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Police suspect that a 17-year-old from California, Alan Filion, may be responsible for "hundreds of swatting incidents and bomb threats" targeting the Pentagon, schools, mosques, FBI offices, and military bases nationwide, CNN reported.
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Recently extradited to Florida, Filion was charged with multiple felonies after the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) traced a call where Filion allegedly claimed to be a mass shooter entering the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida. The caller played "audio of gunfire in the background," SCSO said, while referencing Satanism and claiming he had a handgun and explosive devices.
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According to SCSO, police were able to track down Filion after he allegedly "created several accounts on websites offering swatting services" that were linked to various IP addresses connected to his home address. The FBI then served a search warrant on the residence and found "incriminating evidence."Filion has been charged as an adult for a variety of offenses, including making a false report while facilitating or furthering an act of terrorism. He is currently being detained in Florida, CNN reported.
Earlier this year, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced legislation to "crack down" on swattings after he became a target at his home in December. If passed, the Preserving Safe Communities by Ending Swatting Act would impose strict penalties, including a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for any swatting that lead to serious injuries. If death results, bad actors risk a lifetime sentence. That bill is currently under review by the House Judiciary Committee.
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FBI announced it would finally begin tracking swatting incidents nationwide. Hundreds of law enforcement agencies and police departments now rely on an FBI database to share information on swatting incidents.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 06 2024, @03:26AM
I'm not sure which jurisdiction you're in, but I know of one near me where cops have been busted for:
- Dealing drugs that they stole or extorted from drug dealers.
- Beating up citizens completely at random.
- Catching women who they claimed were prostitutes, and demanding free "service" from them to avoid jail time. a.k.a. rape under the color of law.
- Taking bribes from street gangs.
- Robbing citizens of their cash at random.
- Breaking into citizen's homes and stealing things.
Are you going to tell me cops like that were "simply doing their jobs"? Because if that's "doing their jobs", whoever is deciding what their jobs actually are have seriously screwed things up.
There were rumors about this sort of thing going on in this municipality for decades, but it took a long time to get a DA to actually look into that activity, which meant among other things poring through hours of cam footage.
And here's the thing: Corrupt cops are in a lot of ways far worse for a community than street gangs. The corrupt cops enable the street gangs to operate freely so long as they get a cut of the profits, terrorizing the law-abiding portion of the citizens. And when the cops are the ones who commit crimes against you, who are you going to report them to? The street gangs usually are pretty methodical about who they are targeting because they don't want to draw police attention, whereas if the cops are the gang they don't need to worry about that problem and can happily do whatever they want to anybody they want.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.