By Tile Floor

I’ll never forget the night my SWATting cherry was popped. I was sitting in my Dodge Charger police car, lamenting the circumstances in my life that culminated in me being a police officer working midnights in an area of my county that I hate, when I received a call from dispatch. “298 copy a suspicious. Man called the desk, stating he was armed with an AK-47 and pipe bombs saying he was going to shoot his family and any police officers that respond.” Well, ain’t that just peachy, I thought to myself, as I slapped the car in drive and sputtered down the road in my V6 woefully-underpowered 4000 pound vehicle . . .

The area I work in the county is enormous, and due to the size and the way the road system works, anyone coming in area is looking at a 15 minute drive to the main little town, even running lights and sirens. Where we were going was even farther out, so even though we had about ten people coming to us, the three of us who work our little slice of heaven would be on our own.

My response time was about five minutes, hauling freight with no traffic on the road, driving as quickly as safety as the darkness would allow. During my drive I noticed a couple unusual things that dispatch was updating me with. The call came from a different number than was on file for anyone in the house. Odd. The fact that he called saying that he was going to shoot his family and blow us up was peculiar as well. Most legitimate calls involving a weapon are called in by a family member, victim, or witness.

No matter…I parked my car about 400 yards down from the house, and got my AR-15 out of the trunk as my buddy pulled up, realizing that we were completely alone with backup still five minutes out. Well, sucks to be us, we grumbled, as we headed towards the house in question. Contrary to many of my colleagues, my buddy’s and my number one priority is not going home at night. Our top goal is doing our damned jobs, and as cheesy as it sounds, to help those in need.

As we started to walk towards the residence, a supervisor on our shift got us on the radio. He also had felt something was off, and had looked around in our records management system until he was able to locate a cell phone number for the wife who was supposedly about to be executed. She had answered the phone completely bewildered, stating that her husband, the supposed assailant, was out bowling with his buddies in town, and that nothing was amiss at the house. The supervisor told her that officers would be at the house to make sure everything was OK, and to come out when they received a call from our dispatch.

After receiving this information I slid behind a BFT (big f*ckin’ tree) in their yard, and my buddy did the same. My rifle was at the indoor ready, pointed at the ground, but still in my hands. I had dispatch call inside and the wife, her 17-year-old son, and her 5-year-old son came out on the front porch, clearly not in any sort of distress. I immediately slung my rifle on my back, disregarded anyone else coming to the house in order to avoid a gigantic unnecessary scene, announced myself, and walked up to the concerned family and calmly explained the call we had received and why I had a rifle slung on my back. The wife said she was just grateful we showed up, and that she was glad that her little boy didn’t end up handcuffed with 30 rifles pointed at him.

As I was speaking to her the 17-year-old’s phone vibrated and his face turned red. He showed me a tweet he had gotten from a complete stranger that said one word: swatted. He had no clue who the guy was. I got all the information I could, including the Twitter account, did a report, and forwarded it on to detectives who would thoroughly investigate it. I was pissed.

Since then I have been on about a dozen more SWATting calls. While these calls are frustrating and unnecessarily dangerous for all involved, most of them are able to be identified as SWATting calls before the first unit gets on scene. Each of these calls has had several things in common that make them easy to identify. This is not coming from any empirical evidence I have, just first hand experience. Your mileage may vary by department and location.

First and foremost, the call is never to 911. All the calls I have seen have either been called into the desk officer, or the non-emergency line. I suppose the SWATters are fearful of the omniscient technological wizardry that is the enhanced 911 system. I have no clue how it works (I’m sure some of the Armed Intelligentsia that are smarter than I am can fill us in). The SWATter has an address and name picked out already, and often times find a way to make it appear like he is calling from a number listed for the SWATtee. Again, how this is accomplished, I have no idea.

The next indicator that the call is a hoax is that the caller states that he/she has either just either shot or stabbed a girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/etc. The call I mentioned above is an anomaly; most SWATting calls are two-pronged. After stating that someone is mortally wounded, the SWATter then typically will say that he’s holding his parents or children at gun- or knifepoint. This creates an imminent danger that the SWATter hopes will draw out the full wrath of the police department, elevating the danger level.

In reality, every single assault with a deadly weapon call I have been on has been called in by either the victim or a witness. This is not to say the suspect can’t be the caller, but when responding officers hear these comments coupled with the first indicator, the suspicion that the call is a hoax increases rapidly.

The third indicator is that the line disconnects. No grand farewell from the SWATter, no open line, no family pleading for their lives, it just disconnects. At that point bullshit alarms are going off in all of our heads, but we still continue on, albeit with restraint. If no other calls are received for a call involving a supposed shooting in a residential area, it becomes even more suspicious, as we all wear earpro for a reason; guns are loud. The supervisor will generally tell the units that it is a SWATting call, and by now, unfortunately, we all know what to do from ample experience.

The first couple units set up a loose perimeter around the house, and if weapons are out they are pointed down and out of sight. There are usually five to seven units on scene when contact is made, and all are generally behind some sort of cover, but only one or two will be visible from the front door. Dispatch is asked to make contact inside, the family comes out and says everything is OK. As they come out there are zero guns pointed at them. None. If, on the infinitesimal chance it was all an elaborate plan to use them as a diversion and I get sniped, well hey, I might be dead, but at least I never sacrificed my principles.

After they step out, two units walk up to them, weapons holstered, and the situation is calmly explained to the SWATtees. They are typically perplexed, and have no idea (or so they claim) who was the culprit. When a trace is possible, the SWATter is nearly universally located out of state, or at least their phones are. I’ve never seen a SWATting victim have any idea where the SWATting could have originated from.

A couple things I am sure will be noticed. For starters, note there is zero mention of an actual SWAT team responding in my anecdote. My department has one, and they are rarely called out, usually only after a subject is barricaded and shots have been exchanged, or a firearm is definitely aggressively in play. Road units, armed with run-of-the-mill AR-15’s, GLOCKs, and 870’s handle the bulk of SWATting calls, and due to our experience, they generally handle them well and safely without recklessly endangering the lives of those inside the residence.

Some may be miffed that we still form a perimeter around the house, despite being 90 percent sure it’s a false alarm. This is done on the off chance that it’s not a hoax and it’s just a really unusual, jacked up call. Maintaining a loose perimeter enables us to switch on the fly from being prepared to being ready to engage. It’s a good compromise between not scaring the piss out of those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of the SWATting call, and being able to effectively respond if it is the real deal. Falling prey to the boy who cried wolf syndrome could have disastrous consequences for everyone involved, including the family inside. Luckily I work with a good group of guys with cool heads, and we’ve never had to make this transition unnecessarily.

This is just how my department responds to SWATting calls. It’s not in any official SOP or policy, it’s just how we’ve come to do it. Note there are no busted down doors, kids being thrown into zip ties or butt-stroked, dynamic entries, or any of that operator jazz. There’s a time and a place for busting down doors and detaining, and the only time and place that comes to my mind is if an officer rolls up on scene and sees someone in a residence, yard, or whatever shooting someone else. Other than that, many of the departments that go way overboard need to realize that SWATting is a serious and prevalent issue in our society, and there are usually clues that you are headed towards a hoax.

I hope I’ve been able to shed some light on the modern world of SWATting. I think the main thing that all of us here on TTAG can agree with is that SWATting is an abhorrent act that endangers the lives of everyone involved.

Stay safe out there.

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92 COMMENTS

  1. Slow-clap. Hell, fast-clap for all I care. Great write-up, awesome read, compliment, rah.

    Note: None of the above was sarcasm.

  2. Good post and thanks for the info. When last I worked in law enforcement SWATing was not a thing.

    • Nope. We didn’t even have a local SWAT team, we had to call one up from downstate. Never remember that call being made.
      Oh and this:
      “as I slapped the car in drive and sputtered down the road in my V6 woefully-underpowered 4000 pound vehicle ”
      You haven’t lived until you’ve had to pull an entire shift in a late 70’s Dodge Diplomat with a slant six. I can still hear that slug idling…. TIckaTickaTickaTickaTicka 🙂

      Props for the intelligent, common sense approach to those calls. That approach should be an example for others to learn from.

      • Ticka ticka ticka meant that slant six was running right. It was never meant to be a cop motor, but in my valiant it ran like a champ. Until I got in a head on in a snow storm. Great little car til then. But definately not a cop motor.

  3. Good article. Very informative. Thank you for sharing.

    I hope no potential swatters take notes from this, though.

    • By calling 911 instead of the front desk? That would be stupid and proves they are near by. It is rather difficult to dial 911 for a different locale then where you are at (it requires a voip network). Also, the way 911 works isnt based on your spoofable caller ID. Your telco provider sends the registered info of the calling line to the 911 provider. That is why they dont use the 911 system.

      • Ummm… no… not quite. The CID (ANI) of the call can be spoofed, as well as the calling number (two different things). Anyone with a cable modem and an Asterisk PBX (freeware/Linux) can do this trick, and fool 911. So long as they are utilizing an IP based (internet) phone system, the CID, calling TN, name, etc can all be spoofed… it is illegal, but like a restraining order the law is ineffective at best (take a look at the telemarketers CID for example… 00000000000 is often used)… Most ‘swatters’ are gamers, or young adolesents who have no idea how the tech works and let their fear guide them. Besides, they may not always know the home phone number, or if there even is one?

    • Annoying and dangerous. I think any jerk evil enough to SWAT someone should be charged with attempted murder.

      • Scratch the word annoying and just leave dangerous. Swatting is the same as assault with a weapon, it’s just that the police are being used as the unwilling weapon. Very dangerous for the targets and for the police too.

      • Attempted murder of both the Swatting victim, and the responding cops.

        When the first one comes down with 8 counts of attempted murder, that will cool their fun really quick.

        • Exactly. They do occasionally catch these idiots, and charge one with 8-10 counts of attempted murder and put them away for a couple decades and I think the incidences of Swatting drop dramatically.

        • every attempt should be made to follow up on who called it in ,this is the work of knee jerk libs who think they are cute ,or someone with a beef ,who are to chicken%&*^ to face someone face to face .

      • Strongly agree.

        Of course, I think car thieves should be treated like horse rustlers were in the 1800’s, so maybe I’m just not sympathetic enough.

      • I think that the person behind SWAT’ting should be charged with actual (not attempted) crimes that would have been committed if they, rather than the SWAT team, did all the same actions.

        For example, if SWAT comes in with weapons at ready? Brandishing.

        If they bust through the door or a window, or use a battering ram? Breaking & entering, plus any associated property damage.

        Point a gun at anyone in on the premises? Assault with a deadly weapon.

        Handcuff anyone, use a flashbang, or otherwise cause physical harm, even transient? Battery.

        Shoot anyone? Murder or attempted murder, depending on the outcome.

        Shoot any dogs? Animal cruelty.

        And so on. And then on top of that, enable civil lawsuits for compensation for all property damage, and physical and mental suffering.

        SWAT’ting is basically committing a crime by proxy that is itself immune to prosecution. It only stands to reason that the instigator should be liable for that exact crime.

        • “SWAT’ting is basically committing a crime by proxy that is itself immune to prosecution. It only stands to reason that the instigator should be liable for that exact crime.”

          *Applause*

  5. As a dutiful representative of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, I have to take issue with your description of the Charger Pursuit with the V6. I know the Crown Vic was much beloved, but I dare you to compare that old beast side by side with the Charger Pursuit V6 from a dynamics standpoint. The Charger will win, hands down. That “underpowered” v6 has over 300 horsepower and (if your department spec’d your cars properly) the car should have AWD.

    Now, that said, the actual purpose and content of the article was great and I absolutely applaud your approach. This needs to be distributed to a wider audience in your department and maybe become a standard procedure. Please, please share this with the higher ups!

    • No the V6 Chargers do suck!!! We blew the engines in all of our departmental Chargers. The V8 hemi is the only way to go!!!!

      • Huh. This wasn’t suppossed to be a reply to Jon. Sorry, it posted in the wrong place!

        Good write up, “Tile Floor”. Glad to see that cops in some places are doing it right, with concern for those they are supposed to protect and serve and some good old fashioned “Andy Taylor” common sense.

        I’m surprised that cop hating anarchist dochebag “SexualT-rex/Good Riddance/more dead soldiers” hasn’t ranted about how the OP is fraud and a propoganda tool of the fuhrer or some other cop-hating nonsense.

    • It’s a rural county, so it’s probably an older model car. That means either a 2.7 or 3.5L V6, the larger of which only had 250 horsepower. Pushing a 4,000+lb car with the aerodynamics of a BRICK.

      • The Mercedes 210 chassis of 1996-2002 became the old Charger and Magnum.
        My 210 wagon, with AWD and Mercedes (not Dodge) 3.2L V6 accelerates pretty swiftly from 70-100 mph. It weighs over 2 tons and has the aerodynamics of a family wagon with built in roof rack. Probably tops out around 135mph on 220hp.

    • While the new chargers are really nice, I’ll keep my 440 Sixpack powered, 4 speed, two door Charger R/T. It has half the doors and weighs 3600lbs.

  6. lets all do an experiment. when the troll arrives, lets all completely ignore it, no matter what vile garbage it types.

    • The troll, being a sociopathic sadist, is very likely guilty of swatting people just to get his sick rocks off. The more I study about this ‘dark triad of personality” thing the more disturbing it becomes.

      In his case trolling is definately not a harmless pass time and I’m willing to bet he has the record to prove it.

  9. Good info! I’d hope my local PD (Seattle, WA) have their “ducks in a row” as efficiently and well organised as much as you guys do…although I’d be surprised if that is the case.

  11. Hopefully every department is as prudent. Now what I’d like to read is an article about how swatters are getting busted and sentenced to lengthy sentences.

    • I think most of them use VOIP to make the calls, and local PD or dispatch is (at least around where I work) unable to trace the caller back to a specific address.

      • That seems to be one potential path to swatting anonymity. I could see someone using a wifi signal w/ a large range to call. Using a proxy ISP is another potential layer of anonymity.

        Another possibility, and this gives someone more reason to spazz when his/her phone goes missing, is to “commandeer” a cell phone and make the call off that. Even better if its a phone of a family member of the person you are trying to swat. A twist on the same option is if someone from your wireless provider added and activated a phone in your name.

      • Which should actually make it easier to spot SWATing calls. VOIP lines have very unique id codes behind them. 911 caller ID systems should see that immediately. A SWAT call on an non-emergency line should always be down graded, until better confirmation can be obtained.

        • But loads of people legitimately use the internet for calls and have made legit 911 calls for legit reasons on it. You cannot discount a call just cuz it is from VOIP – treat it w/ more suspicion maybe but its problematic translating that into action.

        • If the 911 system more reliably linked to the proper PD to respond I’d agree.

          I have a cell phone # with an area code from halfway across the country from where I live now. Had it for years.

          If I call 911 where I live now, if I’m lucky it will get routed to the NM state police, or maybe the Albuquerque PD. If I’m not lucky it will get bounced back to somewhere east of the Mississippi. (I’ve chosen to make 3 911calls since moving here, all involving a potentially hazardous situation not caused by a human.)

          So I now have the local PD’s number in my phone’s address book. If it’s a imminent-danger emergency you bet I’ll be calling that one … potentially to much time lost sorting it out otherwise.

        • 911 call routing from a mobile phone has nothing to do with the area code of the phone and everything to do with the physical location when the call is placed.

  12. Excellent piece. Thank you. I would like to see broad public dissemination of the prosecution and punishment of those who would perpetrate such a henious crime as SWATing. Give the other pointless ones food for thought.
    Again, thank you for sharing.

  13. Good post, glad to see that at least some departments have realized how bad this makes them look, even when there is no one injured, and that they treat it like it should be treated.

    What I don’t understand with the technology to do it right, why don’t the incoming non-emergency lines get the same automatic traceback functions that the 911 lines get? Yes it would cost some money, but this is the only way to find the SWATers. If they can be found and put in jail with an attempted murder conviction the problem will fade in short order.

    • “Contrary to many of my colleagues, my buddy’s and my number one priority is not going home at night. Our top goal is doing our damned jobs”

      +1,000. This guys gets it.

  15. Many years ago, during my single father faze, I was sitting at home watching the tube when a knock came to my door. It was about 11 at night and my kids were in bed asleep. Small pistol was in pocket.

    I carefully inquired who it was. It was 2 uniformed patrol men from the local pd. They were responding to a 911 hangup call from my residence.

    At that time few people had cells, i didn’t, and the only land line in the apartment was next to my chair. No one from my household had made such a call.

    But the locals had been obligated to check and here they were. They were polite, professional and no guns were drawn. Where there more than 2? I don’t know and didn’t think to ask.

    They and I were convinced it must have been a glitch in their system.

    • A 911 hangup is a common police call and is commonly handled as you describe with the assumption that someone at the house is just screwing around with the phone. No need for more than 2 cops (1, really, unless it’s a boring night) or to have guns drawn.

    • An elderly friend of mine bought a home phone with speed dial and programmed 9-1-1 in as the first one button call. The 2nd time a deputy showed up pounding on all his doors in answer to a ‘dead line’ 9-1-1 call, he unprogrammed it.

      In both cases it was as uneventful as you might hope for, but one time the cop was very worried by the time he knocked on a door that my friend could hear.

  18. Other than that, many of the departments that go way overboard need to realize that SWATting is a serious and prevalent issue in our society, and there are usually clues that you are headed towards a hoax.

    This. It’s likely that most police departments have never seen a “SWATing”, so they don’t know that they need to take these calls as potentially fake.

  19. I can’t believe a Federal law is not broken when a swatting call is made. I would think at a minimum that the Wire Fraud statutes could be used and the FBI could track them down. I guess we will have to wait until an innocent family is gunned down by a nervous SWAT team before anyone takes this seriously. The punishment needs to be harsh as, even when resolved peacefully, a lot of people are put in serious danger, not the least the responding officers.

    • Agreed. Wire fraud and attempted murder. Throw a few SWATers into jail for life, and these idiots will think twice.

    • Federal law is broken every time someone flies a drone into an airport approach corridor, or shines a laser pointer into a cockpit. If punks don’t think they can be caught, they don’t care.

  20. Thanks for posting. Is there anyone in your profession that is giving a small presentation to various police districts on this SWATting trend? If not there should be. I might cut down even further on the over-reactions we occasionally here about.

    All that aside, I think the biggest SWATters are over-eager cops and insufficiently skeptical judges.

  21. Fairfax county, Virginia will send the SWAT team to respond to suspected squatters and poker games.

  22. I am glad to see some departments are not going full on retard kicking doors down without investigating. This is what should happen in 100% of these cases.

    Why is the Government/Law Enforcement doing more to crack down on these idiots? Is it really that hard to track it down? I mean in this day and age the NSA probably knows what I had for breakfast the moment I order it and we can’t find a few teenaged hackers trying to get people killed?

  23. Great piece but . . .

    I am not sure if the author realized it or not (maybe he did) but he just gave quite a bit of useful info on “SWATting” to potential “SWATters”. He gave the mindset of those involved on the other end as well as a partial rundown on the anatomy of a swatting call in progress from the police end of things. In simpler terms, he gave useful info to potential swatters on how to make a fake call seem more authentic.

    Intelligence gathering is like mining for gold. Most people think its a boon, like finding a fist-sized nugget in the woods. In reality, it is usually sifting through tons of dirt (not useful info) and distilling/processing it down to something useful. It has also been compared to piecing together patterns – a “mosaic” if you will.

    I am not a SWATter nor a hacker and have no intentions of being either. I just can think like one when the time comes.

    • They already have even more convincing stories than this. I’ve responded to calls where the number that our dispatch showed it as coming from was the one linked to that house. I’ve also had ones where someone was pretending to be a victim and saying shots were fired, etc. They even have given personal information of the occupants inside that is accurate, such as name, dob, etc.

      However regardless there is typically something that doesn’t make sense, like the OP described. As long as those responding pay attention to case comments, you will typically pick up on it. As you get some time on you learn to spot a BS case, SWATing or not. Of course you still must respond with a reasonable level of due diligence(key word reasonable)

    • Somewhat fair point, but I think the value of this piece in helping cops to reduce frequency of these instances is greater than the risk of helping swatters. In the long run police departments need strategies that will work as intended even if swatters have a good idea of what the police will do. This piece might help police move in that direction.

  24. Those Fairfax guys are trying to be really hi-speed and aggressive in case the FBI has an HRT scout looking for “talent”.

  25. Your area residents should be proud to have such common sense guys on the force. Another problem today are the gazillion home alarm systems that generate false alarms. Requiring a run and evaluation of the situation onsite.

  26. “This is just how my department responds to SWATting calls. It’s not in any official SOP or policy, it’s just how we’ve come to do it”

    You did your job as expected. You did your due diligence and didn’t murder an innocent family, if only that was standard operation policy.

    Sir, I suspect that you may know the people that you interact with, or know their families, which makes you more hesitant to roll up and murder your fellow citizens over a felonious attempted “murder by cop”.

    Good for you but that is not a profession wide SOP like the following is evidence of:
    ” and that she was glad that her little boy didn’t end up handcuffed with 30 rifles pointed at him.”

    The problem most Americans have with the police is that you guys are not held accountable by law, only by your conscience. The conscience part is what some Americans really have the issue with because lying, cheating, stealing, and willfully seeking to take another person’s innocence is usually found in criminals, not law enforcers.

    I feel cops have no honest ability to support the Constitution because they work in complete contrast to those great ideals that were left to us true Americans. As citizens, they do have the right to say what they want, even if it is an easily proven lie. A cop saying they support and honor their oath is like the British or Nazi saying that they had to do their jobs, but they are not responsible for their actions that allow corruption. Cops clearly understand that they are just useful idiots of their antigun/antiamerican financial backers, but they are too comfortable to care about their treachery.

    Disclaimer to NSA:
    I know that the Constitution is dead and has no relevance in government anymore, but it is nice to think that OUR nation was once a nation of Men before Laws.

  27. Nicely written, “Tile Floor”, and good to see there are departments out there with some common sense and professionalism. Also, I agree that someone, somewhere in this nation, needs to be severely prosecuted for one of these incidents, and convicted, and sentenced to serious jail time. Wouldn’t be as fun to pull potentially deadly pranks if you could end up in a prison for it.

  28. Nice story TF, but why didn’t you wait for backup before approaching the house – protocol?

    • He didn’t wait because the call might have been real and people could have died before backup arrived. At the time of the Columbine shooting, it was the policy to wait for SWAT. Once it was realized that killers would take advantage of the delay to increase their body count, the policy was changed to the quickest possible intervention.

  29. Who even knows the phone number directly to a police station or substation? Who would ever call that in an emergency? An “emergency” call over that line is more than a red flag. It’s practically an up front confession.

  30. This is a safe and sensible approach to a potentially deadly situation. Kudos to Tile Floors and his department.

    Some cops, like the OP and our commenters, are clear and rational thinkers, which serves the community and the officers very well.

  31. Wow. There are still real cops doing cop stuff, instead of a bunch of operator wannabes attempting to operate operationally rolling up in MRAPs killing dogs and flash banging babies. Kudos sir.

  33. This sounds like a well thought out protocol for dealing with such situations. Glad to hear that you guys take this all very seriously and respond accordingly. This is the kind of approach I would expect & hope my local PD to utilize.

  34. Thanks for the write-up. Now we know what’s being done wrong to spot SWAT’ers and how to make the calls look more legitimate.

  36. “Contrary to many of my colleagues, my buddy’s and my number one priority is not going home at night. Our top goal is doing our damned jobs, and as cheesy as it sounds, to help those in need.”

    Wow, I wish there where more like you. Sadly too many cops are basically paranoid little men who would sell out their mother if it meant they could go home and keep getting a paycheck. Good job!

    I have a similar issue, I’m an EMT and most of the people I work with are more scared of our patients than they are of failing their job.

  38. Episode #15 of the podcast reply all has an interesting bit on swatting, at 20min it is a quick and interesting listen. On a side note ep. #30 was a good listen if you like the tone of the first one. Also thanks for the write up, imagining how badly a swatting call can go for everybody it is nice to see that some don’t take the “going home at the end of the shift” to the point of assuming the worst at all costs, even to the victims.

  39. How about we start tracking these little dipshits back to their mom’s basements and start stacking charges on them? False reporting and reckless endangerment are two good ones that come to mind.

    • “How about we start tracking these little dipshits back to their mom’s basements and start stacking charges on them?”

      Because it’s impossible when done correctly.

      Guv is not as all-powerful and magical as you believe. There is much that is beyond it’s reach, and in spite of this particular brand of unpleasantness, I’d much rather abide the problems of too much freedom, than too little.

  40. Long before it was called SWATting, my niece’s family got SWATted by an effing racist neighbor. He didn’t like having a black and Puerto Rican family living next door. So he called 911 and said my niece’s husband threatened him with a gun.
    Despite no gun being found, nor any evidence to support the false police report, Boston Police arrest my niece’s husband for assault with a deadly weapon. The neighbors pointed a ‘finger gun’ at him as he was put in a cruiser.
    Within weeks, that family sold the house and moved to avoid losing the house in a law suit they surely would have lost.
    A lawyer wanted a retainer of $5000 to get the arrest expunged with no guarantee that it would be successful.
    My niece’s husband is rabidly anti-gun. And in this case, I suppose it paid off. He thinks his muscles are enough to protect his family. But they didn’t protect him from a racist a-hole neighbor.

  41. This was an awesome read, and I like the balance struck between appropriate caution and reasonable escalation. Good to see a group of people out there with attention to detail and a cool head with which to make decisions.

    Hopefully a way to counter this comes up. Honestly, that’s a fake call to the police. That’s wasting time and resources, and putting people in danger.

    It’s also, at the very least, menacing. I’d call it “terrorism” except that appears to further no political goal, and that’s in every definition I could find.

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