Yet another Hacker News

Couple was swatted 55 times in 2 years over a post about Norm Macdonald

84 points colinprince 1 hour ago 87 comments

silverFork 1 hour ago | parent

Norm Macdonald would be telling this as a joke and laughing from his grave if it wasn't a tragedy.. It is not April!

" he wrote on Twitter, now X: “Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me." "Two weeks later, here I am, you know, on my front porch in the middle of the night, exposed to all my neighbours with shxtgxns......... pointed at my head."

ks2048 1 hour ago | parent

> from his grave

I didn’t even know he was sick.

WSSP 1 hour ago | parent

the worst thing about all this swatting is the hypocrisy

keepkalm 1 hour ago | parent

it's the actual swatting

hackernud3s 31 minutes ago | parent

and the scheming

joshumax 1 hour ago | parent

> On Aug. 3, 2022, one officer sent a memo to the acting police captain requesting the couple's home be marked as a "swatter house." The captain declined, saying it could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers.”

You'd think they'd be more concerned about constantly wasting time and resources to constantly send out SWAT to some random couple's house twice a week.

0cf8612b2e1e 1 hour ago | parent

SWAT team had a KPI target to meet. Not enough calls and they get less military surplus gear.

autoexec 1 hour ago | parent

I think they'll just take any excuse to LARP as soldiers, play with guns, and bully people. They know they don't have to worry about facing any consequences for their actions so they can do whatever they like.

aleksandrm 34 minutes ago | parent

So much this. I don't know if ever had a "serious" police force, maybe we did or didn't. But surely we don't anymore, what we have know is a joke.

ndiddy 1 hour ago | parent

The cops know it's fake, but they enjoy driving over and yelling and waving guns around, so they don't care. From another news article about this guy (https://www.tmj4.com/about-us/lighthouse/people-have-died-th...):

> Exclusive body camera video obtained by TMJ4 shows officers arriving at the couple's home on multiple occasions, even as both officers and the couple acknowledged the calls were fake.

> In one exchange captured on body camera, an officer can be heard telling a colleague, "This guy keeps getting swatted." In another, a body camera recording from inside a squad car captures an officer describing the address as "a known swatting location."

> Despite that awareness, officers continued to respond, at times with a full tactical presence. Body camera video shows one officer pointed a gun at the couple's door on their fourth response in a single day.

0cf8612b2e1e 56 minutes ago | parent

Sounds like a FOIA request: how many of those cops are on the “no SWAT” list they refuse to extend to the couple.

parineum 53 minutes ago | parent

I think they should be more concerned with public safety. If the couple asks them to stop, maybe but if they are slow to respond to those calls because of the history, they're going to get skewered when a real call comes in.

rectang 33 minutes ago | parent

Since we’re being totally unreasonable here…

The obvious solution is for the cops to move in with the couple and point their AR-15s at them 24/7.

xboxnolifes 18 minutes ago | parent

They'll be slow to respond to a single house.

valleyer 1 hour ago | parent

At some point, the responding local police should be held criminally liable. A tiny brass badge should not shield you from having to comply with society's laws.

blooalien 1 hour ago | parent

> At some point, the responding local police should be held criminally liable.

At some point, the people doing the "swatting" (false police call) should be held criminally liable, maybe even for attempted murder by cop. There's definitely a crime being committed there. I'm 100% sure that calling the cops on someone and making a false report is against at least one or two (or maybe even several) laws.

valleyer 1 hour ago | parent

Definitely. But I've at least heard about the people doing the false reports being prosecuted, even if not consistently enough for my liking.

pdonis 1 hour ago | parent

I'm guessing the calls were anonymous, and the police didn't bother tracing the numbers.

Which does raise the question: why is it SOP for the police to send a SWAT team to a random house based on nothing but an anonymous phone call? At the very least it should take some kind of statement from an actual identified human who can be held accountable if it turns out to be a hoax.

vachina 57 minutes ago | parent

High trust society and high HDI.

Act now (to reduce potential loss of life) and verify later

pdonis 52 minutes ago | parent

> High trust society

Um, no. In a high trust society "swatting" would not be a thing--because people would understand that it's a huge violation of trust. And people who did make hoax calls like this would suffer severe punishment--because that's what a high trust society has to do to people who violate trust like that, in order to stay high trust.

> Act now (to reduce potential loss of life)

Not necessarily, since SWAT teams are generally not noted for their restraint--certainly not if their response on swatting call number 55 to the same house is the same as it was for call number 1.

> and verify later

Okay, let's say this is valid for call number 1. Still, what about call number 2 to the same house? Let alone call number 55? Especially when the owner of the house produces evidence that people had threatened to swat him?

So no, we do not have the kind of society where your logic makes sense; the rare cases where the quick knee jerk response actually prevents harm are more than overwhelmed by the much more common cases where it's a false alarm but the police keep on violating innocent people's rights anyway.

yongjik 34 minutes ago | parent

Ignoring that "high trust society" is a dog whistle for xenophobia... it still doesn't make sense because in an actual "high trust" society, police officers breaking down the door of an innocent resident will make news the first time. By the third time, people will demand answers about what the fuck is wrong with police training process to make them think they can do this. Preferably, heads will roll.

America is one of the lowest trust society among developed nations. People don't trust government officers to do the right thing, like, at all, and they wear the distrust as a badge of honor.

autoexec 46 minutes ago | parent

Having that badge should cause you to be held to a higher level of accountability. Abusing the power given to you by being an officer should mean receiving much more severe consequences.

carimura 1 hour ago | parent

Norm Macdonald IS funny though....

RajT88 1 hour ago | parent

The problem seems to be that a certain tribe of always online far-right leaning sociopaths have decided MacDonald is one of them.

He wasn't.

I am being charitable with this assessment, too.

MacDonald was extremely funny, even if you were liberal. His comedy was not political, and maybe that is kind of the appeal to conservative leaning people - some kind of "retro" appeal. If you are wondering what I am getting at, read the book, "The Compleat Practical Joker" from 1953.

slibhb 49 minutes ago | parent

I'm a huge Norm fan. Having watched his many interviews, seen and listened to his stand-up, seen his podcast and netflix show many times, I can say that he was clearly quite conservative, though not a bigot or hateful.

There's also more to the story here. Not that it's in any way justified, bur this guy's wasn't targeted only because he tweeted about Norm Macdonald.

RajT88 24 minutes ago | parent

> Having watched his many interviews, seen and listened to his stand-up, seen his podcast and netflix show many times, I can say that he was clearly quite conservative, though not a bigot or hateful.

This is worthwhile to address. Norm was a conservative, for sure. There's nothing wrong with that.

There is something wrong with anti-social (or sociopathic) behavior. That behavior is not associated with conservatism any more than it is with liberalism. I've known hardcore punks who you'd think would end up solid democratic voters, but nah. It's not so simple.

Norm was not a sociopath, nor someone who was a poisonous partisan or tribalist, as near as we can tell. It wasn't in his comedy, it wasn't in his personal life from what people say.

He wasn't part of the "tribe" which is swatting this family. These people feel he was part of their little tribe, is what I am saying. And they are wrong. He's wasn't.

hackernud3s 16 minutes ago | parent

We don't really know if he was a conservative because he was always doing a bit. The only thing we know for sure about him is that he was a deeply closeted gay fella.

hackernud3s 38 minutes ago | parent

WAS funny. Apparently he died. I didn't even know he was sick.

Teever 1 hour ago | parent

55 times over two years, so basically every two weeks on average?

At what point do the officials involved in this become involved with the criminal harassment themselves? At what point is it legal / acceptable (though unwise) to shoot the armed men entering your house?

shagie 52 minutes ago | parent

"Over two years" is "in 2022 and 2023".

This happened between July 25 of 2022 and (I believe) April of 2023.

The lawsuit is at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68293540/robinson-v-cit... and April is the last charge listed in the initial complaint. That's 35 weeks, not 104.

Teever 11 minutes ago | parent

Wow.

That's insane.

I don't see how the current American legal system can decisively shut this kind of reprehensible and abusive of power down down.

Everyone has to ask themselves what their personal breaking point is. How many times does a person need to stick a gun in your face and threaten your life before you do whatever is necessary to prevent them from doing that ever again.

Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power. — Malcolm X

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. — Malcolm X

hyperhello 1 hour ago | parent

This is one of those things where someday people will not believe this was common enough that there was a word for it.

flourish_dev 1 hour ago | parent

This is primarily a failure of the police, but second place goes to data brokers and anyone who collects unnecessary data and doesn't secure it. A flood of personal information already leaks illegally through cybercrime and companies not protecting data, and we haven't even stopped the huge legal industry of public-info data brokers. You shouldn't be able to look up an email or phone number and get someone's family and address.

The powers that be like phone numbers because they're like a medium-level KYC. In many countries getting a phone number requires ID, and there was a recent proposal to do that in the US. Of course swatting and spam are used as excuses to introduce KYC requirements, but those problems are endemic to phone numbers, and more identity verification just causes more leaks, which gives them excuses to require more KYC.

My idea for replacing phone numbers and email: SimpleX for calls and texts (no accounts and therefore the least PII possible), and Monero micropayments for spam prevention. Most people spend way more on their wireless plan then they'd need to spend in Monero to make the initial connection, for publicly posted SimpleX links.

failbuffer 1 hour ago | parent

We've really got to rein in qualified immunity in this country. That and civil asset forfeiture.

searealist 1 hour ago | parent

In Canada?

shagie 1 hour ago | parent

It's the CBC reporting on it in here, but the location was Milwaukee.

> Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson awarded $575K US settlement from City of Milwaukee

> ...

> It was 1 a.m. on July 25, 2022, and someone had reported a hostage situation at his house in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife, Niki Robinson.

> ...

> Over the course of the next two and a half years, Tomlinson and Robinson were swatted 55 times, despite repeatedly explaining their situation to the Milwaukee Police Department. They sued, and have been awarded a $575,000 US settlement from the City of Milwaukee.

---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHkRgfYmLrE for the local news (TMJ4) three weeks ago.

badc0ffee 1 hour ago | parent

The story takes place in the US. The only Canadian connection is that CBC convered the story, and Norm was Canadian.

SpecialistK 1 hour ago | parent

Milwaukee is in Canada?

flourish_dev 57 minutes ago | parent

There's so many common sense, bipartisan things like those. A few are are uncapping the house, a federal holiday for election day, stock trading ban for politicians, data broker loophole, warrant requirement for your data on service providers.

I fear to think about where we would be without the constitution considering how authoritarian law enforcement is in the US. It's definitely lacking, but I am still grateful for it.

quacked 43 minutes ago | parent

Ending the tax preparation industry as well

sans_souse 1 hour ago | parent

Wait, before I rush to judgment someone tell me what they said about Normy...

whimsicalism 1 hour ago | parent

“Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me."

shockingly mild

whimsicalism 1 hour ago | parent

“Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me."

…i was expecting something significantly more incendiary.

what 21 minutes ago | parent

It’s Patrick Tomlinson, I’m pretty sure he’s been a well known “lolcow” for a half decade before that post. He wasn’t targeted because of that.

hakunin 53 minutes ago | parent

So many replies here are blaming the police but despite how screwed up the situation is there isn’t much they can do. Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.

We can all say “well, if you get many calls about one location, maybe you should stop showing up” but wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed? The same couple getting swatted one day could get criminals breaking in another, possibly for the same reason even. How can you make the call not to show up if your entire existence and role in society is to show up?

What real solutions are there?

Edit: a bunch of identical responses to this comment with "just don't show up". I know it's easy to sit and judge from the comfort of your keyboard, but do a little bit of thinking. What should the rule be? When is it okay for police to receive a distress call and not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake? Who's responsible for the consequences of not showing up?

Edit2: now people switched to "show up, but softer, knock on the door". Now we can agree, because this comment is about showing up, not about specifics. Yeah, more considerate approach is warranted. But also keep in mind the other side of it, it's still an alarm and it could still be real, and police still have to be mind-f'ed into figuring out every time if this is a real danger or not.

mchanson 49 minutes ago | parent

This is an amazing top comment. Like maybe almost anything. So many better options. For one if I were the subject of this harassment I would prefer the cops to never come.

what 39 minutes ago | parent

You would prefer that cops never respond to a call for your address? What happens when you actually need them?

bdangubic 38 minutes ago | parent

fwip 34 minutes ago | parent

Personally, if I need them, I'll drive down to the cop store and let them know myself. Probably get there a lot quicker than the average cop-response time, too.

patcon 16 minutes ago | parent

I can't understand why so many people are replying like this. This part of the public service is for quality of life and security. If someone has more of those without the "service", of course they'd want to call it off and assume the risk.

Who cares if police don't show up during the 1 in 100,000 lifetimes chance you need a swat team, when you're getting harassed weekly.

hakunin 11 minutes ago | parent

Police is not like most services, where you can hire and fire them at will. If you called police to complain about a domestic situation, once they're involved, you are no longer in control of when they get uninvolved. I'm not saying "this is good" or "bad", but it is how it was setup, and there were good reasons for this.

mrmuagi 38 minutes ago | parent

The swatters then can exploit this to commit crimes against the person, no?

pixl97 33 minutes ago | parent

Swatters are little bitches on the internet in some other state hiding behind proxies, not some hardened criminals.

Going to peoples houses and committing crimes is a risky proposition that could end up with you injured or dead. Hence why these types play games with law enforcement to put other peoples lives in danger rather than their own.

creato 37 minutes ago | parent

This is just handing harassers a foolproof method for avoiding police intervention if they wanted to harass (or worse) in person.

pixl97 31 minutes ago | parent

Attempting to target a person that is being harassed is a great way to end up under a tombstone. Swatters are scared ass punks that play games with other peoples lives and not their own.

hakunin 6 minutes ago | parent

All you're saying is that likelihood of swatters committing additional crime is low, but there is still likelihood. There can be others taking advantage of this situation (or also mad at the couple), who are in fact willing to commit crimes.

Serious crimes are generally a low percentage stat in society overall, which is part of the reason why it's so hard to judge "oh, this isn't serious". Most police encounters aren't, except the ones that are.

spicyusername 48 minutes ago | parent

...not responding to a swat call for the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth, or fiftieth time...

parineum 45 minutes ago | parent

How do you know which one is real?

shagie 35 minutes ago | parent

You have the phone numbers of the residents on hand. When getting a report of a house that's known to be swatted frequently, call both numbers and verify.

https://youtu.be/WHkRgfYmLrE?si=K-xmC3jgP4AvCht2&t=342

> Patrick and Nikki believe calling known swatting victims before responding would avoid dangerous encounters like this - some of which have resulted in costly settlements paid by Milwaukee taxpayers.

chihuahua 44 minutes ago | parent

Fool me 54 times, shame on you. Fool me 55 times, you can't get fooled again.

[An old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee.]

sdf4j 46 minutes ago | parent

Easy, have policies for such situations. Just don’t show up like bin laden is hiding in the home if it’s the third fake call of the week.

And because their entire existence is to show up, you have a conflict of interests on how you answer the call.

diydsp 36 minutes ago | parent

Exactly. Call the residents to confirm. Drive to the location and look at the place first.

After circa the first 10 calls it should start to become apparent.

Imagine how many false swats it would take at the police chief's house before the policy got an update?

Geonode 46 minutes ago | parent

No need for residential raids. You know where the person is. Wait outside. Hostages? Wait out of sight. Eventually they come out.

what 38 minutes ago | parent

I’m glad you’re not in charge.

0xfffafaCrash 43 minutes ago | parent

> wtf are you supposed to do if a real crime is being committed

You say that as if most of the world doesn’t get by just fine without any militarized SWAT law enforcement units whatsoever…

hakunin 41 minutes ago | parent

Most of the world doesn't live in a country with second amendment.

taytus 39 minutes ago | parent

Most of the world is sane

0xfffafaCrash 26 minutes ago | parent

Oh, you’re right. The US has gun rights so the only sane thing to do is for law enforcement to smash through the same home weekly heavily armed with guns whenever there’s an anonymous tip with no corroborating evidence. There are no better ways to spend law enforcement budget in a city like Milwaukee.

All the commenters responding to you are so clueless that they can’t see there are no better systems from a cost benefit analysis. Law enforcement is barred by the laws of man and physics from taking prior history into account when assessing risks and every repeated tip of violent crime without any evidence must necessarily be responded to as legitimate at a level requiring military style intervention on the basis of anonymous testimony. There are just no better approaches

linsomniac 43 minutes ago | parent

>isn’t much they can do

How about: Track down and identify the person making these calls?

pixl97 38 minutes ago | parent

>Not responding to a swat call is not really an option with the way the system is setup.

This is 100% not true in the US. The police have no obligation to show up what so ever as decided by the SCOTUS.

>ne day could get criminals breaking in another

And like in every large city they'll get put on hold when calling 911 and maybe the cops show up 30 minutes later.

> not show up in actual reality with actual lives at stake?

As they say, when seconds matter, help is 15 to 20 minutes away.

hakunin 31 minutes ago | parent

So a crime recipe is:

1. Swat somebody for months. 2. Go into their house once police stops showing up.

mrheosuper 37 minutes ago | parent

Investigating and solving the real root cause ? Who reported the crime, trace back to the troll ?

john01dav 36 minutes ago | parent

> What real solutions are there?

For starters, in the general case, try having a larger threshold to go in guns blazing, like trying to verify with the residents first, or just knocking on their door normally to address whatever it was instead of a full on raid. The trauma of being subjected to a SWAT raid is obvious, so they should recognize that and more properly balance it with the harm of not doing one, rather than simply doing it.

Looking at the article's specifics for this specific situation, some options are:

- don't violate the constitutional rights of the victims as a court ruled retroactively happened in this case

- ensure that all officers are professional, as the article says that only some were

- add them to the swatting house list

- have basic dignity, like facilitating the person covering up instead of cuffing them naked on the curb; police and prisons seem especially happy to engage in forced nudity in a general case -- it's part of a concerningly high fraction of police abuse news

autoexec 32 minutes ago | parent

After the first 40 false calls about that address they should probably perform at least 5 minutes of investigation to try to verify if there are actually any signs that a real crime being committed. That kind of "police work" where you figure out who is in the home and what is happening is pretty important.

At the very least if they want to keep violating the rights of the people in their home by breaking in, after seeing that there's no obvious signs of crime they should probably not immediately drag people outside naked and handcuffed.

I'll give these cops some credit though, at least they managed to raid the correct house 55 times in a row. I don't know who trained these SWAT officers to read house numbers, but they should probably pass that info along considering the countless stories of police raiding the wrong home.

hakunin 30 minutes ago | parent

This police work should be happening all the time, I agree, but it cannot happen during a swat call (there isn't enough time). And if it doesn't yield results, are you to stop showing up?

autoexec 24 minutes ago | parent

I mean, yes? After repeated swattings you should at the very least limit your response to driving by to have a look around. Maybe peak into some windows. Maybe see who is in the house and where they are (https://www.policemag.com/articles/first-look-seeing-through...). At most knock on the door politely, apologize profusely for the interruption, explain that you know about the swatting situation and ask if you can take a quick peak around to make sure that nobody is actually holding a bunch of hostages just for the report.

They can always reevaluate the practice if it suddenly becomes commonplace for normal people who have never been a problem before to swat themselves 40 times all so they can finally carry out a real kidnapping in peace.

viraptor 22 minutes ago | parent

> What real solutions are there?

See what is the reaction to the 3rd SWAT call for the local police dept's boss' home. Then apply that to everyone. I'm absolutely sure they can figure that one out.

tintor 48 minutes ago | parent

So, this will continue every two weeks?

shagie 46 minutes ago | parent

This happened between July of 2022 and April of 2023. Thirty five weeks.

hackernud3s 37 minutes ago | parent

These Norm fans sound like real jerks.

throwawaymazzie 33 minutes ago | parent

story seems fake. if it is real, and police will 'swat' any place based on anonymous phone calls... then why doesn't some foreign adversary use *67 and have every VIP person in america swatted 24/7? or important places of businesses? like... WHAT? you could destroy america this way. apparently, they HAVE to swat them, because, as the article says, NOT swatting them would could cause a "complacency issue for responding officers". yeah right...

jodacola 25 minutes ago | parent

Relevant court documents: https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/wiscon...

Seemingly not fake.

simulator5g 9 minutes ago | parent

*67 just stops the call recipient's phone from displaying caller ID, your phone company still knows what number you dialed

wolfi1 28 minutes ago | parent

wouldn't that qualify as gross negligence?

viraptor 27 minutes ago | parent

This has a side story from some years ago of Patrick trying to act against the forums organising the swatting... and Cloudflare sending lawyers to explain how they can't help with anything, even though it's their customers. Cloudflare spent actual money on lawyers to ensure someone continues to be swatted. Something to keep in mind next time you choose a vendor. It's not only the police and the individual swatters that are a problem here.