Advances in technology allow prank callers to mask their voice, phone number or IP address, or make their false 911 calls sound more credible.
Author Patrick Tomlinson and his wife, business owner Niki Robinson, have been “swatted” at their home in Milwaukee more than 40 times, often resulting in police pointing guns at their heads. Their tormentors have also called in false bomb threats to venues using their names in three states. Yet law enforcement hasn’t been able to stop the prank calls.
The couple’s terror comes as these incidents appear to be on the rise in the U.S., at least on college campuses. In less than a single week in April, universities including Clemson, Florida, Boston, Harvard, Cornell, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Oklahoma, as well as Middlebury College, were targeted by swatters.
To combat the growing problem, the FBI has begun taking formal measures to get a comprehensive picture of the problem on a national level.
This is begging the question of these “suspects” needing arrest at all. A person being armed—by itself—is not a crime. Using, possessing, selling, and manufacturing drugs should not be. How much of this “high probability of violence” directly stems from people with guns coming to kidnap them? (Yeah, I’m a prison abolitionist, too.)
I see nothing in the quote which addresses their role in society being crucial.
Yes, and I am willing to admit in addition to some of my thoughts needing polish, I hold certain views (I have not yet shared with you) which are flagrantly contradictory. I still am confident the end goal of the pursuit of justice will lead to a world that does not have slave patrols. I view a desire to preserve such a system of domination to be a moral failing.