A Milwaukee science fiction writer has revealed he has been ‘swatted’ by armed police six times after online trolls targeted him over a tweet about a comedian.
Patrick Tomlinson told how officers have repeatedly turned up at his house over the last two years after he said he did not think Norm MacDonald was funny.
He said it started in 2020 after the social media post but escalated this year as SWAT were called on him four times in three months over the summer.
He also shared shocking surveillance footage of heavily armed cops with weapons drawn and ballistic shields sneaking up to his home during the incidents.
Tomlinson claimed the anonymous trolls were going after him in a bid to ‘trick cops into being their executioners’.
Patrick Tomlinson says internet trolls have called SWAT teams to his house six times since he sent out a tweet saying he didn’t find the comedian Norm MacDonald funny
In one swatting incident, somebody impersonating Tomlinson called police to say that he had found his wife in bed with another man and shot them both dead with an AR-15. Cops cuffed him on his porch while they searched his house
The swatting, when trolls call in phony reports to police so they dispatch armed officers to an address, started when he tweeted his dislike for MacDonald.
He posted on September 11, 2018: ‘Hot take, I’ve never thought Norm Macdonald was funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me.’
Tomlinson said since then he has had death threats online and the swatting incidents were the latest attempt by trolls to scare him.
He told : ‘It never stops. This is all these people are.’
The latest swatting incident took place on Saturday evening when his wife, Nikki Robinson, was home alone.
Armed cops descend on Tomlinson’s house on October 1 — the latest and sixth time such a hoax has occurred
The infamous 2018 tweet which set a horde of anonymous trolls harassing Tomlinson and his wife
‘It was at least like, four guns and the ballistic shield pointed at me,’ she said, ‘I was coming down the stairs going, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK.’
Tomlinson said he believes the trolls — who have regularly called for his death on online forums, and called in death threats to events where he speaks — are calling in the swatting pranks in hopes he will be killed in one of the raids.
‘It’s a way to try and trick the police into being your executioners,’ Tomlinson said. ‘You don’t have to keep doing the bidding of the people whose stated goal is to kill us.’
The first incident of swatting took place in May, 2020, after cops were notified of a Craigslist posting which suggested children were in danger at Tomlinson’s home.
‘We got a very angry banging at the door,’ Tomlinson, describing how armed police shouting ‘Where are the children?’ descended on his home at about 11pm at night.
In another incident, Tomlinson told that somebody impersonating him called police to say that he had found his wife in bed with another man and shot them both dead with an AR-15.
‘Used my name. Used this address. Said that I had just killed my wife and, come get me. And they did,’ he said.
In that incident, Tomlinson was pulled from his bed in the middle of the night by officers, and left cuffed on his front porch in nothing but a bathrobe while cops searched his home.
The swatting has become so rampant that Tomlinson have posted a sign on their front door reading ‘Days since this house has been SWATTED by the MPD,’ followed by a Link Slot Gacor Hari Ini for a sticky-note which they update daily with the appropriate number.
The latest swatting incident took place on Saturday evening when his wife, Nikki Robinson, was home alone
Tomlinson has tried numerous legal avenues to stop the trolls who have tormented him for four years, but each route has landed in a dead end.
In 2021 he filed a petition to subpoena the person who runs the Cloudfare — which is home base for the anonymous legions of trolls who harass him and his wife — in order to learn their identity so he could press charges.
But in September 2021, a judge in California ruled in favor of the organizer of the blog, arguing the unnamed John Doe did not participate in the conversations taking place on their site.
‘There was no evidence that the forum owner themselves personally posted defamatory statements on the platform about Tomlinson,’ the ruling read.
Without a name, Tomlinson was unable to press any charges. He was also ordered to pay the unnamed individual nearly $40,000 to cover their legal fees.
‘Let us know who they are and then we’ll be able to do something,’ Tomlinson told . ‘And then we go through the court system and try to find out who they are, and the court system’s like, ‘Oh, not only do you not get to know who they are, even though we know who they are, you owe them almost $40,000.’ You know, I mean, we were doing everything that we were supposed to do!’