Oh,
teens. Teens and their fads, from
Satanism to
vodka-soaked tampons; there is no doubt that being between
13 and 19 means you’re a drunk, sexually active follower of

Lucifer on your way to a rainbow party.

However, the Los Angeles Times would prefer we all
worry about teens prank-calling 911 and getting authorities to send
a SWAT team to an address of their choosing. This, concerned
adults, is known as “SWATing.” And
last week it happened to pre-Justin Bieber tween musical object
of worship, now gay-rights-fan and stoner, Miley Cyrus.

That is undoubtedly a gross waste of resources, as the LA
Times blog notes. What they forget to note is that it could
also kill someone. Reason knows you know many
SWAT/militarization of police horror stories, but the LA
Times seems not to notice that this is a bigger problem than
unruly teens. (Or a bigger problem than
conservative bloggers getting SWATed, which is how the term
came to many people’s attention earlier this summer.)

It quasi-self-aware style,
the LA Times writes:

The thing with SWAT-ting, apparently, is that it’s too easy,
especially for the … … overindulged, bratty, unbearable
kids of today who have way too much free time.

The folks from the site uKnowKids sent
us a handy primer on this devious activity, noting that teens can
easily mask their phone numbers via services such as Spoofcard. This and other apps also
let them change their voices.

This is, then, way too much technology for the LAPD.

Seriously, though: Calling out rifle-toting officers and a
chopper to a celebrity’s house costs money and takes resources away
from other communities.

They also quote an”internet safety expert” who warns:

“Many teens who engage in online gaming, chat rooms or social
media may be at risk. Miley Cyrus and a few politicians have
already been victims of this vengeful act.”

California, perhaps, is less likely to have a moment where a
puzzled, armed homeowner gets taken out by nervous cops. But it has
happened during “legitimate” drug raids in
Florida,
Georgia, and other places. And the teen horrors! element to
this, even if really a trend (which seems dubious, because moral
panics nearly always are), is not the point. Hopefully parents have
taught their 13-plus-year-old that it’s seriously not okay to mess
with emergency services. If they haven’t, that’s a problem already
(and they’re looking at serious punishment if caught), but it’s a
problem made worse with the ease in which SWAT teams are deployed
in the U.S. So why not focus, even a little, on that aspect instead
of hand-wringing over teens and tech? 

Because worrying about teens is just always going to be more fun
than worrying about the police pulling out your tampon during a
strip search after you allegedly
rolled through a stop light. If that womean had been a teen,
perhaps the officers would have just been checking to see if her
tampon were vodka-soaked.

As usual, this is not
new, it’s simply being reported as part of a trend. SWATing
has, according to 911dispatch.com, happened about 65 times in the
past decade. Regular readers need not be reminded that real,
dangerous SWAT raids happen about
150 times a day. Wouldn’t it be great if we could start a moral
panic about that?