Man sentenced for swatting attack against Arlington Islamic Center, other targets
A Virginia man was sentenced Monday for his involvement in multiple swatting attacks, including one against an Islamic center in Arlington.
John William Kirby Kelley, 20, conspired with a former leader of the Atomwaffen Division in Texas, a neo-Nazi organization, to place swatting calls across the country, according to the U.S. Justice Department. He was sentenced to 33 months in prison.
Swatting is a harassment tactic where someone tells emergency dispatchers that a person or group is in imminent danger of death or harm, resulting in dispatchers sending police and emergency services to an unwitting person’s address.
For example, Kelley worked with conspirators to call in a fake bomb threat to his former university, Old Dominion University in Virginia. In response to the bomb threat on Nov. 29, university officials issued a shelter-in-place order and law enforcement searched and cleared every building on campus, according to the Justice Department press release.
Kelley managed the online chatroom where conspirators chose targets and coordinated swatting calls. Many of them held white supremacist views and targeted people or places due to racist motives, including the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in Arlington, Texas, and a Black church in New York, the First Reformed Church, according to the Justice Department.
Those in the chatroom would often listen to audio or watch livestreams of law enforcement responding to the swatting calls for entertainment and brag about successful ploys, according to court documents.
Members placed at least 134 swatting calls across the country. Other targets included journalists at ProPublica and a former U.S. Cabinet member. During his sentencing hearing, Kelley said he does not hold racist views despite his involvement with white supremacist groups.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 11:42 AM.
