

Swatting carries a high risk of violence, and causes resources to be wasted by the city or county when responding to a false report of a serious law enforcement emergency, as well as liability if things go wrong. In March 2019, a California man was sentenced to 20 years in prison for carrying out a fatal 2017 swatting. Making false reports to emergency services is a criminal offense in many jurisdictions, often punishable by fine or imprisonment. Advocates have called for swatting to be described as terrorism due to its use to intimidate and create the risk of injury or death. A threat may result in the evacuations of schools and businesses. These units are equipped with tactical gear and weapons that differ from patrol units, and are called to situations that are deemed high-risk. The term is derived from the law enforcement unit " SWAT" ( special weapons and tactics), a specialized type of police unit in the United States. This is triggered by false reporting of a serious law enforcement emergency, such as a bomb threat, murder, hostage situation, or a false report of a mental health emergency, such as reporting that a person is allegedly suicidal or homicidal and may or may not be armed, among other things. Swatting is a criminal harassment act of deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police or emergency service response team to another person's address. For the killing of houseflies, see Fly-killing device § Flyswatter. This article is about the act of fraudulently calling emergency services to another person's address.
