[hereforcomments]

In Europe this would have been a completely different story. It's highly unlikely (compared to the US) that a SWAT team equivalent would kill anyone. The guy could have got away with 5-7 years max. I know it's a museum, but I prefer to live here.

[5h56nb5]

I have been following swatting incidents of content creators for years and I have learned that police jurisdictions where this happens frequently in are becoming wiser and spreading information around, so the threat of getting killed from a swatting incident has gone down. Places with pockets of content creators like Austin Texas have become very aware of these types of things.

If you are a content creator, or someone who might be at risk for swatting you can call your local PD and explain the situation. You can let them know that you understand they must respond to those types of calls, but just wanted to call in and let them know it could happen. Most are happy to hear from you and take note.

Before swattings became popular, people used to send pizzas (popularized by old 4chan) and you would have to call all the pizza places in your area and get your address blacklisted. That was a pain.

[buffington]

I'd recommend that if you receive threats of a swatting, whether you're a content creator or not, it's a good idea to talk to your local police department about it the moment it happens.

Unfortunately, I speak from experience. I received a credible threat, called my local PD, and they began to investigate immediately. They also put notes in their dispatch system (which is shared by the local SWAT team) indicating that this had happened before, and to proceed with extreme caution.

The "swatter" never did follow through on the first attempt, but did follow through about 6 months later. I didn't get any threats from the swatter that time, but did get a call from my local PD while I was at work, and they let me know they'd driven by my place and called it off after being confident it was a false alarm.

Anticipating questions: no, there's no sort of protocol I setup with the PD. They have to investigate every threat, and even if we setup some sort of "shared secret" ahead of time, if a swatter says I'm cutting up my family in the basement, the PD can't know with certainty that I'm not. About the best I can do is make sure to answer the door when/if the PD shows up so they can more quickly establish things are safe.

Also: the attackers were after some OG Twitter accounts I used to use, and they thought they could intimidate me into giving the accounts to them.

[dmonitor]

Ye olde 4chan's reputation for being an evil website is funny in retrospect. The mortality rate on phony pizza deliveries is pretty close to zero and harmless compared to what goes down on the internet these days.

[lupusreal]

A European swatting may be highly unlikely to succeed in killing somebody, but the murderous intent is still there. It should be punished as attempted murder both in America and Europe.

[delusional]

6 years is the baseline for attempted murder in denmark.

[aidenn0]

What's the baseline for 100s of attempted murders?

[ICameToComment]

Nevertheless European, especially German police, is obviously also prone to go all in without establishing any kind of context. One email is sufficient.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41550043

[croisillon]

i kind of remember a journalist having a heart attack 10 years ago during a swatting event in france but i couldn't find it anymore

[dani__german]

remarkably similar story to JStark1809, creator of the FGC9 [1] and thus a great boon to the people in Myanmar fighting against a tyrannical government. JStark died of a heart attack during a european swat raid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGC-9

[tptacek]

That's probably about what he'll get here.

[pugworthy]

It seems statistically rare (highly unlikely) that a SWAT team would injure or kill someone in the US too. I can only find references to 3 - of which only 1 is a result of a direct shooting by law enforcement. The other two are a shooting of law enforcement and a heart attack.

Here is my reference for 3 events in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatting#Injuries_or_deaths_du...).

[shermantanktop]

It’s a nice museum!