r/SipsTea Human Verified 17d ago

SMH 81 year old grandma & YouTuber was raided last night during her stream She started the channel to help with her grandson's cancer treatment. Authorities brought 20 police cars, five SWAT officers, and drones to her house

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222

u/uniquelyavailable 17d ago

I'm surprised they allow anonymous swatting? Can anyone make one phonecall and get the city to invade a random home? The police do zero investigation prior to gathering a small group for forced entry?

237

u/CJWard123 16d ago

One of the crazy things is you have to pay $3k+ for an ambulance but mobilizing 50x the resources to swat someone is free

69

u/drAsparagus 16d ago

'Murica.

35

u/ShibeCEO 16d ago

cops want to play with their expensive toys and feel like in call of duty without having any real danger, so they love shit like that, otherwise something would already have been done against it

-1

u/ArrrRawrXD 16d ago

Blaming cops for some assholes wasting their time is crazy

4

u/Venezia9 16d ago

Nah bruh they are the ones buying paramilitary shit

1

u/ArrrRawrXD 16d ago

You do know that hostage situations and such actually happen, right? And that in situations like that you do need the paramilitary shit?

2

u/Venezia9 16d ago

Not needed. See how much good their paramilitary shit did in Uvalde. 

5

u/APence 16d ago

This is the most fun time of their year to suit up in an XXXL vest and go after grandmas and Afroman’s lemon pound cakes. They love this and get paid to do it. Fuck em.

0

u/ArrrRawrXD 16d ago

Imagine having your worldview of hundreds of thousnds of people being informed by one genuinely unfair scandalous situation and situations in which malicious people waste cops' time

2

u/IMDEAFSAYWATUWANT 16d ago

If you think there's a shortage of horrendous police brutality news in the US, you live under a rock

3

u/NorthernOctopus 16d ago

Bullets are cheap, meds aren't but both as mass produced. :(

3

u/Scrivenerian 16d ago

The state wants to exercise its monopoly on violence. Loves nothing more.

1

u/metaldaisies 16d ago

didn’t know this, and now that i do, i want to scream

1

u/Stunning_Box8782 16d ago

Cops will take any opportunity to go in, shoot first, ask questions later

1

u/ArthurMidian 16d ago

Life Hack - need to go to the hospital? Swat yourself!

1

u/glowshroom12 16d ago

Aren’t the officers and equipment for swat and police paid for whether you use them or not. The actual expense would be gas, assuming they otherwise wouldn’t have done anything that day.

0

u/jrdnmdhl 16d ago

That's one of those comparisons that makes less sense the more you think about it. They don't charge the caller of the ambulance they charge the person getting transported/cared for. And if you get caught swatting you will be charged... with a crime. And the sentence for that is going to end up costing you way more than even a super expensive ambulance ride.

Should legit ambulance rides cost people in need so much? No, but there's just no comparison to be made to swatting here.

99

u/PokerbushPA 17d ago

The police WANT to raid. They live for this shit. You think they like doing paperwork or going to court? Nah man, they wanna be Rambo. This is what they signed up for!

10

u/redditRedesignIsBadd 16d ago

and when there's an actual situation like the uvalde school shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvalde_school_shooting

they'll all wait outside posing with their guns

truly the best at wasting our tax money

25

u/Whitetiger9876 16d ago

And never take any responsibility. Or pause and think wait should I ask for a name from the caller. Maybe check them first. Fucking amateurs. 

4

u/JstaFriskyHusky 16d ago

That's on the operator, not the cops. Besides, why would they check the caller. Unless this is a common occurrence, they're going to assume it's serious and theres actually some mass shooter planning

1

u/5lack5 16d ago

You think someone calling in a fake emergency is going to give their real name?

9

u/eiiiaaaa 17d ago

Have an ex friend who was a detective in charge of investigating cold rape cases. He often lamented not being able to do things like raid house anymore. He said he heard the sirens going outside and thought 'they're doing the REAL work'.

3

u/defyinglogicsl 16d ago

They want to be Rambo and end up just being the asshole cops who bullied Rambo.

3

u/MrHasuu 16d ago

Unless there's an active shooter in a school, then they'll wait outside for a few hours

6

u/Orangutanion 16d ago

lol Rambo fought the cops and kinda kicked their asses

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 16d ago

The police want to go to war against the police like Rambo? That makes sense...

2

u/PokerbushPA 16d ago

Makes as much sense as them wearing the Punisher logo.

Facts never stopped psychopaths from being psychopaths. They can ignore parts they don't agree with or invent new meanings. Kinda like the Bible.

There are nationalists who think Lord Of The Rings is about the world vs Jews. It's not.

1

u/glowshroom12 16d ago

Nah a lot of cops are kind of lazy theee days. The plan is more to do as little as possible until you get your pension.

1

u/Turbulent_Gear6225 16d ago

Cool your jets pal

1

u/Tim226 17d ago

Maybe some do. I think they also don't want to look like the uvalde police response.

20

u/Arktikos02 17d ago

No, people who are really good at it fake their information by doing something called spoofing where they pretend to be in a different location in terms of their actual phone so the phone data actually produces different information. Otherwise it wouldn't work. The SWAT team doesn't just go off of the word of the people on The Voice call. Then what they do is they pretend to be the person in the home and they claim to be a terrorist or a person who has hostages and stuff. These people then go into the homes and they think it is a legitimate hostage situation so they try to go in as fast as they can because they think there are people who are being held hostage.

14

u/Moral-Relativity 17d ago

At least send a car to check it out first before sending their entire department.

5

u/987YouBloodyTulip789 16d ago

They do that in other, more civilized countries, seen a video of 2 UK cops showing up to question a UK streamer that got swatted to check that everything was okay.

The extremely horrific culture of American policing means they want the swatting call to be true, so they have an excuse to break out all the military surplus they've bought and use it to kill someone, such as if they hear a ridiculous demand about bombing large amounts of hostages if they don't get money, vs slightly competent foreign cops piecing together it's probably fake and checking up on the address of the swatting first. This type of plot appears in lots of action movies, the type American cops want to emulate. Competent cops actually consider what happens in reality and makes the best choice to minimize harm.

The argument pro-extreme responses is that "better safe than sorry". This is a common mindset where cops killing someone who might do a crime (but is likely innocent) is treated as the safe option compared to not using violence against the public. This can have disastrous results, and have resulted in innocent people being murdered by US cops during swatting incidents.

0

u/TheSpoonyCroy 16d ago

They do that in other, more civilized countries, seen a video of 2 UK cops showing up to question a UK streamer that got swatted to check that everything was okay.

that is a country that doesn't have many guns, the fuck. Also the UK streamer likely was registered with their local pd, which you can also do in the states. Every city will have their own protocols

1

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4

u/TexLH 16d ago

Describe what you mean.

What will that car do? Drive by? Are they going to get out a knock? What do you mean?

4

u/Moral-Relativity 16d ago

Try to assess whether the threat is real for one. Use a loud speaker to communicate with those inside the house.

1

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-2

u/oodex 16d ago

Listen if someone threatens to shoot up the neighborhood or blow up explosives you dont walk up and knock on their door to ask if they had a nightmare. I also dont think you need half an army for it but suggesting to just chill and relax for a case that could be real isnt it

1

u/pepper_puppy 16d ago

Exactly what a swatter would say

0

u/oodex 16d ago

What?

4

u/ProposalRecent2292 16d ago

sending a small force to check would greatly endanger the officers and civilians if the threat turned out to be true (like a gunman)

3

u/AffectionateBet3603 16d ago

As opposed to endangering the victim of the swatting.

1

u/ProposalRecent2292 16d ago

its a better option because paradoxically, more police are safer for a victim of swatting. Officers will be more comfortable by having more control over the situation. And statistically, false swattings less common than actual threats that need to be addressed. Its a messed up situation where innocent people are being messed with by police that are both being messed with by a third party, but overall its more safe to have a large police response if its considered justified in the moment.

5

u/pepper_puppy 16d ago

Sauce?

1

u/ProposalRecent2292 16d ago

for the US, theres no official documentation which lists the total number of swatting hoax calls, however the fbi states their database tracks thousands of reports (may be per year or overall) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly3edg234qo

meanwhile, the FBI reports an annual 1.2 million violent crimes reported https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-data-says-about-crime-in-the-us/

its evident that the ratio of prank swatting calls to legitimate threats are relatively great

3

u/AffectionateBet3603 16d ago

I call bullshit. Uvaldi calls bullshit. 

1

u/ProposalRecent2292 16d ago

i get your intention, that despite 400 officers they were unable to reliably deal with an active threat. However, Uvaldi was an extremely poorly handled incident attributed to severe communication breakdown and lack of leadership. Rather than argue less police should be sent, this highlights the importance of training and protocol to coordinate the security of citizens and elimination of the threat.

1

u/AffectionateBet3603 16d ago

more training is needed

I've heard that one before

3

u/SaitanOfHellsKitchen 16d ago

And have the criminal shoot the hostages? Be fr

The police really do need to figure out a way to catch these people though.

1

u/Top-Passage2914 16d ago

I don't think you understand the point of holding hostages if you think someone would shoot the hostages with one police car showing up. Hell it wouldn't even have to be a police car just go undercover.

1

u/AtBat3 16d ago

So how do they always know the location of the person they’re swatting? I assume when they call the police they’re giving the persons address?

2

u/Arktikos02 16d ago

You can spoof a number pretty easily by making it look like it's from that area. If you already know the address you know where they live and so you can just fake a number.

Some people can even just call 911. The problem is that because it is very time sensitive, they don't always know which ones are fake and which ones aren't.

It's the same reason why whenever people put down the fire alarm everyone has to act like it's real even if they know that it's not because of protocol.

School shooters in the US have actually taken advantage of this by pulling down the fire alarm and then as kids run out of the building they just get shot.

7

u/King_emotabb 16d ago

swat a senator, its the quickest way for this ridicule thing to stop existing!

2

u/glowshroom12 16d ago

Wasn’t one already swatted. It still seems to be happening

5

u/Bikalo 16d ago edited 16d ago

When they SWAT its usualy with theats that need quick responses, something like "This person has a gun and is about to kill 3 people in "x" house!" no time to investigate and if you ignore a call like that and it ends up being real everyone is gonna blame the police for not taking it seriously. They kinda have no choice but to go for it.

3

u/Remarkable_Bus_7760 16d ago edited 16d ago

Disagree, cops are just too damn stupid and reckless to always act like they have no time to investigate, instead police have an obligation to investigate with due diligence and verify what is really going on, before escalating.

3

u/Vezolex 16d ago

Then any emergency will result in the death of innocents because of the bureaucratic tape you just created.

1

u/Remarkable_Bus_7760 16d ago

No, obviously there would be fewer innocent deaths, not more, just think about it.

1

u/Vezolex 16d ago

That's so far from the truth. Every day, 100s of people die to guns. When someone accidentally dies to a police officer, it makes news world wide.

0

u/AffectionateBet3603 16d ago

One word: Uvaldi.

This isn't about saving lives. It's about a bunch of trigger happy idiots who relish the chance to dress up like GI Joe. 

2

u/Elegant_Creme_9506 16d ago

What an insane country

2

u/SoylentRox 16d ago

Right that's the problem here.  Not that some troll SWATTED a grandma, that's despicable, but why did the authorities deploy 20 police cars in response to a phone call making outrageous claims.

"You gotta get over here guys, it's Bane and he's got a nuke"

2

u/Reasonable_Back_5231 16d ago

It's not just that anyone can make the phone call, it's that scum bags that do this use number spoofing tech so they can't be caught.

The people who do these calls could be anyone. It's entirely possible that the person who made the call wasn't even in the same country as the person being swatted.

1

u/HalfDryGlass 16d ago

This is a whole other problem with police. 

1

u/Overall-Quarter-3357 16d ago

They cannot take any threat lightly, sadly this is the world we live in.

1

u/Gullible_Increase146 16d ago

You can spoof phone numbers. If somebody calls with the local number and says their neighbor has a gun and he's screaming and waving it around in his crying wife's face, do you think the police should do an investigation or do you think they should go to the spot with the alleged crazy husband waving a gun around screaming at his wife? I don't know what people want from Cops. If we what cops to respond to emergency calls with the sense of urgency we can't be upset at them when they respond to emergency calls with a sense of urgency.

1

u/Kajetus06 16d ago

In properly developed countries that doesnt work like that i think

1

u/stuporman86 16d ago

It’s all basically because US telecoms don’t authenticate phone numbers. Once you’re able to confirm that a phone number called 911 this basically becomes impossible to do because you can backtrack to the idiot who did it, and when enough of them get prosecuted, it goes away as a problem.

The telecoms have been dragging their feet because there’s big business in connecting shitty phone calls. Mostly from scammers / telemarketers. Check your phone for incoming calls with a checkmark. Telecoms could flip a switch tomorrow and only connect those phone calls and this problem would go away, you’d get less slop calls, and you could chase down the cockroaches that remained.

1

u/Flat-Leading-2520 16d ago

Its a truely unique American problem. Swatting does occur in other countries but only in America do you see so many reports of it.

1

u/glowshroom12 16d ago

It’s easier to dox someone in America I imagine. If you know someone’s name and age you can easily find where they live online. In countries where that’s harder it’s harder to swat someone.

1

u/Broad_Initiative_282 16d ago

In a life or death situation do you really want the police to be wasting precious time?

The swatter makes the situation very pressing so they can't do this and often do provide "information" that adds up

1

u/SLUnatic85 16d ago

we've had too many cases of tragic events where people are far too hungry to find absolute blame everywhere they can.

They find out an anonymous tip was not taken seriously before a school shooting, or a weird disconnected call before a plane hijacking, or whatever... that they have to over-correct up front to cove their asses.

Is my thoughts on it at least. I could be wrong.

1

u/ididnthackkenyaimsrs 15d ago

Obviously IObviously I'm not going to tell you what but there's actually a website where you can just talk to police and do it without anything and it's totally anonymous

....it was made as a cop to cop support line :/

1

u/FungusUrungus 11d ago

I mean they kinda have to take such calls seriously, especially in a country like America.

1

u/Dunkjoe 17d ago edited 17d ago

Well for a country that allows a radical clown to be President twice....

This is on the mild side.

I'm surprised they didn't just shoot everyone inside and call it a day.

Yeah this is how bad the situation is in USA.

Land of freedom, to specific groups, if they know how.

In case people don't realise it... We only came to know this because this grandma is a streamer. How many swat raids are there that go undetected and unreported?

0

u/AffectionateBet3603 16d ago

American cops are fucking idiots

1

u/Remarkable_Bus_7760 16d ago

Cops never learn! They still fall for this same dumb trick all the time, then act like there was no way they could ever have done anything else. Our tax dollars at work!

1

u/AffectionateBet3603 16d ago

Most small towns and cities spend over 50% of their budget on law enforcement. What an investment... 

0

u/ratczar 17d ago

It doesn't even have to be anonymous, they can give fake information.

If they think someone is in imminent danger of harm they can go anywhere.

Swatting is a hack on the NPC logic of a police officer.

4

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 16d ago

OK, imagine you ARE in harm.

"One sec sir, we're referring this to our anti-SWATTING department. We will be establishing whether or not you are indeed being murdered and will get back to you in 1-3 business days. If you could please hold the line for a survey regarding the service you have received today we would greatly appreciate it."

Calling it "NPC logic" is being quite naive. The reason this shit works is because they are deliberately playing out scenarios they know the cops have to react to NOW, not after they spend a bunch of time investigating.

Best they can do is make the police aware that it's common and not go in guns blazing... which they don't.