The identity theft investigative landscape is littered with jargon that delivers clever and concise ways to describe common criminal activities. We should all be familiar with terms like: phishing, shoulder surfing, hacking, cyber-squatting etc.
Here is a new one for the record books. It is potentially lethal and is commonly referred to as …”swatting”.
This week the nation mourns the tragic loss of L.A.P.D. SWAT Officer Randal Simmons and the shooting of his partner and fellow Officer James Veenstra, who is making a gradual recovery from his gunshot wounds.
Attended by nearly 10,000 people, the funeral was the largest in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Inexplicably and in a separate incident this month, a 19 year old prankster who lives 1200 miles away from Los Angeles, reportedly managed to fool a 911 operator in L.A. into taking a false report that was labeled “an emergency”.
These “swat” calls dupe authorities into believing that an emergency situation is occurring at a specific location and police are obliged to dispatch a SWAT team to an unsuspecting home or business. Imagine the confusion, danger and foolish waste of resources this can cause.
Responders are fooled by the prankster’s ability to either tap into the local police database to generate a call, or to hide their true identity and location with “masking” software.
These prank 911 calls are have piqued the attention of lawmakers who are busy preparing new legislation to fight the crime.
Prosecutors have charged the 19 year old Washington state resident with 5 felony counts including computer fraud.
