As swatting incidents spike House weighs tougher penalties

      False reports of school shootings and other crimes have been rampant for months throughout the United States, and the state House is considering a bill to deal with such crimes.

Representative Lane Roberts (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      The practice is commonly called “swatting:”  making a false report of a crime so that law enforcement – particularly a SWAT team – will respond to an address.  It is often used as a revenge tactic, as a way to cause unrest, or in the minds of some it is even seen as a joke.

      It isn’t funny to Representative Lane Roberts (R-Joplin), who has a lengthy career that includes time as Joplin’s Police Chief and Director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety.  He said such reports create needless danger for the public and for law enforcement.

      “Frequently people will make a false call for the purpose of harassing someone, discriminating against someone.  It affects their reputation, their business, there’s a lot of consequences to some of these false reports and some of it’s pretty darn malicious,” said Roberts.  “The difficulty is that the penalties for doing that now are pretty mild compared to the potential for injury that goes with a call like that.  It’s just not something that we can put up with.”

        For several years he has proposed legislation to address swatting.  This week his latest such effort was heard by the House Committee on Public Safety, which he chairs. 

He stressed to the committee that the key to House Bill 302 is how it would define the crime.  That is, to give a false report to law enforcement, a security officer, a fire department, or other such organization, “with reckless disregard of causing bodily harm to any person as a direct result of an emergency response.”

      Roberts explained, “This specifically says the person who makes the false report for the purpose of doing any of the enumerated things … we’re talking about, what’s the intent of the call?”

      Under HB 302 those who make false reports that result in a person being killed or seriously hurt could be charged with a class-B felony, punishable by 5 to 15 years in prison.  Falsely reporting a felony crime would be a class-E felony (up to four years in prison).  Any other false reports would be a class-B misdemeanor (up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000).  

      Juveniles making false reports for the first time would be guilty of a status offense.  Any further offenses would be class-C misdemeanors and would require a juvenile court appearance or community service and a fine. 

      The bill would hold any person convicted under its provisions liable for the costs of any emergency response caused by their false report.  They could also be sued by any victims.  Roberts said that is because swatting can cause, “damage to someone’s business, their reputation, their ability to make a living, their livelihood, so if someone engages in that kind of conduct for the purpose of causing harm to someone’s livelihood, then by all means they should be accountable.”

      Jordan Kadosh with the Anti-Defamation League spoke in favor of HB 302.  He reiterated that instances of swatting have been spiking, especially after many of the recent shootings at schools throughout the nation.  He said after the recent shooting that killed six people at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, Missouri law enforcement was “inundated with false reports.”

      “These were later confirmed in the press to be attempts at swatting against schools.  The act of swatting turns law enforcement officers against the population that they serve,” said Kadosh.

      He said the bill is narrowly crafted to help prosecutors make cases against swatters and at last create real penalties for maliciously making false reports.

      The committee has not voted on HB 302.  Last year the House passed similar legislation 142-0, but it did advance out of the Senate.

Pronunciations:

Kadosh = kah-DOEsh

House bill would increase penalties for ‘swatting’

      The House has voted to increase the penalties for deliberately reporting someone to law enforcement with the intent or hurting, embarrassing, or intimidating them; a practice commonly referred to as “swatting.”

Representative Lane Roberts (Photo: Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

      Under House Bill 1704 a person would be guilty of making a false report if they intentionally make, or causes to be made to any enforcement organization, a false report that could cause bodily harm as a result of the emergency response. 

      “The bill hinges on the statement that it is with reckless disregard of causing bodily harm to any person as a direct result of an emergency response,” said bill sponsor Lane Roberts (R-Joplin)“It’s an effort to keep people from weaponizing the public safety system to harm other people; sometimes physically, sometimes by reputation or intimidation.”

      “This also deals with the use of the system to humiliate, embarrass, or have people forcibly removed from premises, and this is often aimed at minorities, aimed at religious differences, sexual orientation … recent news has been replete with that kind of conduct,” said Roberts.  “This bill prohibits that kind of use of public safety to harm others, to harm their reputation, to harm them physically, or otherwise damage an individual.”

      Those who make false reports that result in a person being killed or seriously hurt could be charged with a class-B felony, punishable by 5 to 15 years in prison.  Otherwise, false reports of a felony crime would be a class-C felony (up to 7 years in prison) and false reports of a misdemeanor would be a class-B misdemeanor (up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000). 

      Roberts and other legislators have discussed in recent years how incidents of “swatting” seem to have increased, and in some cases those have resulted in deaths and serious injuries.  Roberts’ legislation is the latest attempt to address that.

      “Somebody will call in a false report that generates a response from a police agency, sometimes a SWAT team, which by its very nature, puts people at risk of injury or death, both the police officer and folks inside.”

      His proposal was sent to the Senate with unanimous bipartisan support, 142-0.  Democrats contributed to the language of HB 1704, and Representative Ashley Bland Manlove (D-Kansas City) spoke in support of it.  She said she remembers a recent “swatting” incident that happened just across the state line from her district, in Kansas.

      “Somebody he was on [a] video game with in California was apparently mad that they had lost the game and used an app to deploy SWAT to the man in Overland Park’s house saying, ‘He’s got somebody in the house and they’ve got hostages,’ so SWAT comes in hot immediately.  Unfortunately the young man was a black man,” said Bland Manlove.  “I’ve also heard of this being used, as [Representative Roberts] said, in domestic disputes.  Somebody’s mad that they don’t have the kids or they have to pay child support so then they constantly use the police, filing false reports against the other partner.”

The bill was also the product of bipartisan cooperation, with the inclusion of changes authored by Representative Robert Sauls (D-Kansas City).

      In addition to possible incarceration and fines, violations of the language of HB 1704 could result in civil penalties.   

      “Any person who makes a false report in violation of this section for the purpose of infringing on another person’s rights under the Missouri or the United States Constitution; unlawfully discriminating against another person; causing another person to be expelled from a place in which such person is lawfully located; damaging another person’s reputation or standing within the community, financial, economic, consumer or business partner interests may be required to pay punitive damages to the victim, so it addresses some of the more malicious forms of use of swatting,” said Roberts.

      HB 1704 was sent to the Senate with two full weeks remaining in the legislative session.