Police departments will of course respond that all of this is necessary as a precaution, but at a certain point it’s unsustainable and produces worse outcomes.
Each time they’re called out on a fake incident, they get to call it a successful resolution as a result of deploying their swat team. This then gives them an end of year that says “swat is highly effective in resolving situations”, which then allows a budgetary increase and more gear for the swat team.
Rinse and repeat.
On one hand, you’d hope the cops stop busting down doors with guns drawn after the first time
On the other hand maybe the exploit is to swat some place twice then you can attack the residence for real to avoid the heat
If you actually want to attack a residence and kill everyone in it, the police aren't going to stop you. They'll arrive long after the fact.
And if you wanted to get away with it, calling three prank SWAT calls in first is hardly going to improve the odds of it.
Which religion says that you keep coming back until you get things right? Maybe SWAT is a practitioner.
If the swatters get no reaction they stop doing it because the whole point is to get a reaction.
Seems like just the thing to do before I drag someone into my basement. "Hey officers, my house is off limits, cya"
If they can't observe a crime but still wont dare knock on my door, like, go home please?
They really loved Norm
The police here only know three things - no knock raid with automatic weapons, not pulling over reckless drivers, and shooting unarmed black men. That is all they do.
And if the people calling in fake threats are doing so over hacked VOIP? It's not really like the old days where a phone meant you were somewhere in particular.
The particular elephant in the room is it is the cops get called to hundreds of locations (per department) per year that are actual violent confrontations, with domestic abuse being the most common type. That huge numbers of Americans are armed doesn't help the situation any.
The phone NEVER meant you were in a particular place. It was possible to route calls from switch to switch, and could even contact the operator posing as a line tech to have them make a connection for you. You must be too young to remember the good old days
> The FCC requires that all voice service providers certify in the Robocall Mitigation Database that they have fully implemented STIR/SHAKEN or have instituted a robocall mitigation program to ensure that they are not originating illegal robocalls. To further protect consumers, gateway providers – those serving as the entry point for foreign calls into the United States – must both implement STIR/SHAKEN and institute a robocall mitigation program. All providers are required to submit to this public database the contact information for the personnel at their company responsible for robocall-mitigation related issues.
>The belief that these are false 911 calls or the narratives that these are 911 calls needs to change, because they’re not calling the 911 system. They’re not able to call 911. They’re calling the main line or the visible nonemergency number listed on the internet for a lot of these police departments and these dispatches.
This article explains the issue and is a good read.
[0]https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2024/02/why-arent-police-doi...
Anyway, yeah, like the other commenter mentioned, treat the local police lines the same.
Actually, treat all calls to any number the same. Carriers should be required to understand provenance for every single call. All nuisance calls get fines or jail time. If the carrier cannot locate a responsible party, the carrier themselves are liable.
I meant literally substitute "local non-emergency police line" for "911" in this comment:
"Lock up the people responsible at the companies allowing anonymous VOIP calls to 911"
It shouldn't matter if these spoofed calls are going to 911 or to the local non-emergency line. They shouldn't be sending swat for spoofed calls from other states. The comment I was responding to seemed to imply that there's some meaningful difference that the calls are coming through the local non-emergency line. There really shouldn't be any difference in terms of what response these spoofed calls generate.
But you don't need anonymous VoIP. You just buy a burner phone with cash. In the US, carriers are required to route emergency calls even if the phone has no SIM card in it, or if you do have a SIM, but your phone can only see a carrier network you don't have permission to use. The idea being emergencies trump silly things like whether or not you've paid your phone bill or picked the "right" carrier for that location. Or if, say, your SIM card got damaged or dislodged in the accident that caused you to need emergency services.
And I think this is a good thing. But it's of course a vector for abuse, too.
If swatters had to buy burner phones instead of using a free trial on a VOIP service, first of all the price and effort would put this out of range for the typical teenage griefer. Furthermore then the phone call itself would be traceable to a cell tower so people who did a number of these could be tracked down and prosecuted. I think a carrier tracing back to a physical device could fulfill what I am asking for.
Edit: also, similar to how I feel about the payphones comment; let's simply not send a SWAT team out when the caller is nowhere near the area of the reported crime.
You have to be an American whose nose is rubbed down in violence to not see it.
It's also a misunderstanding in the US that police service the public. Police serve the government and exist to protect the governments interests.