Two more high-profile cases of "swatting" should provide a reminder to everyone that swatting must be treated as a serious crime and prosecuted to the fullest extent of tougher laws.
Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Brandon Williams (R-NY) were swatted at their Christmas gatherings over the holiday weekend. Swatting is when people knowingly make false emergency calls, typically alleging a hostage situation or bomb threat, to have law enforcement sic a SWAT team on a celebrity, politician, livestreamer, or some random person with whom they are upset.
I was just swatted.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene???????? (@RepMTG) December 25, 2023
This is like the 8th time.
On Christmas with my family here.
My local police are the GREATEST and shouldn’t have to deal with this.
I appreciate them so much and my family and I are in joyous spirits celebrating the birth of our savior Jesus Christ!
My home was “swatted” on Christmas. Someone hoped police might accidentally kill me and my family.
— Rep. Brandon Williams (@RepWilliams) December 26, 2023
Today local “news” doxxed us by publishing a photo of my home, why? To make it easier to target my family?
You put my family’s lives at risk. Shame on you https://t.co/3nKMK8Yty7 https://t.co/GBTy1SOoPE
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A trend that may or may not have started off as a silly prank has become more widespread, and it has lethal consequences. SWAT teams fielding these calls come in hot and on edge, putting the lives of everyone at the scene in danger. In 2015, a police officer in Oklahoma was shot by a homeowner who was swatted and was unaware that it was law enforcement trying to forcibly enter his home. (He thankfully survived.) In 2017, a man in Kansas was shot and killed after a serial swatter called officers to the wrong home in a dispute over video games.
In 2020, Mark Herring died in Tennessee from a heart attack after police responded to a false emergency call about a murder. Shane Sonderman, who placed the call, did so because he wanted Herring to give him his Twitter account handle. He received just five years in prison.
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That is inadequate. States and Congress (there is no specific federal law criminalizing swatting) must put tougher laws on the books and make examples of those who are caught. It is not some silly prank call, but a conscious decision by someone to put law enforcement officers on edge and point their guns at someone who has not committed a crime.
The man behind the swatting death in Kansas, Tyler Barris, received 20 years in prison in a plea deal. That should be the baseline punishment for people who try to weaponize emergency services to get back at people they don’t like. Given that several members of Congress, including Greene and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), have been victims of this, it should be an easy, bipartisan effort to craft a law that brings the hammer down on people trying to use emergency calls to get people killed.