“I had police point a gun at my little brothers because of you. They could have been shot because you chose to SWAT my stream. They could have died. I don’t give a sh!t about what you have against me or what I did to you. For that, I am at a loss for words. Your gripe is with me, so let it be with me. So let it be with me. Do not involve my family in any way shape or form with this. They don’t deserve that. He’s ten. He’s 10 years old, and he had 10 police officers pointing a gun at him because he was at the door.” – Gamer Joshua Peters

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86 COMMENTS

  1. Swatters are terrorists being assisted by the state. No knock raids should never happen and swat should only be deployed when shots are actually fired or a hostage situation is confirmed.

      • I kinda like that. Perjury/filing a false report is a given, but a case could be made for attempted murder, or in fact murder, if anyone is killed as a result.

        Does not change the fact that police should need much more than a phone call to get out of their chairs. Let / encourage people to protect themselves, show up after the fact to decide if someone needs to be arrested.

        • Its a well known and demonstrated fact that the bill of rights are null and void if a random anonymous person tells the cops that a crime has possibly been committed no matter how minor. All these no knock warrants issued on tips, people swatted, all voice and internet recorded and tracked, being added to NICS with no due process.

    • Te ONLY reasonable excuse for SWAT is hostages. Especially for drug cases, if they actyally believed drugs and drug dealers were evil, they’d pull up in front, announce through a bullhorn that they’d serve a warrant in one hour, and wait …. while the occupants flushed their expensive drugs down the toilet. Then come in, find no drugs, arrest nobody, and leave the drug dealers to explain to their creditors where the goods are.

      Expense: minimal.
      Drugs: vanished at no extra expense.
      Deug dealers: probably soon to vanish.

      The fact that drugs are an excuse for SWAT and expensive trials shows the SWAT teams don’t believe their own propaganda.

      • You’re forgetting the asset confiscation motive for the police to tie drugs to houses, cars, whatever. Personally I think “no knock” raids pale beside asset forfeiture laws in terms of being a corrosive influence on law enforcement.

      • Don’t forget about the drugs being introduced into the local water supply after going through the sewage treatment plant.

  3. Arrest the SWATter for attempted murder, and maybe retrain SWAT teams not to use deadly force until warranted? (And drop the qualified immunity BS that indemnifies LEO for such unwarranted use of deadly force against a 10-year-old merely answering a door.)

  4. A “better safe than sorry” policy puts the world at the mercy of the trolls. When tweets scramble fighter jets and unsubstantiated anonymous tips call out all the police in a 50 mile radius you’d think folks would pump the brakes on their own hysterics but nope. It’s full steam ahead into the great deep abyss of stupidity for SAFETY!

  5. This SWATTING will get out of control. It will get out of control and we will be lucky to live through it.

    • That ship has left port, the crew died of dehydration, and the vessel is at the bottom of the big drink.

    • One correction. The Swatting is already out of control. Innocent people have already died because of wrong addresses picked.

      Innocent people have died even when the right address was picked because in the eyes of the law; we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. The no knock warrant with the violent assault upon an innocent citizen is to gather evidence to then charge the innocent citizen; hoping that the evidence they gather will be enough to charge the person with a crime in the court of law.

      If the innocent person defends himself from this violent assault and gets murdered, The armed gang will be patted on the back for a good job done. But, if the innocent citizen kills what to the citizen is a gang of blacked masked men invading his home; if he survives; more than likely HE will be charged with murder for the crime of defending himself.

      No knock warrants are an abomination and proof positive the United States Supreme Court is a rogue institution acting outside of the constitution.

      Nine tyrants in black robes.

      • Whew! Had to get that out of the system. Yeah. “Swatting” is not technically a No Knock Warrant. But the principle is the same. But based on a bogus 911 call, on which the cops feel free to respond with violent force and break down the door of a house and the person is faced the same dilemma; are these cops or criminals dressed as cops.

        Faced with the same dilemma; surrender and be killed by illegal thugs or defend against legal thugs and either be murdered or if one survives, go to jail for defending against, what is to the person, an unwarranted attack.

        Still allowed by the nine tyrants in black robes.

        • That’s the problem with the internet. So much is lost when one can’t see facial expressions and tone of voice.

        • “That’s the problem with the internet. So much is lost when one can’t see facial expressions and tone of voice.”

          To be fair, one has to be familiar enough with the particular movie to recognize the quote in its context in the film for it to make any sense at all.

  6. More info; the gamer was an air force veteran who was med-evac’d home from kuwait. The swatter tried a second time, presumably some hours after this video, this time claiming his PTSD was kicking in, but the cops didn’t buy it. And now for the tinfoil; what if it was ISIS?

  7. I don’t understand how this happens. Is it initiated by a 911 call? Wouldn’t that call show the disconnect in location between the caller and the “swat” site? I know 911 calls need to be taken seriously, but it just seems that due diligence would root out the false calls. Help me to understand…

      • bb – Not sure what you are saying. All cell phones transmit GPS location in the call data to ensure proper 911 routing. This was mandated many years ago by the FCC. Even if you turn GPS locating OFF it still sends location.

      • There are borrowed phones, stolen phones, and disposable phones. All can make 911 calls. And then there are those who can fool the phones, which is certainly done, but beyond my technical capability.

        • Easiest way is VOIP. Any online voice calling that can connect to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) (vonage/Skype etc). IP’s don’t have location data; so the ANI/ALI (Automatic Number Identification/ Automatic Location Information) of a voip call 911 is whatever You the user set it to.

          Other way they do it is through a Hacked commercial PBX.

      • Some of our systems can track a cell phone as well as On Star. It’s just that a cell phone can’t kill your engine and lock your doors – a very handy tool for anyone dumb enough to steal a car with On Star. Or LoJack.

    • In this case, the call was made using a computer, so the caller can spoof literally any location in the world if he wants to.

    • It won’t matter. These idiots all think they’re going to be the next James Kosta. If they don’t get caught they keep on doing it until they do then they see their arrest as the first step in a career in being 1337.

      The reality doesn’t set in for a few years. When their in the late 20’s, living at home, unqualified for any real work and resent their part-time burger flipping jobs because they’re “better than that.”

  9. F this guy, boo hooin about bang sticks pointed at his little bro. The replacements fail to understand cause & effect. If your rubbing chubbies reporting crimes that don’t exist, just what in your world do you expect.

    • What you showed in your post mk10108; was such a lack of empathy and callous disregard for the danger that his little brothers faced; you sound like the classic definition of a sociopath; if not an outright psychopath.

      • Sociopath? Really? That’s a little over-the-top, don’t you think? I’m not a sociopath, yet I had the same reaction from this guys blubbering. Man up! All of these bad-ass FPS types thinking they’re all that because they can shoot computer generated bad guys in the popular games…you know the ones, but real life interrupts the fiction. What we have are people who have little or no comprehension of what firing a gun is like, or the consequences that come from it. This goes for the ass hat that swatted this guy. I would have been more impressed if he was pissed off, and threatening to curb-stomp that prick if he ever found him. I’ll hit you so fuckin’ hard, 3 generations of your dead ancestors will feel it! Crying your eyes out online only shows everyone how you deal with a real threat, fight or flight. If you want to get all blubbery, then do it in private. But don’t broadcast it for all to see. Is this how you defend yourself and your little brothers…..by crying about it?

        • What are you even talking about? You’re claiming this guy is a tough guy FPSer based on what exactly? You sound like a twat.

  10. I am happy I live where I do. We had a group of kids walking down the road with a rifle. They got to a bridge at the edge of town and started shooting off the bridge down into the water, nothing around to be hurt. The neighbor called 911 to have them check it out. One officer responded, never drew his gun, had the kids sit down and talked to them for about a half hour, and then loaded them up and took them to their parents. I feel bad for people who live in areas that have to worry about being SWATed. They really need to start prosecuting these people for something. At the very least tell them that if is false they will never respond to a call from them again “boy that cried wolf” law

  11. My niece’s family was SWATted by a racist neighbor before it was even called SWATting.
    This a-hole didn’t like having blacks and Puero Ricans living next door, more so because they drove nicer cars than he had.
    He called 911 claiming my neice’s black husband pulled a gun on him and threatened to kill him. And though no weapons of any kind were found, the police still arrested my niece’s husband. As he was being put in the cruiser, the racist neighbor pointed a “finger gun” at him. Before family could file a law suit, the neighbors left and were never to be heard from again. Boston PD refused to expunge the arrest from his record. Even though this occurred more than a decade ago, it will still cost him thousands of dollars to get it expunged.
    (He doesn’t care that he can never own a gun due to the false arrest because he is one of those brainwashed fools that thinks only cops and criminals should have guns. He also think Trayvon and Brown were innocent victims. But hat doesn’t mean he deserved to be SWATted.

  12. what is it with these “adults” that play these kiddie games on the internet, and can’t live, move, or breathe without an electronic toy in their hands? what ever happened to chasing women and going shooting with real firearms, not necessarily in that order?

    • I hear you. Disabling the online capabilities of our XBox helped our teenage son do better than a 3.0. Some kids waste endless hours on those games.

    • Some of us do all of the above. Including my gun-loving, Xbox-playing wife.

      That might be too much for your little mind to handle.

  13. I was working the other night when I recieved a call. “Caller at such and such address called the front desk and says he has an AK and a pipe bomb and is going to murder his entire family.” He stated his name and the person he named was indeed listed as the property owner.
    Well that’s freaking awesome. I arrive on scene and pull out my AR when I recieve notice over the radio that this is a swatting call. The desk officer thought something was off so he called back to the address and spoke to an extremely confused housewife who said her husband, whose name the caller had given, was sitting in the living room playing a board game with the family.
    I had dispatch have them come out and I made contact with them, no guns pointed or anything like that, and confirmed that it was indeed a hoax.
    It was all over some sort of Twitter dispute. The audacity of people to endanger the safety of others is just mind boggling to me.

    • “I had dispatch have them come out and I made contact with them, no guns pointed or anything like that, and confirmed that it was indeed a hoax.
      It was all over some sort of Twitter dispute. The audacity of people to endanger the safety of others is just mind boggling to me.”

      So, is there an investigation underway to indentify, catch and prosecute the SWATTER?

      If you know the seriousness of this crime, make sure your agency as a whole does as well and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

      • It’s being investigated and if they find th identify if the swatter he will be prosecuted. The swattee did not know the shatter personally or know who he is so all we have to go off of is a Twitter name, unfortunately

        • If you cannot / could not identify the person making the report, why was anyone ever dispatched? I don’t mean who he TOLD you he was, I mean caller ID. No caller ID, you have to come in to the station to make such a report. Or get to a phone which DOES have caller ID. If he gave an address which agreed with who he said he was, did his PHONE agree with who he said he was?

          That crap has to end. Mindlessly responding to any fool who calls is not going to end it.

        • Sorry, Larry, but though I get your anger at the concept of SWATTING, a “man with a gun threatening to kill random people” type of call to 911 cannot be handled with a “well, if you won’t tell us who you are, you’ll have to come down to the station to file a report.”

          That’s part of what makes them so dangerous…they are an abuse of the system, not just a prank call. I know you realize that. However, that does not justify gutting the system itself.

          It does call for measured, intelligent response by the cops. ANY call could be a SWATTING (with innocent lives thus in danger), or it could be a real exigent circumstance with innocent lives in danger.

          Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, unless your solution is really to suggest complete dismantlement of all Law Enforcement from top to bottom.

        • LarryinTX, a lot of these swatters will use a Voice-over-IP phone calling program and spoof the phone number of the place they’re supposedly calling from. It’ll show up on caller ID’s as coming from the house.

    • At some level, I think some of them don’t realize this is real.

      Maybe they don’t believe there is such a thing as reality.

      • I agree.

        And that compounds how dangerous it is. No concept of real consequences, especially to other people, is pretty much the very definition of sociopath, at least in a working sense, no?

        Find the SWATTERS and drop the hammer of ’em. HARD.

  14. Well on the upside for actual terrorists, they learn how easy it is to get a crap load of police into either

    A. An ambush
    B. A small space and suicide bomb them.

    • Or simply to draw them off the real target. The town where I live has like half a dozen units rolling on the day shift, less on nights. Wouldn’t be that hard to draw them off, even if county comes in to help out.

      • If you have a group bent on evil, make a false report drawing cops to a remote point, then have an accomplice fire a rifle bullet through a cop’s windshield from 500 yards away and take off. Not just all your patrols but all patrols from 50 miles around will be headed there at top speed, leaving a lot of area for actual attacks completely undefended, response time over an hour.

    • Ah. So, when a cop is shot as a result, suddenly it IS possible to discover who made the call! I see now!

  16. Swatting brings up two issues. One is the issue of no-knock raids. I watched a video of 10 streamers getting swatted. The way some of the swat teams entered would have ended with me dead and possible a few members of the swat team, merely because I would have assumed it was a criminal break in, not the swat team being punked and faced the intruders with a firearm. No knock raids should only happened after shots have been fired or there is a CONFIRMED hostage situation. Drugs, pictures on a computer, someone calling in claiming there is a threat, etc. do not warrant no knock raids.

    Another issue is of course these people who do this shit thinking it is funny and with near immunity, though that is changing. Those who call in a false threat to “swat” someone could be charged with attempted murder.

    • I think confusing SWATting and no-knock isn’t helpful. The case in point here was not a no-knock, the little brother answered the door, the door was not broken down. A no-knock raid is authorized by a warrant issued by a judge (unconstitutional, yes, but not an issue with SWATting). These “raids” are authorized by nothing, they are a response to a cry for help in an emergency situation, and anyone treating them as authorization for any kind of forcible entry without additional confirmation is simply wrong. And having 10 armored men with machine guns at the door is stupid in more ways than one, have they heard anything of explosive booby traps? ONE man should knock (barring other indications the call was real), the rest standing by their transport. Better yet, get in front of the house and make a call, duh, how much can it cost? “Come on out and talk”. No answer, go knock. Still no answer, possibly nobody home, which gives you your answer, or possibly a really bad situation, I guess cops then have to decide what to do next, in order to sort it out. But at least we did not have a crowd of jackbooted thugs swarming through a door into a house full of people who haven’t done anything wrong, and who are supposed to be secure in their persons and their papers.

      • That is not always the case where the swat team stands outside to first asses if the threat is real. This case in point. There was a video on youtube “The Creatures (Kootra) got SWAT Raided (SWATTED) #FreeKootra2014 ”
        where a swat team entered and cleared a building without knocking first while the man was online. The man very easily could have been killed.

      • I was referring to other instances (the vids are all over youtube) where in some cases the cops did a no knock raid on the house. In others the cops were logical and assessed the situation and did not charge in guns blazing. I was referring the the no knock ones.

  17. Nobody here will like this statement, but it is still true.

    The dangers of having cops are far worse than the dangers of not having them. Even the best cop is still a bad cop by his/her mere existance.

    • Hmmm. To me, that is left with too much left unsaid. An example.

      Our founding fathers saw that a large standing army, in time; will be used by the government to oppress the people; because over time; the military; paid by the government, feels it’s allegiance with the government and not the people.

      So over time; a large standing armed force; like the police, paid by the government will feel it’s allegiance to the government and not the people, and they can, over time, be used against the people if the government becomes tyrannical.

      The exception is when a body of armed men are directly obliged to the people; like the sheriffs that are elected by the people and depend on their job by representing the will of the people. Which is why almost all sheriff departments came out and publically pronounced they would not enforce a gun ban if one was passed by congress.

      So right now, the police, unelected; not directly responsible to the people, are more prone to enforce tyranny rather then the sheriffs.

      Over time.

      I believe we will see shortly if the police will enforce the constitution or will instead enforce tyranny on a national level, if things keep going the way they are.

      • In most cases police are there for clean up, victimless crime busts, or playing hall monitor on the streets. Their presence does not need to be so profound and there should not be a monopoly on who can provide a police service. This government monopoly reduces their accountability to dangerously low levels. We have a 2nd amendment so we can protect ourselves. We do not need the police forces we have now and it harms us.

  18. I sympathize with this guy and his kid brother. I just don’t see resolving the PO-leece swatting people. Legal or illegal it should very rarely happen. As mentioned a terrorist can buy a cheap cell phone every day for very little $. Good luck tracking all these phones…

  19. The only people who have been “swat’d” are you guys!

    THIS STORY IS FAKE!!!

    It was originally on National Report, which is a fake news site, sort of like The Onion. Snopes debunked it as well.

    • You sure about that?

      Snopes doesn’t seem to have anything on it at all, and Google searches and linked stories indicated it was witnessed.

      Got some credible evidence it was faked?

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