What is "swatting"

n. 1 A motion or gesture that swats; a swat. 2 (context lang=en slang) The action of making an illegitimate call to the police so as to have a SWAT team dispatched to a location. vb. (present participle of swat English)

1. n. a sharp blow

2. [also: swatting, swatted]

1. v. hit swiftly with a violent blow; "Swat flies"

2. [also: swatting, swatted]

See swat

Swatting is the act of deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police and 911 response team to another person's address, based on the false reporting of a serious law enforcement emergency, such as a bomb threat, murder, hostage-taking or other alleged incident. The term derives from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), a specialized type of police unit in the United States and many other countries carrying military-style equipment such as door breaching weapons, submachine guns and assault rifles.

Swatting has been associated with online harassment campaigns, and episodes range from small events to large incidents, from a single fabricated police report meant to discredit an individual as a prank or personal vendetta the deployment of bomb squads, heavily-armed SWAT units and other police units and the concurrent evacuations of schools and businesses.

Swatting has been described as terrorism due to its potential to cause disruption, waste the time of emergency services, divert attention from real emergencies and possibly cause a risk of injuries and psychological harm to the persons targeted and for the first responders. Swatting is linked to the action of doxxing, which is obtaining and broadcasting, often via the Internet, the address and details of an individual with an intent to harrass or endanger them. Making false reports to emergency services is punishable by prison sentences in the U.S. and is a crime in many other countries.