‘I just shot my mom’: A genre analysis of swatting calls

Previous research has examined how callers and call-takers use linguistic resources to negotiate requests in emergency calls and has identified differences in calls where callers are being deceptive. However, no scholars have yet examined the discourse of swatting calls or emergency calls wherein an individual fabricates an emergency to inspire an armed police response in the form of a ‘Special Weapons and Tactics’ (SWAT) team. The current study addresses these gaps in a genre-based discourse analysis of caller moves and steps in a sample of 15 calls. We show how swatting callers use specific rhetorical moves (e.g. mentioning vulnerable victims, threatening future violence) that take advantage of police deployment prioritization protocols to escalate the urgency of their fictitious emergencies. Consequently, this study improves scholarly understanding of linguistic features used to request help in dangerous situations and introduces potential avenues for law enforcement to better identify ‘swatting’ calls in the future.