Just got SWATed.
— chasing the dopamine (@randileeharper) April 3, 2015
So, this happened:
Last night, around 10:20 PM, I received a knock at my front door. I live in a secured building, and it’s rare that I have visitors, so it wasn’t any huge surprise to me when I opened the front door and 6 officers from the Oakland Police were standing outside.
Randi Harper, who posted the above on her blog today, was the victim of an attempted SWATting late last night. That is, one of her online enemies contacted the police, pretending that they were in her apartment holding someone hostage, in hopes of literally sending a SWAT team to bust down her door. Luckily for her, she had herself contacted the police some months earlier and warned them that someone might do this.
Had she not warned the cops in advance, more than six police officers would have shown up. In all likelihood, a literal SWAT team would have shown up, guns drawn, at her door. Instead, her encounter with the police, while nerve-wracking, was peaceful. (I’ve bolded some of what follows.)
Leo, my golden retriever, followed me to the door, so I only opened the door partially and was blocking him with my body to keep him from rushing out to make friends. One of the officers asked me if I was OK. I told him I was fine, and I immediately followed that up by asking if a SWAT threat had been called in. They confirmed this, and I told them I had a police report filed documenting that people were threatening to call in fraudulent reports.
I told them my dog was friendly, and I asked if I could give them this report. They said yes, and they asked if they could come inside and make sure everything was OK. I agreed. Four of the police stayed outside, and two came in. I was asked if anyone else was here, if I was living alone, why someone would call in a false report, and other various pertinent questions by one of the officers while the other took a look around my apartment.
After they had asked all of their questions and were sure that no one was being held against their will, I was informed that someone had called the police “from an iPad” stating that there was a ransom situation at my address, and they wanted $10,000. When I had opened the door, all guns were holstered. I was told that had I not filed a report back in January documenting these threats, that would not have been the case.
What usually happens when someone gets SWATted? Well, take a look at the video below, which Harper posted on her blog, featuring actual footage of a number of gamers being SWATted while in the middle of streaming video events. That is, they were playing games online, others were watching them playing, and some of those watching decided it would be hilarious to send a SWAT team to visit them while they were playing.
So, yeah, that’s what whoever called the hoax in was hoping would happen to her.
For more details, some documentation, and advice on how to approach the police if you are worried that someone will try to do this to you, see her post.
We still don’t know who called in the fake report. Given that she’s been repeatedly targeted (and doxxed) by the not-so-good folks on the baphomet board on 8chan, a lot of people think that’s who it was.
Of course, there are many GamerGaters who think her story is a hoax, and complain that she hasn’t posted an official police incident report detailing what went down. According to Harper, the police told her she wouldn’t be able to get hold of one for at least two weeks.
I believe her. But I guess we’ll know for sure in a couple of weeks, huh?
In the meantime, Leo the dog is hunkering down in the bathtub.
Leo's had a rough night (knows when stuff is going down), so he's hiding in the bath tub- his safe spot- for a while. pic.twitter.com/Z3XUAE2byC
— chasing the dopamine (@randileeharper) April 3, 2015
And Leo’s owner is just glad she was wearing pants during the whole ordeal.
I am just glad that I got swatted while i was wearing pants. I expected this eventually. Statistical likelihood of me wearing pants was low.
— chasing the dopamine (@randileeharper) April 3, 2015
If the police ever track down who called in this fake ‘hostage call’, I hope they prosecute him for both terrorism and send him the bill for the cost of their visit to Ms Harper’s home.
That picture of scared Leo in the tub makes me want to hurt the people who’ve been harassing Harper.
You know you’re the bad guys when you have a scared dog bunkering down in a bathtub because you’re too full of shit to leave a woman with an opinion alone online. Fucking piss puddles…
Awww poor doggie. If I weren’t allergic I’d be all over him petting and hugging.
(Am I a terrible person for wondering what would happen if I turned on the shower while he’s hunkered down in the tub? Yes. Yes I am.)
As mayimoktoo pointed out, the police are known to shoot dogs during raids, even little ones that pose no threat. Leo is a large dog who might well have acted to protect his human from big, shouty men with guns. Randi may have saved her dog’s life by acting with smart forethought, and whoever attempted the SWATting is a pathetic turd who should be ashamed to look in a mirror.
It’s always stupefying when GamerGaters, despite all evidence, claim the harassment is just “made up.” Moreso when they then claim the “other side” is “just as bad” when it comes to harassment. So, yeah, it’s a little weird they expect people to believe them given their dismissiveness of other people’s harassment.
Being somewhat off-topic: I’ve come to the conclusion that Know Your Meme has been completely compromised as a source of information.
I went to their page on sea-lioning and this is the kind of shit they wrote (emphasis mine):
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sea-lioning
First of all, there is no “anti-GamerGate” and I’m sick of people acting like it is. As Dr. Nerdlove put it – there’s GamerGate and there’s everyone else. You may as well use terms like “anti-pedophilia” to describe someone…except you’d be referring to 99.7% of the population anyway. There’s no “anti-NAMBLA” that came about in response to NAMBLA, because the vast majority of people hate that group as is.
Second, there’s nothing more mealy-mouthed than describing that tactic as “perceived” – as if such a thing hasn’t been on display in numerous online discussions. It’s a form of concern trolling and, having been in such debates, it’s pretty aggravating. Why? You could give them all the evidence in the world and they still wouldn’t give a shit, continuing to “just ask” questions that have already been answered. Because it’s not about learning anything or finding common ground – it’s just weaponized insincerity for the purpose making others look bad.
Again, nice try in acting as if “anti-GamerGate” sites are a thing – especially a singular personal blog – along with the obvious use of scare quotes that are (of course) out of context. The actual article, in full? Here:
http://simplikation.com/why-sealioning-is-bad/
That oh-so-terrible quote? Here, unabridged:
Boy, that’s…completely non-inflammatory and completely reasonable sentiment about such.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot – not validating GamerGaters constantly is akin to emasculation to them…
Well, Know Your Meme is an offshoot of Cheezburger, and Cheezburger is one of the very few remaining #GamerGate strongholds outside of Reddit and 8Chan, so I don’t think it was ever a viable source of information.
I wish I was aware of that sooner – now I feel I’ve been continually duped.
@M. The transformation of Cracked into an ally has been so strange and so awesome to watch. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m so happy to see the change.
Guess that’s what happens when other people don’t bother to look into what the source of their information is, because then they share it and trick people into thinking it’s somehow legitimate.
Know Your Meme was better when it wasn’t part of the Cheezburger Network.
Not only that, but KYM had connections to imageboard culture even back in the Rocketboom days.
Ugh. I’m glad Randi is all right, but that has to be terrifying.
Gamergate has done me a small bit of personal good–it introduced me to Katherine Cross on Twitter, who introduced me to Gravity Ghost:
http://boingboing.net/2015/04/03/gravity-ghost.html
Which is amazing, though I may have to mute the sound track to play it for long periods. Nothing wrong with the sound per se, but it is really melancholy and causes me feelings.
Also, it runs on a Macbook Air, so whatever you are packing, you can probably run it, and you get a code to share with someone else when you buy it.
I don’t know if KYM would have been as plugged into those things without the connections to imageboard culture. Many of the earliest internet memes come from imageboard culture. Having past connections to imageboard culture isn’t a problem in and of itself, it’s an unwillingness to move beyond that. The SCP Foundation was founded on 4Chan, but is actually a pretty awesome, welcoming place. OTOH, I still think of Deadmau5 as the image macro posting fool I met online back in the early 2000s. He had been asked to do some remixes for a band I was working for and brought his imageboard culture attitude with him. I have not seen any evidence that he has grown up.
Also, remember that Cracked was such a dudebro website several years ago, and now they regularly post progressive articles. Places can change.
It saddens me how little I’m even surprised by this. My sympathies to Randi, and seriously, fuck Gamergate for still pulling this shit.
Seconding everyone on Cracked. They’re not perfect; I feel like in their certainly very noble pursuit to promote a more open-minded and reasonable Internet, they can sometimes come across as having a “more-informed-than-thou” vibe, does that make sense? But yeah, its hardline stance on Gamergate when most game outlets weren’t even reporting it was when I went, “No, MRA commenters, they’re not just ‘conforming to the SJWs’–they actually really care about this.” And I agree, that’s pretty damn cool.
As to what prompted the change: actually, I’ve speculated for some time that the explosion of MRAs invading comment sections disgusted writers who were already somewhat sympathetic to social justice (even some of their older articles would talk about racism and sexism, and David Wong pretty clearly despises the MRM) so much, they realized it was a bigger problem than they realized and adjusted accordingly.
@Mitchel: what everyone else said. Seriously.
The thing about MRAs is that… well, a lot of modern sexism seems really subtle, and even the egregious stuff is normalized, especially if you’re a man. Microagressions, unconscious bias, “benevolent” sexism… They swim around the culture and everyone absorbs cultural misogyny to an extent.
And then the MRAs show up, and people go, “You know, this misogyny thing might actually be a problem. Some people clearly hate women. Look a the assholes infesting my comment section.”
What pisses me off is that they’ve been circulating a picture of a report Randi made in January and claiming that she’s been claiming it’s a report of the incident last night. She’s done no such thing. A few months ago, she made a report to the local police saying that she was at risk of being swatted – and that report is a big part of why the swatting went so much better than it could have. She circulated that report to let people know that this was an option that worked for her – warning the police beforehand.
Now that the swatting has happened, they’re using that report as “evidence” that the whole thing was fake. “She says the swatting happened last night, but the police report is from January! CONSPIRACY!” It’s so easily disprovable with like two clicks to see what she actually said. But the confirmation bias is so powerful, you just have to start a rumor and let it go with these loathsome types.
This is, IMO, the most insidious part of these online harassment campaigns. If the same bullshit gets disseminated far enough and fast enough, it doesn’t even matter what the truth is. The lie just keeps self-replicating.
Why aren’t they in jail? Fasely reporting a crime is a crime?
Cops can’t tell you who.made the report (even if they know) because I dunno you might take revenge? And they also don’t want to discourage reporting, I imagine. Just like in most places if an anonymous report comes.in about child.abuse, it has to be checked out. Period
And the person doing the reporting doesn’t have to.say who they are. But I would like to see false reports prosecuted.
Perhaps now there could be some benefit to the NSA’s electronic surveillance and back trace those responsible. Especially as the intelligence community does monitor the gaming community as its a fertile recruiting ground for radical fundamentalist movements.
Sadly, true of pre-Internet smear campaigns as well.
I certainly apologize if my comment came off as rude or uncaring. It certainly wasn’t my intentions. I looked into it more, and do believe it really happened. As was already said, there’s no reason for her to make this up.
I would have to say I agree with some of the posters that this going WAY too far. Something seriously bad is going happen. I don’t wish physical harm to anyone involved. Yes, that even includes MASSIVE asshole Mike Cernovich. I would definitely like to see whoever was responsible for this punished by law though.
@ Mitchel 🙂
If something does happen and someone does die the GG community will go into immediate No True Gator mode. In public. Meanwhile they’ll shoot themselves in the foot by laughing about the tragedy on baphomet, forgetting that Reddit is fucking public as well. I just know it.
Sending anxious men with guns to a person’s house is trying to get them shot. These are people using our ridiculously trigger happy police state to assault, violate and and (let’s be honest) hopefully murdered. How traumatizing is it to know these men might send the cops to kill you, your pets, anyone who happens to be over at the time could be murdered at a group at a bigoted terrorist’s whim. These hate sites exist to encourage and lend animosity to terrorists who target women.
If my dogs were trained to bite work and I sicced my big ‘ol dogs on someone I would be considered an attempted murderer. I might as well point a gun and pull the trigger myself. This is a far more insidious version of that act. They are siccing nervous cops on women.
You just know they have a collective wank every time they do it too.
These people belong in prison. The Chans need to be shut down. Yesterday.
Murder, not murdered.
Mitchel ,
It wasn’t rude. It was misogynist. You aren’t hurting our widdle fee-fees. you are testing our patience with your continuously bigoted bullshit.