Unarmed Man Killed in Swatting Incident

[silverscreenselect]

Maybe it's me, but I hadn't even heard of the term "swatting" used in this context and when I read the headline, I thought it involved some sort of stunt where people slap each other.

But apparently there's some form of prank where people call the police and claim to be involved in an imminent threat of violence situation, hoping that the police respond in force. In this case, the caller said he was holding his family hostage at gunpoint and had already shot his father. The caller apparently intended to send police to the address of a fellow Call of Duty gamer but instead sent them to a complete stranger. The man who answered the door didn't keep his hands raised and police shot him. I can't blame the guy for panicking in the face of an armed SWAT team, nor can I really blame them for being cautious based on the content of the prank call.

To me, this is a case of manslaughter at worst with some federal crimes involved as well (interstate terroristic phone calls).

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 992615001/

[ghostjmf]

Wired mag did a feature on this years ago.

Other media have recently followed suit.

People in various on-line cults like to do this to each other.

And I used to think people on this group could be vicious.

[jaybee]

It seems to be up in the air so far but I'm wondering exactly what the guy who made the call will actually be charged with? Some level of manslaughter?

[ghostjmf]

People who spend every hour pretending to be people who shoot other people all day in video games calling in a real life SWAT team on someone they think to be a rival "gamer". Not hard to believe.

They all scare the shit out of me.