From Faux Phone, a Chilling Threat
Dale White, Sarasota Herald Tribune (Florida)
SARASOTA COUNTY – It is the 21st-century version of the crank phone call, except it is far more serious, expensive and potentially dangerous.
Experts call it “SWATing,” a fairly recent phenomenon in which a hoaxter uses a computer to hide his identity and then calls in dramatic requests for help from law enforcement officers or firefighters, often indicating that people have been murdered or a major tragedy is about to happen.
The latest of an estimated 60 recent cases of “SWATing” around the nation happened in Sarasota last weekend, when a prankster called authorities saying he was a 15-year-old boy who had just killed his parents and was about to set off a bomb in a residential neighborhood.
For about two hours Sunday afternoon, 33 on-duty and off-duty sheriff’s deputies and seven firefighting and EMS crews responded to a home in the 2600 block of Botany Avenue after the prank call came in. Area homes were evacuated.
The caller, who used a computer to hide the originating phone number and his identity – and who remains unknown to authorities – gave a specific address to dispatchers and had the cell phone number of a real 15-year-old boy who did not live at that address, sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.
Sarasota Sheriff Tom Knight said Tuesday that such a serious false report puts many people at risk.
“How someone can view this as a joke is beyond me,” Knight said. “While responding to a fake emergency is certainly a waste of our assets, of greater concern to me is the risk to unsuspecting citizens who might find themselves at the wrong end of a weapon because some prankster sent law enforcement to their home.”
Reports of “SWATing” started around 2002 with the increased use of Internet technology, experts said. Typically, the caller hacks into a phone system, conceals his phone number or makes it appear to be a different number as he reports a false crime – possibly in an entirely different community.
Dispatch Magazine, a publication for public safety communications professionals, estimates there have been about 60 SWATing cases around the nation since 2002.
Prior to the Sarasota incident, the closest case was in Brandon in Hillsborough County in August. The caller reported an armed man threatening his mother with an assault rifle and a bomb. The entire incident turned out to be fabricated.
Although there is no way to identify a SWATer during a call, cyber crime experts with the FBI – with help from phone companies and other law enforcement agencies – have been able to track the origin of calls after the fact.
“The Internet is not as anonymous as most people think,” said Gary Allen, editor of Dispatch Magazine.
In most cases, Allen said, the calls originate from an Internet connection at a home with a specific IP address. The caller connects either through Skype or some other voice service, which requires a membership with e-mail address.
“The IP call goes out a gateway, which also has a specific IP address, and arrives at a telephone number, which is connected to a phone company billing system, which records that date, time and origin of the call,” he said.
Such investigations can be time-consuming and expensive but are “certainly possible,” Allen said.
Authorities had every reason to believe the prank call in Sarasota Sunday was real.
At 5:46 p.m. on Sunday, someone called a non-emergency line at the Sheriff’s Office from a blocked number.
Detectives are still trying to determine who was responsible, how the prank was committed and the whereabouts of the caller.
The caller, who was crying and sometimes incoherent, claimed to be a 15-year-old named Ryan. “I killed my mom and my dad,” he tells the dispatcher in a recording of the call.
When asked, he said he was at a home on Botany Avenue and provided the actual cell phone number of a local teenager named Ryan. Investigators are exploring whether he may be someone who knows that Sarasota youth.
The caller said he shot both of his parents with a handgun. “I have a bomb,” he said during the nearly 14-minute call. “I’m going to kill myself … There’s blood all over me.”
After deputies arrived and questioned two men in the home, detectives determined that the real Ryan did not live there and was not responsible for the call.
The boy and the home’s occupants have been cleared of any suspected wrongdoing, sheriff’s officials say.
Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Wendy Rose said it would be difficult to calculate all of the expenses associated with the emergency response. “The real cost is to the community,” Rose said. “The necessary deployment of so many assets to one location took them out of service elsewhere.”
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call sheriff’s investigators at (941) 861-4900 or to leave an anonymous tip with CrimeStoppers at (941) 366-8477.
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