[potato3732842]

Local swat teams should not be a thing. They're the human resources equivilent of extraneous MRAPs.

The idea that we dispatch a bunch of thugs larping as infantry (because let's be real that's what swat teams are) based on a single piece of un-corroborated intelligence from a source of unknown quality (i.e. no preexisting reason to believe they're legit) would not pass muster in any situation with "real stakes" therefore it's not ok for local police departments to act that way. There needs to be some check.

Swat teams weren't even a common thing until the 80s. Society isn't gonna collapse without them. And their response times aren't that great anyway. Send a normal officer. Any situation demanding a real swat team probably needs to be triaged anyway.

[tptacek]

You're fixating on the name "Swatting". The technique works whether or not you get an according-to-Hoyle SWAT team called.

[ryandrake]

Whatever word you use for it, a single, often anonymous, phone call should not directly and immediately result in an armed assault on an address.

[JumpCrisscross]

> a single, often anonymous, phone call should not directly and immediately result in an armed assault on an address

It wasn’t anonymous. The teenager impersonated an officer.