The Thuggery Continues

Published Sunday, May 27, 2012 A.D. | By Paul Zummo

On Friday I linked to the blogger Patterico’s recounting of his horrific experience of being “SWATted.” Tonight Erick Erickson at Red State was the latest to fall victim to this kind of malicious attack.

Tonight, my family was sitting around the kitchen table eating dinner when sheriffs deputies pulled up in the driveway.

Someone called 911 from my address claiming there had been an accidental shooting.

It wasn’t nearly the trauma that Patterico suffered, but I guess the Erickson household is on somebody’s radar.

Luckily it was two sheriffs deputies who knew me and I had already, last week, advised the Sheriff’s Department to be on the look out for something like this.

This goes well beyond harassment. At some point somebody is going to be killed because of this.

9 Responses to The Thuggery Continues

Foxfier says:

Sunday, May 27, 2012 A.D. at 8:24pm

It might not be done by the same people; once the story got on to national radio, I expected some copy-cats– in this case, it sounds like they wanted to be annoying, not deliberately get him killed. (Accidental vs homicide.)

Still, you’re quite right that someone is going to die as a direct result.
Foxfier says:

Sunday, May 27, 2012 A.D. at 8:25pm

Count-down to false CPS complaints?
Paul Zummo says:

Sunday, May 27, 2012 A.D. at 8:26pm

Erickson has an unlisted number, so it would have to be someone who really wanted to get him and who also had a decent grasp of how to perpetrate such an event. Possibly not the same people, but relatively sophisticated pranksters nonetheless.
Foxfier says:

Sunday, May 27, 2012 A.D. at 8:33pm

I’d correct you to “assailants” and otherwise agree. Pretty sure faking a phone number to call in a false 911 alert is illegal.

Pretty sure unlisted numbers can still be found if someone’s willing to buy an ID service, which there are a depressing number of trolls who will. (Part of why I don’t use my name!)
Dale Price says:

Sunday, May 27, 2012 A.D. at 10:50pm

Anybody ever read any accounts of Spanish politics and society in the half-decade before the Civil War?
Art Deco says:

Monday, May 28, 2012 A.D. at 6:21am

Anybody ever read any accounts of Spanish politics and society in the half-decade before the Civil War?

Yep. Hugh Thomas’ 1st edition of the Spanish Civil War has accounts of Spanish politics during the years running from 1930 to 1936. The disposition of Manuel Azana toward the political opposition as accounted therein (“it is a matter of public health”) has a distressingly contemporary feel. Political violence was pretty chronic from about 1934 onward.
Mary De Voe says:

Monday, May 28, 2012 A.D. at 10:16am

In Ian Fleming’s James Bond, one of the characters in killed with curare poison tipped arrows. “Curare – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster …www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curareDefinition of CURARE: a dried aqueous extract especially of a vine (as Strychnos toxifera of the family Loganiaceae or Chondodendron tomentosum of the family …” The drug leaves no traceable residue making a homicide look like natural death.
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Karl says:

Monday, May 28, 2012 A.D. at 1:12pm

Smells like terroristic activity to me.