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After the first 40 false calls about that address they should probably perform at least 5 minutes of investigation to try to verify if there are actually any signs that a real crime being committed. That kind of "police work" where you figure out who is in the home and what is happening is pretty important.

At the very least if they want to keep violating the rights of the people in their home by breaking in, after seeing that there's no obvious signs of crime they should probably not immediately drag people outside naked and handcuffed.

I'll give these cops some credit though, at least they managed to raid the correct house 55 times in a row. I don't know who trained these SWAT officers to read house numbers, but they should probably pass that info along considering the countless stories of police raiding the wrong home.

This police work should be happening all the time, I agree, but it cannot happen during a swat call (there isn't enough time). And if it doesn't yield results, are you to stop showing up?

I mean, yes? After repeated swattings you should at the very least limit your response to driving by to have a look around. Maybe peak into some windows. Maybe see who is in the house and where they are (https://www.policemag.com/articles/first-look-seeing-through...). At most knock on the door politely, apologize profusely for the interruption, explain that you know about the swatting situation and ask if you can take a quick peak around to make sure that nobody is actually holding a bunch of hostages just for the report.

They can always reevaluate the practice if it suddenly becomes commonplace for normal people who have never been a problem before to swat themselves 40 times all so they can finally carry out a real kidnapping in peace.

Literally just call the people first to see if they're actually in danger this is not complicated nor difficult

> What real solutions are there?

For starters, in the general case, try having a larger threshold to go in guns blazing, like trying to verify with the residents first, or just knocking on their door normally to address whatever it was instead of a full on raid. The trauma of being subjected to a SWAT raid is obvious, so they should recognize that and more properly balance it with the harm of not doing one, rather than simply doing it.

Looking at the article's specifics for this specific situation, some options are:

- don't violate the constitutional rights of the victims as a court ruled retroactively happened in this case

- ensure that all officers are professional, as the article says that only some were

- add them to the swatting house list

- have basic dignity, like facilitating the person covering up instead of cuffing them naked on the curb; police and prisons seem especially happy to engage in forced nudity in a general case -- it's part of a concerningly high fraction of police abuse news

> wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed

You say that as if most of the world doesn’t get by just fine without any militarized SWAT law enforcement units whatsoever…

Most of the world doesn't live in a country with second amendment.

Oh, you’re right. The US has gun rights so the only sane thing to do is for law enforcement to smash through the same home weekly heavily armed with guns whenever there’s an anonymous tip with no corroborating evidence. There are no better ways to spend law enforcement budget in a city like Milwaukee.

All the commenters responding to you are so clueless that they can’t see there are no better systems from a cost benefit analysis. Law enforcement is barred by the laws of man and physics from taking prior history into account when assessing risks and every repeated tip of violent crime without any evidence must necessarily be responded to as legitimate at a level requiring military style intervention on the basis of anonymous testimony. There are just no better approaches

Iceland and Finland have only 4x fewer guns per capita and they don't have this problem. It's a big absolute number difference, but effectively means the availability is still really widespread.

Yah and criminals in other countries are careful to abide by gun control laws

This is an amazing top comment. Like maybe almost anything. So many better options. For one if I were the subject of this harassment I would prefer the cops to never come.

You would prefer that cops never respond to a call for your address? What happens when you actually need them?

2A

Personally, if I need them, I'll drive down to the cop store and let them know myself. Probably get there a lot quicker than the average cop-response time, too.

I can't understand why so many people are replying like this. This part of the public service is for quality of life and security. If someone has more of those without the "service", of course they'd want to call it off and assume the risk.

Who cares if police don't show up during the 1 in 100,000 lifetimes chance you need a swat team, when you're getting harassed weekly.

Police is not like most services, where you can hire and fire them at will. If you (or anyone else) called police to complain about a domestic situation, once they're involved, you are no longer in control of when they get uninvolved. I'm not saying "this is good" or "bad", but it is how it was setup, and there were good reasons for this.

The dedication to being unreasonable is truly impressive. A history of dozens of false alarms changes nothing? The only response possible, forever, even if it happens every day, is full SWAT?

If you actually need them, they wouldn't come. Or come and do nothing. As they've demonstrated when parents had to go inside a school to stop a shooter.

Yeah when i need them, so they can show up two hours after the perp has fled and my shit is gone so they can write my name in a notepad and prosecute me for the weed on my table. How will i ever do without

The swatters then can exploit this to commit crimes against the person, no?

Swatters are little bitches on the internet in some other state hiding behind proxies, not some hardened criminals.

Going to peoples houses and committing crimes is a risky proposition that could end up with you injured or dead. Hence why these types play games with law enforcement to put other peoples lives in danger rather than their own.

As opposed to the status quo, where the swatters are exploiting the police's behavior to commit crimes against the person?

This is just handing harassers a foolproof method for avoiding police intervention if they wanted to harass (or worse) in person.

Attempting to target a person that is being harassed is a great way to end up under a tombstone. Swatters are scared ass punks that play games with other peoples lives and not their own.

All you're saying is that likelihood of swatters committing additional crime is low, but there is still likelihood. There can be others taking advantage of this situation (or also mad at the couple), who are in fact willing to commit more serious crimes.

Serious crimes are generally a low percentage stat in society overall, which is part of the reason why it's so hard to judge "oh, this isn't serious". Most police encounters aren't, except the ones that are.

"Only come to my house if I'm the one calling"

There, done.

>Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.

This is 100% not true in the US. The police have no obligation to show up what so ever as decided by the SCOTUS.

>ne day could get criminals breaking in another

And like in every large city they'll get put on hold when calling 911 and maybe the cops show up 30 minutes later.

> not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake?

As they say, when seconds matter, help is 15 to 20 minutes away.

The fact that police shows up late doesn't change the fact that it's still a deterrent that they do show up, and you could be the unlucky one that had police show up in time.

But this seems like a good crime recipe:

1. Swat somebody for months.

2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.

I'd rather get robbed than swatted almost daily.

Well before the 55th call they should have started investigating the origin of those calls and find the people making them. I'm not familiar with the US jurisdictions so maybe they are outside the one of Milwaukee police, but the people making those calls are toying with the Milwaukee police too, not only with the two victims. Then there are Federal investigations. Eventually that cost Milwaukee half a million.

Unfortunately, while this is a good story, police doesn't have the power to fish out and stop random internet trolls all around the country. I see a lot of this sentiment "why can't they just", but it's an unrealistic view of what's actually possible. I'm all for it in theory.

But almost every comment here is incredulously pointing out how inept police is to not be able to solve such an easy/obvious problem. There is nothing easy and obvious about it.

We need one of those "what every programmer should know about time zones" articles about common police and military misconceptions.

Basically, 9-1-1 Dispatch relies on the fact that it's a grievous crime and very unglamorous to make a fake report or troll the operator. 9-1-1 needs to remain as credulous as possible, and err on the side of false positives, lest they gain a negative public image.

At the same time, it costs nothing to pick up the phone and prank them. Any actor from anywhere could do it, and outside their jurisdiction, what can they do? The dispatcher is not empowered or equipped to discern truth from lies over a mere voice line from a stranger. The dispatcher can't even run a CAPTCHA to trap AIs. The public absolutely relies on being believed when they sincerely call that same voice line.

I do, perversely, see the merit in repeated response that simply turns out to be a drill. The merit is both training and public image, if the militarized police want to instill fear and shock and awe in that neighborhood, or on the evening news, then they get it by responding, not by dismissing obvious fakes. How often do you get to test your flash-bang rifle, fire up your bomb-siege-robots, and put a few miles on your urban tanks? It's like a parade on your wedding day, but you've already paid.

Only thing is, there seems to be no financial incentive or reward for the SWATter. Unless SWATting could be used to tie up and distract law enforcement resources as part of a bigger conspiracy, the only endgame of SWATting seems to be a drain on resources.

No one asks them to fish out all the internet troll, just fish out the one that does 55 swatting-call, which, i bet is not that many

It's not easy, it's an investigation. I expect them to start with interviewing the victims, which will probably point them to some internet forums. Then it's about reading forums and identifying people and a zillion of other things that I can't think about because it's not my job (and so I already wrote too much.) Of course those investigators have other things to do but so do those SWAT teams. It's a DoS against the police.

If 911 can track calls, that would help, but I have no idea if they can, even in my own country.

What do you mean. Police has the power to investigate. This is terrorism by another name. They should be obligated to find the offenders.

> What real solutions are there?

See what is the reaction to the 3rd SWAT call for the local police dept's boss' home. Then apply that to everyone. I'm absolutely sure they can figure that one out.

>isn’t much they can do

How about: Track down and identify the person making these calls?

Just for context, many urban police departments won't show up for a myriad of calls they deem "non-emergency". The fact they always respond to swat calls is suspect and probably has to do with padding their numbers so they can justify more spending and overtime.

Easy, have policies for such situations. Just don’t show up like bin laden is hiding in the home if it’s the third fake call of the week.

And because their entire existence is to show up, you have a conflict of interests on how you answer the call.

Exactly. Call the residents to confirm. Drive to the location and look at the place first.

After circa the first 10 calls it should start to become apparent.

Imagine how many false swats it would take at the police chief's house before the policy got an update?

Unfortunately this problem is pretty widespread. The typical solution is for the victim to establish a relationship with the PD which enables the PD to quickly confirm the report with the victim via an alternate channel prior to dispatch. I suspect this is what households with private security put in place. The ultra-wealthy and super-prominent politicians seem to avoid swatting despite drawing more public ire than Patrick Tomlinson.

Investigating and solving the real root cause ? Who reported the crime, trace back to the troll ?

...not responding to a swat call for the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth, or fiftieth time...

How do you know which one is real?

You have the phone numbers of the residents on hand. When getting a report of a house that's known to be swatted frequently, call both numbers and verify.

https://youtu.be/WHkRgfYmLrE?si=K-xmC3jgP4AvCht2&t=342

> Patrick and Nikki believe calling known swatting victims before responding would avoid dangerous encounters like this - some of which have resulted in costly settlements paid by Milwaukee taxpayers.

Fool me 54 times, shame on you. Fool me 55 times, you can't get fooled again.

[An old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee.]

Are you kidding me the real solution is not breaking down someone's door after the fourth call in one day from anonymous reports. How many legitimate hostage situations have taken place in Milwaukee in that four year period? Even one? I think there's been maybe one in the same time period here in Chicago, a city five times the size. How is it even remotely reasonable to think that these are legitimate reports after the first handful of fakes, let alone FIFTY??

When there's a known pattern and you've talked to the people being targeted and you have a totally reasonable suspicion there's no real threat (which the police admitted) then it is reasonable not to respond.

> What should the rule be? When is it okay for police to receive a distress call and not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake? Who's responsible for the consequences of not showing up?

Currently there is no legal responsibility to “protect and serve” any single member or group of the public.

Just a moral one, due to it being their tax money used.

No need for residential raids. You know where the person is. Wait outside. Hostages? Wait out of sight. Eventually they come out.

I’m glad you’re not in charge.