[brightball]

The problem comes from a real situation potentially not getting acted upon.

EDIT: To clarify, there are potential short timeline concerns involved when people are in immediate danger. How do you corroborate that people are definitely being held inside a house without going to the house? How do you verify that without notifying a potentially armed suspect that you are on the way?

Just as an example, the recent tragedy in Florence, SC where 6 officers were shot and 2 died. That happened because the man at the house was notified that a search warrant was going to be served. He took the heads up and prepared an ambused for the officers he knew were coming.

There are a lot of complicating factors involved in corroborating a story before sending out the team immediately.

[owenmarshall]

If a brain cancer test had a high false positive rate we wouldn’t irradiate people’s heads just in case it was a “real situation”. The same thinking should be applied here.

[michaelbuckbee]

The choice isn't "send SWAT" or "don't respond". There are a range of actions that could be taken prior to SWAT being involved.

[gaff33]

Neither am I suggesting that "don't respond" is the right thing to do here. However SWAT teams must know that uncorroborated calls are almost certainly fake, and they should act accordingly.

Arguably regular police could check the situation out first?