Some gamers apparently aren’t getting any smarter–and with this, these gamers make the rest of us look really stupid.
Yesterday in Long Island, New York, another hit of a rising trend called “swatting”–calling the police on false pretense and scoring points depending on how many units show up to the target’s address–occurred as the caller, who identified himself as Rafael Castillo, 17, called 911 and said he’d killed his mother and might shoot more people.
I’m sorry, whose idea was this?
Apparently the idea of ‘swatting’ is to call the police on someone else and have as many units as possible show up at the given address; generally, the loser calls the police imitating the person they lost to. In this case, the target had no idea the police (and ultimately SWAT team) were descending upon his residence.
In the rabid fight to get society to take gamers seriously and not write the lot of us off as immature, basement-dwelling assholes, it’s people like this who ruin the image for the rest of us. And just in case anyone was unclear, calling police under false pretense (prank calling 911) is illegal and can be a punishable offense.
Supposedly police are going to start using a ‘electronic footprint’ to catch the jerks behind the prank. Each occurrence costs taxpayers about $100,000; this one in particular shut down an entire neighborhood.
Good one, guys. No, really. Most of us love watching you ruin our reputations.
