15yr old gets 25 to Life for false police reports - 'swatting' - Turns out it's fake

Overheal

ya know, when the USA Patriot Act came out I was a little horrified at the language, since there were provisions in it that let ordinary citizens be labeled as terrorists. - then you come across one of these little ****ers

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/15-year-old-swatted-gamer-convicted-domestic-terrorism-25-years-life-federal-prison/

Swatting is a relatively new trend in the last couple years, it was mentioned a good bit during Gamergate (Whatever that was). Basically these snot nosed brats are not happy about losing in online video games, so to take the edge off, they search for personal information on their betters (IP addresses, home locations, phone numbers) and they call local law enforcement spoofing murders and hostage situations in progress.

As you can imagine this is really dangerous, to have a SWAT team break into an innocent person's home, guns loaded. And SWAT have to be ready for it too, because they die doing [questionably risky ****] like serving warrants to people in the middle of the night who might otherwise run or fight the police.

In this case, the kid was losing in Battlefield 4 to this rival of his and he called in a murder scene, reporting that [he] had shot and killed 4 people and would kill more if police came inside. During the response to the call, his rival's father was shot, for minding his own business. Ultimately he was charged under the USA Patriot Act with 2 counts of domestic terrorism.

25 to Life - it seems harsh, but people could have died for one, and also swatting is becoming so increasingly regular that it needs to be stamped out; perpetrators are especially difficult to track because of phone screening techniques, like using VoIP over VPN connections and such.

Here's just one example of a swatting incident:

YFlyer

I was told by the donce in my class I'll get a beating for swatting.

VinLieger

Fully deserved it that imo.

Swatting is becoming a far too regular thing in the states and im honestly surprised more poeple havent died due to it.

Dyr

Just be thankful you live in america man, where commando assaults on homes are keeping you safe and free

Generic Dreadhead

Punishment fits the crime IMHO, an innocent man was nearly killed

K4t

This is crazy alright.

Whoever shot the father should be getting 25 to life.

ScumLord

Overheal wrote: »

25 to Life - it seems harsh,

I knew that the law was going to come down hard on the first person they caught doing this, tis the American way.

I'm shocked that more people weren't shot and killed. It lead me to believe that American cops aren't quite as trigger happy as their made out to be. going up to a house with someone playing a shooter could easily lead the police to believe something bad is happening inside. I know if I'd been called to a house where a load of people had supposedly been killed by a maniac I'd have opened fire at the slightest movement.

bodice ripper

15.

15.

All the bitching on AH about "'Murica", but also lots of support for landing on kids with both jackboots on...

bodice ripper

bodice ripper wrote: »

15.

15.

All the bitching on AH about "'Murica", but also lots of support for landing on kids with both jackboots on...

Probably not even old enough to sport a decent neckbeard.

Kunkka

That is actually nuts. I've briefly read about this before but never a full story. Deserved sentence in my opinion it's as good as pulling the trigger yourself as you know your actions have potential to cause harm & in this case serious harm. Thank god this wasn't easy to di in my CS days , I could be quite the troll when I won.

SpaceTime

What's more worrying to me is that the police over there will send a SWAT team in for spurious reasons based on the report of a teenager...

The US police forces are completely over the top all the time and seemingly getting more so all the time.

Tanks turning up to deal with litter complaints next!

It would take a hell of a complaint in most countries to get that kind of response.

ScumLord

bodice ripper wrote: »

15.

15.

All the bitching on AH about "'Murica", but also lots of support for landing on kids with both jackboots on...

That kid saw no problem in bringing out the jackboots because he lost a game. 25 to life is a horrible sentence but fully expected. What he did was crazy. Hopefully they'll be able to work out some reduced sentence but he still deserves it.

bodice ripper

ScumLord wrote: »

That kid saw no problem in bringing out the jackboots because he lost a game. 25 to life is a horrible sentence but fully expected. What he did was crazy. Hopefully they'll be able to work out some reduced sentence but he still deserves it.

He deserves some punishment alright, but 25 to life? can you imagine if everyone on here got 25-life for doing something that endangered others when they were fifteen? It'd basically be the Ladies Lounge in here.

VinLieger

bodice ripper wrote: »

He deserves some punishment alright, but 25 to life? can you imagine if everyone on here got 25-life for doing something that endangered others when they were fifteen? It'd basically be the Ladies Lounge in here.

Its neccessary considering how often theres are happening and the kids doing it are rarely caught so when they do find one they make sure the others know its not an easy going punishment.

I dont know about yourself but when I was 15 i never sent around an armed group of highly pumped up police to my mates house threatening to shoot anyone who came inside

Magico Gonzalez

Few years in juvenile would have been sufficient for the little tvrd, and of course you have to assume his parents would have disciplined him somehow, taking away any the Xbox or whatever he used. Honestly, a good birching is what some of these whiney little runts need. Not possible though.

You have to wonder what is wrong with US society if this genuinely has become a thing.

Of course the emergency services respond, if they didn't and someone died there'd be an even more serious problem.

Seifer

Overheal wrote: »

ya know, when the USA Patriot Act came out I was a little horrified at the language, since there were provisions in it that let ordinary citizens be labeled as terrorists. - then you come across one of these little ****ers

http://www.secretsofthefed.com/15-year-old-swatted-gamer-convicted-domestic-terrorism-25-years-life-federal-prison/

This is old and not true: http://www.dailydot.com/esports/15-year-old-swatting-prison-sentence-hoax/

ScumLord

bodice ripper wrote: »

He deserves some punishment alright, but 25 to life? can you imagine if everyone on here got 25-life for doing something that endangered others when they were fifteen? It'd basically be the Ladies Lounge in here.

He sent heavily armed people to a persons house and told the heavily armed people that the house was full of deranged killers that would shot police on site. A man got shot because of it. If it happened to you or your family I think you'd be in a fit of rage.

I think the sentence is excessive but America is known for it's excessive sentences, it wasn't going to turn out any other way.

Kunkka

A lot of the posts saying the article about the sentence is fake?

K4t

VinLieger wrote: »

when I was 15 i never sent around an armed group of highly pumped up police to my mates house threatening to shoot anyone who came inside

The kid didn't send them around and he didn't make them open fire.


He did something stupid which was blown completely out of proportion without any real evidence. The kid didn't cause any harm and shouldn't be facing any charges.

Smiles35

Kunkka wrote: »

A lot of the posts saying the article about the sentence is fake?

Then that horrible baby killing story lies underneath. Someone should call Swat on that website.

Karl Stein

K4t wrote: »

The kid didn't send them around and he didn't make them open fire.


He did something stupid which was blown completely out of proportion without any real evidence. The kid didn't cause any harm and shouldn't be facing any charges.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Overheal

SpaceTime wrote: »

What's more worrying to me is that the police over there will send a SWAT team in for spurious reasons based on the report of a teenager...

The US police forces are completely over the top all the time and seemingly getting more so all the time.

Tanks turning up to deal with litter complaints next!

It would take a hell of a complaint in most countries to get that kind of response.

Okay while I am hearing that this particular incident might be a hoax the fact of the matter is swatting has happened in more than several instances and cops have to respond to 911 calls as they happen and in some cases these are guys saying "I've killed several people and I'm prepared to kill more". You may think to yourself yeah this is from a teenager but at the same time a 911 call operator may not hear the distinction the teenager may mask their voice or sound more mature than they are and also if you're dealing with someone who is claiming to be on a killing spree you're really thinking to yourself they are probably not in the right frame of mind anyway so if they sound a little off that is to almost be expected. Either way the fact that swatting is occurring means that now you will have to have 911 operators and police forces have to spend time and resources in a potential real life situation determining whether that call is real or not and that's the real danger here is if these calls distracted from real calls and reduce the response times to an actual situation in the future

Irish Guitarist

I can't decide if that's too harsh or if he deserves it. It doesn't matter either way though because apparently it's a fake story. The picture of the teenager crying was actually convicted of killing his girlfriends son.

http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/swatted.asp

http://www.buffalonews.com/feed/teenager-sentenced-to-lengthy-prison-term-for-killing-girlfriends-23-month-old-son-20140110

Overheal

K4t wrote: »

The kid didn't send them around and he didn't make them open fire.


He did something stupid which was blown completely out of proportion without any real evidence. The kid didn't cause any harm and shouldn't be facing any charges.

Surely you must be joking because while he didn't cause any particular officer to pull the trigger he is the direct cause of why they entered that house with guns up. Incidents like this and people who do in fact make false police reports to have swatting events occur are disrupting the regular flow of the emergency system. I don't understand how you can't distinguish that there is harm here, from the diverted resources which could be off somewhere else potentially saving other dangers from occurring. False reports have always and will still be a serious matter. There has and always will be some type of legal charge against you if you file any falls or trivial police report that ties up the emergency alert system. In this case it's a little more dangerous to say "hi I'm murdering a bunch of people right now" then it is to say "hey McDonald's ran out of Mc chicken nuggets"

Also apologies for the run-on sentences and poor grammar I'm using Siri to post

ScumLord

So they still haven't caught anyone for it but they do know that the public will be accepting of a fairly draconian sentence when they do catch someone. It's only a matter of time before they catch someone for this and I'd expect a similar sentence to come out for it. I did see an interview with some policy maker that did want it treated as terrorism.

SpaceTime

Interesting piece on US SWAT team use soaring massively

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

(Not behind a paywall, you'll just have to click close on the pop up registration request)

Overheal

SpaceTime wrote: »

Interesting piece on US SWAT team use soaring massively

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

(Not behind a paywall, you'll just have to click close on the pop up registration request)

Oh I'm well aware of that. That's almost another topic in itself. But this is really more about gamers miss using those resources and perhaps even causing an increase in the use of them.

SpaceTime

It's more just militarisation and paranoia that's driving up their use.
The US really needs to dial itself back 20+ years in terms of this cycle of increasing violence and armaments that's going on with the police.

It's really going out of control considering you've small town police departments with TANKS!!!

It just looks like it's getting ever-increasingly more and more like a war-zone type policing instead of just normal policing. The US wasn't always like this either it's a relatively new thing.

Seems like too many law makers thought Robocop was a documentary or "how to" film.

K4t

Overheal wrote: »

Surely you must be joking because while he didn't cause any particular officer to pull the trigger he is the direct cause of why they entered that house with guns up. Incidents like this and people who do in fact make false police reports to have swatting events occur are disrupting the regular flow of the emergency system. I don't understand how you can't distinguish that there is harm here, from the diverted resources which could be off somewhere else potentially saving other dangers from occurring. False reports have always and will still be a serious matter. There has and always will be some type of legal charge against you if you file any falls or trivial police report that ties up the emergency alert system. In this case it's a little more dangerous to say "hi I'm murdering a bunch of people right now" then it is to say "hey McDonald's ran out of Mc chicken nuggets"

Also apologies for the run-on sentences and poor grammar I'm using Siri to post

Fine him for the cost to the state of sending a team to the house. Meanwhile, the state should develop better ways of responding to hoax calls than sending swat teams to locations and opening fire without any substantial evidence.


Anyone who thinks sending a 15 year old child to prison over a hoax call is ever justified has lost touch with reality.

Tar.Aldarion

Quite fake, that picture in the article is used for these things a lot. Somebody young getting x long sentence

Generic Dreadhead

Overheal wrote: »

Also apologies for the run-on sentences and poor grammar I'm using Siri to post

I call bulls**t on that

SpaceTime

That's the other aspect of the justice system over there at the moment - sentencing that is so harsh it seems off the wall.

Don't do any cyber crime or you can expect maybe 4 million years behind bars.

It just makes me think that the US is kind of moving to where Britain and Ireland were in the 1800s - huge social divide between rich and poor, violent crime, people being handed down insane sentences for petty crimes and general tensions building and building.

What exactly is the point of that sentence?! He's 15 FFS.

At that age, a lot of people are completely clueless about consequences of actions and all sorts of things. Yeah, it was incredibly stupid, but the penalty is just nuts.

Zab

I'm pretty surprised at the amount of people who thought that 25 to life was a reasonable sentence to give a 15 year old for doing this.

imitation

It is deserved i think (25 to life is harsh though). Its incredibly dangerous as the police are in shoot to kill mode when they get a call like that. Odds are hes getting the full whack as its quite hard to catch somebody and hes the first case. Id say he will get a reduced sentence on appeal eventually once it dies down again.

Unfortunately ever since the first moron though it up its been on the rise, and the only way to stop is demonstrate how serious it is.

Its also premeditated as you need to look up the person via ip, which is often not trivial and then put in the call. There is serious malicious intent behind it, hes american and smart enough to track somebody down via ip, he knows howdangerous a swat team is.

end of the road

the USA Patriot Act is a very dangerous act which is used by the US to silence anyone the government doesn't like or agree with. its a dangerous act that should have been faught against and stopped. as for this little runt, i don't think you need something as dangerous as a "Patriot Act" to charge him with something over this

The_Valeyard

I'm more curious the tools they used to trace him back if he was using a vpn or proxy.

mikom

Police..........Military, it's so hard to tell the difference in America these days.
Glad I live in Ireland.

Los Lobos

bodice ripper wrote: »

15.

15.

All the bitching on AH about "'Murica", but also lots of support for landing on kids with both jackboots on...

Legally the age you can change what Premier League team you support too for the last time, and end up with whoever won the league that year!

Shrap

I'm middle of the road on this. I think the punishment should fit the crime - in this case a particularly irresponsible, vindictive and quite possibly completely out of touch with reality teenager has wished harm on another person and arranged harm to another person. As he is 15, the benefit of doubt must fall on the side of thinking that he didn't fully grasp what the consequences for his intended victim would be.

So a) prank calling lying about murders (smacks of calling in a bomb scare, which was a fairly common idea when I was a kid)
b) wasting police time
c) being responsible in part for the consequences of his actions

These deserve some serious punishment, but not 25 years - nowhere near, and not even custodial. At that age, your parents are still responsible for what you're doing.

I have two teens in two different rooms potentially killing all around them in a computer game right this minute. I know that I can trust my elder teen not to overreact or misbehave at this stage, so he's allowed in his room to do his own thing. My youngest on the other hand sometimes (often) needs me to hear how he's talking to other people and reacting to disappointment. He's 13 - not a lot of difference between 13 and 15 with some teens.

There's a reason I can still hear him and that is because he's in the living room until I can trust him to treat people well on line. Both kids have been schooled to know that there are real people on the other end of the graphics, and just because someone looks like an adult dressed in combat gear and carrying a weapon doesn't mean they're able in real life for abuse or indeed able to make good judgements about how to treat my sons as actual people when all they're seeing in return is a graphic depiction of an adult trying to kill them.

This sh1t is dangerous to kids, and I'm letting them do it. Why? Because everyone else is and I don't need a rebellion in real life due to a parental overreaction to current teen "culture". I'd rather school them on what is real and what is not and encourage them not to let the non-real warfare affect the way they think about people. Sounds like this kid's parents failed in their duty to do this. They need to be given some of that sentence, to my mind.

Drakares

This story is fake. The guy in the picture is 16 years old and killed his girlfriends 23 month old toddler.

http://www.dailydot.com/esports/15-year-old-swatting-prison-sentence-hoax/

Egginacup

VinLieger wrote: »

Its neccessary considering how often theres are happening and the kids doing it are rarely caught so when they do find one they make sure the others know its not an easy going punishment.

I dont know about yourself but when I was 15 i never sent around an armed group of highly pumped up police to my mates house threatening to shoot anyone who came inside

The fact that these idiot cops with their bullsh1t commando raid tactics exist at all is testimony to the stupidity of American society. Why are the concepts of logic and common sense simply suspended when it comes to the US? If a call to the police in say Germany was made they would bring negotiators, medics, cops obviously and a clear plan to establish contact with the alleged shooter. In the US the knuckleheaded swat dopes can be relied upon to do their infantile "go, go, go" pantomime and spray lead in all directions. And then when it turns out that they look like the tits that they are they hand down a 25 year sentence to an adolescent.

Shrap

Egginacup wrote: »

The fact that these idiot cops with their bullsh1t commando raid tactics exist at all is testimony to the stupidity of American society. Why are the concepts of logic and common sense simply suspended when it comes to the US? If a call to the police in say Germany was made they would bring negotiators, medics, cops obviously and a clear plan to establish contact with the alleged shooter. In the US the knuckleheaded swat dopes can be relied upon to do their infantile "go, go, go" pantomime and spray lead in all directions. And then when it turns out that they look like the tits that they are they hand down a 25 year sentence to an adolescent.

Yeah, that's the other side of it, right there. Unreal reaction.

Infini

Old fake story is Old. This is just a fake story and one from a good while back I might add this has popped up on AH before.

Shrap

Infini2 wrote: »

Old fake story is Old. This is just a fake story and one from a good while back I might add this has popped up on AH before.

Oh.

ScumLord

The_Valeyard wrote: »

I'm more curious the tools they used to trace him back if he was using a vpn or proxy.

Some sort of fancy FBI CSI, they can probably look through time and are omnipresent if the standard police forces CSI's are anything to go by.

bodice ripper

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

And if it was your father who was shot in his own home because of this ****wits actions?

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

onemorechance

Hoax (about the sentencing). Close thread?

Kintarō Hattori

SpaceTime wrote: »

Interesting piece on US SWAT team use soaring massively

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21599349-americas-police-have-become-too-militarised-cops-or-soldiers

(Not behind a paywall, you'll just have to click close on the pop up registration request)

From the article you linked to. Nuts.

Because of a legal quirk, SWAT raids can be profitable. Rules on civil asset-forfeiture allow the police to seize anything which they can plausibly claim was the proceeds of a crime. Crucially, the property-owner need not be convicted of that crime. If the police find drugs in his house, they can take his cash and possibly the house, too. He must sue to get them back.

Many police departments now depend on forfeiture for a fat chunk of their budgets. In 1986, its first year of operation, the federal Asset Forfeiture Fund held $93.7m. By 2012, that and the related Seized Asset Deposit Fund held nearly $6 billion.

bb1234567

He'll be a middle aged man when he's able to enjoy life again...all because he was a f*ckin stupid kid

osarusan

Can a mod edit the title to add a note that it is a fake story?

BeerWolf

Great way to deter little ****ers doing this is leading by example.