Comment by johnpowell | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnpowell | Hacker News Reader

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My mom rented out a concrete slab in her backyard in August to a few guys living in a RV. They have access to the garage which has water and a full bathroom. And I ran electric and Ethernet to their RV.

They are not supposed to come into the main house without knocking. They do not have keys.

It is like pulling teeth to get them to pay rent and utilities. They hit one of the peoples car that lives inside the main house and refused to fix the broken taillight. The part is 40 bucks and I can replace it. But they refuse.

And this has escalated over the last few weeks. The police have been called three times over the RV guys behavior. I told my mom to get a restraining order to get them out fast but for some reason refuses.

So the eviction process has started. And they were not happy. I was there the other day and was getting the space heater in the bathroom going so the pipes don't burst and overheard them saying that when they leave they should, "SWAT the bitch".

And my mom rents out a room to a forty year old guy on disability that they say has a mental capacity of a 12 year old. He is somewhat impulsive. If the cops poured in he would not understand what is going on and would probably get shot.

I went with my mom to the police station to tell them what I overheard. So hopefully before they send a SWAT team a note pops up that they were warned about this and it is probably false.

Having done work on 911 call-taking systems, I can tell you that they do have the capability of placing notes on properties. Things like "large dog in backyard" or "known gun owner." That way they can inform responding officers as best they can. Talking to the police might not be enough, because that report won't make it to dispatchers who need the info. I don't know the proper procedure to get a note placed on the property.

They are very likely to note perceived threats to an officer's safety, as that helps them both avoid injuring an officer and helps cover their ass if they decide to kill something innocent. They are NOT likely to note things like you mention because it open them up to liability. If they have a note on your property saying someone is likely to make a fake call about it, and then someone does and they show up and decide to kill something innocent anyway, it's going to look a little worse for them if there's a note telling them that.

I agree they are probably going to be hesitant to put a note on there saying something like "property owner is afraid of fake swat calls" or something like that. But they do indeed put notes like the exact ones I mentioned in my comment above, as I've seen them.

Talking to police is the first step. Not sure if he mentioned this in the article, but Brian Krebs himself has done it, since he was getting swatted with some frequency on account of his reporting.

I've thought similarly about people who are feeling the threat of being swatted informing local authorities of the possibility but that presents another problem. The police aren't going to 100% trust people calling in to say, "Hey, if anybody calls you to say I'm doing something illegal I am calling you to tell you right now that I'd never do anything like that!" and it makes me feel that forewarning them might pose more problem than not. The entire situation is sticky and grimy and I agree with Krebs that the punishment for causing a swatting incident needs to be a felony in all 50 states.

If you go to the station and give your id, make a statement and they verify where you live and who you are?

Do they really have a process in place to check if addresses are on a 'do not SWAT list' before sending in the cops? How is such a list maintained and verified? Who approves changes to it? How long do addresses stay on it and what's the process for removing them?

There is no such thing as a 'do not SWAT' list, and there is no such process in place.

> There is no such thing as a 'do not SWAT' list

Well, to be fair, most of the world is a 'do not SWAT' list. I know that's not the point you were making, but let's keep things in perspective.

They really aren't though. Anyone who knows your address could swat you anytime, and the reason most people are safe is merely not being an interesting target for those people unstable enough to do it.

Well, they're not allowed to operate outside the US.

(I mean, it would probably cause an international incident and such)

Yes you might be surprised but the police keep notes/tabs on the community. If you call something in or otherwise inform them you will be in the system which would alert them.

Indeed, seems plausible the police keep tabs on individuals in the community (yay for the privacy implications there) but the point of the gp is the cops have a disincentive to take X citizen's statement "Hey, I'm doing nothing but someone might swat me" since that's what a criminal would say. ("There is no 'do not Swatt' list" is a great tl;dr;)

I mean, if there was a special thing someone could do before hand to keep the cops from showing, guns blazing, when they thought it was appropriate, nearly everyone would do it and that would be a problem if such a response was appropriate.

So there's really only approach - make cops dial back on the use of deadly as their default. That's the only thing, there's no way to get a special "no don't shoot" card for random in random suburb, much as people might want it. Well, unless you are a neighborhood with money, then it's different.

Edit: And don't think the cops would cough-up their notes on house X for the same reason. Obviously, if the cops even admit they are keeping those notes, of course they become subject to all sort of controversies. Whether they're constitutional would come into question, etc.

In the heat of the moment (police suddenly getting a dispatch for a murder / hostage situation at a local residence) I hardly believe anyone involved is going to have the time to thumb through notes like that. Maybe in a really small rural community but I can't imagine there would be much chance of things going properly in any sort of larger municipality or city.

The dispatcher will type in your address into their computer and will immediately see and read these notes.

Are these notes available as part of a freedom of information act request? Because one should be able to have written verifications these notes exist for when the inevitable breakdown in communication occurs and the note is not passed along to first responders on the scene.

I would assume so.

Of course various dispatchers will be running different software so this may not be universally supported, but these notes are a pretty basic feature.

The hope isn't that they never show up at all, it's that that show up aware it's possible that the accused people are actually the victims and they need to be careful not to over react.

Whether the warning pays off is still mostly unknown ground.

That would definitely be more ideal than a simple phone call but I still can't imagine a police officer / police department finding it anything more than odd which would set off all sorts of red flags.

I fear going to the police preemptively would make the situation far worse, as it so often does.

Do you have any citations for this claim?

Brian Krebs did just this, visiting the local police to inform them of the potential for a swatting attack.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/03/the-world-has-no-room-fo...

Then when he was later SWATted:

"One of the officers asked if it was okay to enter my house, and I said sure. Then an officer who was dressed more like a supervisor approached me and asked if I was the guy who had filed a police report about this eventuality about six months earlier."

For all we know it could have saved his life.

"For all we know it could have saved his life."

It says something pretty sad about American society that your assumption is that calling the Police will result in them murdering an innocent person.

Well, what it says is definitely not great, but in this specific case it's probably a bit less about the police overreaction and a bit more about the prevalence of guns and how to safely proceed when notified about extremely volatile and dangerous situations, such as a hostage situation with an armed individual that is exhibiting signs of mental instability (whether true or not).

How the police respond may be weighted too much towards a specific action, but it's important to consider this is the actual reason that SWAT teams exist.

I would definitely be interested in knowing how situations like this are handled in other countries, and the success rates involved. My suspicion is that in countries without the equivalent of SWAT some scenarios don't have an adequate response, while others that we use SWAT somewhat inappropriately for that are handled better. I suspect a less military approach is better overall, but an entire lack of that option isn't beneficial either. I don't think it's hard to argue that there's far too much police militarization in the U.S. right now.

Says quite a lot more about American police, I'd say.

It's hyperbole. Millions of citizens interact with police on a daily basis and don't get shot. That obviously doesn't excuse the cases where it occurs, but it's not like this happens on a significant number of calls.

Once we define what kind of encounters to sample, specifically encounters involving police breaking into your home, it's no longer a ratio of 1:1000000+ that you will have a bad encounter.

If I were told the chances of me dying from jumping off a cliff were 1:1000, I still wouldn't jump that cliff.

From the krebsonsecurity link, it appears that Krebs was first confronted by officers with firearms drawn and handcuffed before meeting with the supervisor.

Right. The point is that someone who appeared to be a supervisor, in other words in charge of the swat team, was apparently already aware of the chance that this was a case of swatting. Going into the situation, that knowledge likely made the swat team's approach more professional and safe, thereby possibly saving Krebs' life.

Yes, agreed. Just because he was handcuffed for a period doesn't mean they weren't trying to be careful and already under the impression it would be a false alarm. That doesn't mean they let their guard down and don't take it seriously, which depending on the reason they are there may mean securing the area and people in it.

I think you just proved his point.

How insane is it that you have to pre-empt SWATing now?

The only reason this is even a problem is because (too) many people know that the police is so trigger-happy these days that all it takes is say something dangerous-sounding about someone else and there's a not insignificant chance that the police will murder them.

That's how out of control the "Serve and Protect" police has gotten in the US.

My claim was that I fear it, which is true, although I cannot provide a citation. I could certainly point to many instances of people preemptively calling police (i.e. not reporting a crime) and the police showing up and doing horrible things.

Considering the worst case scenario when being swatted is ending up dead, I think giving them a heads up about fraud risk is sensible.

Speaking to cops without a lawyer is a bad idea in many cases, but this doesn't appear to be one of them.

I see what you're saying, but I think it could stave off a lot if a cop visited your house, looked around, and verified that you're not Walter White. If the 911 call came in, I'd hope the local PD would be a bit more likely to think "isn't that the nice scoggs guy we visited last week and not the bomb maker the person on the phone is claiming?" I'm sure they'd still come and investigate, but hopefully not with guns blazing.

Just to be sure: have you heard of or looked into police violence in your area?

After that execution in Arizona[1], I wouldn't rule out the possibility that some of your local officers, depending on where you are in the country, are more interested in getting some action and shooting "criminals", than helping you and your mom.

The thought of wannabe-action-heroes or, god-forbid, psychopaths like Charles Langley, getting ready to tear through my family's property, terrifies me.

[1]: http://www.tmz.com/2017/12/07/mesa-police-involved-shooting-...

That is beyond horrifying, but as soon as I read that you went to the police I had a reflexive feeling of dread.

That is what is so terrifying about police abuse. Who do you call. What can anyone do.

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