My comment was not intended to let swatters of the hook. My point was that the harassment should be called “attempted harassment”, because it should never have been effective, although still punishable.

That’s still harassment - the clear intention was to at best harass and at worst get them killed. You can support more responsible use of force by police while still recognizing that these guys were looking for a weapon to hurt someone and SWATing was the option they chose.

And even if they were not acting in that intention, knowingly calling emergency when there isn't one is a drain on resources that might be needed elsewhere.