Westmoreland dispatchers victims of bogus 'swatting' text
A text message sent to Westmoreland County Emergency Management reporting that a man had an automatic weapon and five bodies in his Jeannette home turned out to be a “swatting” incident, according to county officials.
“It was totally bogus,” said emergency management spokesman Dan Stevens.
Swatting is the act of communicating a false report of a serious crime to authorities in hopes there will be a huge response by police and emergency personnel.
The name is derived from SWAT — an acronym for Special Weapons and Tactics — a unit of specially trained and heavily armed police officers who deal with dangerous situations.
Stevens said the message sent last Tuesday about the alleged Jeannette incident read, “There's five dead now and I got more today.”
The text prompted Jeannette and neighboring police departments to respond in force to a residence on North Second Street. When police arrived, they found a surprised homeowner who was unaware of any such incident. The resident declined to discuss the incident.
Stevens said the telephone company is cooperating and trying to determine the identity of the sender so he or she can be prosecuted.
But suspects in these cases often use sophisticated technology to hide their actual phone numbers and make it appear the call is originating from the location where they claim the crime has occurred, he said.
In the end, Stevens said swatting results in a “waste of manpower and resources,” adding that the calls take a physical and psychological toll on police officers, medics and firefighters who aren't sure what they'll face when they arrive at the scene.
“They have to treat every incident as if it's a real incident,” Stevens said.
Officials have reported an increase in the number of swatting incidents nationally.
This was the second swatting incident locally since August, when a 17-year-old Georgia teenager called Westmoreland County 911 posing as a 13-year-old girl who claimed her mother had been shot during a domestic dispute in Washington Township.
When police arrived, the surprised homeowner was forced to the ground and handcuffed until police searched the residence and discovered the call was a hoax.
Last month, a 15-year-old Monroe County teen was arrested for making a swatting call.
In November, a Delaware County man phoned in a threat on himself, claiming he was being held hostage by a man with a bomb strapped to his chest.
