SWAT Teams Deployed in Online 911 Fraud

washingtonpost.com

5 pointsmattmcknight3 comments

The scene of mayhem and carnage the officers expected was nowhere to be found. Neither the Bateses nor the officers knew that they were pawns in a dangerous game being played 1,200 miles away by a teenager bent on terrifying a random family of strangers.

They were victims of a new kind of telephone fraud that exploits a weakness in the way the 911 system handles calls from Internet-based phone services. The attacks _ called "swatting" because armed police SWAT teams usually respond _ are virtually unstoppable, and an Associated Press investigation found that budget-strapped 911 centers are essentially defenseless without an overhaul of their computer systems.

There's money to be made here.

"Nobody ever thought anyone would get hurt or die from a SWAT call," he said.

How could this kid possibly think that sending armed SWAT teams to someone's house would never end badly?

I think your answer is right there: he's a kid. Teenagers don't have a real well-developed sense of risk and danger.

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