them, because, as the article says, NOT swatting them would could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers". yeah right...
This has a side story from some years ago of Patrick trying to act against the forums organising the swatting... and Cloudflare sending lawyers to explain how they can't help with anything, even though it's their customers. Cloudflare spent actual money on lawyers to ensure someone continues to be swatted. Something to keep in mind next time you choose a vendor. It's not only the police and the individual swatters that are a problem here.
Tbf, support cloudflare's general refusal to censor what they host.
Their near monopoly is very bad for the health of the net, and I'd never use them for that reason, but if they are going to have a monopoly I'd rather they were pretty liberal on censorship. I know there are examples of deplatforming from them, but by and large their stance tends to be without legal intervention all is fair game and that's certainly better than enforcing their own morality.
I'd be putting a big sign out the front of my house explaining the situation to the cops and hoping they stop to read it before they storm in. I don't know if it would work but worth doing something. It's extremely strange to me that there was no coordination for the police to be able to say: "this guy has been swatted before, he's a victim, maybe we shouldn't proceed?"
I assume he's in an area with thousands of police like in a big city or something. Would you be safer in smaller towns against this threat or what? It's scary that essentially anyone who can find your address can do this kind of thing. Even though the penalties are severe if you get caught. The bold always find a way...
Read the article. The police were well aware. They're on body/doorbell cams multiple times commenting that "this house always gets swatted" or otherwise acknowledging that the call is probably fake. Then they run in guns blazing anyway. They know. They don't care. They enjoy doing this.
Do police in the US has any unified system for dispatchers to track the history of incidents/resolutions? Just wondering if they could start making notes there for future calls, I guess it would be useful in general but not sure if they have/allowed to have something like that.
Zooming out a bit, it's pretty scary to think of what's coming next if Dems do what seems looming in the mid-terms. The police riots, their willingness to flout the legislative body and cause torment against cities they are nominally supposed to be protecting is going to be deep trouble. Word nothing of what ICE is going to do!
Vought has seized the power of the purse from Congress, and Congress has so far let him get away with it. What happens when Congress starts actually trying to legislate, and the police and ICE just... don't comply seems all too likely a confrontation.
85 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 17.2 ms ] thread" he wrote on Twitter, now X: “Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me." "Two weeks later, here I am, you know, on my front porch in the middle of the night, exposed to all my neighbours with shxtgxns......... pointed at my head."
I didn’t even know he was sick.
You'd think they'd be more concerned about constantly wasting time and resources to constantly send out SWAT to some random couple's house twice a week.
The obvious solution is for the cops to move in with the couple and point their AR-15s at them 24/7.
Maybe the police should ignore anonymous calls for that house.
The couple is likely fine with the police not going there for anonymous calls. What's the danger here, they are being held captive and the only call that notices the police is anonymous?
For instance, the judge who refused involuntary commitment for the schizophrenic who killed the woman in Charlotte could be held accountable for their bad judgment.
Judges face almost no consequences for their decisions, and so they think it is right and proper that police should have qualified immunity from similar consequences.
That's not trouble, it's a strong selling point. No public official should be immune from accountability for their crimes. Transparency and accountability would solve a lot of problems. Any public official uncomfortable with the idea of not being able to commit crimes and civil rights violations with impunity isn't fit for the job they have.
There's an argument it might effect prosecutorial immunity, presuming someone was a stickler about consistency, but it's tough to say because the justifications are arguably based on a poor historical understanding of how prosecutors took up cases. (Traditionally prosecutors, even criminal prosecutors, were often private individuals paid by the local government to prosecute a case, or even prosecute a case entirely on their own.)
"Americans hated Hillary Clinton so much, they voted for someone they hated even more."
At what point do the officials involved in this become involved with the criminal harassment themselves? At what point is it legal / acceptable (though unwise) to shoot the armed men entering your house?
This happened between July 25 of 2022 and (I believe) April of 2023.
The lawsuit is at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68293540/robinson-v-cit... and April is the last charge listed in the initial complaint. That's 35 weeks, not 104.
That's insane.
I don't see how the current American legal system can decisively shut this kind of reprehensible and abusive of power down down.
Everyone has to ask themselves what their personal breaking point is. How many times does a person need to stick a gun in your face and threaten your life before you do whatever is necessary to prevent them from doing that ever again.
Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power. — Malcolm X
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. — Malcolm X
The powers that be like phone numbers because they're like a medium-level KYC. In many countries getting a phone number requires ID, and there was a recent proposal to do that in the US. Of course swatting and spam are used as excuses to introduce KYC requirements, but those problems are endemic to phone numbers, and more identity verification just causes more leaks, which gives them excuses to require more KYC.
My idea for replacing phone numbers and email: SimpleX for calls and texts (no accounts and therefore the least PII possible), and Monero micropayments for spam prevention. Most people spend way more on their wireless plan then they'd need to spend in Monero to make the initial connection, for publicly posted SimpleX links.
I fear to think about where we would be without the constitution considering how authoritarian law enforcement is in the US. It's definitely lacking, but I am still grateful for it.
…i was expecting something significantly more incendiary.
We can all say “well, if you get many calls about one location, maybe you should stop showing up” but wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed? The same couple getting swatted one day could get criminals breaking in another, possibly for the same reason even. How can you make the call not to show up if your entire existence and role in society is to show up?
What real solutions are there?
And because their entire existence is to show up, you have a conflict of interests on how you answer the call.
You say that as if most of the world doesn’t get by just fine without any militarized SWAT law enforcement units whatsoever…
How about: Track down and identify the person making these calls?
This is 100% not true in the US. The police have no obligation to show up what so ever as decided by the SCOTUS.
>ne day could get criminals breaking in another
And like in every large city they'll get put on hold when calling 911 and maybe the cops show up 30 minutes later.
> not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake?
As they say, when seconds matter, help is 15 to 20 minutes away.
1. Swat somebody for months. 2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.
For starters, try having a larger threshold to go in guns blazing, like trying to verify with the residents first, or just knocking on their door normally to address whatever it was instead of a full on raid. The trauma of being subjected to a SWAT raid is obvious, so they should recognize that and more properly balance it with the harm of not doing one, rather than simply doing it.
I'll give these cops some credit though, at least they managed to raid the correct house 55 times in a row. I don't know who trained these SWAT officers to read house numbers, but they should probably pass that info a long. There are countless stories of police raiding the wrong house.
See what is the reaction to the 3rd SWAT call for the local police dept's boss' home. Then apply that to everyone. I'm absolutely sure they can figure that one out.
But almost every comment here is incredulously pointing out how inept police is to not be able to solve such an easy/obvious problem. There is nothing easy and obvious about it.
We need one of those "what every programmer should know about time zones" articles about common police and military misconceptions.
If 911 can track calls, that would help, but I have no idea if they can, even in my own country.
Currently there is no legal responsibility to “protect and serve” any single member or group of the public.
Just a moral one, due to it being their tax money used.
When there's a known pattern and you've talked to the people being targeted and you have a totally reasonable suspicion there's no real threat (which the police admitted) then it is reasonable not to respond.
Seemingly not fake.
>A judge also ordered Mr Tomlinson to pay the anonymous blogger behind the website $23,700 in legal fees.
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/sw...
Their near monopoly is very bad for the health of the net, and I'd never use them for that reason, but if they are going to have a monopoly I'd rather they were pretty liberal on censorship. I know there are examples of deplatforming from them, but by and large their stance tends to be without legal intervention all is fair game and that's certainly better than enforcing their own morality.
I assume he's in an area with thousands of police like in a big city or something. Would you be safer in smaller towns against this threat or what? It's scary that essentially anyone who can find your address can do this kind of thing. Even though the penalties are severe if you get caught. The bold always find a way...
Vought has seized the power of the purse from Congress, and Congress has so far let him get away with it. What happens when Congress starts actually trying to legislate, and the police and ICE just... don't comply seems all too likely a confrontation.
Thanks for the excellent thread on this William F Fuckley, https://bsky.app/profile/opinionhaver.bsky.social/post/3mxag...
You mean the terrorists who used to work for ICE before it was defunded.
Luckily the US has a lot of prison capacity.
Odd
Abuse the elderly. Pull fire alarms for fun. Kick animals.
Swatting is one of these.