Technology, tracing may help find person who called in fake Central Kentucky shooting
An investigation is underway to uncover who swatted Scott County authorities and the residents of a home that was targeted.
Emergency personnel in Scott County Monday night received a report that someone shot a family member in the face.
The call was a fake.
The unknown caller could face charges, and the Scott County sheriff’s office turned over call information to the Kentucky Attorney General’s Cybercrime Division for further investigation, said Sgt. Eddie Hart from the sheriff’s office.
“They can utilize technology that helps trace the origin of the phone call as well as any software used to scramble or mask the phone number,” Hart said.
The call came in around 9:30 p.m., when someone who sounded like a teenager told dispatchers he accidentally shot a family member in the face, according to Hart.
Several patrol units, ambulance crews and investigators were called to the scene of the nonexistent shooting on Brant Court in the Mallard Point subdivision, Hart said. But dispatchers deputies were suspicious about the legitimacy of the call. The caller seemed “confused” about the location of the incident despite claiming to be a child of a parent in the home.
“Our dispatchers and responding officers picked up on red flags almost immediately,” Hart said. Due to their suspicions, deputies set up a perimeter and talked to neighbors to get a phone number for the home where the shooting allegedly happened. Deputies called the homeowner and got everyone inside the home to come out with their hands up, Hart said.
Once everyone was outside, the home was cleared with no further issues, Hart said.
“The homeowners made the situation go smoothly by their cooperation,” he said.
Hart referred to the incident as a “swatting” call, calling in a fake emergency with the hopes that it will generate a strong response from emergency agencies.