Swatting

What this is

Swatting is a fake emergency call, usually reporting an armed hostage situation, a domestic with a weapon, or a bomb threat, placed to a target's home address. The goal is to send an armed police response to a location where no real threat exists, hoping the response itself causes injury or death.

People have died in swatting incidents. Andrew Finch was shot and killed by responding police in Wichita in 2017. Mark Herring died of a heart attack during a swatting in Tennessee in 2020. The pattern is consistent: a real address, a fake call, a real armed response.

The address always comes from somewhere, most often a data broker. The swatter usually doesn't know you. In a typical case they pull your name from a forum, look it up on a people-search site, and copy the address off the broker page before they call.

Why first responders catch this more

Officers are swatted in retaliation for arrests, in response to high-profile cases, by defendants and their networks, and by online harassment campaigns that escalate from doxxing. The address is usually pulled from a broker page, the same source that feeds doxxing.

Swatting carries a danger specific to the job. You could be the responding officer to a swatting at someone else's house, or you could be the target. The same broker page can produce either outcome.

What we sweep that prevents the chain

Swatting depends on the swatter knowing your home address. Take that address off the broker pages and the swatter has to work harder to find you. Sometimes that is enough for them to pick a different target.

We file opt-outs across the major broker sites, then keep checking and re-file when your listing reappears. Frontline Privacy Pro covers the household the same way: your spouse, your parents, and adult kids who live with you, up to five people. Broker pages link family members together, so clearing one listing helps clear the others.

If you've already been swatted, see the swatting recovery checklist for what to do, in order.