Vancouver Area Teen Sentenced To 16 Months For Swatting 331
An anonymous reader writes: A 17-year-old from the Vancouver area in Canada has been sentenced to 16 months in youth custody and 8 months under supervision in the community after pleading guilty to 23 charges including criminal harassment, public mischief, extortion and uttering threats. The teenager was responsible for a number of swatting calls across the United States and Canada — mostly of female gamers. The judge told him, "It appears that when real life became too hard you retreated into the online world and became increasingly socially isolated. While you may think you enjoyed greater success in the online world, that success was an illusion. You were left with severely limited social skills and a significant educational deficit."
Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:3, Insightful)
My sentence would have been life.
A life of swatting.
He'd know it's coming. Over and over again. He just would never know when. He'd be asleep at 3 AM, and BAM! Door kicked in, flashbangs detonated everywhere, guns pointed in his face.
He'd find it hilarious, I'm sure, whilst everyone's favorite tacticool occifers would no doubt appreciate the training exercise.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to think that way. Over the years, I've mellowed. At least 10 in the provincial prison would be enough, but no less.
Watch the "White Bear" episode from the excellent anthology series "Black Mirror" - it's probably a far more cruel thing to inflict a crime upon an individual, over and over, than deal with it in the most direct, blunt sense.
The guy deserves harsh punishment, for sure. If the law put just 10% of the effort into catching these idiots that they do toward pursuing "copyright infringers" the world would be a far better place.
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Over the years, I've mellowed. At least 10 in the provincial prison would be enough, but no less.
You've mellowed but you think someone should forfeit 10 years of their life for essentially being an immature teenaged brat? That's roughly the amount of time you can expect to spend in prison for murder in Finland. I guess that's the difference between viewing imprisonment as a correction vs. a punishment. I wouldn't think the little turd should get a slap on the wrist but ten years seems a bit harsh unless there's some extenuating circumstance (someone died or was permanently disfigured) I don't know a
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to punish them enough that they don't do it again because of the potential punishment.
You obviously aren't a parent. If the only thing they worry about is the potential punishment, they get better at hiding their actions. You need to correct behaviors and find out the underlying reasons WHY they are doing the things. The only thing punishment for punishment's sake teaches is that they need to be more careful about getting caught.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a parent and while it is important to get to the bottom of bad behavior to keep it from happening again, you also need to be firm in enforcing punishments for bad behavior. Kids will naturally test the boundaries. If your reaction to bad behavior is only "Now, why are you doing this? Let's have a friendly chat about it", then your kids will walk all over you. Have firm (but fair) consequences for their actions followed up with discussions about what they did, why it was wrong, and how they should act in similar situations in the future.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yes, but ...
I'm not really convinced the prison reforms anyone. The evidence seems rather the opposite.
Also, from what I've read changed behavior is more closely related to certainty of being caught than to severity of punishment. Severe punishment just makes victims feel better, and uninvolved people feel self-righteous.
So make "swatting" require positive identification. Something that actually serves are reasonable identifation of the person placing the call. And be quite skeptical of anyone calling f
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You need to correct behaviors and find out the underlying reasons WHY they are doing the things.
Except that parents have plenty of incentive not to find out, because it's their responsibility and probably their fault.
That only increases the urgency of finding out, if the person is really serious about being a parent. Children are supposed to have a life that's better than ours was; they are not supposed to inherit severe character flaws because we were too cowardly to deal with them.
I do agree, though, that there are lots of self-centered (and often emotionally immature) people who really do fit the description you gave. That something might be uncomfortable, or require some effort, or *gasp* involve admitting that th
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4)
I don't believe someone needs to die to warrant a bigger sentence. The fact is, this psychopath put many people in harms way and got their doors broken down and live guns pointed at them. The fact that nobody died is a miracle
If the Swat team response to an unverified phone call is to put people's lives at such severe risk as you describe, the problem is with the police, not the teenage idiot who placed the fake calls.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say you have a guy you know likes baseball. You wanna SWAT him, because you don't like his hairdo. You call the police and in a very convincing bit of acting, claim (very distraught voice) that he has already beaten his son to death with a baseball bat and is threatening to beat his wife to death, too.
Or you know a guy that lives in South Carolina and has a Federal Firearms License, works at a shooting range, or just has a large collection of firearms, some on display over the mantle in view of the front windows/door. You call the police and again in a very convincing act, claim he is loading his guns and claiming he's going to head out in a few minutes to shoot up the capitol for taking down the confederate flag.
In situations where minutes can matter in saving a potential victim's life, and where you cannot control things like that guy's son playing with a toy M-16 in the dark or the first guy teaching his wife swing motions with a bat in the front lobby, would you suppose things might get misinterpreted as an imminent life-threatening situation by the police where they must make a potentially terminal decision based on purposefully misrepresented (but believable) information?
Here's the problem with that worldview: the police have to be right 100% of the time to fit your definition of "not evil," but you only have to be right once to claim they are evil, in a sort of pre-destined post-hoc-propter-hoc circle that just proves the GP's point. N'est-ce pas?
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If the police weren't, essentially, given a blank check then I'd say you had a point. Unfortunately, in a lot of places a policeman shooting someone in the back AND BEING CAUGHT isn't even cause for a reprimand.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Swat team response to an unverified phone call is to put people's lives at such severe risk as you describe, the problem is with the police, not the teenage idiot who placed the fake calls.
Absolutely, totally wrong. Without the teenager's call, that Swat team would have stayed where they are, and nothing bad would have happened. With the phone call, here's a list of possible consequences, all of which are the teenagers fault:
1. Swat team goes out, and figures out that nothing bad is going on, without frightening anyone. Waste of tax payers money.
2. Exactly like 1, but then the Swat team isn't available when a real call comes in. As a consequence, people might lose their lives because nobody is coming to help them.
3. Swat team goes out, under the assumption that the caller might be correct. The safest way to do this is to use so much force that nobody can fire a gun, while trying not to injure anyone. Result if everything goes right is a very, very unpleasant experience for the homeowner.
4. Same as 3, but a bit of bad luck, and the home owner gets injured.
5. Same as 3, but the homeowner is in a position that makes him look dangerous. For example, cleaning the guns in his collections, or sharpening a huge kitchen knife. With his wife is with him, crying because she just sliced a bunch of onions. Anything can happen.
6. Home owner detects that there are potential intruders at his doors and gets his gun to fight them off in self defence. Bad things _will_ happen.
All these scenarios apply even if you have a well-trained team that does its best to keep everyone secure.
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It's counterproductive because when there is the rare situation where an actual military response is desired you end up with half trained soldiers doing the job instead.
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+1. The crazy military response is the issue. Even if the issue is real, the SWAT is normally excessive. And it has crossed the pond to some extent here in Australia.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Corrective"... A fool's dream. One flash-bang in a baby's crib or worse and this kid would have initiated a killing or severe maiming. Well beyond "brat".
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There's a limit to how far "What might have been" goes in the criminal justice system. If you text while driving you might kill someone. That doesn't argue in favor of giving every distracted driver a sentence equivalent to what you'd get for manslaughter.
I don't know the particulars of this case but as a general rule of thumb I would not be willing to throw in the towel on a 17 year old. The ostensible point of the criminal justice system is rehabilitation. That's the case even in the United States, w
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Informative)
There's a limit to how far "What might have been" goes in the criminal justice system.
In Arizona, there is a rather precise limit, and it is a serious crime. Saying that section B is relevant seriously questions the restraint and professionalism of the raiding police officers, but a class 1 misdemeanor has a 6 month maximum sentence.
13-1201. Endangerment; classification
A. A person commits endangerment by recklessly endangering another person with a substantial risk of imminent death or physical injury.
B. Endangerment involving a substantial risk of imminent death is a class 6 felony. In all other cases, it is a class 1 misdemeanor.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Informative)
It should be a serious crime. I haven't maintained otherwise. I just questioned that it should be a ten year prison sentence level of serious. That's over the top even by American standards of jurisprudence. In New York State, assuming no prior convictions, you need a class C felony to reach that kind of sentence. For perspective, class C felonies include robbery, burglary, criminal possession of a weapon, soliciting or supporting an act of terrorism, assault on a judge or first responder, or an attempt to commit a class B felony. There's some non-violent crimes in there too, primarily fraud that reaches a certain dollar amount.
IANAL but the closest charge we would have here to fit swatting would probably be falsely reporting an incident in the third degree [ypdcrime.com], which is a misdemeanor. A reading of the law would seem to support bumping it up to first degree if someone is killed as a result of the false report, which makes it a class D felony.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, it's not clear to me that robbing a store with an unloaded pistol is necessarily less dangerous. Are there statistics on that?
But for the sake of argument, I'll assume it is. In that case, it's not irrelevant that what this guy did is more dangerous, but that's not a sole determining factor either.
The five main points of criminal justice: rehabilitation, incapacitation, deterrence, retribution, restitution.
If we believe that teenagers are unlikely to ever again swat somebody after a month in jail (which I personally consider extremely likely), then that satisfies incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Restitution can never be fully satisfied because you can't truly un-SWAT somebody. It's only retribution that's left, and I reject that as a reason for high sentences.
So the question is, even if this is more dangerous, is it also easier to fix the root problem?
Re: Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:3)
Sentences are also deterrents. His buds will know better, the id10ts trolling gamers will know better, less trouble all the way around.
Re: Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Insightful)
Enforcement is a deterrent as well. When law enforcement has the capabilities to find these people, and district attorneys are willing to extradite people, this swatting thing will get much less popular.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess that's the difference between viewing imprisonment as a correction vs. a punishment.
In my book, the objective is to catch these guys consistently enough, and provide a serious enough sentence, that nobody else thinks it is a good idea.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Interesting)
It also doesn't work, or there'd be a lot less convicts on Death Row.
Pretty much. I remember reading as study that deterrence effects are insignificant beyond 7 years of prison. IE there are a few crimes that somebody might willingly eat a 3 year sentence for that they wouldn't for 7 years. But any sentence beyond that will not deter one more person, so to hold somebody beyond that time it needs to be justified in that that one person is still too dangerous to be released.
For the AC: Standard statistical methods have been unable to find any deterrence effect to the death penalty over life in prison, or even much reduced sentences. Turns out that all but a statistically insignificant number of potential murderers are deterred by the death penalty but not the prospect of life in prison. Indeed, most don't consider that they're likely to be caught at all.
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You've mellowed but you think someone should forfeit 10 years of their life for essentially being an immature teenaged brat? That's roughly the amount of time you can expect to spend in prison for murder in Finland.
Well, it IS attempted homicide to call in a high pressure situation where even Canadian police officers will be armed and filled with adrenalin. You have to remember that we have situations like Tamir Rice [wikipedia.org] where a 12 year old boy was fatally shot because someone called in a report of someone with
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Ok, then manslaughter or negligent homicide depending on the jurisdiction. You're still putting peoples lives is serious danger through your stupidity and if you're in the least bit intelligent and paying attention to your surroundings doing it knowingly.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Informative)
i haven't seen Black mirror but i read the summary on wikipedia...
if her memory is wiped and she doesn't remember it the next day then what really is the point in doing it again?
she doesn't remember it, so it happening again to her isn't any additional punishment for her. to her every day is the first time. which means, really she has a one day sentence. and when/if they finally stop wiping her memory she will just wake up to find herself X days/years older and having only had this one really bad and confusing day.
Re:Reasons I'm not a judge. (Score:4, Insightful)
At very least, they could "swat" him at random times of the night while he's in youth custody. Kick in door, flash bangs, guns, wrestled to ground, all the usual. Except perhaps for the accidental shootings from overexcited police. Or maybe some of those too, if non-lethal, so he could understand the possible ramifications of his actions.
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what the check to see if he is still in cell and not just a fake head each 2 hours all night long.
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The drawback is that nobody could afford a lifetime of adopting and training new dogs every week, not to mention teasing flashbang shrapnel out of your baby's skin.
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due to inflation we use quarters these days
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While in the more enlightened Norwegian prison system, they use a sack of bills.
I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts too. (Score:2)
Please bear with me, I'm speaking from a US point of view.
I don't want to completely condemn anyone to not being able to get a job because of a felony over being "a really stupid kid". Everyone has stupid moments, but most people can learn from them.
I also don't want people who are un-rehabilitable released back into the general population.
The number of times this kid swatted other people leads me to believe that he falls into the latter of the two groups.
I do think that there are other side conve
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That's because you don't understand Canadian law. That is actually a fairly harsh term for a young offender in Canada.
The other option would have been moving him to adult court. That's a pretty big uphill battle for the prosecution, as they would have to prove how society would be better served potentially throwing him in jail until 27.
He's a stupid kid, and really needs to be treated as such.
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Insightful)
You can recover from a SWATing in a few weeks...
Unless you are fucking DEAD.
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Insightful)
Or have PTSD from nearly being made dead. People who claim that an armed paramilitary raid of your home is no big deal obviously haven't had it happen.
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You can recover from a SWATing in a few weeks, months if it hit you particularly hard. But 16 months in jail is basically making sure the rest of his life is seriously restricted and damaged.
Really? Being the victim of SWATing seems like it could cause lifelong psychological damage - let alone the danger that you're sending HEAVILY ARMED people over to someone's house. I think 5 years would be a better sentence for him. Sounds like he's already pretty damaged anyway. "the judge noted a psychiatric and psychological assessment that she said painted a picture of a deeply troubled young person who is a high risk to reoffend. The report suggested the teen has minimized his crimes and blamed the vi
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Really? Being the victim of SWATing seems like it could cause lifelong psychological damage - let alone the danger that you're sending HEAVILY ARMED people over to someone's house.
I wouldn't put a specific term on SWATing, I'd just treat it as what it is - attempted murder. Unless it is successful. In that case it is murder.
Not enough, more time needed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Moreover, this kid didn't do this once, but many times, demonstrating that this isn't a spur of the moment 'crime of passion', but that he possess a consistent and dangerous disregard for life. I am all for lighter sentencing for a lot of things, but this is something that you need to come down heavy on people for. Grafitti is stupid teenage hyjinx. SWATTING is really dangerous behavior.
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Swatting is nothing less than attempted murder. People have been killed in "wrong address" SWAT raids in the past which is effectively what this is to the people being targeted. Having armed people hyped up on adrenaline (and roided up in many cases - http://www.nj.com/news/index.s... [nj.com]) and expecting trouble force their way into someone's house can go badly in many obvious ways, a lot of which end up with the someone dead.
Now this particular kid seems to have some large mental problems and years in prison is
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No. The reason swatting is dangerous is because of those things.But that is irrelevant to the person doing the swatting - they are employing that dangerous instrument the details of why it is dangerous don' t matter in the slightest.
Just like if he was to shoot someone himself, the details of how and why a bullet damages a person is irrelevant to the crime itself.
If he was to pay some bikers to break into the victims house and hold them at gunpoint for a while, the social and economic reasons for the existe
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Tell that to the baby who essentially ate a flash grenade.
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Do you think he would have called them if he expected them to knock politely and have a simple conversation with the home owners?
He knew what type of force would likely be used and called for that specific reason.
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Insightful)
"For my money, anyone over 13 years old is aware of their actions and if they are defective enough to SWAT once, let alone multiple times, they should be incarcerated indefinitely in a mental health facility and banned from any phone or internet connected devices for life. "
There are no more mental health facilities the way you're thinking of them. All the institutions closed in the 80s and 90s. Now, you pretty much need to be Hannibal Lechter to get a mental health inpatient bed; you need to be so dangerous to yourself or others that the only choice is to keep you locked up and attempt to treat you. Prison is the new asylum for most mid-level mentally ill people.
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However, once they decide they want to commit adult crimes, they should have adult consequences. A felony conviction for swatting following someone for the rest of their life seems pretty fair.
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I do think that there are other side conversations about the militarization of SWAT teams that can be had as well, but that's not the focus of this story.
Correct, but the militarization of SWAT and police in general SHOULD be the focus of the story. These little assholes wouldn't be swatting if it didn't evoke such a massive response from police.
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct, but the militarization of SWAT and police in general SHOULD be the focus of the story. These little assholes wouldn't be swatting if it didn't evoke such a massive response from police.
Did you read the list of offenses this kid did? If you think he did all than just because SWAT teams react, and he is not the one that is primarily accountable.,., .well, I'll just have to assume you are the kid's mother.
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think both issue need to be addressed.
The severity of punishment for calling in fake hostage situations should be sever to act as a deterrent, but considerably more important is effective enforcement. People have to think that if they do this they will get caught. Otherwise even a death sentance won't actually be an effective deterrent.
Simultaneously, the police need to reign in SWAT protocols. It is completely unacceptable to be kicking in doors of innocent people, so much so that in the US it's even in
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Now, the militarization of the r
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Correct, but the militarization of SWAT
It was center stage for a bill Obama tried to pass recently (not sure if it passed as I didn't follow it)
and police in general SHOULD be the focus of the story
Both the offender and the authorities need to be the focus of the story. It's a two fold issue.
You can keep blaming the ashes for making a mess but the fire is what made the ashes in the first place. It's like blaming gun manufacturers for mass shootings. I'm not suggesting the authorities are innocent but the source is still the source of the fire. The authorities could take a very hard stance on this a
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I'm Canadian, but cannot claim to speak for the country, only my own Canadian-derived viewpoints.
I, too, do not want to see someone capable of being rehabilitated denied the opportunity for a better life (ie: job, hobbies, freedom, personal fulfillment).
I, too, do not want people who are un-rehabilitable released back into the general population.
I, however, feel that I must give the court-appointed psychologists the same level of initial trust that I would extend to the courts in judging this fairly. Since
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for you anon and all the canadians out there, know this: your justice system rocks! your judges write clear and often pithy case rulings. not so in the US, where tehy can be booooring. I'm not saying anything on the outcomes, just how you get there.
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i see judges in Canada write in a much more appoachable style, while US judges stay at arms length. Here's a great example about a civil suit between neighbors. :http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2014/2014onsc3061/2014onsc3061.html
I highly recommend you take a 5 min work break and read this. it's only a couple pages. pull quote:
In my view, the parties do not need a judge; what they need is a rather stern kindergarten teacher. I say this with the greatest of respect, as both the Plaintiffs and the Defendants are educated professionals who are successful in their work lives and are otherwise productive members of the community. Despite their many advantages in life, however, they are acting like children. And now that the matter has taken up an entire day in what is already a crowded motions court, they are doing so at the taxpayer’s expense.
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His problem isn't that he's a stupid kid, his problem is that he's a narcissist. That's a personality disorder, jail time isn't going to fix it. He needs to admit that he has a major personality problem (which, as it turns out, isn't all that common for a narcissist to do) and then seek help through therapy (also not all that common). If he doesn't take the steps necessary to back away from that cliff then no amount of jail will "rehabilitate" what is wrong with him.
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i wrote this to be snarky, but thinking about it more, I think this makes a lot of sense. the damage of the swatting is not a broken door. It's the shattered feeling of safety you feel in your own home. you used to feel safe sitting on your couch playing videogames. Now, at a very fundamental level, that feeling is gone. This can take years to overcome.
I hear this is similar to the damage from being raped. So... while it's illegal to sentence someone to be raped, for whatever reason it's not illegal to sent
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Such a backwards, awful point of view to have. In the US we have this concept of 'cruel and unusual punishment'. Inmates, while in the care of the state being raped in prison absolutely falls into that category -- the fact that our prison system tolerates that kind of behavior is terrible.
Re:I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts to (Score:5, Insightful)
Until they day you get accused by someone, and put in prison while trying to prove your innocence. Or if it happens to someone else who only got freed after a year when their lawyer finally gets round to lodging an appeal. Or when it happens to your son or daughter who should have been fined for jaywalking, but had the misfortune of encountering a judge who gets paid by the privatized prison company for each new client. We're not just talking about criminals - which may include people stealing a slice of pizza and Charles Manson, so the word is pretty much meaningless to me - but also a lot of people who'd never be in prison in any other country in the world in the first place. The mentally ill, for instance. Or the retarded - who get locked up a lot.
The prison system not just locks up criminals, it also creates criminals, and the more dehumanizing the treatment, the worse the monsters that come out. Even, or especially, if they were completely innocent to begin with. It has been a long standing observation that victims of torture (which is what we are discussing here) are more resilient to psychiatric damage if they were "guilty", i.e. worked for the resistance, or actually committed crimes. Not so the innocent - they get hit the hardest.
Just today I read a story about a leading member of the Lords Resistance Army on trial for war crimes. He started out as an innocent boy that got kidnapped. And turned into a monster. He slaughtered a lot of people before they caught him.
The prison system in the USA creates more monsters every day and thereby perpetuates itself to the point where it is both the biggest and most unsuccessful prison system in the world. It may also be the most expensive. So I would worry about prisoners undergoing torture. Because it's part of a huge problem the US society has to solve.
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I do think that there are other side conversations about the militarization of SWAT teams that can be had as well, but that's not the focus of this story.
I don't think that's really at play here. Let's play devil's advocate and pretend the SWAT team had never been developed; now call the police and tell them that someone is in the process of murdering your neighbor. What do you suppose happens? They come to your neighbor's house with firearms drawn and immediately force entry into his home. They won't have all of the expensive tactical gear but do you think that's really going to alter the "experience" for your neighbor by any appreciable degree? Do you
Re: I don't think it's enough, but I have doubts t (Score:2)
I've rented apartments to several felons, mostly those convicted of violating protective orders. As in their separated wife made a booty call unexpectedly and then reported the incident. Jail. Also the three-timer DUIs. Those I actually love, they all have given me their pastor's name and the meetings they go to.
They are all incredibly appreciative of a clean place to live, no BS.
This kid might, maybe, petition for court for expungement in several years, but I doubt he can convince a judge he's just stup
"Warden, I believe I get one phone call." (Score:5, Funny)
Here we go again!
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Reasonable (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like a very reasonable and level-headed judge, making him completely ineligible for appointment to a higher court.
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Sounds like a very reasonable and level-headed judge, making him completely ineligible for appointment to a higher court.
True, but Judge Patricia Janzen is a woman. Unless you were meaning the teen?
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level-headed judge, making him completely ineligible for appointment to a higher court.
Article says
[J]udge Patricia Janzen [...] noted a psychiatric and psychological assessment that she said
Also this is Canada, our Supreme Court has been handing out reasonable decisions recently so the poor government is wondering what went wrong.
This kid's a sociopath and sadist (Score:3)
That's the textbook definition; he delights in the suffering of others.
He needs extensive mental evaluation and should probably be watched carefully once his sentence is up. These people are dangerous by their very nature.
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That's the textbook definition; he delights in the suffering of others.
He needs extensive mental evaluation and should probably be watched carefully once his sentence is up. These people are dangerous by their very nature.
I have some bad news. They run the place.
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Otherwise known as a narcissist.
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Narcissists don't actually love themselves, but they're happy to try and convince you that they're the best thing to ever happen.
What was he charged with, anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because swatting sounds a lot like attempted murder to me.
Not to mention... (Score:3)
I don't know all of the details, but 16 months seems like a slap on the wrist for a "prank" that can get people killed. Like, you know, in real life. For ever. No do-overs, no saved games.
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Jail time just makes criminals worse. This is fairly well established.
What I want out of a jail sentence (as a Canadian) is rehabilitation and some path to them becoming a person in my society that shows up as a net benefit when all the accounting is done.
There are bound to be some people that are irretrievable, but I'd like to take the chance on fixing them.
I think swatting is insanely dangerous, and I'm not unaware that this was a crime mainly perpetrated against women. I'm a fairly ardent feminist and I
On the plus side (Score:5, Funny)
Good - Target Offenders, Not the Stereotype (Score:4, Insightful)
Just like pre-internet days, the nerds get abused for being nerds.
This case is exactly what needs to be the standard response. (1) Someone reports abuse. (2) Investigation. (3) Abuser found. (4) Abuser tried and convicted. The end. No making a career based on accusing all male gamers or the entire video game industry or the entirety of "science" for the abuse of a few people perpetrated. Just report, investigate, find, convict, close the book.
We don't need social martyrs, we need good police work and good courts.
Do you know what your child is doing behind (Score:5, Interesting)
Got a better idea for an even harsher punishment (Score:5, Funny)
Sentence him to live 16 months in Quebec.
Bad system design (Score:5, Insightful)
More than swatting (Score:4, Informative)
Root Cause Analysis (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, this kid was wrong. But we should examine the root cause of how a kid can pick up a phone that essentially deploys a military unit. How is that response valid? Shouldn't they vet the situation more before deploying a military force?
Examine the content and credibility of the phone call first. Maybe just knock on the door for a first check with conventional police officers. Only if they confirm a valid threat, with an active hostage situation, then you deploy a negotiator, and then if that fails, you consider deploying a force unit response.
The ridiculous disproportionate response, from phone call right to military force, is what should be punished and the leaders who making these decisions are enabling and creating this problem.
Re: (Score:3)
One question that pops to mind is "How often do intentional swatting calls NOT end up deploying a tactical strike team?"
I have a hard time believing that every attempt at swatting ends up gaining the desired tactical response and instead results in a generic squad wiping the donut crumbs from their uniform and knocking on the door with a "is everyone OK?" response.
Of course the unintended consequence the cops fear from not responding with a full-on tactical response is the newpaper headline that reads somet
at least he got punished. (Score:2)
Meanwhile, in Finland, a thug gleefully admits to more than 50,000 counts of criminal hacking, etc and get...2 years probation.
Re:Finland is next (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finland is next (Score:4, Funny)
I work for nVidia.
Re:To all you losers ... (Score:4, Insightful)
So despite the tens or hundreds of millions of gamers out there gaming away merrily without ever swatting anyone, you seize on one clearly disturbed and deeply dysfunctional psycho as evidence that the shrill goose-stepping SJW brigade are somehow justified in their hysterics, let alone needed? No thanks brownshirt, go back to tumblr, the population there is ignorant enough to put up with your huffed out bullshit.
Re:To all you losers ... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet the ones trying to shame and abuse people are corrupt gaming journalists and similar dilettantes who get a hardon at the idea of changing gaming culture, even if that culture neither wants nor needs to be changed to match the fever swamps of neomarxist feminist ideology.
I don't see tens of millions of gamers standing up against GG, all I see are a few mouthbreathing journo grads, opportunistic wasters and beardos with babies lying, getting caught out on their lies, and lying again in the hopes that the information age will just go away. The old maxim of lying big enough and often enough... ...no longer applies.
Re: (Score:3)
And tens of millions of games don't agree with the anti-gamergate idiots who support slut shaming, swatting, doxing and so on.
FTFY. Keep up with the times. If you would even bother engaging with someone from GamerGate, you'd realize that most of them are just normal people that want to enjoy their hobby and not have it tainted by Neo-Puritan ideals being pushed by SJWs. The same SJWs that give zero fucks about ethics, such as Leigh "Fuck ethics, get money" Alexander.
Re:To all you losers ... (Score:5, Informative)
"SJW" doesn't mean anybody who is for social justice. I'm for social justice! I want people to stop hating and harassing each other.
"SJW" is the term for those who do bad things in the name of social justice. They harass and threaten people who don't tow their very narrow definition of what is right. They become confrontational and angry if you so much as suggest they might be wrong about someone.
People who are for social justice? They're awesome.
Social Justice Warriors? They can be as bad as the guy this article is about.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:To all you losers ... (Score:4, Funny)
(whack-a-doodle)
Re: To all you losers ... (Score:2)
*whoosh*
The use SJW as a pejorative. (Score:3)
"SJW" doesn't mean anybody who is for social justice. I'm for social justice! I want people to stop hating and harassing each other.
"SJW" is the term for those who do bad things in the name of social justice.
I have tried to trace the use of SJW ("Social Justice Warrior") as a pejorative.
It seems to be entirely a geek creation and all but unknown before 2011. But one that has proven very useful to the bloggers of the National Review and those farther to the right.
Well as I'm sure you've figured out, ''sjw'' stands for social justice warrior. Back when I and a few others started this tumblr several years ago, ''sjw'' seemed, to us, to be more of a criticism on people who used social justice to further their own bigoted ends, push already marginalized people out of their own spaces, and dominate discussions with bigoted rhetoric.
In the years since this blog died out, ''sjw'' came to stand for anyone who supports social justice, a favorite go-to insult for white male nerds/libertarians/redditors. This blog is now followed by people with that attitude, and still gets asks of that nature. Hence the (partial) reason why I no longer update, even though I've somewhat returned to tumblr.
vice-ci7y asked [tumblr.com]
Google Trends: social justice warrior [google.com]
Re: (Score:2)
In this context aren't you supposed to say "master-race whiner"?