467
submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] pl_woah@lemmy.ml 22 points 10 months ago

I'm inclined to believe the local PD knows the addresses of officials.. So they let this happen on purpose.

[-] Wolf_359@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

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.

[-] WoahWoah@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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?

[-] rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

They can't just ignore emergency calls because they think it might be a prank.

this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023
467 points (98.1% liked)

News

23296 readers
2319 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS