A California teenager pleaded guilty Wednesday in a case involving the swatting of a Florida mosque among other institutions and individuals, federal prosecutors said.

The FBI says a teen intended to cause as much harm as possible by ‘swatting’ multiple locations.

Alan W. Filion, 18, of Lancaster, California, entered the plea to four counts of making interstate threats to injure the person of another, the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said in a news release. He faces up to five years in prison on each count. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

“For well over a year, Alan Filion targeted religious institutions, schools, government officials, and other innocent victims with hundreds of false threats of imminent mass shootings, bombings and other violent crimes. The US Attorney’s Office said Filion made more than 375 swatting and threat calls from August 2022 to January 2024.

  • Magister@lemmy.world
    22·
    1 month ago

    375… only after 375 calls in 2+ years that they decided to do something?

    Anyway SWAT needs those calls, else they would be fell as useless and their budget cut.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      31·
      1 month ago

      I remember being told if I ever called 911 as a joke, or for something silly, the cops will come to my house and I would get in a ton of trouble.

      Guess I shouldn’t be at all surprised to find out it was just more cop lies.

      • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 month ago

        Oh, they’ll come to your house. And they’ll lecture you about playing with the phone, like they did to my dumbass cousin when she was a kid.

  • villainy@lemmy.world
    14·
    1 month ago

    I lose all sense of moderation or empathy when it comes to swatting. Throw the book at him. Then find another book and throw that one too. Call up the publishers and tell them to get printing, we’re gonna need more books.