The City of Milwaukee has agreed to pay a large settlement to author Patrick S. Tomlinson and his wife, Niki Robinson, to resolve a lawsuit they filed in 2024 over multiple instances of swatting: “Robinson v. City of Milwaukee, 2:24-cv-00264”.

Tomlinson and his wife have been the victims of dozens of swatting calls—fake emergency calls that prompt real police responses. Swatting is an online harassment scheme that involves people reporting false claims to police, such as a murder or a hostage situation, at their address.

They allege their civil rights have been violated, and the city should have known their home was an intentional target. The court found there were violations but dismissed the individual claims because the officers were granted qualified immunity. But the suit against the city remained.

Now the city has agreed to pay the $575,000 settlement for not properly training 20 officers involved.

For years, Tomlinson and his wife had been swatted for bomb threats, assassinations, kidnapping children, hostage situations, mass shootings, and murders.

The Milwaukee Police Department was aware of the false reports, yet officers continued to show up to the couple’s home and search it for threats throughout 2022 and 2023, sometimes with guns drawn, the lawsuit said. In total, police were dispatched to the couple’s home 45 times over the span of two years.

The city has admitted that police knew the couple was being targeted with false emergency calls, according to court records. It has also admitted that officers held Tomlinson at gunpoint, detained and handcuffed him during at least one response.

However, the city denies those searches were illegal.

A CBS58 news report shows police refused to flag Tomlinson’s address as a target of swatting:

…For years, Tomlinson begged for MPD to flag his address for any future calls, telling us, “It has led to deaths. People have been killed this way.”

Court documents show police often agreed.

On one call, an officer said, “Luckily, we already kind of know this is an ongoing thing, because if we didn’t, this could end up with this guy dead.”

One officer sent a memo asking that the home be marked as a “Swatter House” in MPD’s dispatch system. A supervisor declined.

An officer said he “thought the call might be fake;” another “would later testify that he knew there wasn’t an emergency,” another said, “We know. We know,” when told the address should be flagged.

The house was not flagged, and the swatting worsened after our interview.

One officer raced to respond to one call, even though he had responded the day before to the first of four swatting calls. 

The complaint filed in the 2024 lawsuit said in part:

16. Niki and Patrick live in a constant state of fear, worried that the next encounter they have with the police will be their last.

17. Every knock on the door or police car that drives by leaves them terrified that they are about to be staring down an officer’s gun or that they will be paraded outside in handcuffs to their further humiliation.

18. This lawsuit seeks to end the madness and vindicate the violation of Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. It seeks to effect change through punitive damages by punishing the Defendants for their egregious conduct with the hope that the punishment is significant enough to prevent this from happening again in the future…

In order to make the payment, the city will have to increase its budget for litigation settlements. The city expects that to take about 90 days, meaning the settlement could be finalized in mid-August.

[Thanks to Eric Hildeman for the story.]