Swatting
Swatting is a form of criminal harassment that involves deceiving an emergency service into sending a police or emergency response team to another person's location. This is achieved by false reporting of a serious law enforcement emergency, such as a bomb threat, mass shooting, domestic violence, murder, hostage situation, or a false report of a mental health emergency, such as that a person is suicidal or homicidal and armed, among other things.
The term is derived from the law enforcement unit SWAT, a specialized type of police unit in the United States. It is not related to the verb "to swat". SWAT teams are equipped with tactical gear and weapons that differ from patrol units, and are called to situations that are deemed high-risk. A threat may result in evacuations of schools and businesses. Advocates have called for swatting to be considered terrorism due to its use to intimidate and create the risk of injury or death.
Making false reports to emergency services is a criminal offense in many jurisdictions, often punishable by fine or imprisonment. In March 2019, a California man was sentenced to 20years in prison for carrying out a fatal 2017 swatting. Swatting carries a high risk of violence, and causes resources of about US$10,000 per incident to be wasted by a city or county that responds to a false report of a serious law enforcement emergency, as well as police or municipal liability in cases of violence or use of force. In California, swatters bear the "full cost" of the response, which can lead to fines of up to $10,000 if great bodily injury or death occur as a result of the swatting.
History
s were a concern to police in the 1970s, with public buildings such as airports being evacuated in response to hoax calls designed to cause mass panic and public disruption, or to delay exams at educational institutions. In recent decades, hoax callers sometimes use techniques to disguise their identity or country of origin.Swatting has origins in prank calls to emergency services. Over the years, callers used increasingly sophisticated techniques to direct response units of particular types. In particular, attempts to have SWAT teams be dispatched to particular locations spawned the term swatting. The term was used by the FBI as early as 2008, and entered Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2015.
In 2019 the Anti-Defamation League estimated that there were about 1,000 swatting incidents nationwide, each costing about $10,000 of police time.
Techniques
, social engineering, prank calls, and phone phreaking techniques may be variously combined by swatting perpetrators, along with TTY systems meant for the use of those with hearing disabilities. 911 systems have been tricked by calls placed from cities hundreds of miles away from the location of the purported call, or even from other countries. The caller typically places a 911 call using a spoofed phone number, hiding the caller's real location.Swatting is linked to the action of doxing, which is obtaining and broadcasting, often via the Internet, the address and details of an individual with an intent to harass or endanger them.
Countermeasures
In October 2018, the Seattle Police Department instituted a three-part approach to combating swatting: educating 911 dispatchers to identify fraudulent calls; ensuring that responding officers were aware of the potential for a hoax; and creating an opt-in registry for people who feared that they might become victims of swatting, such as journalists, celebrities, and live streamers. Using the registry, these people can provide cautionary information to the police, to inform officers responding to potential swatting attempts that target the victim's address.Security reporter Brian Krebs recommends that police departments take extra care when responding to calls received at their non-emergency numbers, or through speech synthesis systems, since these methods are often employed by out-of-area swatters who cannot connect to regional 911 centers.
In September 2019, the Seattle Police Department formed the Swatting Mitigation Advisory Committee, composed of expert community and police representatives. Its purpose is to better understand swatting by collecting and analyzing data, formalizing protocols, and advocating broader awareness and prevention. It is currently co-chaired by Naveed Jamali and Sean Whitcomb, creator of the anti-swatting registry.
In June 2023, the FBI announced that it would create a database to track swattings and improve information-sharing among local police agencies.
Laws
United States
In the United States, swatting can be prosecuted through federal criminal statutes:- "Threatening interstate communications"
- "Conspiracy to retaliate against a witness, victim, or informant"
- "Conspiracy to commit access device fraud and unauthorized access of a protected computer"
- An accomplice may be found guilty of "conspiring to obstruct justice"
- In California, callers bear the "full cost" of the response which can range up to $10,000
In 2015, New Jersey State Assemblyman Paul D. Moriarty announced a bill to increase sentences for hoax emergency calls, and was targeted by a hoax. The bill proposed prison sentences up to ten years and fines up to $150,000.
A 2015 bipartisan bill in Congress sponsored by Katherine Clark and Patrick Meehan made swatting a federal crime with increased penalties. Congresswoman Clark wrote an op-ed in The Hill saying that 2.5 million cases of cyberstalking between 2010 and 2013 had only resulted in 10 cases prosecuted, although a source for this was not provided. As revenge for the bill, an anonymous caller fraudulently called police to Rep. Clark's house on January 31, 2016.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, swatting is not recognized as an offence under UK laws unlike the US but may be prosecuted as perverting the course of justice where false complaints or allegations were made.In 2015, 28-year-old Robert Walker-McDaid pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to perverting the course of justice, and was given a 20 month suspended sentence. Walker-McDaid was also required to complete 200 hours of community service and provide £1000 compensation to Tyran Dobbs, who was the victim of Walker-McDaid's hoax call.
Injuries or deaths due to swatting
2015 Oklahoma incident
On January 15, 2015, in Sentinel, Oklahoma, dispatchers received 911 calls from someone identifying himself as Dallas Horton who told dispatchers he had placed a bomb in a local preschool. Washita County sheriff's deputies and the Sentinel police chief Louis Ross made forced entry into Horton's residence. Ross, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot several times by Horton. Further investigation revealed that the calls did not originate from the residence, leading Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents to conclude Horton was unaware it was law enforcement officers who were entering his home. James Edward Holly confessed to investigators that he made the calls with two "nonfunctioning" phones because he was angry with Horton. Ross was treated for his wounds and released from a local hospital.2017 Wichita incident
During a December 28, 2017 online dispute between Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill regarding the video game Call of Duty: WWII, Viner threatened to have Gaskill swatted. Gaskill gave Viner his former address, which was a home in Wichita, Kansas, occupied by an uninvolved person, Andrew Finch. Viner then asked Tyler Barriss, an anonymous online swatter, to make the fraudulent call to initiate the swatting. Wichita police responded to the false address, and as Finch exited the house, a police officer fatally shot him.Barriss pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and several previous unrelated crimes, and in March 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Viner was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment and two years supervised release for his involvement, while Gaskill was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. The officer was not charged.
2020 Tennessee incident
On April 27, 2020, Mark Herring, a sixty-year-old man from Bethpage, Tennessee, died of a heart attack after police responded to false reports of a woman being killed at his house. The swatting was part of a scheme to force him to give up his Twitter handle "@tennessee". Shane Sonderman was sentenced to five years in prison for the swatting, and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine. A 16-year-old in the United Kingdom was also involved, but they could not be extradited or identified due to their age as a juvenile.Other notable cases
Video game streamers
Due to the popularity of streaming services, many broadcasters have been victim of swatting. Two weeks after the Fortnite World Cup Finals, where 16-year-old Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf won $3 million and the title of best solo Fortnite player, he was swatted while streaming live on Twitch. Ben "DrLupo" Lupo stated he was swatted three times in one month. Other popular gaming broadcasters have been victims of swatting, including Tyler "Ninja" Blevins.2013
In 2013, a number of U.S. celebrities were victims of swatting, including Sean Combs. There were also swatting incidents at the residences of Ashton Kutcher, Tom Cruise, Chris Brown, Miley Cyrus, Iggy Azalea, Jason Derulo, Snoop Dogg, Justin Bieber and Clint Eastwood.In April 2013 California State Senator Ted Lieu, who was arguing at the time for anti-swatting laws in the state, was himself swatted.
In 2013, a network of fraudsters involved in carding and doxing of public officials using stolen credit reports targeted computer security expert Brian Krebs with malicious police reports. Mir Islam, the group's leader, had also used swatting hoaxes against prosecutor Stephen P. Heymann, congressman Mike Rogers, and a woman he was cyberstalking after she declined his romantic proposals. Islam was convicted of doxing and swatting over 50 public figures, including Michelle Obama, Robert Mueller, John Brennan as well as Krebs, and sentenced to two years in prison. Ukrainian computer hacker Sergey Vovnenko was convicted of trafficking in stolen credit cards, as well as planning to purchase heroin, ship it to Krebs, then swat him. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison in Italy, and 41 months in prison in New Jersey.