Update: ‘Mistake,’ not ‘malicious intent’ behind robocall incident, Sacramento police say
Police warned residents of an apparent robocall scam impersonating the Sacramento Police Department early Monday, but later said they determined the source of the calls and “determined that there was no malicious intent.”
The department had originally tweeted, just after 10:30 a.m., “Sac PD is aware of a ‘robo’ call making its way through the community claiming to be the Sacramento Police Department. The call claims that response times will be extended today. These calls are not from Sac PD and we are looking into the source of these calls.”
About three hours later, the police department tweeted it had identified the source and were working to correct confusion for anyone affected by the robocalls from earlier in the day.
Police spokesman Officer Karl Chan said the calls were determined to have been sent out by a company that “intended for it to be received by a specific population in a different target jurisdiction,” but that it was erroneously sent to Sacramento residents in a way that implied the misinformation about police response times.
“Just a mistake,” Chan said.
In addition to denying the claim of delayed response time for 911 calls, Chan said earlier Monday that if there really was an issue of that nature, this is not how police would notify civilians.
“If it was something that everyone needed to be aware of ... we would officially put something out, not do it through robocalls.”
This story was originally published December 9, 2019 at 11:19 AM.
