Celebrity SWATTING pranks are out of control

“Swatting” is a prank that involves placing a hoax 911 call about a violent crime taking place at a home. Sometimes the reported incident is so outrageous that entire SWAT teams are sent to the residence in question. When calls come in it’s too risky to doubt to the legitimacy of the complaint, so resources (paid for by taxpayers) are wasted responding to these calls. TMZ reported that a swatting prank on Ashton Kutcher’s home in 2012 cost about $10,000.

It’s been an ongoing trend with celebrity homes like Ashton Kutcher and Miley Cyrus, but in the last week alone cops were called to the residences of Justin Timberlake, Selena Gomez, Sean Combs, and Rihanna. Right now because of the constant barrage of swatting pranks on celebrity homes, lawmakers in California are trying to introduce a bill to make it easier to charge someone guilty of a swatting hoax with a felony, and to make them responsible for all costs associated with the the hoax.

In March 2013 a 12-year-old boy was arrested in swatting pranks involving the homes of Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher, but the identity of swatters isn’t always known because they often use a techniques like “phreaking” and “caller ID spoofing” which even tricks 911 systems. Phreaking involves hacking into telecommunication systems, and caller ID spoofing involves the caller paying for a service which allows them to enter a different number to show up on the caller ID than the one they’re actually calling from.

You don’t have to be a celebrity to fall victim to swatting, private citizens are often the victim of swatting based on personal vendettas. Because of the serious nature of some of the reported incidents, police respondents believe they are entering homes with people who have used and are ready to use weapons, which could obviously lead to innocent people being seriously hurt.