CA Teenager Sentenced to 48 Months in Prison for Nationwide Swatting Spree

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/california-teenager-sentenced-48-months-prison-nationwide-swatting-spree

by impish9208 • 1 year ago

74 47 1 year ago

he falsely identified himself as a senior federal law enforcement officer, provided the federal law-enforcement officer’s residential address to the dispatcher

I would guess this one really put him on the map

Given the scope (375 total!) and the for-hire nature, it seems like this kid got off easy. I'm not totally against it given his age, but wow.

favorited• 1 year ago

4 years in federal prison is a long time, especially for an 18 year old. Even if he earns the full 54 days of good-time per year, that's still about 3.5 years in prison. Best case scenario, when he gets out, he'll be a 21 year old felon without much or any higher education or vocational training.

You could certainly argue that he deserves a longer sentence, given the volume of swatting crimes he committed, but the rest of his life just got a whole lot harder.

ahmeneeroe-v22• 1 year ago

Yeah, I think you're right. His age is (and should be) a major mitigating factor.

lurking_swe• 1 year ago

sounds like justice was served then.

blackeyeblitzar• 1 year ago

This is a ridiculously light sentence for 375 calls and threats of mass murder. I don’t care about his age - he’s old enough to know better. He should have received 4 years per incident.

Nasrudith• 1 year ago

As always: not to acquit the heinous perpetrator but I can't help but think the bigger fundamental issue is that we maintain a tax-payer funded dial-a-juiced-up-hitman service in the first place.

jokoon• 1 year ago

My thought also

Maybe there is a risk/benefit. Maybe spending more time trying to make sure, would cost lives, or give criminals time to flee?

Hard to know...

susiecambria• 1 year ago

Can't disagree more.

I am disgusted by abuse of power. One law enforcement officer who use excessive force or breaks the rules is too many. They should all be found and prosecuted. Systems which perpetuate abuse of power should be torn down and rebuilt. Systems which are designed to find fault with one group should be replaced by ones which are more deliberate and fair.

The big fundamental issue is that at least in the US, there is a significant need for law enforcement. There's trafficking, child abuse and neglect, drug proliferation, crimes against persons and property. And too many agencies are not provided with the support they need to best serve the community. For example, making social workers available to resolve what are fundamentally non-law enforcement issues would restrict the reliance on armed officers. And I say this as someone with an MSW who has spent 25 years working on local public policy issues, often ones including the police.

I'd love for the police not to be needed. Hell, I want firefighters, EMTs, and paramedics to get paid to hang out in the station because there are no calls for them to respond to. But if there are bad guys out there, I want trained and competent officers to respond, to protect me and mine. And you and yours.

Having better systems built and maintained is hard work and long-term diligence is necessary. In Washington, DC, for example, the police and fire clinic is underfunded and the quality of the work performed by credentialed professionals is generally sloppy. There are several instances where officers were put back on the street following what I understand to be poorly executed clinical assessments. Elected and appointed officials were aware of the situation and shrugged their shoulders. The problem was dull, boring, and technical, not shiny, new, and sexy.

snypher• 1 year ago

But if there are bad guys out there, I want trained and competent officers to respond, to protect me and mine. And you and yours.

The problem is the actual risk to self that most people face is vastly overstated in media. We do not need anywhere the degree of military-styled response to situations that do not require it, esp when it can be deployed anonymously at only the cost of a phone call.

ryandrake3• 1 year ago

I don't think OP is arguing against police or policing, they are arguing against the process that allows a single phone call to result in a pre-escalated military-style armed response.

There are other ways to investigate an anonymous phone call claiming this-and-that than to immediately kick the door in guns blazing.

lesuorac• 1 year ago

Naw, the bigger issue is that we have system of physically networked devices but it takes 2 years ("from approximately August 2022 to January 2024") to figure out which device on that network was issuing requests.

There's some solid intentional negligence going on when the phone company can figure who to bill but they can't figure out who made the calls.

xnyan• 1 year ago

I don't know the details of the case, but in every country/telephone network I am familiar with, it's only a tiny bit of effort to get at least temporary access to a phone that has no direct connection to your identity. How would the phone company quickly track down someone using a phonelines not connected to their identity?

coldtea• 1 year ago

Nah, the dial-a-hitman militarized trigger happy police force still sounds like the bigger issue, by an order of magnitude...

IncreasePosts• 1 year ago

I'm sure we can get rid of it, if you're okay with a lot more innocent people being killed where real distress calls are being responded to.

The police in America don't exist in a vacuum. If there weren't...hundreds of millions of guns out there, our police wouldn't need to be as heavily armed as they are.

potato37328425• 1 year ago

Moral of the story here really is that if you make the government enforcers look like fools by abusing their "service" for your own ends they will throw the book at you.

decremental• 1 year ago

48 months for 375 attempted murders isn't exactly getting the book thrown at you. It should have been life.

potato37328425• 1 year ago

Calling it attempted murder says a lot about the cops and how they do things does it not? Do the cops have no culpability? Were they not so predisposed to shoot first and ask questions later there would barely be a crime here. It would be on the same order as pushing a bunch of fraudulent paperwork.

herewulf• 1 year ago

Coincidentally I ran across and read this fantastic WIRED article with a lot more detail today.

https://archive.is/OgYmI

Curious that the posted article credits a bunch of law enforcement departments but not the PI from the article.

polski-g• 1 year ago

Four years for attempted murder seems awfully short.

CA Teenager Sentenced to 48 Months in Prison for Nationwide Swatting Spree

Related Stories