Toronto woman who was 'swatted' profiled in the New York Times

One morning last winter, police officers decked out in riot gear, guns drawn,showed up at ahouse inToronto.The family living there had no idea they were coming, and had done nothing to provoke that kind of visit.

Nothing, that is, except that their daughter was one of many people in Canada and the U.S. who'd fallen victim to an online abuserwho engaged in a practice known as "swatting."

That's when someone tricks police into sending heavily-armed officers to a person's home.

The background to that incident and what came next is detailed in apieceheadlined The Serial Swatter, in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine.

U.S. journalist Jason Fagonesaid he wrote the piece because he found the story "astounding."

When he first heard of swatting, hethought of itas a mostly harmless hoax. But he said what's really happening is that the perpetrator is trying to do everything possibleto summon the largest possible police response and create maximum confusion.

He saw an online article about the trial of theteenagerswatting dozens of people across North America over a two-year period. The teen pleaded guilty in the spring to 23 charges related to hoaxes that resulted in police SWAT teams responding to fake emergency calls.The charges included extortion, harassment and public mischief.

The incidents were aimed at two dozenmostly femalefansof the gameLeague of Legends.

The casestuck with Fagone, but he neverfound anyreally deepreportingabout it.

"First really important thing to understand is it's much more than a prank.There's incredible risk to everyone involved," saidFagoneof swatting.

"If [police] have bad information, there's a real risk of a tragic misunderstanding. Eventually somebody is going to die in one of these."

Police response 'disturbing'

"One of the really disturbing things was that law enforcement didn't see it as a serious problem for a long time. Over and over, the women ... would say that police would talk to them but wouldn't understand, sometimes wouldsuggest maybe they were doing something to bring it on," Fagonesaid.

"This guy really devoted himself to destroying people's lives, and there was nothing police were doing to stop it."

A crack in the case came whenthe female victimsbanded together andshared information. They attempted to find a sympathetic detective, and gave him all the evidence they could.

Of all police the group of victimsspoke to, a detectivein Georgia was the only one who really seemed to understand what was going on, and wanted to do something about it, Fagone said. That detectiveeventually got the FBI to persuadeCanadian police to the arrest the teenager, who can't be named under Canada's Youth Criminal Justice Actoffenders.Fagone said it wasa casepolicedidn't want to take on.

"Absolutely any cop can do a swatting investigation. This guy barely had any technical know-how but was able to follow the trail," he said. "To this day, I don't know why Canadian police treated this perp so leniently, in the investigation and then in thetrial.Canadian police knew about him all along, and did nothing until the last minute."

When contacted by CBC News,Toronto Police declined to comment on the issue.

Undeterred from gaming

Besides his critique of the Canadian authorities, Fagone focused the story on a woman from Toronto.

Many of the victims, including the one Fagone profiled, broadcast themselves playing video gameson a site called Twitch. There is a substantial audience for streaming gameplay on the site, and sometimes users can make money doing it.

The swatter wasextorting the women on Twitch. Hewas hacking the female Twitch users at first, usingDDOS attacks, calling their ISPs as an imposter to get their personal info. Then he moved to swatting.

According toFagone'sarticle, the second time the female victimwas swatted, she said one officer told her to"just pick up a book."

"The sad thing about this guy and his attacks and how police responded is that she and others were really good at using Twitch, imagining and hoping to have a life in games, and this guy succeeded in destroying that," said Fagone.

The subject of the piece, though, is back playing games, and backon Twitch. Other women who were targeted are also active on the site again.Fagone called that encouraging.

"They went back on Twitch, they didn't want this guy to win," he said.