A New Jersey state legislator who is sponsoring a bill against swatting, has himself been swatted:
According to a report by NJ.com, Moriarty received a phone call at his home on Saturday from a police officer asking if everything was okay; the assemblyman was then informed that someone had anonymously called in a report of a shooting at the home. He was then told to describe his clothing and step outside, where he saw a crowd of officers armed with "helmets, flak jackets and rifles."
There was no mention if the legislator questioned the over-militarizing of the police or no-knock raids...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:45PM
If so many weren't hotheads, the SWAT cops could stop these raids in 5 seconds.
Consider the tactical situation: Someone reported that something nasty is going on, and you are expected to breach into an unknown space, without confirming first where the alleged targets are and how they are armed, hoping that your armor is good enough to prevent your family from getting a nice folded flag...
It's already a bad thing for shoot-don't-ask Army/Marines to do that in a rebel district in Iraq/Afghanistan, even with shoddy information. It's a terrible idea to have Serve/Protect officers do it in a US residential area, where there is rarely a reason to rush the end of a hostage situation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by CirclesInSand on Friday April 17 2015, @01:33AM
Yeah, it's an irony of SWAT raids. If things were actually so dangerous that all that armor and aggression was necessary, they wouldn't actually do the raids at all in the first place: cops aren't going to voluntarily do anything that puts themselves in significant danger.