Phony 911 Call Leads SWAT to Sleeping Family's Door

The caller on the other end of the 911 line told dispatchers he’d just shot a person inside an Oviedo home with a high-powered rifle.

With no reason to disbelieve the claim, Oviedo Police and several other nearby law enforcement agencies turned out in force around 4 a.m. to what they thought was an active shooter situation, according to WFTV. After several hours of trying to get someone inside the home to come out, police discovered the family inside was sleeping, there hadn’t been a shooting and no one in the home made the call.

As it turns out, Oviedo police – and the sleeping family – were the victims of a crime called “swatting.”

Swatting involves the use of technology to place a call to 911 that’s masked so it appears to be coming from a different number at a different location.

“The individuals who engage in this activity use technology to make it appear that the emergency call is coming from the victim’s phone,” the FBI’s website says about the crime. “Sometimes swatting is done for revenge, sometimes as a prank. Either way, it is a serious crime, and one that has potentially dangerous consequences.”

Swatting first hit the FBI’s radar back in 2008, but cases have been rare in Central Florida, WFTV reported.

The FBI warns that pulling the prank not only isn’t funny, it has the potential to be deadly.

“The victims are scared and taken by surprise,” he said. “(Law enforcement) believe they have a violent subject to apprehend or an innocent victim to rescue,” Kevin Kolbye, an assistant special agent in charge at the Dallas FBI division was quoted by his agency as saying. “It’s a dangerous situation any way you look at it.”

Oviedo police say they’ll try to find the person responsible for Friday’s prank, but doing so could be tough. If caught, however, the criminal charges carry a hefty sentence. A 2009 case out of Colorado led to a 19-year-old man being sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison, the FBI’s website said.