Mass. congresswoman introduces bill to combat ‘swatting’
This past spring, a man called police and told them he had just shot someone and was ready to fire again. But when police rushed to the house in Framingham, they found a 70-year-old woman and her 95-year-old mother-in-law. There was no gunman in sight.
The incident was a case of swatting, which the FBI defines as a situation where a person calls 911 and fakes an emergency that causes law enforcement—usually a SWAT team—to race to an unsuspecting victim’s home.
Because of the Bay State’s weak public records laws and the secretive nature of the crime, there’s no way of knowing how many swatting incidents have occurred in the state or how much they’ve cost taxpayers. In April, Boston.com found at least 11 incidents of swatting in Massachusetts in a one year period, with at least four cases that month. Most of those cases happened in the Metrowest area of Massachusetts.
There’s currently no federal penalty for swatting. But, after seeing an increase in the number of swatting cases in her district, Massachusetts congresswoman Katherine Clark has decided to change that.
On Wednesday, she introduced the “Interstate Swatting Hoax Act of 2015’’ to Congress. Based on the current text of the bill, anyone found guilty of swatting that causes an emergency response is subject to a fine and up to five years in prison. If the swatting incident causes serious bodily injury, the offender can be imprisoned for up to 20 years. And if death results from the swatting incident, the offender can be “imprisoned for any number of years or for life.’’
While federal law prohibits falsely reporting a bomb threat or a terrorist attack, there is no provision regarding the false reporting of other emergency situations. The act would close this loophole by prohibiting knowingly transmitting false information with the intent to cause an emergency law enforcement response.
Clark said the legislation is based off a section of the nation’s terrorism statute, which she said is indicative of the nature of the crime.
“This is far more than a mere prank or hoax,’’ she said. “It’s an extremely dangerous situation where people are calling in or communicating with law enforcement that there’s a serious emergency going on in order to intentionally mislead responders into sending a response team. It’s dangerous for the targets and for law enforcement.’’
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