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There is no denying it. SWATTING is well past being a trend, a fad, or a nuisance. This act of cyber-terrorism has reached the stage where it is becoming a JANS. JUST ANOTHER NEWS STORY that shows up in our nation’s headlines. While some see this as a harmless prank, it places citizens and law enforcement officials at great risk of casualty or even death.
A December 2017 SWATTING incident in Wichita resulted in a fatal outcome where an uninvolved person, Andrew Finch was mistakenly shot by police who were responding to a report of a dispute with shots fired. The incident was made up, the address reported was incorrect, and a horrible turn of events made this a worst-case scenario.
While it is unfair to make any assumptions without being there and part of the incident, there are some conclusions that can be learned from this, and many other incidents. First, let’s look at ANY violent or critical incident that takes place today.
A minor fender-bender takes place at a busy intersection in Downtown, USA. No injuries occurred, and the involved parties are out ‘discussing’ whose fault it is. Statistically, at least 85% to 90% of the people passing by will have a cellular phone. If even a small percentage of those folks call 9-1-1, it will generate 20 or more calls regarding the incident, maybe more. Out of those calls, some will report it accurately, some will minimize the situation, and some will exaggerate it. The 9-1-1 dispatcher needs to use their good sense and intuition, filtering all of the information being received, the tone of voice, the emotion and make their best guess on priority when assigning the call. They do this based on call, after call, after call, after call.
See the first issue? Multiple calls about a minor traffic accident, compared to a SINGLE CALL in response to gunshots fired in a residential neighborhood. That fact alone should raise suspicion about the call’s legitimacy. Not enough to ignore it, just raise a question.
The second factor is that many SWATTING calls come in through what I would call, ‘non-traditional’ communication methods. 9-1-1 is well recognized worldwide as one of the most recognizable ‘brands’. If you asked 100 people what the emergency number was, all would likely say 9-1-1. Ask them what the 10-digit number of their local police department was, I would be shocked if more than a few people could tell you, and everyone would wonder why? Therefore calls coming in via TTY relay operators for the deaf or hard of hearing, or on administrative lines, or transferred from another agency, or anything other than 9-1-1, when coupled with the fact that it is the ONLY REPORT of a highly visible incident, puts the context into the highly suspicious category. Not enough to ignore, just highly suspicious.
This is where technology, additional training, and past statistics can provide great benefits. Collecting data on a national scale has an excellent chance to reveal common trends, similarities, and the statistical probability of potential outcomes from various incidents that would be of great value in command and control decisions being made.
NBC News reports that to combat the growing problem, the FBI has begun taking formal measures to get a comprehensive picture of the problem on a national level.
Chief Scott Schubert with the bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services headquarters in Clarksburg, West Virginia, says the agency has formed a national online database to facilitate information sharing between hundreds of police departments and law enforcement agencies across the country pertaining to swatting incidents.
By NO MEANS am I advocating fully autonomous RoboCop-style dispatch decision-making authority, I‘ll leave that to my great-grandchildren to socialize, but I am totally advocating for AIR – Artificial Intelligence Recommendations.
Relax; this is no more dangerous than using a popular online tax program to file your simple IRS-1040 each year. It is simply the culmination of logical decisions, derived from statistically accurate source data of the probability of a scenario having a specific outcome. It is a tool that, when coupled with experienced command and control field experience, can assist in taking into consideration all of the localized and geo-political data and information that comes along with a supervisory role; this is no more of a risk than an accountant using a calculator to add numbers. In fact, it is likely a bit safer for all parties.
AI is aiding in making more and more critical decisions each year. As long as the human -factor stays as part of the model, ultimate control won’t be compromised.
Mark J. Fletcher, ENP
VP Public Safety solutions
911inform, LLC
http://www.911inform.com
The World According to Fletch . . . 