Police to Seattle’s techies, streamers: Sign up for our anti-swatting service | Hacker News Reader

Police to Seattle’s techies, streamers: Sign up for our anti-swatting service

arstechnica.com

94 pointstony10199 comments

So... why don't we fix the problem at its source by trying to better assess the reliability of a lone phone call before barging in guns blazing as though it was a war zone?

Before: "We got a single phone call guys, this is bulletproof. No need to actually assess the situation or anything, no one would ever lie to us - we're the authorities after all."

Now: "Not in the database - looks like we're good to shoot on sight!"

Obviously I exaggerate, and hopefully things don't usually proceed the way they did in Kansas (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/us/gamers-swatting-charge...). But I really have to wonder about the reasoning here. In all seriousness, which of the below is a more frequent occurrence?

* A hostage (or similar) situation deserving of this sort of response, but with no externally visible indications - just a single phone call.

* "Prank" calls of this sort.

I don't actually know the answer, but I strongly suspect the latter by a very large margin.

When I read stories like the one you linked I wonder how a normal person won't get shot because they make some weird movement. Having a bunch of armed guys yell at you is a pretty stressful situation and a lot of people simply will not comprehend what's going on and not "comply" in some way.

Sometimes I wonder if cops have watched too many action movies and try to emulate these movies. How about first waiting and assess the situation? Why that rush and aggressiveness?

> wonder how a normal person won't get shot because they make some weird movement.

They do all the time. I saw a video where American police were yelling confusing instructions at a drunk guy clearly trying to do what they ask but unable to work out what they want and when he fell over they opened fire at him because he made a quick movement.

But its almost justified. I have seen videos where someone moves their arm just a bit and the police start shooting instantly before I even know what has happened and a gun falls out of the dead targets pocket.

Thats just what happens when any random stranger could be carrying a gun. Its almost unheard of for someone to be wrongly shot by police in Australia (Probably has happened but its no where near like America)

> Thats just what happens when any random stranger could be carrying a gun.

I'm not so sure about that. Admittedly I haven't spent the time to do reliable research, but I get the distinct impression that fewer people here are actively carrying weapons today than in, say, the 1950s. Yet over time the police seem to have an increasing amount of military gear, generally seem more on edge when I encounter them in public, and it feels much more like an "Us vs Them" thing is going on. It also concerns me that I can't seem to identify a clear root cause for why that would be happening.

Can confirm. I've never felt in danger around an Australian police officer, despite the fact they're packing.

I reckon even if I did something stupid around them I'd probably get pepper sprayed rather than shot.

You wouldn't want to be mentally ill though. Two cases spring to mind where (young, inexperienced) police shot people without cause. In one case, at a large park, shot a youth, with no one nearby, because he had a $2 steak knife. In another case, in the person's home, where the police had forcefully entered because of a report they might have been suicidal.

That's really sad, and I don't doubt at all that these things happen, but they are so uncommon, even for the mentally ill, it just isn't something I'm worried about. I've actually been pretty impressed at how restrained QPS officers are with how they deal with drunk and psychotic people. I was involved in a fair bit of this while working as a doctor in ED, as well as while working in a psychiatric unit.

If I was going to be mentally ill, I think Australia would be towards the top of my list somewhere of places I'd want to be.

There are rules of engagement that are stricter in a war zone. Also one of the incentives is the pay increases when geared up.

I think you've hit on something there: Incentives.

What are the incentives for the PD in an armed situation? To stay alive, yes, of course. But are there other incentives? The guns blazing approach indicates there are other incentives. If they wanted to 'just' stay alive, they'd put a lot of distance between themselves and the suspect, get a lot of back-up, etc.

But there is another possible incentive too: glory/honor. For many male-centric groups, dis/honor is a VERY powerful incentive. Taking down the 'bad-guy' and earning honor/glory through that act can be quite motivating.

But can you replace that incentive with another one that is less 'thrill seeking'? How about 'hazard pay', payed by the number of hours that an officer is in a life-threatening situation, escalating with the time spent on scene? Like, you corner a suspect, but the longer the standoff lasts, the more pay the officer gets, and the more officers there are on the scene, the more the pay increases? That'll incentivize the officers to wait things out, get back-up, give time for media to get on site, and probably decrease fatalities.

Or, you know, less guns on the streets too.

The Federal Government is more humane than the independent states' well armed militias. The Federal Government exists in a cohesive world that requires cooperation. The States are exempt from that, exempt from actual challenges to their sovereignty because the Federal Government will protect them, and they are also exempt from oversight from the Federal Government as long as they pass their own laws to justify their egregious behavior.

> The Federal Government is more humane than the independent states' well armed militias.

Only if you somehow manage to ignore everything the federal government is doing internationally (15 & 17yr wars [with no end], ignoring ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, etc).

> and they are also exempt from oversight from the Federal Government

That's not true at all. For a very recent (today) example: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-net-...

I was very particular with my words. The outcome may not be agreeable but the Federal Government's military and rules of engagement are much more humane and nuanced than anything any of the state's have ever legislated. I don't agree with the ideology supporting the wars, or processes behind the drone strikes. That doesn't undermine my argument.

Secondly, you decided to link something completely out of context to the discussion of the state's well armed militias, which is the only thing I am referring to in the whole post.

> Secondly, you decided to link something completely out of context to the discussion of the state's well armed militias, which is the only thing I am referring to in the whole post.

You claimed "The States are exempt ... from oversight from the Federal Government as long as they pass their own laws to justify their egregious behavior" as an explanation for why the US Federal Government does not (or chooses to not) interfere with State militia. The lawsuit by the US DoJ against California's NN law demonstrates that your claim doesn't hold.

We're talking about the state's police departments, I just don't understand how you would expect recurring adjectives every single time just to avoid your "AHA I found a hole in his theory" filter. The Federal Government won't assume oversight of police departments if there is some form of due process.

> exempt from oversight from the Federal Government as long as they pass their own laws to justify their egregious behavior

> won't assume oversight of police departments if there is some form of due process

Those two statements (by you) are quite different. I'm inclined to agree with the second one, as I've never heard of a federal agency taking over a local police department before. However, I'm inclined to disagree with the first (depending on the precise definition of oversight, of course). As just one example, consider the DoJ investigation of the SPD a few years ago. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/...

I guess you are the third person to chime in on this. I've already clarified multiple times that I thought the subject, the narrow subject, was very clear. In a topic sentence that specifically mentions well armed militias, the subsequent statements were related to that. It was carefully worded to deal with whatever rebuttals to the wording alone that overly semantical programmers might come up with while keeping my point, and it failed.

Also, yes, the federal government will assume administration of police departments if its FUBAR, local municipalities can even ask for it to happen, like San Francisco has done and received since 2016.

> In a topic sentence that specifically mentions well armed militias, the subsequent statements were related to that.

> The Federal Government is more humane than the independent states' well armed militias.

So this is referring only to "well armed militias", and we're defining that in such a way as to exclude any police forces?

> We're talking about the state's police departments

Ok, so "well armed militias" includes police departments then?

> It was carefully worded to deal with ... overly semantical programmers

The problem isn't overly semantic programmers, the problem is that you are contradicting yourself. To respond unambiguously only to your original comment then:

> The Federal Government is more humane than the independent states' well armed militias.

This is quite debatable, and depends on the definition of "well armed militias" as well as how one goes about judging how humane the behavior of a given large institution is. I'm also not very clear on it's relevance to the larger topic of police militarization.

> The States are ... exempt from oversight from the Federal Government as long as they pass their own laws to justify their egregious behavior.

This technically depends on the definition of "oversight", but I think that for any reasonable definition it is very obviously false. Historically the federal government has stepped in on numerous occasions, either when they felt they had explicit authority (ex interstate commerce clause, intellectual property, etc), or when they felt that states were violating the constitutional rights of their citizens (ex my previously linked DoJ investigation of the SPD). In any of these cases it did not generally matter what the state laws said, as the constitution very clearly preempts those.

Exactly what happened here:

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/prank-swat-call-...

> I wonder how a normal person won't get shot because they make some weird movement.

Yes, that seems to be the key. If armed people point rifles toward you, lay flat on the ground, extend your arms away from your core, and wait. Eventually they will calm down and search you.

This has to be balanced by the need for fast responses when there is an actual real emergency. Heads will roll if the authorities come slowly or not at all for a real hostage situation.

I don't think the best outcomes for hostage situations are quick responses by heavily armed assault teams? I'm pretty sure the playbook is something like surrounding and controlling the area, establishing communications, and trying to work out a peaceful outcome. Whilst planning for an alternative option.

I am pretty sure thing are the way they are for a good reason that you and I have no insight to. Otherwise they wouldn’t be this way. Cops are not stupid and neither are the people running those teams. I doubt it gives them any pleasure responding to potentially deadly situations and putting their own lives at risk. Cops have families too. Perhaps we need to ask someone who knows better instead of speculating.

Turns out some times the authorities are morons, dude. Once upon a time we dumped radioactive material off the coast of SF and shot holes in the barrels to make them sink. I’m sure there was someone running around saying “there’s probably a good reason”. That dude would have been wrong.

I wouldn’t disagree with your first statement but HN tends to skew to a bunch of I’m a know it all attitudes. I’m just saying, things are not always as simple as they appear and while you can have an opinion on the matter does not make you authority on the subject. I forget the term for this concept but the news is always wrong depending on who is reading it.

You're referring to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

There are stupid people in all walks of life. Or, people who do things because that’s how they’ve been done and they don’t want to rock the boat and that’s what their paycheck depends on.

Of course, but a fact does not make the opposit case.

In a real hostage situation you won't just rush in with full force. Most of the times the situation gets resolved with long negotiations wearing the hostage taker down.

They can respond quickly without charging in like action hero wannabes.

In that article the police are simply murderers, no one should get shot opening the front door.

Overly quick armed response usually has more downside than upside.

If it's a swatting, you might end up killing innocent civilians.

If it's an actual hostage situation, you can trigger a violent end to the confrontation when a negotiator might have sufficed.

Actually the problem is that if they show up and shoot someone, heads won't roll due to the excuse that "Well it could have been a real emergency so we came in shooting just in case."

How many incidents have their been in recent years where the cops acted too slowly and cautiously vs incidents where someone innocent died or was injured because they came in guns blazing?

Can I use it for - My Family is Black in a mostly White neighborhood, if a neighbor calls the police about “suspicious” people entering my house, it’s probably just my family.

I am sorry to hear that. Is your neighborhood wealthy? I'm in SF, and there are some neighborhoods (Pacific Heights) where your risk of getting the cops called at you is pretty high just by walking around at night if one of the nosy neighbors doesn't recognize you. I assume being black would increase those odds.

I was almost swatted once -- there was a knock on my door "Police! Open up!" and when I came to the door the police said they heard reports of gunshots from my apartment. What?? I let them in, they looked around -- I think it was an ex-gf but I can't prove it. They started asking me if I just moved in (I had a few months before). I tried to ask them who reported it, but they wouldn't say. I'm just glad they didn't bust down the door guns blazing.

It's a scary world out there.

The neighborhood isn’t wealthy by California standards, but the county is the wealthiest in the state, and it was an infamous “Sundown Town” in the South as late as the 80s. But as the metro area has grown and an influx of professionals and younger people have moved in, the demographics are slowly changing. It’s mostly the older crowd who have been here for decades that have problems. My wife and I don’t get looked at too strangely, but my (step)son who is tall and big gets suspicious looks from older adults even though he grew up in the burbs all of his life and his circle of friends look like the cast of a CW show.

My son often hangs out with friends from his school. Their parents always love him. He only gets strange looks from the grandparents occasionally.

> I'm in SF, and there are some neighborhoods (Pacific Heights) where your risk of getting the cops called at you is pretty high just by walking around at night if one of the nosy neighbors doesn't recognize you. I assume being black would increase those odds.

If you really want to see blatant racism, sign up for nextdoor.com. My Cupertino neighbors are constantly posting about a "suspicious person", and when you press them as to why the person is suspicious, it always boils down to, "because they're black". Usually they don't outright say it, they just imply it, but sometimes they do say it outright.

[not american] i've always wondered about that. is it they feel uncomfortable because the person is wearing something normally associated with gangbanger/dodgy person.

would it happen if the person was dressed like whatever the stereotypical white person business casual attire is for the area?

i just can't see somebody being uncomfortable __just__ on color of skin. there surely has to be something else which triggers it.

person acting sketchy (maybe because they feel out of place rather than being up to dodgy activity?

I think dress is one factor. Age, height, are they in a group, and if so, what do the other members of the group look like -- they all have an effect. But, I don't think you can deny that race is a factor also, independent of all the other factors. I don't think that's ever gonna change, either.

I don't believe people outside the U.S. are immune from considering race as a factor in judging whether someone is a threat or out for mischief. The world is filled with race wars and racial conflict and tension. For a German, say, it might not be a black person, but it could be a gypsy or arab that elevates their sense of risk.

How about police just not use SWAT teams so much? It's ridiculous that you can get someone "swatted" with mere heresay; but SWAT teams have swelled in number and are now being used for far more than what they were originally intended. SWAT teams raiding the wrong homes, shooting family dogs, killing innocent people, etc...are all a symptom of a larger problem, as is this. You shouldn't have to sign up for anything to not get attacked by a SWAT team, how absolutely absurd. A list does not solve the deeper issue.

Former cop here: I think the biggest misconception about SWAT teams is that what makes them different is that they carry rifles instead of handguns. (In fact, in most departments every officer carries a rifle in his/her patrol car.)

A SWAT team is a group of officers who train as a team for high-risk situations like drug warrants and, yes, hostage situations. By contrast, most other officers are trained to respond solo or in pairs, and often don't spend nearly as much time practicing things like room clearance. If the police are going to break down your door, you want the best-trained most experienced officers doing it. The SWAT guys are calmer, more professional, and less likely to pull the trigger when startled.

Evidence suggests otherwise in regards to them being "calm." Look up "puppycide" perpetuated by SWAT teams, or incidents of SWAT teams raiding the wrong house and even killing people completely unarmed. The fact is that there shouldn't be a "no knock" raid because of a phone call. Some SWAT raids can yield as little as 8oz of pot and everyone pats themselves on the back as if it were justified. It's utterly ridiculous. I don't care if someone calls and says Osama Bin Laden is alive and well in a Missouri suburb, no knock raids are not needed 95% of the time. Even elite forces survey the area and situation before raiding it, if at all; but not the police. How insane is it that the police have lower rules of engagement than a Marine in Afghanistan?

People with skills often want to use those skills. Train someone to break down doors, and they will want to break down doors.

(Can also be seen in tech: send someone to a training class on your fancy networking gear, and they will immediately starts fiddling with it. Things are sure to go south.)

This is VERY true, particularly when it comes to the #1 use of tactical teams: "high-risk" warrant service. When judges issue search warrants, they rarely if ever specify how that warrant is to be executed: uniformed officers knocking on your front door, or a SWAT team throwing flashbangs in through your bedroom window.

This response points towards a fairly simple fix. To execute a warrant with a swat team or similar, that should also require a judges approval based on some appropriate formula.

If the police are going to break down your door

But I don't, in general, want the police to break down my door at all since they are almost certainly at the wrong address. And there's a pretty good chance that they'll shoot my dog (who will be barking menacingly from the stairs) even if they don't shoot me.

I’m sure that’s true somewhere like NYC, and maybe it’s even true in Seattle, but it appears to be distinctly less true in smaller towns. In small town America it’s literally just the same cops playing army dress up.

It depends on how large the town is. Even in medium-sized cities (pop. <1M), it's rare to have a dedicated full-time tactical team. Usually it's a group of 6-20 patrol officers who get a few days each month to train together for various scenarios.

The question is what training they get. I bet at least in some areas it's a lot about cool weapons and how to run into a building, not about deescalation.

I remember years ago there was an incident in Northern Virginia where they went after a few guys who were betting on football http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01.... So the cops went in with a swat team and ended up shooting one guy. No weapons were on site and nobody there had a criminal history. The cops just went in with full force and when somebody made a wrong move they shot him. Same for for the mayor of Berwyn Heights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berwyn_Heights,_Maryland_mayor.... Excessive force from start without even trying to solve it peacefully.

Stuff like this simply shouldn't happen. It seems a lot of swat teams only focus on using force.

Yeah, that’s why I said maybe Seattle. I sort of suspect not. (And I live here.)

You are both wrong and missing the point, which is; they shouldn't be breaking down doors in the first place based off the shoddy info given, full fucking stop.

See the professionalism of this Arizona SWAT for an example https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l4LzwZV6hFQ

I'm a former Marine who was trained in advanced CQB/CQC and have crosstrained all kinds of LEAs/LEOs and SWAT tends to be the very worst trained, undisciplined bunch of wannabe's this side of the equator. It actually became a joke in the shoot house how many former POGs who never saw combat and were naively gung-ho gear-queers made up the majority of the SWATs coming through. We had more trigger discipline in a fucking combat zone than these guys.

tldr; quit your bullshit

Could be an inherent risk of militarizing a police force. You have the gear to look the like, and gear wants to be used. Add people attracted more by the gear and not the task at hand to superiors wanting to use the gear and it can get ugly.

When your only tool is hammer eyery problem tunrs into a nail, right?

EDIT: When German police was on alert two years ago after some incidents they did send 20-something guys with SMGs to guard and patrol in trains. Usually I choose a car they already passed for my communte, somehow I didn't have a lot of confidence in how they would react if there really was a situation that warrented police. Normally in Germany police is all about deescalation, but they don't carry automatic most of the time neither.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/arizona-swat-team-cleared-marines-... :(

I can't believe how amateur these guys are. They just stand there, no one checked the corner, no one was looking at not-the-fucking-front-door, and when they finally decided to go in, almost everyone was in the line of potential incoming fire. 13 year-olds do it better in Call of Mario.

Just read a book called "Rise of the warrior cop" that explains many SWAT teams were funded by the federal government, not out of necessity, just due to politics.

There were many, many, citations that would suggest SWAT members are not trained any better and tend to in fact be overly aggressive and not held to many standards at all.

But most solo officers or those in pairs don’t have a high expectation of an armed response when responding to a routine call. I mean, there is a certain background expectation of encountering violence for a police officer, but when a SWAT team is called that expectation is basically a certainty. So while the officers may be trained, they are intending to act forcefully from the outset. I think the best thing to come from this is tempering that expectation with the possibility that a call could be swatting.

You'd be surprised by how many SWAT calls are anticlimactic: basically all of them. The #1 thing SWAT teams do is serve high-risk search warrants on drug houses at 4am when everyone inside is asleep.

Contrast that with a rookie officer who just got dispatched to a "house, five hostages inside, caller says they're being held at gunpoint."

Sounds to me like this is 100% unnecessary and only happens because cops/SWAT think it sounds more fun to suit up & kick in some doors at 4:00 AM than to do proper boring surveillance and wait outside in the daylight.

They definitely do surveillance, but the risk of somebody (officer or suspect) getting shot is much lower if the cops go in when everyone else is asleep.

Of course, it leads to some interesting conversations: "Ok buddy, you're under arrest. Time to put some pants on."

Executing high-risk search warrants on drug houses seems pretty intense, even if they don't have to fire a single bullet. Most of the cases involves people that are armed and might be under the influence of some drug, making their behavior erratic and irrational.

And for this SWAT seems to be necessary. Checking out prank calls in the middle of the day should not require them, unless it's a real hostage situation. (Answering a home invasion without securing the perimeter seems a very dumb idea, yet that happens most of the case, the "team" stands around at the front door yelling and then breaching the door.)

All these situation should be handled by surrounding the house with overwhelming force and then calmly assessing the situation, not just running in after a few seconds.

I think the way they use swat teams is insane. I mean, I’m not American, but the fact that American police will send their swat team to storm a house that they have no idea what is going on in is completely insane.

You never rush a house, you assess the situation and the act accordingly. Receiving an anonymous phone call is not assessing the situation.

It’s almost like they are all guns no brains, and it’s incredibly dangerous. Rushing into an unknown situation is just incredibly stupid on all accounts. The fact they haven’t learned the lesson by now though, speaks volumes, and I don’t think registering for anti-swatting is learning the lesson at all.

The whole militarization of the police has resonated dreadfully with the ascension and worship of the military. And the US now has "law enforcement" instead of "peace officers". The incentives have been completely reversed.

It's definitely possible, since AFAIK swatting does not happen in Europe

From the few instances I've seen they aren't usually SWAT teams, 'swatting' was just the first term for it which got popular.

They are LEOs in heavy-duty combat gear, no? It's almost guaranteed that they usually lack the special weapons and tactics training.

But didn't you know? We're all in imminent danger from... uhh... terrorists! And drugs! Think of the children, donate to your local SWAT team today! They need more funding for surplus military equipment after all.

I just love this photo of the MRAP vehicle the Lynnwood SWAT team has. Really makes me feel safer. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/police-in-wa...

Edit: For those not familiar with Washington, Lynnwood is a kind of dense suburb north of Seattle. Not really where I'd expect to need a military vehicle, but you never know I guess...

Former cop here: many departments get those vehicles from the DOD for free. (They bought thousands of them to protect troops in Iraq+Afghanistan from IEDs.) Everyone knows MRAPs weren't designed for law enforcement, but you just can't beat that price.

Fair enough, free is a pretty good price after all. But if anything, I honestly feel less safe knowing that the police department next door to me has that in their possession. Perhaps that's unfounded, but to me it really seems like a small part of a much larger and very concerning trend.

Edit: Unfortunately I can't track down a photo, but I seem to remember them having it out when they closed down Highway 99 for that shooting about a year ago. It's quite surreal seeing one of those blocking off a local highway, as though they're expecting to encounter IEDs or heavily armed enemy combatants in the middle of the city.

You should expect to feel less safe when a police force has them: those vehicles and weapons are designed to protect the user at the possible expense of the life of literally everybody else

Yes, you can. Do not take them. If you must take them, dispose of them.

> you just can't beat that price

That is interesting information.

What is the limit? Free air to air missiles? The argument should not be that it is pricey but that it is dangerous.

Those departments do need to pay for modifications, upkeep and training. Free still seems too expensive to justify.

nit: I believe it's _Lynnwood_, Washington.

Lynwood seems to be more commonly known as the city in Los Angeles County, or Weird Al's _Straight_ _Outta_ _Lynwood_.

Whoops, fixed. That's... kind of weird that the one in California varies by a single letter. Spell check was never going to save me on this one.

I can see both sides of this but not sure what the solution is. Imagine there is a real threat and 2 cops show up in a squad car instead of the swat team. By the time swat arrives everyone is dead and the cops get blamed once again. “It took them 25 minutes to get out there!! What are we paying them to do, eat donuts?!”

As for militarization vs peace keeping I can also understand both sides of the argument. Imagine you are a cop and while 95% of th situations you encounter are harmless, the other 5% could kill you. Would you not rather have the best equipment possible for your own protection? Would you listen to some asshole tell you “that’s the inherent risk of the job so deal with it”? No, you wouldn’t.

I really dislike how people paint issues as black and white, right and wrong and quickly come up with some reasoning for their argument without ever considering all angles. The world and the issues we deal with are a lot more complicated than people make them out to be. I know humans compartmentalize as a flight or fight response but we need to give rational thought to every issue and not jump to conclusions.

Sure, call the swat team and have them surround the area quickly. But don't just run in with guns blazing. That makes absolutely no sense.

How is this different from paying the mafia protection money? This is what mafias do they extort businesses for money to not be bothered by them and other gang members.

The "Please don't shoot" list

Some more discussion, including sign-up instructions at the end: https://www.geekwire.com/2018/seattle-police-try-new-tactic-...

Inb4 someone registers before actually shooting a family. Doesn’t look like any proof is required.

Sooooo can you set up a meth lab, then add yourself to the list?

It literally says in the article that they will not ignore calls to locations on the list and they will only keep the information in mind when responding.

Aware of that, however I don't see how it can work in any situation to be honest.

A ) I have an illegal thing in my house, but I register for "please dont shoot me etc". Party B calls the police, door is still likely to be kicked in.

B ) I don't have an illegal thing in my house, I register for "please dont shoot me etc". Party B calls the police, door is still likely to be kicked in.

And at what point does it become meaningless if the majority of residential addresses are on the list?

What a racket. There is a problem with people spoofing voip phone calls calling in hoaxes and the best they can come up with to fix it is "oh pay for this protection service and we will send a normal police response instead of a murderous one."

WHAT?? Why not "oh this phone call has weird information and is untrackable. That's weird and abnormal, almost like this is a hoax. Let's go check assuming it is a hoax."

One idea might be to have some way to register a 'code word' with the police/911 dispatch for a given address/phone in advance. If the code word is spoken, that gives extra signal that it's a genuine threat.

In practice, not sure if the IT of most departments is sophisticated enough, but in theory that might help.

People are extremely unlikely to remember a code word they setup years ago and now must recall during a high-stress emergency.

Streamers like Ice Poseidon and Sam Pepper could benefit from such a service, though unfortunately they aren't based in Seattle.

Feels like a trap.

Holy shit. We're fucking doomed.

The SWAT team just can't promise that it won't treat every phone call like a life and death situation.

Gee. Maybe the SWAT team should only barge in after regular cops are confirmed to have made contact with a genuine emergency, that has been validated and confirmed as unresolvable by other means?

What if the SWAT team just didn't react to phone calls?

What if other criteria were required to be met, before dumping a pile of battering rams and automatic weapons and snipers and helicopters onto a problem?

Maybe just expose regular police to emergency calls first? Maybe it's not Die Hard? Maybe Hans Gruber isn't taking hostages? Imagine that.

I'm moving back to Oakland

Downvoted? Because SPD scares me more than OPD?

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