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On Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was again the victim of a swatting call at her north Georgia home. This call, however, had a lethal difference: an officer was involved in a crash in rushing to the scene to join the bomb squad. A woman was killed. The incident will trigger a new Georgia law on swatting and raise questions over legal responsibility for such lethal consequences from such crimes.
Greene has been a victim of swatting at least nine times. On this occasion, the caller made a bomb threat.
The police department received the threat entitled “For Palestine” and ended with “VIVA, VIVA PALESTINA.”
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The police department reported that:
“On Monday December 9, a Rome Police Department officer was traveling in a personal vehicle en route to take his place with the Bomb Squad on a call. This officer was involved in a traffic accident on Redmond Rd near Walmart, which has created significant travel delays around the Norfolk Southern Railroad Tracks.”
Georgia’s new swatting law just came into effect on July 1st. It raised the crime for a first offender from a misdemeanor to a felony. The law was drafted by legislators who were motivated by the continuing swatting threats made against Greene.
A massive swatting operation was the subject of two federal indictments recently of two foreign nationals. I was allegedly one of their victims.
In many ways, swatting is a crime that embodies our Age of Rage. It is a way to harass and potentially cause serious injury to people you dislike or detest. Whether targeting public figures in general or targeting victims over ideology, it is all rage that seeks to use the police as a vehicle for harassment.
For some, even stories on swatting become irresistible opportunities to vent against the victims or even to make bizarre attacks on conservative legal theory. As discussed earlier, the liberal gotcha site, Above the Law, covered my swatting with the usual ad hominem attacks while adding a truly unhinged spin. Senior Editor Joe Patrice (who has defended “predominantly liberal faculties” and not hiring conservative or libertarian law professors) insisted that swatting is somehow the fault of gun owners, Second Amendment advocates, and “edgy” police:
“Swatting is a byproduct of a nation awash in more and more powerful weapons and more and more edgy cops. And that makes these false police reports regrettably a manifestation of our age of failing to confront the disconnect between the text and history of the Second Amendment and the lazy ahistorical interpretation of this Supreme Court.”
Bomb threats like the one in Georgia have long been a favorite for disrupting schools and other targeting sites. With this tragic death, the question is whether the Georgia prosecutors will charge the culprit beyond the new felony.
Some swatters have been convicted in the past of making a false report resulting in death.
Now that swatting is a felony for first offenders, there is also the possibility of felony murder. Under the Georgia code, “A person commits the offense of murder when, in the commission of a felony, he or she causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice.”
In auto accidents of this type, prosecutors have generally not charged felony murder, particularly an accident with a third party. However, prosecutors could seek to ratchet up the charges in light of the loss of life. In the very least, the tragic cost of this crime would likely weigh heavily in any sentencing.
The law includes up to five years in prison for the first offense and up to fifteen years for a third offense. It also provides for restitution for any monetary losses by responding agencies.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”