Minnesota `Swatting` Prank Part of a National Trend

April 07—Here's the latest Internet craze: police being used as online entertainment.

It happens when a caller makes a prank 911 call to report a bogus crime. When police rush to the scene—if the person at the address has streaming video in the home—the confrontation is broadcast online.

The calls are called "swatting" because they are designed to get SWAT teams to break into the prank victim's home—all for the amusement of the online audience.

It happened Monday night in Woodbury.

Twelve officers, with guns drawn and wearing tactical gear, swooped into a suburban neighborhood, answering a call that a son had shot his father. It was a prank call—with live video captured on the Internet.

The same thing happened in February in St. Cloud. A SWAT team burst into the home of a video gamer who had reportedly shot his roommate. The call was a prank, but hundreds of the victim's online viewers watched as the gamer was busted.

Dozens of other swatting calls have been made around the country, some involving celebrities. Swatting targets have included Hollywood notables Ashton Kutcher, Russell Brand, Ryan Seacrest and Justin Bieber.

Police say swatting wastes time and money, and puts lives at risk.

"This is not a victimless crime," said Woodbury Sgt. Tom Ehrenberg, who answered the call Monday. "We are using every avenue we have to find these people."

The Woodbury 911 call was made about 7:19 p.m. The caller said he had just shot his father and tied up his sister, according to police report.

Police raced to the house in the 1000 block of Pelto Path, along with two paramedics and an ambulance driver. Officers blocked off the street and, with guns drawn, prowled around the house, trying to find a way in.

They were just about to call for the Washington County sheriff's SWAT team when the mother of the family living there arrived home. She was with her daughter—the one who was supposedly tied up inside.

"That's when we realized it might not have been a real call," Ehrenberg said Tuesday.

Over loudspeakers, police ordered everyone out of the house. The father emerged—but not the son, who is in his mid-20s.

He was inside, wearing headphones and playing a video game, apparently oblivious. Eventually, after hearing the commotion, he came outside, and the police searched the house.

Ehrenberg said it's possible the swatting was related to video games, but the police report on the incident mentioned another possibility.

The homeowner has live streaming webcams in his house to publicize his dog-breeding business, and he got a call Monday from an unknown person who made sexual reference to his dogs. About 30 minutes later, the 911 call was made.

It's possible, Ehrenberg said, that caller wanted to watch online as the police burst into the home.

Other swatting episodes are believed to have been driven by that desire to watch police in action.

In St. Cloud, several hundred people were watching expert gamer Joshua Peters playing RuneScape in his parents' home in March when a SWAT team arrived. Guns drawn, the officers ordered Peters and his family to lie face-down on the floor—as his online fans watched.

In West Virginia, 22-year-old James Eubanks has been swatted about six times. A nationally ranked "Call of Duty" player, he has hundreds of followers who watch him play. His swatting calls usually claim he has a bomb or is holding hostages. He has no idea who the callers are—perhaps they are among his 386,000 Twitter followers.

Swatting is a difficult crime to solve, Ehrenberg said. Callers use a range of techno-tricks to hide their identities.

The Woodbury call Monday was the city's first, but the sergeant said there have been two swatting incidents in Hugo and Oakdale.

Woodbury police spokeswoman Michelle Okada said the false alarms are expensive: Monday's call tied up 15 city employees for about two hours.

She said police have no way to screen out swatting calls.

"Police need to respond to the 911 calls based on the information they receive," she said. Any call reporting a possible murderer inside a home gets the most extreme response, she said.

The homeowners aren't the only victims, Okada said.

"It was very scary. You have all those officers in tactical gear, guns drawn, in a quiet Monday evening," she said. "The whole neighborhood was on edge."

This story includes information from the New York Times. Bob Shaw can be reached at 651-228-5433. Follow him at twitter.com/BshawPP.