But don’t forget, online harassment is no big deal.
Casey Parks at OregonLive reports:
A prank call sent a large number of Portland police officers to a Southwest Portland home late Friday night.
Central Precinct officers responded to a home in the 11200 block of Southwest Capitol Highway around midnight after receiving reports that an armed man was holding residents hostage inside.
As officers were developing a plan to contact residents, they learned that the call was probably a hoax.
They later confirmed that everyone inside the home was safe.
A Twitter user who goes by Grace Lynn says the hoax, called a “swatting,” was intended for her. A forum on the website 8chan described the plan to “swat” her.
8chan?? That nice harmless outlet for discussions of ethics & gaming and similar controversial issues? Surely 8chan wouldn’t do a thing like that.
Police Sgt. Pete Simpson confirmed the bureau did receive a phone call suggesting the original call was a prank.
“The whole swatting term came from people calling to get a SWAT team to go out on a call,” Simpson said. “But that’s not how we operate. Patrol officers are going to go assess a scene based on what they see. We don’t roll out a SWAT team just because someone calls 911. We need more than a phone call.”
…
“You’re taking away resources that might be needed for someone who has a real emergency,” Simpson said.
Unless it’s GamerGate or people who hate “SJWs” – if they’re the ones doing it then no harm will befall anyone as a result, because god is Just.
Simpson said the bureau has encountered one or two other “swatting” attempts but that such prank calls won’t be successful here.
“It’s not going to result in the prank playing out the way the prankster wanted it to,” Simpson said. “But it does create significant risk to the public and significant risk to officers responding. And the prankster can face state and federal charges.”
Improper Use of an Emergency Reporting System is a crime in Oregon, and investigators say they will work to identity the caller and make an arrest.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to email it to [email protected].
But but but…online harassment is no big deal. Everybody says so.
Why did the police respond though? It was a phone call. Telecommunications. Don’t they know they can’t trust any of it? On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog, and on the telephone nobody knows you’re the Jerky Boys. It’s not Real Life.
Except if you mention that something is sexist. Then all the men’s penes fall right off, and it’s basically genocide. But death threats and SWATing? Hilarious!
Often it is better to rush to the scene and then decide what to do. I’m glad they don’t SWAT right away because that tends to escalate things too quickly. In my area, the SWAT team was only supposed to be used a couple times a year. However, the SWAT has been used over 300 times.
In most states, that kind of hoax is also a felony.
This story also illustrates how blasé 8chan are that ‘swatting’ people has a substantial risk of ending in loss of life… but actually, it’s about ethics in gaming journalism. Riiiiiiiiight.
To my surprise, the police did it right for once. This is, of course, Portland, but when my cousin used to hang around with a bunch of Portland PD officers years ago they were the most virulent racists you could imagine.
Then again, perhaps the folks in the house were white.