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Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

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242 points LinuxBender | 5 comments | 18 Nov 24 00:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.631s | source
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BLKNSLVR ◴[18 Nov 24 01:50 UTC] No.42169029[source]▶
I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked.

Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if <any number of logical things>

- Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy

- First response training that's even moderately appropriate

- Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties

- Empathy for all humans

- Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by a single anonymous voice

A very (un)funny irony is that there are numerous stories I've read about domestic violence victims being arrested, as opposed to the attacker, which implies there's some level of suspicion in some circumstances about the information the police are being fed. Swatting, as a thing, indicates there's some kind of hero-pressure build-up that overrules any kind of <all the things I listed above> whereby that pressure has the possibility of impending release.

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stavros ◴[18 Nov 24 01:58 UTC] No.42169065[source]▶
It's a US cultural thing to either avoid blaming the police for anything, or make excuses for them. Brutal police behavior is seen as either acceptable, or what even desirable. I've seen reddit posts where a protester slightly taunts the police and gets pepper sprayed in the face, and all the commenters were gleefully saying things like "fuck around and find out", without even thinking that maybe there wasn't enough fucking around to warrant any finding out.

When you try and point this out, you're called various names, because apparently you either support the police 100%, or you're a criminal.

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1. Loughla ◴[18 Nov 24 02:25 UTC] No.42169180[source]▶
I'm pretty sure there are a number of people in the US who don't support the police in any way at all. There was a whole song a few years ago called Fuck the police, I'm pretty sure.

It's like sweeping categorizations of an entire country are usually not accurate or something.

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2. davely ◴[18 Nov 24 02:42 UTC] No.42169270[source]▶
That song was released in 1988 by NWA, a hip hop group from Compton, California.

I don’t think it’s too far fetched to think that song was colored by their experiences with the notoriously corrupt LAPD of the 1980s.

3. bear141 ◴[18 Nov 24 03:03 UTC] No.42169368[source]▶
I live in America and while I have compassion for some individual cops, I hate them as a whole with a burning passion. I know lots of people that feel this way. It’s almost like social media comments sections are not an accurate representation of a population or something.
4. stavros ◴[18 Nov 24 03:04 UTC] No.42169377[source]▶
> I'm pretty sure there are a number of people in the US who don't support the police in any way at all.

Yes, this is so trivially true of any place that it's not worth mentioning, as generalizations are meant as just that: Something that a majority (or at least a large minority) are like. For example, people do say "people in the US speak English", even though there's a number of people that don't. This doesn't make the generalization any less useful than "Americans like baseball" or "Americans wear shoes around the house".

5. scruple ◴[18 Nov 24 06:16 UTC] No.42170178[source]▶
I grew up in a small town and was on the wrong side of law enforcement (sometimes rightfully -- underage drinking, etc., nothing that serious -- but oftentimes not) around 2 dozen times between 16/17 and 21 when I got the fuck out of that town. I haven't so much as spoken to an on-duty cop in over 20 years. To this day I still get nervous when I see a police car. They earned their image problems and they haven't even begun to try to correct it. Even if they started tomorrow, it would still take them decades to fix it. I'm not hopeful that any meaningful change in policing in the US will take place in my lifetime.

And, for anyone who isn't reading between the lines here, without a doubt I'm only so lucky as to avoid their attention today because I made it and have spent the last 2 decades living in nice neighborhoods and driving nice cars.