Newly released bodycam footage from the Seattle Police Department shows officers responding to a “swatting” incident.
The footage, nearly two minutes long, is from August but was released on Oct. 1, as part of a public service announcement warning people of the effects of “swatting.”
The video shows heavily armed officers gearing up outside an apartment building before knocking on apartment doors. An officer explained that they received several calls regarding shots fired. About six officers try to discern whether shots were indeed fired, but are able to learn none were.
The response was triggered by multiple calls, including one caller who claimed he was holding five hostages and said he would kill them if he didn’t receive $5,000.
New Anti-swatting Effort
The Seattle Police Department launched a new campaign asking members of the public to help them counter the “swatting” phenomenon.“Swatting is a crime. For those unfamiliar with the term, swatting is the act of creating a hoax 911 call typically involving hostages, gunfire, or other acts of extreme violence, with the goal of diverting emergency public safety resources to an unsuspecting person’s residence. It is a deliberate and malicious act that creates an environment of fear and unnecessary risk, and in some cases, has led to loss of life,”
the department stated.
While anyone can be a victim, targets are usually associated with the video game or tech industries.
The department created a registry, based on requests, where people concerned about swatting can communicate their concerns with their local 911 center. The new
Rave Facility enables commercial properties, or those involved in businesses, to file information that police will have on hand if they receive a swatting call.
The registry is based on the
SMART 911 registry, which is designed for individual households to create a web-based profile that lets police know if they have people inside who have a medical condition or other conditions, such as being deaf, that first responders would have on hand when they respond to a location.
Seattle Police Department Public Affairs Director Sean Whitcomb told
Ars Technica about the new extension. His team asked SMART 911: “How can we take this platform and customize it to say, ‘also in this household, someone who makes a living working at one of our tech companies or in game development or online broadcasting, or they have an elevated profile publicly’—how can they let us know there’s this concern?”
Swatting Can be Deadly
While swatting is considered a prank by many who engage in it, it can turn deadly in some situations.
Deputy Wichita Police Chief Troy Livingston
told the Wichita Eagle that the department received a call claiming someone had an argument with their mother and had shot their father in the head and was holding his mother, brother, and sister hostage.
Gamers and others linked to industries where swatting is frequent have fear of it happening to them.
“It usually comes into your mind when you hear about it,” John Getty, a gamer and streamer who lives in Puyallup, Washington
told KOMO News. “I could be sitting right here streaming and the police could come through the door and I wouldn’t even know that it would happen.”
“This phenomenon, which is a national issue, is quite frankly causing a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety in the community that we serve,” added Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department said. “This is Seattle, right? We’ve got technology here—video game development, both from big companies and indie studios, and a very rich online broadcasting community. Everything from arts-and-crafts to cooking to video game streaming. We know swatting has ended in tragedy in its most vile form. At its most general form, it’s a way to intimidate or harass people. That’s just wrong.”
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