swatting
noun

- the action of making a false report of a serious emergency so that a SWAT team (= a group of officers trained to deal with dangerous situations) will go to a person's home, by someone who wants to frighten, upset, or cause problems for that person

- an act of hitting something, especially a ball, very hard

The Cambridge Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

The acronym SWAT stands for 'Special Weapons and Tactics'. SWAT teams are specialized police units equipped with tactical gear and weapons, trained to handle high-risk situations such as hostage rescues, counter-terrorism operations, and other dangerous scenarios. The concept of SWAT teams originated in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s as a response to increasing incidents of violent crime and civil unrest.

The term "swatting" emerged from the practice of prank calls to emergency services, which evolved into more sophisticated hoaxes aimed at triggering a SWAT team response. The term was used by the FBI as early as 2008 and entered Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2015.

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SWATTING IS NO JOKE!

Swatting incidents typically involve false reports of serious emergencies, such as bomb threats, murders, or hostage situations, to provoke an immediate and intense response from law enforcement.

Perpetrators often use various techniques to disguise their identity and location, making it difficult for authorities to trace the origin of the call. These techniques include caller ID spoofing, social engineering, and the use of TTY (text telephone) systems. Swatters may also employ methods such as doxing (obtaining and broadcasting personal information about the target to facilitate the hoax).

Swatting is a dangerous and illegal activity that can result in severe consequences, including injury or death. The false reports waste valuable emergency resources, disrupt communities, and place innocent individuals at risk. In some cases, swatting has even led to fatal encounters between SWAT teams and unsuspecting victims.

Two common reasons for swatting are:

- Revenge = as a form of retaliation against individuals who have angered or offended the perpetrator (i.e., in online gaming communities).

- Pranks = as a misguided prank, with the perpetrators seeking amusement from the chaos and danger they create.

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SYNONYMS

bash, bat, beat, belt, biff, bludgeon, bonk, bop, box, clap, clobber, clout, clunk, conk, crush, cuff, drub, flail, flatten, flog, hammer, hit, jab, knock, lam, lay low, mangle, mow down, paste, pelt, pound, rap, slap, slug, smash, slam, smack, smite, sock, spank, strike, SWAT, swing at, tan, tap, thump, thwack, wallop, whack, whomp, whop

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation, say something like:

“As detection methods improve, let’s hope that incidents of SWATTING, that innocent people have been experiencing, will be eliminated.”

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