Attempted Swatting at Ashton Kutcher’s Home
Like Miley Cyrus, he wasn’t home at the time:
Ashton Kutcher is the latest famous name to be associated with a “swatting” — a malicious prank in which a seemingly serious distress call to police turns out to be a false alarm with a spoofed phone number, aimed at luring a SWAT team to swarm a particular location.
Police hurried to Kutcher’s Lake Hollywood home late Wednesday morning after a woman called police — more on that “call” later — and claimed to be hiding in a closet because there was an armed man inside the home, L.A. Now reported. The actor was not home at the time.
Upon arriving, authorities found no woman hiding and no armed man in the home, though they did detain some workers who were at the property.
“Detained.” That sounds rather antiseptic. I bet I have a pretty good idea what that word signifies in practice.
Although I’d like to think that police are getting wise to the tactic, including this quite common method:
Also, what was being referred to as a “call” was not a 911 call but actually a teletype message, the type of communication that a deaf person would use, a police spokesman said Wednesday at a news conference.
I got a call from CBS News yesterday about this. They were looking to have me go on camera to discuss my incident. I declined, but told them about what had happened to me.
I call the incidents at Kutcher’s and Cyrus’s homes “attempted swattings.” The swatter(s) didn’t take steps to assure that the victims were home. The incidents didn’t happen in the middle of the night. Someone was sending a message of some sort, but it’s not clear they wanted anyone killed.
I wonder what kind of police attention these attempted swattings are getting, as compared to the politically motivated swattings of four of us between June 2011 and June 2012. It would be interesting to know, wouldn’t it?
I take it as a very positive sign that CBS sought you out. One would think they would only seek out the actors/actresses that had this happen to them, but in light of them taking the time to get the story of your political swatting signifies at least some are not ignoring it. Hopefully, they will continue to dig into this. Me, I’m still waiting for the local rag to pay attention.
Dana (292dcf) — 10/4/2012 @ 8:10 amThe attention may be the point.
“Nobody notices? Ok, fine, we’ll give them some celebs to obsess over.”
Space Cockroach (8096f2) — 10/4/2012 @ 8:23 amSpeaking of swatting “recipients”, all the best to you and yours. A friend of mine once said (probably not original with him) that “Evil always overplays its hand”, such as Hitler into Russia. May you prevail, sooner than later.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 10/4/2012 @ 8:38 amNews of some D-list celebrity SWATting him/herself for the sake of publicity in 3 . . . 2 . . .
Icy (537b0c) — 10/4/2012 @ 8:51 amHere’s what I’m not getting. The LA County DA has one of its deputy DAs “swatted.” Could’ve been perpetrated by anybody, at least in theory, including by gang members, by other organized crime elements, or by any other disgruntled and possibly psycho criminal defendant looking for payback. Why isn’t getting to the bottom of this at least a serious if not priority issue for the DA and other county/state law enforcement officials? You’d think they’d be all over this.
G Joubert (1e4174) — 10/4/2012 @ 10:13 amWell, they have priorities more associated with hyping revenue to their cash-strapped entities that demand enhanced enforcement of the various codes that usually result in a large fine, but not jail time. There is no room in the county lock-up what with all of the felons being transferred out of the state’s system to comply with the Federal Court’s demand that system occupancy be reduced.
That no “visible” action has been taken to apprehend Patterico’s swatter is beyond disgust.
But, all we have to do is look at the example being set by our vaunted Department of Justice in DC on the setting of priorities:
Black Panthers plead guilty – case dismissed;
Citizens vote to protect the franchise from fraud – States sued to allow mystery voting.
Hope & Change – Hope & Change!
AD-Restore the Republic/Obama Sucks! (b8ab92) — 10/4/2012 @ 11:05 amIf they called a teletext service, there may be a discoverable voiceprint.
htom (412a17) — 10/4/2012 @ 3:20 pmTwo. Mrs. P. was home too. She is a Deputy DA.
Patterico (3a54cc) — 10/4/2012 @ 5:28 pmGood luck
EPWJ (2a58f7) — 10/4/2012 @ 6:27 pmPatterico, what I have to say about that wouldn’t be appropriate on your blog. Wish I could talk you into moving out here to a sane, non-third world, state.
SPQR (ba4683) — 10/4/2012 @ 6:31 pmSo lets say I am raking up leaves and some armored clown suits show up screaming conflicting commands.
And I decide to let the dumb asses get their stuff together and no, I am not sucking dirt because they want to yell nonsense at me. And I get shot?
Thanks Mr Anon.
SteveG (831214) — 10/4/2012 @ 8:42 pmI think the county justifiably put its faith in the FBI to do a serious investigation of what I see as attempted murder, across state lines, of political targets and their families.
And sadly, that serious investigation did not happen. Because of that failure, more innocent people have been targeted by the same thugs who aspire to be terrorists.
I worry that this will escalate to the point of real tragedy, and if that happens, there will be accountability for those who did not do what they could to reign in these criminals.
Dustin (73fead) — 10/4/2012 @ 9:32 pmI worry that when that tragedy happens, there will NOT be accountability for those who neglected to reign in the criminals.
htom (412a17) — 10/4/2012 @ 9:37 pmWhat we really need is a “loser pays” system like the one in England. If certain people & their attorneys had to pay the court costs and the legal expenses of those whom they sue, these political prosecutions would no longer be an effective tactic.
Michael M. Keohane (a337f6) — 10/5/2012 @ 4:00 amDustin, until Obama came along, the FBI was the most overhyped bunch of incompetents with good PR. Obama pushed them to number two and comet Kohoutek to three.
SPQR (ba4683) — 10/5/2012 @ 8:15 am