Washington Times: PICKET: FLA Congresswoman leads 87 member effort demanding Swat-ting investigation from DOJ

[Patricia M. McBride]

I applaud  Ms Adams, a first time Florida representative for taking the intiative on this.  Several folks have been swatted, and it is a pretty scary experience from what I have read of cases that have already happened as the swat teams roll in with guns drawn.  Ms. Adams wants to stop this before someone gets hurt or killed and should be commended for her efforts.

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June 10, 2012

Congresswoman Sandy Adams, Florida Republican, sent a letter on Monday, signed by 87 House Republicans, to Attorney General Eric Holder urging him to assign Justice Department officials to investigate the recent threat of “SWAT-tings.” (Scroll further down for letter in bold)

A SWAT-ting happens when a person calls 911 emergency dispatch services under another individual’s name and falsely claims he or she is committing a violent crime. Such an act is committed to cause local law enforcement authorities (like a SWAT team) to surround and enter the residence of an innocent individual, who was impersonated and framed for a violent crime through the 911 call. The false call can be made via the internet, so as to mask the true caller's identity and location.

“My concern is someone is going to get hurt,” Rep. Adams told me on Friday. “It’s very dangerous for the people living in the home that didn’t call 911, because they have no awareness whatsoever that something like that had happened. So they open the door to law enforcement whether it’s with or without guns drawn.”

“It’s a danger to the law enforcement agency that is being sent there, and it’s also a danger to the people in the community, because you’re pulling people away from what could be a real emergency.”

Congresswoman Adams is a first term Capitol Hill lawmaker and has a military and law enforcement background. Following her time in the Air Force, she served for seventeen years as a deputy sheriff in the Orange County, Florida.

“We were dispatched from 911 calls where there were shots fired and holding of a hostage. Those were the things that you went to and you’re going to want to know that,” she said.

The SWAT-ting issue caught the Florida Congresswoman’s attention when she heard that CNN contributor and Red State blogger Erick Erickson was a victim of a swat in late May. Another blogger who was SWAT-ted, Patrick Frey, a Los Angeles assistant district attorney, went through the terrifying experience in July of 2011.

“Bloggers shouldn’t be targeted for exercising their first amendment right. It isn’t right these folks are being subjected to swat-ting,” said Lisa Boothe, Rep. Adams’s press secretary, who pointed out that the Florida GOP’er wants to protect first amendment rights on this issue as well.

Read more here:  https://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jun/10/picket...