Roll Call. Swatting: a dangerous prank with serious consequences

Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel will retire in May after serving the community for 38 years, the last 13 as chief.

Swatting is a dangerous, illegal prank that occurs when a call is made to an emergency number, most commonly 911, to send heavily armed law enforcement to a school, shopping mall or airport.

Swatters also might report fake bomb threats, hostage situations, terrorist activity or murder to trigger the prank for a significant police response.

Swatting threats typically are made anonymously and through false identities. Swatting has become a growing problem in recent years, with many high-profile cases resulting in injury, property damage and even death.

In addition to the harm it can cause to innocent victims, swatting wastes valuable resources and puts law enforcement officers at risk. Many states have passed laws explicitly criminalizing swatting and the federal government also has made swatting illegal.

It is essential to be educated about the seriousness of the potential consequences of swatting and to discourage its dangerous behavior.

Swatting typically is done through anonymous phone calls or online messages using technology known as spoofing, which makes it appear as though the emergency call is coming from a different phone number, allowing the perpetrator to mask their identity and location. The police can’t always trace the caller’s number. In some cases, if the number is traced, it is from out of state, and in many other cases, it is from outside the U.S.

Swatting is illegal and falls under the statute of filing a false police report. If you are arrested in Illinois for swatting, the consequences may include being charged with felony disorderly conduct or felony filing a false police report. At the federal level, offenders have been charged and sentenced to more than 10 years in federal prison.

Additionally, the swatter may be charged criminally and face civil lawsuits if there are injuries or deaths as a consequence of swatting. The swatter may be risking significant damage to their reputation, which may lead to public scrutiny and potential job loss. If convicted, the swatter may be responsible for the expenses of the law enforcement response.

Swatting can have tragic consequences. In 2017, police killed a 28-year-old man in Kansas after a caller started a hoax over a dispute in an online game called Call of Duty.

In April 2023, more than 20 swatting calls were placed throughout Illinois. Illinois State Police reported that law enforcement agencies in 19 counties including Cook County took 20 false swatting calls, all directed at schools.

During these April incidents, not only did police agencies respond but so did paramedics, firefighters and other first responders, leaving many in Illinois vulnerable with the depleted lifesaving services.

Unfortunately, anyone can be subject to a swatting attack. However, remember that swatters are less likely to target individual homes. These criminals prefer to create a high level of chaos in more public areas.

Are there ways to protect yourself from swatting? I suggest you protect your privacy for starters. Make it more challenging for bad actors to uncover your address by using a separate name for your streaming identity. Ensure your address does not appear online or in public spaces such as social media pages and message boards. Refrain from trusting people online with your data. Hide your IP address. Although your IP address usually won’t give offenders your home address, it can help them obtain sensitive information. Fortunately, you can mask your IP address with a virtual IP address through a VPN service.

Police agencies are refining their response policies to swatting incidents. It is tough for police not to respond with full force because they do not know it is a swatting incident right away. Many times, the swatter’s objective is to generate significant police response on scene including paramedics and fire personnel. Police must somehow assess the situation quickly and be able to dial it down so it does not deplete resources to the detriment of those who are in real need.

No one wants police to under-respond in a true emergency. The FBI announced earlier this summer that it is launching a national database for tracking these incidents and improving communication and information sharing between law enforcement agencies nationwide.

So far, however, these incidents continue without an end in sight.

• Tom Weitzel was chief of the Riverside Police Department. Follow him @chiefweitzel.