Talkin' SWAT on HuffPost Live

The swatting debate.

Last night I went on HuffPost Live to discuss "swatting" -- the potentially lethal practice of faking an emergency call so that a SWAT unit descends on a home where no crime is actually in progress. The other guests included a California state senator, a Florida SWAT cop, and a swatting victim. You can watch it here:

The conversation ranged a bit, but my basic role was to talk about another way SWAT teams are overdeployed: times when they're sent to the "right" house, but not in response to the sorts of dangerous situations that SWAT units were originally created for.

Comments

[db]

Maybe you should SWAT more.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The conversation ranged a bit, but my basic role was to talk about another way SWAT teams are overdeployed...

TOTAL THREADJACK.

[The Late P Brooks]

times when they're sent to the "right" house, but not in response to the sorts of dangerous situations that SWAT units were originally created for.

I envision a reaction reminiscent of dogs playing poker.

[minarchist]

Ever try and post something at Huffington? Their censors really don't like libertarian opinions confusing the assembled statists who use that news source. About 1/3 of my comments are deleted by the Huffington thought police.

[MisterDamage]

Wasting police resources is the first thing that comes to the Senator's mind when it comes to SWATting? Someone needs a priority transplant, stat!

[MisterDamage]

The SWAT commander comes right out and states that a SWATting posing a danger to the victim (and by victim, I don't mean the poor pigs who had their daily donut intake interrupted) had not even occurred to him.

Words fail.