Swatting definition

Swattingis a form of criminal harassment in which attackers try to trick police forces into sending a heavily armed strike force to a victim’s home or business. The term takes its name from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), a highly trained police unit that is called on to respond to active shooting scenes. The Los Angeles Police Department, in a press release about a specific swatting attack that occurred in August 2020, provided this definition of swatting: “The term ‘swatting’ refers to someone who places a false emergency call for service, generally of a nature which causes a large police response.”

The LAPD goes on to add that “the ‘swatting’ practice is dangerous and places the community and first responders in harm’s way.” For some attackers, this is the thrill and the purpose of swatting: to cause the victims to fear for their lives as armed police charge into their homes, often with little warning. The police often believe that they themselves are facing an armed and dangerous adversary, producing a volatile scenario that can result in property destruction, injury, and death.

How swatting works

Swatting follows a basic and fairly simple pattern. The attackers place a call to a law enforcement agency local to their victim. They report that a particularly gruesome crime or imminent threat is taking place or about to take place at the victim’s home; often, they’ll claim a hostage situation is in progress, and, to make sure the responding law enforcement team is particularly primed for conflict, they may imply that one of the hostages has already been killed, or is about to be.