Indiana Lawmakers Targeted in Swatting Attacks With No Arrests, Raising Serious Safety and Accountability Concerns

Last year during the redistricting battle, saga, drama, whatever you want to call it, numerous state lawmakers and even some competitors allege that they were victims of swatting attempts. I guess you can say they were victims of swatting attempts, yeah there's no alleged to it, it happened. These lawmakers were targeted. So swatting is a false call made to the authorities by an individual designed to solicit a law enforcement response where no emergency is taking place. Somebody might call and say, hey Fred’s house, Fred is distraught, Fred has a gun, Fred’s threatening to harm himself and his family members. Of course it's not happening, Fred’s not doing any of that, but law enforcement then assumes and leaves in a hurry because they think they have to get there immediately, believing someone may be about to harm themselves or others.

What Swatting Is and Why It Poses a Serious Threat to Public Safety

And sometimes it can, and it has culminated in injury or even death to the person who’s not doing anything wrong because law enforcement enters with urgency, concerned that people could be harmed in the house. And last year there were numerous reports, electronic or verbal, involving lawmakers, a lot of them senators or House members, who were going to vote or did vote against redistricting, where the reports were this person is distraught, this person is going to harm themselves, this person is going to harm their family.

Indiana Lawmakers Targeted During Redistricting Debate With No Suspects Identified

And to this point no one has been apprehended, no one has been brought to justice, and really since the first of the year we haven’t even heard updates on what’s going on. We haven’t been given any sort of status, even though state police were supposedly handling it. You haven’t had the State Police Superintendent or the governor come out and say here’s where we’re at, here’s what’s going on, here are the suspects. My question is how is that possible. How is it that this happened over and over and over again to elected officials and no one’s been apprehended, no one’s been brought to justice, no persons of interest have been revealed. Are these people who did this that good, that over and over they left no digital footprint, nothing that can trace them.

Lack of Updates Raises Questions About State Police Investigation and Transparency

With what happened to the president over the weekend it got me thinking that it’s very odd that we’ve not received any updates on this when you had numerous state lawmakers targeted. Let’s just call it what it really was, an attempt on their life or a threat on their life. The goal of swatting is to get law enforcement to engage at a house with a person who’s not doing anything wrong. It’s a serious crime, it’s a dangerous crime, and we don’t treat it seriously enough in this state. Somebody very easily could have gotten seriously hurt, and my question is if you’re one of these lawmakers that this happened to, why aren’t you screaming about this. Why aren’t you demanding answers publicly. The time for handling this quietly behind the scenes is over with. We’re five or six months on from this now. People’s lives were put in danger. Why aren’t they demanding answers. We deserve to know what the status of this is when our lawmakers are being threatened. We deserve to know.