Yes. Each SWAT call is just an excuse to play soldier, the chance they never got because they couldn’t pass the ASVAB to become real soldiers.

Competent police departments maintain a list of common swatting targets. Any time an address on that list gets called in, they have a number to call to check before sending armed officers. Four dozen times is beyond incompetence.

In other countries, competent police departments simply do not send tactically armed officers to assault homes based on a phone call.

One example of several upon a quick search: https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/armed-police-called-to-...

> “Officers attended the venue and spoke to the individuals and determined that air weapons were for sale.”

There was no tactical assault. Armed police arrived, spoke to the (mistakenly) targeted individuals, confirmed that it was a mistake, and left.

This one may be more appropriate: https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/11238632.armed-police...

At least to a layman not at all versed in firearms, armed police responses in the UK look a lot like SWAT teams in the US and feel similarly intense, but perhaps there are material differences here. I’m genuinely not sure.

To be clear, my point is not to draw a false equivalence between armed police raids in the UK and the US. I would, however, say that the problem of appropriately responding to a potential armed threat isn't exactly solved in either country, if that's even possible.

Here's yet another example on a quick Google search, if you're still unconvinced that this occurs in the UK: https://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/news/hertfordshire-ne...

> "No action will be taken against the occupants of a Hemel Hempstead home that was raided by armed police after a mystery phone call."

> "One witness described armed officers going inside a home shortly before putting two people inside the home in handcuffs and in the back of a police car."

IIRC you only needed a 13 to be a soldier. Many of these folks are both in the guard/reserves and police

1) The department could have a policy that considers all calls real threats. For example lets say you target a business that carries a lot of cash with swatting. You fatigue the cops with swatting until they no longer respond. Then you rob the place.

2) The cops don't like the guy. Couple that with number 1 and you get the perfect shitstorm situation for the victim.

It's not that you no longer respond. What competent orgs do is establish that there is a swatting risk after the first incident (or after the individual notifies them), call the phone of a known good number at the residence/business to verify that things are okay, and then send a patrol car to the residence/business as a final safety check.

It's really not super complicated. You treat it like a real threat but with a known risk of impersonation/fake threats. And importantly you don't jump straight to the kicking down doors and swinging vases SWAT response but rather gradually ratchet up the response as red flags appear.

Much easier to terrorize by proxy via false swatting.

Obviously, the same officers have been to his house 47 times. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me 47 times I'm mentally challenged....

The police have long discriminated against anyone with too high an IQ: https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/jordan-v...

Meanwhile, the FAA is currently looking for applicants with "Severe intellectual disability" as you can see from: https://www.faa.gov/pwdp

This older case has also been going around lately - https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4542755/brigida-v-unite... - in which people cheated on a biographical test that 90% of people were expected to fail in order to pull in fellow organization members.

So I think the real answer is that many of our public agencies have been selecting against competence for quite some time now.

They gave people "applying for FAA jobs, the correct answers to select on the BQ as well as key words to use on their resumes in order to be selected by FAA hiring personnel"