Swatting
[6] 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 liability if things go wrong.
[7]: 1 [8][9][10] 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.
[10] Caller ID spoofing, social engineering, TTY, prank calls, and phone phreaking techniques may be variously combined by swatting perpetrators.
[7][22] Security reporter Brian Krebs recommends that police departments take extra care when responding to calls received at their non-emergency numbers, or through text-to-speech services (TTY), since these methods are often employed by out-of-area swatters who cannot connect to regional 911 centers.
A 2015 bipartisan bill in Congress sponsored by Katherine Clark and Patrick Meehan made swatting a federal crime with increased penalties.
[39] 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.
Washita County sheriff's deputies and Sentinel police chief Louis Ross made forced entry into Horton's residence.
Based on a series of screenshotted Twitter posts, the Wichita Eagle suggests that Finch was the unintended victim of the swatting after two Call of Duty: WWII players on the same team got into a heated argument about a US$1.50 bet.
On December 29, 2017, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested 25-year-old serial swatter Tyler Raj Barriss, known online as "SWAuTistic" and on Xbox Live as "GoredTutor36", in connection with the incident.
[49] The gamer who made the bet with Barriss pleaded guilty to felony charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to 15 months in prison and banned from playing video games for two years.
[50] 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.
[56] 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.
[58][59] 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.
[60] 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.
[63] In July 2022, Emmet G. Sullivan, a U.S. federal judge presiding over cases pertaining to the January 6 United States Capitol attack, was the victim of a swatting incident.
[70][71] There have been widespread doxing, swatting and violent threats against American politicians since early December 2023, predominately members of the Republican Party and conservatives.
of State Shenna Bellows was targeted with a fake emergency call to police that caused officers to respond to her home the day after she removed former President Donald Trump from Maine's Presidential Primary Ballot under the Constitution's insurrection clause.
