2y ago

Maine state official who removed Trump from ballot was targeted in swatting call at her home

A fake emergency call to police resulted in officers responding Friday night to the home of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows just a day after she removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause.

She becomes the latest elected politician to become a target of swatting, which involves making a prank phone call to emergency services with the intent that a large first responder presence, including SWAT teams, will show up at a residence.

Bellows was not home when the swatting call was made, and responding officers found nothing suspicious.

36 comments

Question: what isn’t swatting a punishable act for the person who called?
- Sure, but these folks are masking themselves with spoofed numbers, VPNs, etc.
  
  Then so for an identification or lower the response force. It feels like they just get a random phone call, no proof of anything and they just barge in within 10min. But when my neighbor plays loud music all night no one cares.
- All you need is a VPN and a VOIP number. It's not hard to do and you can order them easily online. Let alone text to voice readers.
  There's a reason why swatting and bomb threats have been popular for a decade now.
  Privacy is a two way street. When it comes to serious threats, the same things that protect you, protect people who would abuse those tools.
  
  That’s my point. It should not be that easy.
- Well, since conservatives are cowards- it’s virtually impossible to catch them because they’ve perfected hiding and/or blaming others for their crimes.
- It is. The problems arise when it's an anonymous phone call. The police are still going to show up to a potential hostage situation if the caller spoofs a number.
- Arguably, the cops knew the address they were going to was a Secretary of State, but they went there anyway.
- Didn't read the article, huh? FAFO with 911, you'll see if it's punishable or not.
More stochastic terrorism. Used to be the political party involved would be tripping over themselves to disavow such actions. Now? 🦗🦗🦗...
Bunch of fucking children, these trumpets.
- Not children, terrorists.
- He's the asshole's candidate. We don't need to politely pretend otherwise.
I believe they meant to say fraudulent phone call and not prank phone call.
I'm inclined to believe the local PD knows the addresses of officials.. So they let this happen on purpose.
- I doubt it. Not a good look for them.
  My guess would be that they took it more seriously since letting something happen to an elected official would be a PR nightmare for them. That, or they knew it could be a hoax but proceeded out of an abundance of caution.
- Yes, they probably do have those addresses. Given this woman has received innumerable threats against her life, and the police called her since she was not at home, and she is the one that asked the police to check inside the home, which they then did, what exactly would you suggest happen? That the police ignore a call that indicated violence occurring at the home of a public official that has credible violent threats leveled against her?
- They can't just ignore emergency calls because they think it might be a prank.
Well, those people have no arguments, so they have to use SWATing instead.
Five bucks says it is someone who has already gotten some infamy for doing things like this in the past like Jacob Wohl.
- You’re on. I say it’s Trump. Or possibly ~~Byron~~ Barron. (edit...lol. we should all just start "who are you again? Duncan?" to trump. probably set his ego off even more than tiny-hands jokes)
  
  Probably some punk named John Barron who I hear many people say has the yugest hands and smells amazing.

36 comments