Do you consider SWATting attempted murder?

So I just got in a debate with a friend who posted an article about David Hogg being SWATted and the article says it wasn't a "prank" but attempted murder. I said it wasn't because it would be almost impossible to prove intent. Most people who SWAT just want the shit scared out of the target.

What do you think?

No. However, I think that these cases are an exception when it comes to intent. I think that people who do this should be charged with attempted murder. Better to set an example than to wait for people to actually be killed, which has happened.

It depends on the lethality of the SWAT team, I suppose. If the SWAT team is disciplined and has a good ratio of keeping people alive versus killing people, then maybe just a prank. If the SWAT team is particularly blood thirsty, then yeah, it should be attempted murder.

I'm still not sure how a highly-trained, highly-disciplined team of law enforcement personal can be suckered by some asshole into shooting an unarmed person based on hearsay.

Perhaps it's the thought that someone, including themselves, can be killed. I don't envy people in law enforcement. I don't know if there's enough training in the world that can prepare someone to be killed.

Yeah, fair enough; easy for me to sit here and judge.

Then again, they're the ones storming homes and potentially injuring/killing people that don't need to be injured/killed.

Not a prank..the person doing the SWATting should be punished - sent to prison & do time. Its not a prank...& should not be allow to continue as such.

I am with you on this, as already stated in the PG forum, it cannot be "Attempted Murder" since it requires an intent to kill and the DA needs to prove that without a shadow of a doubt, which is extremely hard to do unless the caller has left social media comments or other evidence as to his clear intent.

The law is pretty clear so there is not really an argument to be had over that.

An attempt to commit a crime requires an intention to commit the crime and an overt act towards its completion. Where a person intends to kill another person and makes an unsuccessful attempt to do so, his intention may be accompanied by any of the aggravating or mitigating circumstances which can accompany the completed crimes. In other words, the intent to kill may have been formed after premeditation or deliberation, it may have been formed upon a sudden explosion of violence, or it may have been brought about by a heat of passion or an unreasonable but good faith belief in the necessity of self-defense

So you feel we should disregard the law and make special examples of these "pranksters"?

An unarmed person dying in a raid shouldn't happen, but the police are charging into (what they think is) a life or death situation with an infinite number of potential variables. These aren't loud stereo complaint calls these guys are responding to, and who knows what might happen when they kick down the door. The victim might panic (a completely reasonable reaction someone might have when armed men unexpectedly storm their house), they might be holding something that looks like a gun, etc.

But as to the topic, I'm pretty cool with calling it attempted murder. A prank isn't a prank if you know that the person could die as a potential outcome. Also, deciding to further torment a shooting survivor by tricking armed police into storming their home is a whole 'nother level of scumbaggery.

-Byshop

Considering that such a "prank" requires you to impersonate the target and trick the authorities to believe that they need to send in heavily armed personnel to prevent the target from killing others within the same home, I'd say it's rubbing up very close to premeditated murder attempt rather then " It was just a prank bro!".

Yes. It's not a prank and shouldn't be considered one. It does have the potential to result in a death. SWAT is not a game.

As for the statement above about attempt.....drunk driver's don't plan on running someone over but if they do...they are charged with homicide. Same thing.

Vehicular homicide. But in that case, everyone pulled over for a DUI/DWI should be arrested for attempted murder. Eat peanut butter next to someone with a peanut allergy, attempted murder. Blow smoke in someone's face, attempted murder. Just because your actions COULD lead to the death of someone, that doesn't make it attempted murder. Again, attempted murder involves intent.

And so I'm clear to everyone here, I'm not saying that SWATting should be labeled as a prank, because it's not; I'm just saying that I don't think it should be called attempted murder.

SWAT. Special Weapons And Tactics. Military grade gear. SWAT has one job and one only. Neutralize a threat. Yes. They should be charged for Swatting.

FYI my comment on DUIs was to a jacanuk that stated lacking intent means something isn't murder. He was as always wrong.

there is a difference between 'this hangnail could lead to my death' and 'there is a loaded gun in my face held by a mad man' (as to extreem examples) so 'could lead to death' is not good enough

Nice try with the trolling there.

But you clearly have absolutely no clue , so not worth the time trying to debate this with you.

Yeah, I know what SWAT stands far, but actually their first job is to identify a threat. If they end up shooting someone who was unarmed, that's on them. And yes, I agree they should be charged for SWATting, not attempted murder. Glad we agree there.

As for your comment to jacanuk, I believe we were discussing what constitutes attempted murder, not the board definition of murder, so your comment regarding DUIs really doesn't fit anywhere here.

Exactly my point. 'could lead to death' in regard to SWATting does not make for attempted murder. Attempted murder requires the attempted murderer to have clear intent to murder someone. Calling in a SWAT raid on someone which has a very low risk of death involved to an innocent target simply isn't good enough to warrant a charge of attempted murder. Calling a professional hitman who fired and missed the target, THAT'S attempted murder. The very action itself has intent implied. SWATing does not, because it isn't lethal enough. It's about as akin to me trying to murder someone by drowning them with a spray bottle. I COULD drown them if they'd just lay down and let me spray the whole bottle into their lungs, but I think they'd be reasonable enough to not let me do that, just like SWATing targets are reasonable enough to not freak the SWAT team out and cause them to get shot (I am aware there's at least one death that happened, but even then, intent was impossible to prove during that case).

Well you were clearly wrong stating it's not homicide if there is no intent. Because there is.

So that makes you the troll.

No he said murder requires intent. It does not. I answered him perfectly correctly.

@LJS9502_basic: Are you sure about that?

According to US Legal, it sounds like the perpetrator needs to have an intent to murder, in order to be charged with attempted murder.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/attempted-murder/

Actually, unless there's some other post of his in this thread, he clearly did not.

Jacanuk said:

I am with you on this, as already stated in the PG forum, it cannot be "Attempted Murder" since it requires an intent to kill and the DA needs to prove that without a shadow of a doubt, which is extremely hard to do unless the caller has left social media comments or other evidence as to his clear intent.

Attempted murder. We're not discussing JUST murder. ATTEMPTED. Attempted attempted attempted. Is that word not clicking with you or something?

No. The police are murderers for always being too trigger happy, badly trained and undisciplined.

I just remembered a comment I made on YouTube a couple of months ago. Most likes I ever received.

https://youtu.be/12V_C54dyjw

So that recording is supposed to excuse what the police did? Give me a fucking break. They didn't even verify the situation before they started shouting at the man and pointing guns at him. Police in America are awful. Bunch of undisciplined, trigger happy idiots. Cops need to accept the risks when they sign up for that job and shoot as a very last resort. If you get scared so easily that you kill at the slightest sign of danger, then you shouldn't be a cop. They're supposed to be protecting civilians.

The mother: "They didn't call the ambulance until after he was dead. What gives the cops the right to open fire? Why didn't they give him the same warning they gave us? That cop murdered my son."

Yeah, he kind of did murder her son.

no that was not my point, and my point was clear. you need to read it again.

also...what exactly is 'attempted murder' if not 'it could happen'?

In my opinion, yes. Or at least charged with a felony and given a harsh punishment. SWAT isn't something that should be used to prank your friends or someone you don't like. SWAT get's deployed to take on situations that standard police officers are unable to resolve by themselves. So when they get sent to a house, they're gonna assume the situation is a serious one where life and death is something that could end up being decided within a split second. So pointing them to unsuspecting persons house can instantly turn into someones worse nightmare if occupants in that house react the wrong way when SWAT comes knocking down the door...

That's like when a kid decides to pull a schools fire alarm. Fire fighters are gonna show up and run inside the school believing the situation is an actual emergency and not a prank some kid decide to pull so he can get out of class....

@Jacanuk: Yes. Or rather, the "pranksters" are sending a group of highly armed men for the sake of fun. There can't be a more stupid instance of taking a prank too far. They literally put lives at risk, and at the very least they are costing the swat team time, and the taxpayer money.

As such - yes - they should be harshly dealt with.

Oh, I know what your point was, but you chose to dismiss the point I was making to LJS, so I chose to dismiss yours (more like appropriate yours). Again, LJS was making a ridiculous statement saying that there's intent involved in DUI deaths, so I illustrated a few of my own examples to illustrate the ridiculousness. Then you come along with your extreme examples trying to dismiss the seriousness of my point of which there was none.

And the definition of 'attempted murder' has been clearly established in this tread. Many times. If you're going to say that 'attempted murder' is just murder that 'could happen', we're right back to examples of hangnails and eating peanut butter next to people who suffer from allergens.

nothing you are saying is changing my observation so I will repeat.

1. 'could' happen is a very large scope. If i point a gun at your head with a bullet and I say 'I am going to shoot you now' it 'could' happen. i 'could' also die from a hangnail. So 'could' is not relevant here.

2. 'attempted murder' infers 'it could'

3. 'attempted murder' means 'I am actively trying to kill you, its my attempt, its my intent. it has nothign to do with 'could' in any context'

so is the call 'attempted murder'? legally speaking? likely not.

should it be treated with just as much attention as getting a hangnail because it 'could' kill you? no, it should get more.

what part of this is unclear?

As far as I'm concerned, all this 'could have' business is pointless without established intent, and with a SWAT call, there is none. If I pointed a gun at you and said I was going to kill you, my intent was to scare you. It would be almost impossible to prove otherwise. If I shot at you and missed, well then, the intent was clearly established, along with the attempt. So it doesn't really matter how large the scope of 'could have' is. Without intent, there's no difference between hangnails and pointing a loaded gun at someone without actually firing when it comes to establishing attempted murder.

of course it is.

'attempted murder' depends on intent.

that said, the 'could have' argument that you are making is nearly suggesting that getting a hangnail is just as bad as being swatted, which is of course ridiculous.

i disagree that it is attempted murder, but it is intentionally putting someone in a situation where they could be killed.

maybe some kind of endangerment?

@JustPlainLucas:

Hi JPL,

It has been a while, has it not?

In terms of networks and telecommunications, if there is a modem, then there is the actual physical layer that can local a source of the logical layer. Brute force is on the table. For a computer has at least two crackers somewhere in the cosmos now communicating. Probably three exist together. Thus, triangulation for areas of influence might be possible due to locals influencers by neighborly references limiting those cracktivists (Hackathon hacktivists and friendly social engineers are not the same as cracktivists). After that, it is grinding to catch them unless the cracktivists get suspicious and go in for the on-site cracking where they will more likelihood of law enforcement nabbing them and charging 'him' and 'him or her' and possibly 'him or her' as unwell vandals.

Some form of reckless endangerment, maybe? Even if no one ends up getting hurt it should definitely fall under something like that.

I definitely think it's attempted murder to SWAT someone.

If I pull out a gun, shoot someone in the face and then say "it's just a prank bro!" does it make my action anything else but a murder / attempted murder?
I can answer that question for you and the answer is: No!

yeah I think that would be more accurate.

attempted murder depends on 'intent'

but there are plenty of laws that address outright carelessness such as this

No. But it's not just a prank. If the swatting ends up killing someone you should at least get hit with a manslaughter charge IMO, and all swatting should have punishment including at least a year in prison. Doing something you know is dangerous with a possibility of death to somebody isn't a prank.

I mean... You are playing with the people's lives inside of the building you report on. You're endangering their lives. That is against the law in most places.

Plus calling in SWAT as a joke is illegal too.

Anger management, diagnostics to see if the subject is psychopathic and a psychological traject set up to check on the person before, during, and after re-entry into society would be advisable imo. But of course we ain't got time/money/people for that.

So I suppose it would just be jail time in which we kick the **** out of the offender, humiliation, potential rape, help pick up some of the worst 'friends', and when (s)he's real messed up in the head because of the traumatizing experience, resentful and in a worse position in life than ever before we'll release him/her into society again to see how it goes. That always goes well. I don't know the solution to this cycle of violence and hate but it's a shitty system we have right now.

And sending SWAT to someone's house displays a total disregard for human life as someone CAN be shot. Therefore, it fits.

It seems asinine to me to try to pretend that reckless endangerment of someone's life is somehow less bad than the intent to murder someone.

If I shoot a gun in someone's general direction to scare them and then I kill them "accidentally" as opposed to just walking up and shooting someone I don't really see a difference. Both actions are equally wrong and I don't think there is a moral distinction. If you want to argue about whether this fits a very narrow legal definition I don't personally understand the interest in that.

YOU didn't pull the gun. The police did. I guess you could call it murder by proxy if you wanted to stretch it that far, but by that definition the police are murderers. It's reckless endangerment. It's not your fault the police in America are badly trained and are allowed to kill people with little repercussion. You didn't intend anyone's death.

The difference is quite simple. You shot at someone in their general direction with the intent to scare them, and they were unfortunate enough to get shot by the bullet. That could be legally argued down to manslaughter if you could prove all you were trying to do was scare them.

When you walk up to someone, put the gun in, say, their ribs, and pull the trigger, that eliminates ALL doubt. You weren't trying to scare them; you weren't giving them a warning shot; you weren't aiming in the air and sneezed, which pulled the gun down when you fired. Your intent was clearly illustrated by the lethal proximity of the shot.

There's a reason why we have legal and moral distinctions between reckless endangerment and attempted murder. If you want to equate the two, then every person who drives drunk is trying to commit attempted murder. But even then, the whole "if I shot at someone" argument is asinine, because we're not talking about shooting AT someone here. We're talking about calling in a group of armed policemen who won't shoot (or are supposed to not shoot) until they're shot at, which brings the potential lethality down a very sizable amount, even more so if the target is unarmed and compliant. If SWAT calling had an extremely high kill rate on innocent civilians, then we could argue that yes, it's attempted murder, but it's no more attempted murder than ordering a pizza to someone's house hoping they're severely lactose intolerant.

That's a stretch. Even if we're talking intent, there's a pretty big difference between a drunk thinking (incorrectly) that he's "fine to get home" and deliberately sending armed officers to someone's house under false pretenses. Maybe not murder, but manslaughter for sure if someone dies.

http://www.espn.com/esports/story/_/id/22063038/tyler-barriss-charged-manslaughter-fatal-swatting-incident

However, I'm perfectly OK with a stricter punishment for even trying this regardless of the outcome because it's stupid, dangerous, and it needs to not happen.

-Byshop

I actually do think that it should be viewed that way. Some things you just don't do as jokes. Some things, you just don't do because its proven to be incredibly dangerous and there is no justification for doing so. (Drunk driving)

It's incredibly dangerous and irresponsible. The person doing it may think its a funny prank, but they are putting someone's life at risk whether they realize it or not.

A bunch of heavily armed men crashing though your home ready to blow your brains out on the slightest provocation in a fabricated situation? Yea, definitely sling em' jail for attempted murder.

You should realize how incrediblydangerous it would be to start imprisoning people for stuff that they didn't actually do just to send a message.

Legal distinctions are extremely important. That's the kind of stuff that keeps people (including you) from being thrown in prison without proper cause. Dangerous or not, if it's not ATTEMPTED MURDER then you don't freaking put someone in prison for attempted murder.

That is, if someone dies. But attempted murder requires intent and it's usually pretty darn hard to establish intent. Want to go strict on them? Then charge them with something else that actually legally fits and then hopefully the judge will hand out the maximum sentence allowed. But we absolutely should not start handing out BS charges that don't legally fit the crimes, in the hopes that a jury will hate the defendant so much that they convict him anyway. That kind of thing is downright scary and it's incredibly disappointing that there are some people who actually think that would be a good idea.

I'm not going to pretend to be a lawyer, but at best it's a malicious act the person is taking where they know a possible outcome is the death of the person they are doing it to. Whatever the appropriate legal equivalent is fine, but it definitely should not be treated as a "prank gone wrong".

-Byshop

@Byshop: It's definitely not "just a prank" and it isn't treated as one. It's still illegal as hell just like filing a false police report, or calling in a bomb threat to one's school in order to get classes cancelled for the day. The courts most certainly SHOULD punish the people who do this to the fullest extent of the law, but the charges need to fit.

@JustPlainLucas: Pretty much. I mean maybe it's not intended murder, but you're aware from the start that you are sending a squad of people with guns pointed at them. It's possible they could be harmed. So it's pretty much attempted murder.

You just canceled out your statement. If there's no intent, there's no attempt. Yes, it's possible SWAT will get trigger happy and kill someone, but for the thousandth time in this thread, what I'm establishing is that potential for that to happen is extremely low, so it would be almost impossible to prove intent, because who would try to kill someone with a method that very rarely kills someone?

As long as the lawyer can prove he had intent, they should get charged for attempted murder.

If the kid is sending death threats online to someone and then swats them, yeah, charge em.

I had no idea what SWATing means until I searched now :D

maybe they think thieves are coming and take a knife and are shot :/