911 caller reporting double shooting in Sacramento turns out to be ‘swatting’ hoax
Officers raced to a neighborhood in the Glenwood Meadows section of Sacramento on Friday morning after a 911 caller reported he had shot two people, but police say the call turned out to be a “swatting” hoax.
Sacramento Police Department spokesman Officer Karl Chan said personnel took a “tactical approach” after receiving a call about 1:30 a.m. in which a male caller said he had shot his mother and sister at a home on Yampa Circle. The caller also stated he was armed with a rifle.
Responding officers contacted the residents inside the home, only to “find out that everything was OK,” Chan said. No shooting had occurred.
“Looking at it, it appears to be a hoax call,” Chan said. Police took an incident report and will continue to investigate, he said.
Chan said the hoax was consistent with “swatting,” a relatively new phenomenon and type of prank in which an individual will call authorities and fabricate a serious crime in order “to elicit a high response.”
Chan notes that swatting hasn’t happened often in the department’s jurisdiction, but that advancements in technology making the prank easier has made it slightly more frequent, overall, in recent years.
“It’s not a common occurrence, but it does happen.”
This story was originally published October 18, 2019 at 8:27 AM.
