Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

No, because if every call isn’t treated like a real emergency, in the off chance that one of them actually is an emergency then everyone would be crucified by the media and lawyers. Look at all the school shootings as an example, or even the Trump assassination attempt.

Right, but when you smash down someone's door and see them playing games on a computer, instead of cooking meth while making bombs by tying guns together, maybe you shouldn't continue treating the situation as an emergency.

That doesn't cover all the things I'm (maybe poorly) attempting to suggest.

Treat calls that don't have the hallmarks of an emergency as "maybe not an emergency" - I admit that sounds simplistic and requires heavy training, however.

But my commentary was more about the gung-ho-ness of the follow-up. Don't houses have windows that aren't always blocked by drawn curtains? Don't binoulars exist and are relatively portable? Aren't there relatively quick and painless methods to adjudicate a situation prior to knocking impolitely? Even if time may be of the essence. One day maybe the heavy knock on the door is a trigger that blows up an entire Police / SWAT response team - then there might be some new policies around situatonal awareness instituted. (not that I would in any way promote such a grotesque act of violence).

The police are putting themselves in danger by their own behaviour.

Re: Trump assassination attempt, wouldn't that have been averted if someone just "went and had a look"?

If it’s real you don’t need to be anonymous.

And if they can't find the person who made the call to charge them for door repairs, then they shouldn't have busted down the door (and should pay for the repairs).

Fear of retribution/not wanting to get involved is a real thing. Also are you proposing that 911 operators confirm people's real identities before accepting their call and dispatching someone?

That's also observably not a thing. Castle Rock is a rather famous scotus case where the cops failed to do squat about a guy with a restraining order kidnapping his kids despite a law specifically saying that they shall act on said restraining orders and there was no allowable section 1983 claim against the cops just failing to act.

Over here (Greece), anonymous reports are generally given very low priority, to the point where if someone anonymous reports a suspicious vehicle, the police might not even investigate. A report by an eponymous reporter does generally get investigated, though, because there's a lower likelihood of the report being frivolous.

No, but at least have the calling number presented to the 911 operator, with various options categorised as more or less trustworthy. And 911 calls should bypass any 'calling number protection'.

Someone else pointed out that the whole phone system is a dog's breakfast, which also needs to be fixed for various easy-scam-exploitation reasons as well. The only reason not to do it is that the corps that run the networks don't want to have to pay to make their shit fit for society's purpose rather than their own.

What specific effect would you expect “categorize as less trustworthy” have?

Agreed on telephone infra in general

That is the same bullshit logic used for zero tolerance policy for "preventing lawsuits" but somehow even worse.

Non-spoofable and local number: trustworthy

Spoofable local number: slightly less trustworthy

Non-local number: less trustworthy

International number: barely trustworthy

VoIP: maybe slightly more trustworthy than international.

Said infra probably limits the ability to distinguish between these, however, so that becomes the primary issue.

I wasn't clear: what does that change?

Do you tell emergency responders not to turn their lights on en route? To put it at the bottom of the queue after helping the old lady cross the street? To politely knock on the alleged hostage-taker's door instead of kicking it in?

Yes, change the response appropriately.

And if "kick the door in" is Standard Operating Procedure, then change the SOP, or have some more conditionals prior to "kick the door in".