Three Republican lawmakers have been the target of “swatting” at their homes since Christmas Day, with a legal expert calling the act “criminal harassment.”<\/p>\n
“Swatting” is a crime<\/a> that has become prominent in recent years, gaining more steam in the social media age when people’s addresses are easily accessible.<\/p>\n George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital that swatting is a crime that could be “charged as a form of criminal threats.”<\/p>\n MTG TO INTRODUCE BILL TARGETING \u2018SWATTERS\u2019 AS RICK SCOTT BECOMES LATEST TARGET<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n “Swatting constitutes a false police report that can be criminally charged,” Turley said. “Virginia recently passed a new law making swatting specifically a criminal misdemeanor. It can also be charged as a form of criminal threats.”<\/p>\n “This is a crime that flourishes because there is insufficient deterrent,” Turley continued. “The anonymity and rare prosecutions combine to fuel this form of criminal harassment.”<\/p>\n “There is no mystery to how to address these crimes. There must be greater detection and penalties to achieve deterrence,” he added.<\/p>\n The crime targets an individual by calling in a false police report for a violent crime \u2014 such as a murder, a hostage situation or other crimes that would require a greater law enforcement response \u2014 to the home of the target.<\/p>\n The goal of the false police report is to elicit a SWAT team response by the police to the target’s home.<\/p>\n Consequently, swatting draws police resources away from real crimes while the state becomes the unwitting arm to terrorize a person at their own home.<\/p>\n Now, national leaders are being targeted by swatters who have sent the police to their homes.<\/p>\n Since Christmas, three Republican lawmakers \u2014 Sen. Rick Scott<\/a> of Florida and Reps. Brandon Williams of New York and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia \u2014 have been victims of swatting at their homes.<\/p>\n Scott became the latest victim, announcing on Thursday that his home was swatted the night before while he and his wife were out to dinner.<\/p>\n “Last night, while at dinner with my wife, cowards \u2018swatted\u2019 my home in Naples. These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family,” Scott wrote on X.<\/p>\n Both Williams and Greene<\/a> announced on social media that their homes had been hit on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n Williams told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany that there was “no question” the swatting incident against him was an intimidation tactic over his pro-Israel stance.<\/p>\n Greene announced<\/a> Wednesday that she would introduce a bill to target swatters after her family member’s house was also hit this week.<\/p>\n Fox News Digital’s Ellizabeth Elkind contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three Republican lawmakers have been the target of “swatting” at their homes since Christmas Day, with a legal expert calling the act “criminal harassment.” “Swatting” is a crime that has become prominent in recent years, gaining more steam in the social media age when people’s addresses are easily accessible. George Washington University law professor Jonathan … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}