On Sept. 30, The New York Times published a story about a Milwaukee couple whose home was swatted 55 times in three years. If you listen to PRETEND, you already know them. Their names are Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson, and I spent a good chunk of 2023 on their case for a four-part series called “The Pests.”
A lot has happened since that last episode. The couple sued the City of Milwaukee, a federal judge found that police repeatedly violated their constitutional rights, and the city agreed to pay them $575,000. Today, the Milwaukee Common Council is holding a public hearing on how its police handle swatting. So I put together a full timeline of the case, and I want to walk you through how I reported it and what I still can’t answer.
How did a Norm Macdonald tweet lead to 55 swatting calls?
I had just wrapped a stalking case that took me two years to investigate, and I told myself I was done with stalker stories for a while. Then I heard what was happening to Patrick and Niki, and that previous case suddenly looked like child’s play.
It all traces back to September 2018, when Patrick tweeted that he had never found Norm Macdonald funny. I happen to think Norm is one of the greats, but I’ve never wanted to ruin a guy’s life over it. Somebody did. Within days, a flood of coordinated reports got Patrick’s Twitter account suspended, and he spent about 11 months off the platform. Someone later paid Norm through Cameo to read a script telling “Patrick’s friends” to keep insulting him. Norm had no idea what he was being used for.
Then the police started showing up. In May 2020, a fake Craigslist ad with Patrick’s name, phone number and home address claimed he had harmed children. A caller used that ad to send officers to his door, and the first thing they asked was where the children were. By July 2022, the calls had turned violent. Officers handcuffed Patrick on his own porch at 1 a.m. while his bathrobe fell open, and that was about two weeks after he called his police district to warn them this exact thing was coming.
When I sat down with Patrick and Niki, they had been swatted 39 times in 10 months. One day it happened four times, and Patrick’s parents, who live two hours away, got a visit too. A bomb threat that used Patrick’s name shut down a Patti LaBelle concert in downtown Milwaukee. I’ve covered a lot of strange cases, but I had never met a couple who had police guns pointed at them this many times.
What did the other side say?
Patrick and Niki believe the people behind this come from an online forum built by fans of the old Opie and Anthony radio show, a crowd who called themselves the Pests. I spent a lot of time poking around those message boards, and I won’t sugarcoat it. Most of what I found there was cruel, and much of it was about Patrick and Niki.
But I don’t take anyone’s word as gospel, including the people I sympathize with. Before the series even hit my main feed, someone on the forum got hold of the audio and posted it, and it drew more than 700 replies. A few days later, the forum’s anonymous administrator emailed me and asked whether I’d hear his side. I said yes and sent him questions. He told me in writing that nobody on the forum was involved in the swatting, that he had never called police on Patrick, and that anyone who encouraged it would be banned. I also interviewed a longtime forum member who told me he condemned the swatting and was “supremely confident” it didn’t come from the forum.
I put those answers on the air, and I pushed Patrick just as hard. He doesn’t make himself easy to defend. He debates strangers on Twitter, and his replies to people who disagree with him are combative and dismissive. To nearly every harassing message, he fires back the same canned line: “Your life is already over, stalker. Enjoy prison.”
Even his friends see it. Eric Hildeman, who started the Milwaukee Science Fiction and Fantasy League and became a target himself after defending Patrick online, told me, “He is a self-described rabble rouser. This is very true, and he says a lot of things that are acerbic, and acidic even.”
When I asked Patrick why he keeps engaging, he didn’t budge. “Because they don’t get to set the narrative,” he said. “They don’t get to go out here and tell lies about us every day and try and ruin our reputations.” Some of my listeners were also put off by video of him cursing out officers outside his house. That was the fourth swatting of the day and the 27th overall, and Patrick didn’t apologize for it. “I’m a human being,” he told me. “I have emotions, and my frustrations boiled over.”
Eric made a point that stuck with me. He said the people who claim Patrick eggs them on are using the same logic as anyone who blames a victim for provoking the crime. I agree with him. Patrick picks fights online, but that doesn’t mean he deserves any of this, and no amount of snark on Twitter justifies sending armed officers to a man’s house at 1 a.m. As of today, no one has been charged with making these calls, and I’m not going to point a finger that the evidence can’t hold up.
What happened after “The Pests” ended?
At the end of “The Pests,” I told you I had no idea how this would end. Since then, the story has moved from the message boards to a federal courtroom.
In February 2024, Patrick and Niki sued the City of Milwaukee and 20 members of its police department. Their argument was that the city knew their house was a swatting target and never built any policy, training or safeguard to deal with it. According to the lawsuit, police briefed officers on the couple’s history in 2022. Even so, the department chose not to flag the address over worries about officer “complacency,” according to a lieutenant’s email in the court record. Around the time the couple filed suit, the calls finally eased up.
U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller found that officers repeatedly violated the couple’s Fourth Amendment rights, though he dismissed the individual officers under qualified immunity. In May 2026, the city attorney recommended a $575,000 settlement, and the Common Council approved it. The city says that settlement isn’t an admission of liability.
In Part 3, Patrick told me that a swatting-for-hire caller known as “Torswats” had been hitting their house for months. He said someone impersonating him on Telegram was paying for the calls in cryptocurrency. In November 2024, WIRED reported that authorities believe a California teenager named Alan Filion operated as Torswats. Filion pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to more than 375 swatting calls made between August 2022 and January 2024, and the Justice Department announced a 48-month prison sentence in February 2025. Neither WIRED nor the Justice Department connects Filion to Patrick and Niki’s case.
We still don’t know who made these calls. The FBI opened an investigation in 2022, and the Times reports that the bureau just handed the case to a new agent. Nobody has been charged, and swatting still has no single federal law of its own. Patrick told me back in 2023 that this only ends when someone takes it seriously enough to find these people and arrest them. Three years later, that hasn’t happened.
I built the timeline below so you can see how the whole thing unfolded, from a single tweet in 2018 to a city council hearing today. Every entry links to a court filing, a news report or the PRETEND episode where Patrick and Niki told me about it. If you haven’t heard “The Pests” yet, start with Part 1, and fair warning: the language is rough. I don’t plan to return to this case on the show unless something big happens, like an arrest. If that day comes, you’ll hear about it here first.
The Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson Case: A Timeline
Overview
A single 2018 tweet about comedian Norm Macdonald preceded years of anonymous harassment against Milwaukee author Patrick S. Tomlinson and his wife, Niki Robinson. Hoaxers called police to their home 55 times over three years with false reports of murders, hostage situations and shootings. In 2026, the City of Milwaukee agreed to pay the couple $575,000 to settle their federal civil rights lawsuit.
The harassment went beyond swatting. Trolls flooded Tomlinson’s book reviews with one-star ratings, called in bomb threats to a Brewers game the couple attended, and posted Craigslist ads inviting strangers to take their belongings. They also made assassination threats against politicians in the couple’s names.
This timeline draws only on court filings and published news reports. It names no suspects, because no one has been charged in connection with the calls or the harassment.
Timeline
| Date | What happened | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Sept. 11, 2018 | Tomlinson posts: “Hot take: I’ve never found Norm Macdonald funny and was pretty sure all my comedy friends who did were either nuts or screwing with me.” An anonymous harassment campaign follows. | The New York Times |
| Sept. 2018 to 2019 | A wave of coordinated reports gets Tomlinson’s Twitter account suspended. He is off the platform for about 11 months, until lawyers get it restored, according to Tomlinson. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 1 and Part 4 (2023) |
| 2019 | A harasser pays Macdonald through Cameo to read a script urging “Patrick’s friends” to keep insulting him. Macdonald is unaware of the campaign. The couple say the video spurred the harassers on. | The New York Times, File 770 |
| 2019 | The couple file hundreds of copyright takedown notices against posts using their photos and Tomlinson’s book covers. Reddit later bans the forum where much of the harassment was organized, the couple say. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 1 (2023) |
| 2019 | The couple first report threats from online harassers to the Milwaukee Police Department’s District 1. | Wisconsin Law Journal |
| May 2020 | A fake Craigslist ad, posted under Tomlinson’s name, phone number and home address, falsely claims he has harmed children. A caller cites it to police, and officers come to the door demanding to know “where the children are.” It is the first police response to the home. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 2 (2023) |
| Nov. 2020 | After a fire at a bar the couple frequent, a caller tells police he saw Tomlinson running from it. Officers visit the home that night. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 2 (2023) |
| 2021 | Tomlinson files a John Doe lawsuit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court (case 2021CV000500), naming about 60 anonymous defendants. He seeks to force a web host to disclose IP addresses and account records. | The New York Times, Trellis court records |
| June 16, 2021 | In California, an anonymous respondent moves to quash Tomlinson’s subpoena for identifying information. His attorney files an opposition. | Trellis court records |
| 2021 | The court rules that the site’s operator cannot be forced to reveal its users’ identities, citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It orders Tomlinson to pay the operator’s attorney’s fees. | The New York Times, PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 3 and Part 4 (2023) |
| Sept. 2021 | Norm Macdonald dies. The harassment continues. | The New York Times |
| July 2022 | At 1 a.m., officers handcuff Tomlinson, who is naked, and order him out of the home at gunpoint. About two weeks earlier, he had warned District 1 that harassers were threatening to swat them, and Robinson had alerted the FBI. The swatting campaign escalates from here. | The New York Times, PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 2 (2023) |
| July or Aug. 2022 | Two weeks later, officers order Robinson outside at gunpoint and search the home without a warrant, according to the couple’s lawsuit. | The New York Times |
| 2022 | The FBI opens an investigation. Milwaukee police brief officers on the couple’s history, but a lieutenant decides not to flag the address, citing concerns about “complacency.” | The New York Times |
| Oct. 1, 2022 | A tactical team responds to the home again. It is the sixth armed response in two years and the fourth in two months. | iHeart |
| Dec. 10, 2022 | A bomb threat stops Patti LaBelle’s concert at Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater two songs in, and the theater is evacuated. A detective later tells the couple the caller used Tomlinson’s name. Their home had already been swatted twice that day. | The Washington Post, PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 3 (2023) |
| Spring 2023 | In one day, police come to the home four times, the 27th response overall. Tomlinson’s parents, who live two hours away, are swatted the same day. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 4 (2023) |
| April 2023 | After seven swatting calls in 36 hours, a sergeant orders officers to kick in the door when Robinson declines to come to it. Five days later, he responds to another false call at the home. | Wisconsin Law Journal, PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 3 (2023) |
| Spring 2023 | A bomb threat follows the Milwaukee Brewers’ home opener, which the couple attend every year. | The New York Times, PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 3 (2023) |
| Mid-2023 | After 39 calls in 10 months, a District 1 sergeant begins calling the couple and driving by instead of coming to the door. They later report a month with no swatting and a direct line to police. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 2 and Part 4 (2023) |
| 2023 | PRETEND releases “The Pests,” a four-part series on the case, with interviews with the couple. | PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 (2023) |
| February 2024 | The couple sue the City of Milwaukee and 20 police department members in federal court (Robinson v. City of Milwaukee, 2:24-cv-00264). They allege the city failed to create anti-swatting policies or training. The calls ease considerably around this time, after 55 in three years. | The New York Times, File 770 |
| May 1, 2024 | An amended complaint names individual police officers as defendants. | File 770 |
| Before May 2026 | In pretrial motions, U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller finds that police repeatedly violated the couple’s constitutional rights. He dismisses the individual officers under qualified immunity; the claims against the city continue. | The New York Times, Wisconsin Law Journal |
| May 7, 2026 | City Attorney Evan Goyke recommends a $575,000 settlement. The city says it is not an admission of liability. | Wisconsin Law Journal, The New York Times |
| June 2026 | The Milwaukee Common Council approves the settlement. The couple ask police to adopt procedures for recognizing swatting calls. | The New York Times, TMJ4 |
| Sept. 2026 | The FBI tells the couple a new agent will handle its investigation. No one has been charged. | The New York Times |
| Oct. 1, 2026 | The Common Council’s Public Safety and Health Committee holds a public hearing on how police handle swatting cases. | The New York Times |
Sources
- 55 Swatting Calls: A Couple’s Fight Against Online Stalkers and the Police, Adeel Hassan, The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2026
- Norm Macdonald obituary, The New York Times, Sept. 14, 2021
- Milwaukee to pay $575K to settle swatting lawsuit, Wisconsin Law Journal, May 20, 2026
- Milwaukee couple swatted 55 times calls for policy change after $575K settlement, TMJ4
- Milwaukee Settles Swatting Lawsuit Brought By Patrick S. Tomlinson and Wife, File 770
- Pixel Scroll 5/8/24, File 770
- Patrick S. Tomlinson archive, File 770
- S.W.A.T. Team Shows Up At Milwaukee Couple’s Home Six Times In Two Years, iHeart, Oct. 6, 2022
- Bomb threat disrupts Patti LaBelle concert in Wisconsin, The Washington Post, Dec. 11, 2022
- Declaration in opposition to motion to quash, June 16, 2021, Trellis
- PRETEND, “The Pests,” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 (2023), interviews with Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson
Frequently asked questions
Who are Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson?
Patrick S. Tomlinson is a science fiction author in Milwaukee, and Niki Robinson is his wife, who runs a marketing agency from home. Anonymous harassers targeted the couple for years after Patrick posted a 2018 tweet saying he never found Norm Macdonald funny.
How many times were Patrick Tomlinson and Niki Robinson swatted?
The New York Times reports that police were called to their home 55 times over three years on false emergency reports. The calls escalated in July 2022 and eased considerably in early 2024.
What is swatting?
Swatting is making a false emergency call, such as a fake shooting or hostage report, to send armed police to someone's home. In this case, callers reported murders, hostage situations and shootings that never happened.
How much did Milwaukee pay to settle the swatting lawsuit?
The City of Milwaukee agreed to pay the couple $575,000, and the Common Council approved the settlement in 2026. The city says the settlement is not an admission of liability.
Has anyone been charged in the Tomlinson swatting case?
No one had been charged as of September 2026, according to The New York Times. The FBI opened an investigation in 2022 and recently assigned the case to a new agent.
Who is Torswats?
Torswats is the online name of a swatting-for-hire caller. WIRED reported in 2024 that authorities believe a California teenager named Alan Filion operated as Torswats, and he was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison in 2025. Neither WIRED nor the Justice Department ties him to this case.
Where can I listen to "The Pests"?
"The Pests" is a four-part 2023 series from PRETEND, and you can find every episode at thisispretend.com.