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Watertown man charged with SWATting neighbor after argument
By adamg on Sun, 06/27/2021 - 12:04pm
Watertown News reports (scroll down a few pages) an Elm Street resident who'd had an argument with another tenant in his building called 911 to report the other tenant was in the basement with a gun, threatening people. Several officers arrived, found the alleged gunman on the porch, just sitting there, and, after a brief investigation, found the 911 caller and summonsed him to court for making a false report.
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Comments
Should be a stronger charge
This could have gone very very wrong. The idiot should be charged with assault with a deadly weapon, or something similar. If one of the cops had tripped while holding his gun, someone could die.
It's more dangerous than an
It's more dangerous than an accidental discharge. There was a victim of swatting a few years ago the cops just straight up blasted him when he answered the front door.
The 3:00 a.m. Christmas decoration heist...
Is also worthy of investigation.
Don't oversell it.
Yeah, it's awful. But good grief -- if a cop unholsters a gun on the uncorroborated report of a person holding a gun, the cop is already in the wrong. If the cop trips and the gun goes off, again, that's on the cop.
Doesn't help if you're dead
It doesn't matter if the cop is in the wrong or not, you're still dead because some asshole called the cops with a false report knowing full well that sometimes that leads to death of an innocent.
Good grief indeed.
A reminder
For someone who thinks cops don't make those mistakes, or maybe that the mistakes don't harm anyone:
Framingham man shot and killed during SWAT raid
Civil suit?
Can the victim here sue the caller?