Abilene family falls victim to ‘swatting’ after false report to 911
ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – An Abilene resident was shocked to find a heavy police presence outside of her home on Wednesday afternoon, equipped with shields and rifles. It was soon revealed that she and her family had fallen victim to ‘swatting,’ after an unknown individual called 911 and made a false report.
Police surround south Abilene home after ‘swatting’ call
On February 7 at around 3:00 p.m., Natash Gerald, a mother of two teenage boys, was shocked to discover a heavy police presence outside of her home. It’s called swatting, and it happens when somebody calls 911 to make a false claim in order to bring a heavy police presence to an alternate location. It is similar to someone calling in a false bomb threat, except usually, the victims of these types of calls are residential.
It’s happened to this Abilene family several times in the past, but the homeowner said she’s never seen a response like this before.
“When they came here, they had the swat shield! They had the rifle! They had it all out!” Gerald explained.
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The incident began when one of her teenage sons was invited to join a group chat when playing video games online. When he joined the group chat, he was informed by an unknown individual on the other end that he was being swatted and could hear that unknown person speaking to local dispatch.
“When he gets on there, this kid joins the call, and he was like, ‘Your [expletive] just got swatted.’ And then he’s on the call with the dispatcher here in Abilene explaining that one of the siblings or the brothers came in the house. They were intoxicated. They shot the other brother. Killed him and shot me by accident,” Gerald explained.
Once police arrived, everyone in the house was carefully evacuated, and it was discovered that the call was false. Currently, there is no word on who made the false call, with sources saying that the phone call came from a Florida number but was likely using an app that allows users to make calls and texts from a different number. In the state of Texas, swatting someone is considered a class A misdemeanor unless an individual is killed as a result, in which case, it is bumped up to a felony.
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