Those scumbags who file false reports in order to elicit a (possible fatal) police response to their intended target are at it again, and this time their target was none other that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on Wednesday morning that his home in McKinney was victim to a “swatting” incident.
Paxton took to social media to alert the public that he and his family “were not home at the time and were made aware of the false report when a state trooper, who was contacted by McKinney police, informed [them] of the incident.”
“On New Year’s Day, a currently unidentified caller made a false report to 911 describing a life-threatening situation at our home in McKinney. As a result, the City of McKinney Police and Fire Departments quickly and bravely responded to what they believed could be a dangerous environment,” he explained.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation “swatting” is “making a hoax call to 9-1-1 to draw a response from law enforcement, usually a [special weapons and tactics or] SWAT Team … it is a serious crime, and one that has potentially dangerous consequences.”
“It is also important to acknowledge that this ‘swatting’ incident happened weeks after the disgraced Speaker of the House Dade Phelan, his lieutenants, and the Dallas Morning News doxed our family by publicly posting our address,” Paxton continued on social media.
“We understand some people may not agree with our strong conservative efforts to secure the border, prevent election fraud, and protect our constitutional liberties, but compromising the effectiveness and safety of law enforcement is completely unacceptable.”
Interesting that Paxton fingered Phelan’s crew as the possible perpetrators rather than the usual leftwing loons who employee the tactic.
In any case, I’ve got to believe that SWATing the Attorney General is a pretty risky gambit. I mean, I’m pretty sure any AG is going to have the resources to pursue the perps. Likewise, I’m pretty sure he can get a warrant for the device data, and even an unregistered burner phone can be tracked.
Here’s hoping the perp who swatted Paxton ends up earning himself a nice, long stint behind bars.
Tags: Crime, Dade Phelan, Dallas Morning News, Ken Paxton, McKinney, Metroplex, SWATing, Texas
I hope they can find these people doing the swatting. I doubt it was Phelan, as it seems to have been a holiday event for conservatives across the US, and the people playing these games need to spend a long time in prison.
With the recent surge in high-level Swatting incidents, something will need to be done in a legal sense.
Is there any law or protocol that could be put into place that would do the following:
1) When a 911 call is received and the caller reports a situation that will result in a Swatting type situation, something must be done to determine the exact location of the caller (GPS and/or cell tower triangulation?).
2) In addition to the response to the location reported by the caller, a police unit is dispatched to the location of the caller to gather further information from the call on why they placed the 911 call.
3) False calls resulting in a Swatting should result in Felony level charges to the caller (attempted murder?), abuse of the 911/emergency system charges, and a mandatory prison term of at least 3 years with no chance of parole.
Once a few of these Swatters have well publicized stints in jail, this issue should calm down and eventually resolve itself.
Prison? It would be better poetic justice if they got shot and killed by the police when being arrested.
[…] LORD: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Swatted. “In any case, I’ve got to believe that SWATing the Attorney General is a pretty risky […]
Swatting works because the telcos pass along fake caller ID. What’s needed is to require the telcos to authenticate caller ID, or pass nothing if they can’t. That will cut way down on several nasty problems.
The danger of SWAT is in fact the SWAT. If we had not militarized the crap out of policing and introduced SWAT to domestic life in America we wouldn’t be having this problem.
SWAT kills far more innocent people then should be tolerated and every single killer is probably still an officer of the law in good standing.