A prank call into the Broward County Sheriff's Office led heavily armed police to surround the Florida home of Parkland shooting survivor and activist David Hogg on Tuesday. The caller claimed hostages were being held at the Hogg residence, local ABC affiliate WPLG reported, prompting the sheriff's office to immediately dispatch law enforcement officers and a helicopter to the scene.
But when police arrived at Hogg's home, they discovered the call was a hoax. Hogg, who graduated Sunday from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 students and teachers were killed in February, was not home at the time. He is currently in Washington, D.C., with his mother, to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
The practice of prank calling police about hostage situations is known as "swatting." In 2017, a swatting incident led to the death of an innocent 28-year-old father of two in Kansas after a California man called 911, claiming there had been a shooting at the victim's home. The suspect was later arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Hogg told WPLG that the prank is "really a distraction from what we're trying to fix here, which is the massive gun violence epidemic in this country." The 17-year-old is gearing up to embark on a 60-day summer tour across the United States with several of his Parkland peers; on June 15, they will start traveling with the March for Our Lives movement to register young people to vote and promote gun reform.
-
August 23 editorial cartoonsCartoons Saturday's political cartoons include deficit dimness, steamroller-in-chief, and more
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Australian woman found guilty of mushroom murdersspeed read Erin Patterson murdered three of her ex-husband's relatives by serving them toxic death cap mushrooms
-
Combs convicted on 2 of 5 charges, denied bailSpeed Read Sean 'Diddy' Combs was acquitted of the more serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking
-
Sniper kills 2 Idaho firefighters in ambushSpeed Read A man started a wildfire, then fired a rifle at first responders when they arrived
-
Weinstein convicted of sex crime in retrialSpeed Read The New York jury delivered a mixed and partial verdict at the disgraced Hollywood producer's retrial
-
'King of the Hill' actor shot dead outside homespeed read Jonathan Joss was fatally shot by a neighbor who was 'yelling violent homophobic slurs,' says his husband
-
DOJ, Boulder police outline attacker's confessionspeed read Mohamed Sabry Soliman planned the attack for a year and 'wanted them all to die'
-
Assailant burns Jewish pedestrians in Boulderspeed read Eight people from the Jewish group were hospitalized after a man threw Molotov cocktails in a 'targeted act of violence'
-
Driver rams van into crowd at Liverpool FC paradespeed read 27 people were hospitalized following the attack
