George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley Swatted at His Virginia Home
“we are grateful to the Fairfax police officers who were highly professional and supportive in responding to this harassment”
Professor Jonathan Turley was swatted at his Virginia home on Friday. Someone called the Fairfax Police and claimed that someone had been shot at Turley’s home. Swatting is an awful crime that can end with the target shot dead.
This likely happened just because some horrible person doesn’t like Turley’s opinions about something.
The New York Post reports:
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley becomes latest ‘swatting’ victim after false report of shooting at his home
Legal scholar Johnathan Turley has become the latest victim of “swatting” as a 911 call was made falsely reporting someone was shot at his Virginia home.
“Yes, I was swatted this evening. It is regrettably a manifestation of our age of rage,” the George Washington University law professor said in a statement on Friday.
“However, we are grateful to the Fairfax police officers who were highly professional and supportive in responding to this harassment,” said Turley, who regularly writes op-eds for The Post.
Law enforcement responded to Turley’s Fairfax County home after an individual placed the bogus emergency call.
The Fairfax County Police Department confirmed that the caller falsely said somebody was shot at Turley’s address.
Turley had just appeared on FOX News to discuss the recent swatting of Marjorie Taylor Greene and others.
From FOX News:
What is ‘swatting,’ the ‘criminal harassment’ hoax that’s hit 3 GOP lawmakers since Christmas?
Three Republican lawmakers have been the target of “swatting” at their homes since Christmas Day, with a legal expert calling the act “criminal harassment.”
“Swatting” is a crime that has become prominent in recent years, gaining more steam in the social media age when people’s addresses are easily accessible.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital that swatting is a crime that could be “charged as a form of criminal threats.”
“Swatting constitutes a false police report that can be criminally charged,” Turley said. “Virginia recently passed a new law making swatting specifically a criminal misdemeanor. It can also be charged as a form of criminal threats.”
“This is a crime that flourishes because there is insufficient deterrent,” Turley continued. “The anonymity and rare prosecutions combine to fuel this form of criminal harassment.”
This requires serious consequences.
This is BLATANT political intimidation and harassment
Earlier today, @JonathanTurley spoke out bc 3 GOP lawmakers were victims of “swatting” incidents this week
NOW someone has reportedly called a SWAT team on Turley’s house pic.twitter.com/P16QoiFljy
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) December 29, 2023
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Comments
You’ve gotta love the scare quotes that even a lame-stream outlet like Fox puts around criminal harassment.
My suggestion is to make swatting a felony offense by labeling it “attempted murder”, or “conspiracy to commit murder”, and then actually prosecute the offenders.
But since it’s almost universally being done by collectivist/statist/authoritarians with the collaboration of those currently holding offices (prosecuting attorneys, attorneys general, etc.) we’ll never see them arrested, much less convicted, for these potentially deadly crimes.
Agreed. Swatting should be a felony punishable by a minimum of 10 years in prison.
Swatting should be a felony punishable by a minimum of 30 years in prison with no parole.
FIFY.
I’d like something more biblical. Get convicted of swatting somebody, and your sentence is the sentence for the crime you falsely accused him of.
SWATters often don’t accuse any specific person. And that’s what happened here. “Someone’s been shot”. So that won’t work.
Yeah, of course it works. Replace “crime you falsely accused him of” to “alleged crime.” It becomes immediately obvious it’s a swat. It’s indisputable who lives at the address. To eliminate the mens rea test in addition is easy for feds — after all, they did it for hunting over a field someone else baited when you weren’t even aware of it. Now find the bastard and lock him up.
It’s indisputable who lives at the address, but the caller often doesn’t say the inhabitant is the one who committed a crime. In this case they didn’t even allege a crime; “someone’s been shot” could be an accident or a justified shooting. And it doesn’t allege that anyone’s been killed.
In any case, SWATting is not the same as false accusation, because the purpose is not to get the householder in legal trouble — the caller knows it won’t do that. The purpose is to get the house raided by a SWAT team; at the minimum merely to harass them, and at the maximum to get them accidentally shot.
So you can’t treat it exactly the same as false accusation. Even they alleged that an offense had been committed, the purpose was not to bring on that person the prescribed penalty for that offense, so giving them that penalty doesn’t match the crime. If they did it to try to get the victim shot, that’s worse than the penalty you would assign. If they did it merely to harass, they still put the victim in danger, and they probably ruined his day (not attempted to ruin it but actually did so; again the penalty doesn’t match the crime.
I agree but trying to make it assault or something won’t work as Milhouse noted. Maybe tie false report into something else using a phone that makes it a Class 1 misdemeanor on first offense and if the call is made about an elected or appointed official or crosses state lines a felony? Something like that?
I just assumed the quotes around “criminal harassment” were used because they were quoting Turley’s words:
“The anonymity and rare prosecutions combine to fuel this form of criminal harassment.”
One would think police could easily make this impossible by only responding with SWAT to verified callers
Yes, a safety needs to be in place for those who can’t stay on the phone, but the response could be to verify first, especially if victims sign up for such verification prior to an all out response.
Consider that cops can located murderers and ballot mules months later using cell phone data, and aven Malaysia 370….. 🙂
It is possible to trace the bogus call and apprehend the offender. The technology and resources to do this would have been employed had the right kind of person been targeted. That’s right. The NSA has this ability.
That only applies if the authorities are interested in finding the swatter
As an old phone phreaker, I can tell you with some assurance that if phone companies really wanted to stop this type of harassment, including the everyday harassment of telemarketers who call you “from” bogus numbers five times every day, they could.
Too lucrative.
And the government could make the tele”phony” industry to it, but that would annoy the lobbyists.
This is a problem that needs a federal law enforsement solution, not a local or state law enforsement. Turley was swatted at his home in Fairfax, VA. The caller could be anywhere in the world. How can Fairfax police investigate callers outside of Virginia.
There was an Anti-swatting bill in 2019, but it died before ever coming up for a vote. Personally, I don’t think the Democrats want an anti-swatting law, because Republicans are primarily the victims of swatting.
Agreed. This crap creates a dangerous situation and depending upon time of day a potentially deadly one for the victims. IMO there’s gotta be a significant penalty and it needs to come from the Federal level. With several higher profile victims including at least one Senator and several HoR members maybe Congress can act. If d/prog dig in their heels they should, unfortunately, probably count upon there being folks who will use these despicable tactics of intimidation and terror against them. Hopefully it doesn’t devolve into tit for tat events where weirdos on both sides employ it as part of the new normal of political life.
“ Hopefully it doesn’t devolve into tit for tat events where weirdos on both sides employ it as part of the new normal of political life.”
It is already happening, the mayor of Boston was recently swatted. Sadly, what I think will happen is that Congress won’t do anything until someone prominent dies. If a Democrat is martyred, then the Democrats will claim victim status, spin it as a problem unique to them and blame Republicans. Just like they always do with political violence.
Your forecast is likely if it plays out in blue States though it might be very different in Red States. ‘Golly there were simultaneous calls at 03:30 to the home of every d/prog member of Congress and they all met LEO with a weapon so…’
This is similar to the effort to keep DJT off the ballot. It’s all fun and games until some PO anr vengeful Red State SoS says ‘hey, all your Congressional Candidates can’t be on the general election ballot b/c we say so’ which is essentially what the d/prog are doing.
Sooner or later the tit for tat will escalate in scope to some hugely disproportionate response. Better by far that this crap ends way before that occurs.
“needs a federal law enforcement solution”??
If the FBI gave two f*s about the problem, they’d bull into the case and you couldn’t keep them out with a water cannon. If involves telephones? Well, those wires go interstate even if you personally aren’t using them that way. (That’s how the feds bulled their way into regulating radio stations.)
But the FBI is out of f*s to give… unless the target is a Biden.
The kicker on that is modern phone systems are all digital. A VPN system tells the phone system what its number is, which is why spammers use it wholesale. Anybody with a VPN system can make their home phone number look like *ANYWHERE* including the White House if they want. That’s why they program their systems with local numbers to where they are spamming so people will pick up the phone. Backtracking a phone that is trying to hide its origin is a cast-iron bear.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we eventually find out that the swatter is a big ACLU supporter.
This seems like terrorism to me. I know I would be terrified to find a SWAT team outside my place late at night.
That is precisely the point. But the definition of terrorism is not simply “inducing terror”. It’s using violence to achieve political goals. Sometimes SWATting is done for political reasons but often it’s more personal.
So the FBI can find “suspects” based on where their cellphones were when an alleged crime took place and indict, try, and convict them. All based on where their private cellphones were, not based on calls made to or from the phone, just where the phone was located. But they can’t identify who is calling government law enforcement agencies, at known times, reporting non-existent crimes.
The information exists in the databases of telephone service providers. There is no expectation of privacy for users of these government phones and therefore no problem with warrants, court orders, etc, especially when there is an actual crime being investigated.
This “swatting” is a serious crime and has been going on for some time, and the only instance I recall of a perpetrator being caught involved a young man in Wichita, Kansas, whose gamer friend swatted him as a prank. The police showed up and ended up killing the young man. The caller was eventually convicted. Now this has moved to the political sphere, but I don’t recall hearing about a single arrest, prosecution, or conviction of anyone involved.
But the police and the feds, go to Congress and whine about needing more money and more “tools” allowing them to increase their surveillance and potential rights violations of the American people, all in the name of public safety, of course.
Does anyone else think that, just maybe, the police aren’t really that interested in identifying the perpetrators?
Tools? *69 been around for a while and it would seem a pretty small effort to require that ‘hidden’ or ‘private’ phone numbers must be visible to 911 centers. Those phones have a service provider and obtaining the name and address from the provider in a criminal investigation seems like a pretty routine event. We don’t need to have any Orwellian efforts to solve any part of this.
Unfortunately, Caller ID spoofing is child’s play. You can buy apps for your cellphone that changes the callerid. Telemarketers have been doing it for years.
A couple years ago, AT&T and T-Mobile announced a new tech protocol called STIR/SHAKEN that strengthens called ID. And the FTC has mandated it.
But it is still not fully deployed and until every phone carrier and VOIP service provider deploys it, it will have gaps that can be exploited.
As you point out the tools already exist without granting any Orwellian powers to LEO which is the point. As always, it comes down to political will to confront the well heeled lobbyists and their $ in the the form of campaign donations, no show jobs for politician’s feckless relations and board seats for their Spouses or themselves post political career.
tbf, the J6 people went to the capitol to protest. They didn’t go with the intention of committing any crimes, or even the awareness that they could/would be legally persecuted for it, so they thought nothing of taking their phones with them. Swatters, on the other hand, are quite aware they’re doing something criminal, so they take steps such as using burner phones to avoid being identified. No doubt the FBI could get around that, but that would require actual, you know, /work/. So while some of it is ideological malice, some of it is also simple laziness.
“Now this has moved to the political sphere, but I don’t recall hearing about a single arrest, prosecution, or conviction of anyone involved.”
Podcaster Tim “timcast” Pool has been swatted something like a dozen times, and I’m pretty sure the perp has never been identified, because it would be big news I wouldn’t have missed.
The scumbags at the FBI certainly aren’t interested. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the ones doing it.
These two things are not equivalent. Being able to do the first doesn’t make them able to do the second. Given a phone’s ID they can figure out where it was at any given moment, at least if it was on; that doesn’t help them find out which phone a given call came from. And even if they could figure that out, it doesn’t necessarily tell them who owns it; often the provider has no idea.
“…that doesn’t help them find out which phone a given call came from.”
There are at least three ways to get from a given call to the end point it originated from. At least two ways the particular end point hardware is uniquely identified. (Not counting the phone number, or even ID on the SIM.)
It’s worse than that. nteraicting with the network by an “unauthorized” device has become more encumbered by electronic “safety” laws. Recall the former grad student last I knew mouldering in prison for putting data MIT held behind paywalls, out in public, on the radical notion that data paid for with public funds should oughta be public. He was prosecuted on both IP, and computer hacking grounds.
It’s worse than that. Wonder why they seem to need a bit more individual information to turn a phone on? There’s enough information to get from a particular hardware-identified phone, to your identity, if they didn’t already have you some other way.
“Given a phone’s ID they can figure out where it was at any given moment, at least if it was on”
Snowden did a long-form interview, 6-8 years ago, breaking down what the phone’s doing to track you, even when you think it’s off.
It’s gotten worse. They can find where the device is physically at least 3 different ways. One operates entirely in the network, without requiring any data you’d notice, like sending them your location via “location services.” Increasingly the endpoint devices identify you with biometrics, which can be on command from the network. (Comment spellcheck here doesn’t recognize “biometrics.”)
And when a phone is “off” most aren’t actually the whole way “off” until you pull the battery… which you can’t on most of them any more.
Could they please be less spooky conspiracy theory 1984 / Max Headroom? Tinfoil hat is not a good look for me.
Oh, those wacky Phone Phreaks haven’t mellowed with age.
I’m thinking the swatters are Hamass supporters.
The intention behind swatting is to kill the target by police, it is similar to suicide-by-cop, in fact it is intended as homicidy-by-cop. It should be treated as such.
2 points:
1 – SWATting is attempted murder.
2 – Police have no right to bust into anyone’s property solely on the “evidence” of an anonymous call, no matter what the caller is claiming. Just the idea that the police can do this is insane.
1 is correct
2 is not. In exigent circumstances the police have the right to go anywhere. The fourth amendment only requires warrants for unreasonable entry; in exigent circumstances entry is not unreasonable, so they don’t need a warrant. Something you may end up being very grateful for one day, if you ever have an emergency.
Anonymous phone calls are not the basis for any reasonable entry.
An exigent action based on an anonymous report?
Yeah gonna have to hard pass claims of an unverified anonymous tip creating exigent circumstances for LEO to enter. As a practical matter that’s an open invitation for abuse of liberty.
Gee, it’s just like passing a “red flag law” to let “loved ones” call the police to come get crazy Grandpa’s guns… and then having the cops initiate more than 50% of the flags with no “loved ones” even on the radar.
Yep Red flag laws as constituted have far too loose provisions for who can make the referral. An EX Spouse, EX Boyfriend, EX.Girlfriend nope that’s an invitation for petty vengeance.
I could be open to being convinced if we had basic common sense protections such as:
1. Is the subject known to LEO
2. Is there other evidence to support the claim?
If not then that’s a wrap on the complaint and the subject should be notified that X person swore out a complaint at minimum, IMO an unverified complaint should result in a criminal charge for filing a false report. There should be penalties for attempting to falsely deprive someone’s liberty. Unless we can get to those sorts of basic protections to mitigate false and/or vindictive claims count me out.
We’re not talking about “red flag” laws. We’re talking about emergency calls, reporting that an emergency is happening right now. That’s not anything like a “red flag” law. The Supreme Court has already ruled long ago that if there’s no emergency happening right now then it’s not exigent circumstances
Caniglia v Strom.
Thomas, J: To be sure, the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit all unwelcome intrusions “on private property,” ibid.—only “unreasonable” ones. We have thus recognized a few permissible invasions of the home and its curtilage. […] We have also held that law enforcement officers may enter private property without a warrant when certain exigent circumstances exist, including the need to “ ‘render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.’
Alito, J: We have held that the police may enter a home without a warrant when there are “exigent circumstances.”
Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 590 (1980). But circumstances are exigent only when there is not enough time to get a warrant,
Kavanaugh, J: the exigent circumstances doctrine allows officers to enter a home without a warrant in certain situations, including: to fight a fire and investigate its cause; to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence; to engage in hot pursuit of a fleeing felon or prevent a suspect’s escape; to address a threat to the safety of law enforcement officers or the general public; to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant; or to protect an occupant who is threatened with serious injury. […] The exigent circumstances doctrine applies because the officers have an “objectively reasonable basis” for believing that an occupant is “seriously injured or threatened with such injury.” [..] courts, police departments, and police officers alike must take care that officers’ actions in those kinds of cases are reasonable under the circumstances.
Of course. Who do you expect to make emergency calls? When someone sees something bad happen they are expected to call the emergency services to alert them; they’re not necessarily going to stay on the phone and identify themselves, especially if whatever it is is still going on. They’re either rushing to help, or getting the hell out of there, or they just hang up because they’d done what they’re supposed to do. There’s nothing sinister or suspect about that, it’s the normal thing.
You don’t need to know who called it in in order to help. And if you refuse help just because you couldn’t satisfy your curiosity, and someone dies as a result, you may be legally liable and are certainly morally liable. So you rush to help, and that’s exigent circumstances, which is a recognized justification for entry.
Again, if you were the person in the house in need of help, and the emergency services didn’t come because they were curious about the caller’s identity, how would you feel?
You need to know something about the caller in order to verify that it is not likely to be a hoax – to be able to assign some measure of responsibility if this is a crime of false reporting. But our society, as I already mentioned, doesn’t take the serious, insidious crime of bearing false witness seriously, at all.
Legally liable because we have an insane system of unjust laws that make no sense. Morally? You are most certainly NOT morally liable, at all. It is crazy to even make that claim. First of all, you are not morally responsible to render aid, in any event. You might consider it your mitzvah to do that but it is not your responsibility.
And to call this “[satisfying] your curiosity” is to show exactly how unserious you are about this situation and the obvious likely consequences. You could not be any more cavalier and dismissive of a very serious and dangerous situation that someone calling and claiming out of the blue does nothing to justify any sort of armed SWAT action by police. NONE.
Bullsh*t. And sending a SWAT team to assault the property with no evidence more than one phone call is insane.
I already gave you my answer. I was very clear. If you want to be victimized by these sorts of situations you can put yourself on a list that the cops can feel free to raid any time someone calls or texts them about anything happening on your property. I want no part of that and if that causes me a problem because I have a real emergency and I cannot tell the 911 operator who I am – or some neighbor of mine refuses to identify themselves on the call – then I will take the consequences of my decisions (as I always accept the consequences of my own decisions).
Who do we expect to make emergency calls from a single family residence? The person experiencing an emergency or the neighbors who are in a position to overhear an emergency situation; shots fired or to observe/hear whatever else.
Step one for 911 is to contact the homeowner or occupant via 911 addressing/phone number listing. Next is to contact neighbors. All to determine if an emergency exists, what the scope is/# of intruders/# of shots fired, did is sound like more than one caliber or more than one weapon to help determine# of shooters.
In the event of an actual emergency that Intel is useful for any LEO response. If these calls result in zero confirmation of emergency then basically call off the dogs, put the SWAT tram in a staging area and send a couple LEO to the door to knock and ask if everything is ok.
These LEO can determine if exigent circumstances truly exist based on their 1st hand observations upon arrival. All quiet? No unidentified vehicles present? No kicked in doors or broken windows? No suggestion of anything out of the ordinary? That means no emergency.
An anonymous call can’t be trusted in modern circumstances. Any dept relying upon an anonymous call as the sole basis for send ing a SWAT team to a single family home is IMO entirely negligent. I get you live in NYC and that experience shapes your outlook but in other places folks come to the door or go investigate a bunch of noise in the middle of the night with a firearm. LEO must be cognizant of that and be willing to adjust their own RoE if they won’t modify their response of a SWAT team. No kinetic entry until they are sure an emergency exists or they can’t make contact with the homeowners.
2. Totalitarian bullshit.
Shades of the new Hawaii Five-O — our two heroes, guns drawn, at a suspect’s address: “Listen — do you hear somebody calling for help?” Foot up, BAM, door down. Stupid sheeple watchers applaud, as they get primed to accept their new police overlords.
We do not punish false testimony, in general in this society, and that is a huge mistake. False testimony (and false prosecution) should be punished by the perpetrator receiving the maximum punishment that the victim was in jeopardy of getting. The lying accuser in the Duke rape case, along with Mike Nifong, should have both gotten sentences totaling to the sum of all the maximum sentences the accused were open to. Instead, we did absolutely nothing to either of them (in terms of actual punishment). NOTHING.
THis is crazy and makes for an unstable society. There’s a reason “bearing false witness” made the top ten commandments. No society that allows for people to bear false witness without serious punishment is long for this world.
In partial defense of Crystal Mangum: The police and prosecutor pressured her for a false accusation, using tactics that are very likely to get lies when applied to a low-life loser with a tenuous connection to reality from long-time overuse of drugs and alcohol.
1. She showed up at the fraternity to drunk and drugged to even strip. They kicked her out and called the police. The cops came, she asked them for a ride to the emergency room, and they told her that by department policy she was going to the drunk tank unless she’d been raped. To a good citizen, that means shut up and take your punishment. To someone like her, that was coaching her in a lie – and anyone with more experience in law enforcement than a rookie patrolman should know it.
Good police work would have been to take her to the ER, then spend an hour checking her story – it should not have taken any longer to prove she lied. The in the morning, add making a false statement to police officers to the drunk and disorderly charge, and hint that the prosecutor ought to get her a long enough sentence to go through withdrawal on all the substances she was addicted to.
2. But some idiot leaked this to the news media, who made a big deal of “rich frat boys raped poor woman”. Without checking anything, Mike Nifong promised to send the frat boy “rapists” to prison. And he lacked the courage to admit his mistake.
3. So in the morning interview, rather than questioning the gaping holes in her story, the prosecutor and detectives helped her fix them. They showed her pictures of all the fraternity members, and she did not recognize any. By proper procedure, when an eyewitness cannot identify a suspect the first time, there’s no point in trying again with the same suspects – no later identification can be certain enough to use in court. You try to find other ways of proving the case that don’t depend on a witness that is either lying or has a defective memory. In this case, if that investigation was done honestly, they’d conclude either that she was most likely lying, or she was lying beyond a reasonable doubt.
But Mike Nifong was a coward as well as a political hack. So he gathered a “special” team of detectives to ignore contrary evidence, intimidate the cab driver whose log showed there had not been time for a gang rape, and repeatedly drag her back to the police station to look at the same set of photos again (of_only_ fraternity members, to ensure against the embarrassment of their witness picking guys that were never there) , until she picked 4 guys at random. In my world, that’s called “witness tampering”.
She should have gone to jail for a few months, but Nifong and the detectives should have gone to prison for many years.
It will get someone killed again, But Leftists it’s all a game to upset and destroy opponents home life.
Unfortunately as long as we have anonymous burner phones this will be impossible to prevent. As well as with present phone technology, a person can duplicate a phone IME string or the sim string fairly easily too.
There is another factor here. We have been talking about the possibility of things getting out of hand and people being killed accidentally as part of the [almost totally Leftist] political harassment.
What is not being mentioned is that since the response is by the coercive organs of state power, and in large urban areas that usually means control by the Left; then someday it may be a deliberate effort to duplicate Ruby Ridge or Waco against a non-Leftist, and is both a normalization of and an implied threat of such executive action.
Subotai Bahadur
“May be?”