Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/02/people-suck.html
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Well it is nice to see the SPD doing something right.
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Pro Tip: Before you open that drug lab, be sure to register as a high-risk swatting target. Chances are someone will inform on you, so be prepared.
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Someone send them a phone book. Everyone deserves caution before being swatted.
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Remains to be seen how useful this will be. Investigative journalist Brian Krebs was SWAT’ted despite having specifically warned the local police department that he was a likely target.
The real question is what having your name on the Do Not SWAT List actually buys you. Because it would, you know, be kind of nice if the cops were to “tread extra-carefully” in every case, rather than just cases where someone had filled out the forms beforehand.
Also, I’d like to express my disappointment that this service is called SMART911 instead of SWATMeNot (or perhaps SWAT or Not?). Missed opportunity there, people.
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Holy shit, can we ALL opt out of SWAT raids?
SWAT has its purpose, but it is WAAAAYYY over used today.
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What about training your police force to not live out their Wyatt Earp Wild West fantasies in every situation instead of making a registry of Don’t-want-to-be-killed-at-home-Citizens? Nah … sound reasonable, can’t do that.
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My first instinct was to think that it sounds too easily gamed for too little effect. But then, the first time I’d heard of swatting, it wasn’t given a name, but it appeared in Jeffrey Deaver’s The Blue Nowhere (review). The main character in the end relied on the police having some intuition that the situation was fishy. But that’s about all these measures can do: Tell you that something is up. You still don’t know if the person put themselves on the registry because they had plans to do something or if they belong there, but you can at least put the possibility in the back of a supervisor’s mind when their SWAT team rolls over. And the SWAT team will show up. Is there really a bomb at the school during finals week? Probably not. But you can’t just assume there won’t be.
Of course, shooting too fast is an American police problem that also needs to be solved, but the SWAT team is still going to show up, and that’s still disruptive. The issue also needs to be tackled from a technical and legal deterrent perspective.
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The Seattle Police Department, having coped with two (thankfully) nonlethal swatting incidents since June
It’s important to highlight your thankfulness. Otherwise, readers might think you were disappointed, hoping for at least a little bloodshed. They might even think you called in the SWAT yourself.
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Yeah, that and whether they’ll be able to consistently correlate one’s presence on the list with the information from the 911 call. (Given the number of time the cops end up at a wrong address, their internal record keeping isn’t necessarily great…) This seems like information that could easily get lost in the process, or like what happened with Krebs, the system put in place is just insufficient.
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Isn’t it insane that people that are known targets of ruthless psychopaths have to put their name in a registry stating their preference AGAINST police coming to their house?
I understand why this exists but it is just a insane concept on many different levels.
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There’s a lot of things I love about the 21st century, but this ranks right up there with having to take the time to convince a robot that I’m not a robot.
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This is good thing. Police need to transition away from the hyper-aggressive mindset of the Special Weapons Attack Team. I look forward to the day when all officers are proud to stand up and say they are Trained Well Against …
On second thought I better not finish that sentence
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Meh. It’s a work-around until the phone companies are forced to fix their broken loophole in the caller id system.
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