‘Swatting’ hoax a waste of resources, police say

Fake call of shooting in Rosedale brought officers to house with nobody inside

After an apparent fake call about a shooting, police surrounded a house in Rosedale early Thursday — but when they broke down the door, nobody was home.

“On its face, it seems as though it was not a legitimate call,” said Mark Pugash, director of communications with Toronto police. “But we are investigating.”

Just after midnight, somebody called police saying there was a shooting in a house at Elm Ave. and Dunbar Rd., Const. David Hopkinson said.

Video from the scene shows armed Emergency Task Force officers in the area with dogs.

But when officers forced their way inside, there was nobody there, Pugash said.

The incident may be a case of swatting — a hoax in which people call 911 to report a fake crime in hopes of dispatching a large-scale police response — or SWAT team — to an unsuspecting person’s home.

The hoaxers often use spoofed phone lines, so that it seems like the call is coming from inside the targeted building.

Pugash would not use the term “swatting,” saying it has no legal meaning. But he called hoax calls “dangerous and very serious,” because they take significant police resources away from real emergencies.

It was a distracting night for Toronto police, who also received a 911 call Wednesday from a man complaining that someone hadn’t flushed the toilet in a restaurant.

Pugash said they are investigating that call as well.

“That is dangerous. It’s reckless. And it endangers people who are in genuine emergencies,” he said.

Toronto police don’t keep statistics on swatting calls, but Pugash said they’re not common in Toronto. Anecdotally, he’s only heard of one or two incidents. But Const. Andy Pattenden, spokesperson for York Regional Police, estimates they get swatting calls at least once a month.

“We don’t often publicize all of them, because it just creates that sort of copycat-type behaviour,” he said.

Pattenden said 911 call-takers are getting better at identifying hoaxes, and in some cases, they’re dispatching fewer resources to those calls.

In 2015, a family in Richmond Hill became a target of swatters.

York Regional police received a realistic 911 call from a man, claiming that his schizophrenic father had shot and killed his mother with an assault rifle.

But when police broke down the door, they found two adults and two children who had no idea why police were in their home. Pattenden said nobody was charged in the incident — and that’s typical.

He said that it’s often hard to track down the person behind a swatting call. The calls could come from anywhere in the world, he said, and people often use different IP addresses and disguise their voices.

Beyond tying up police resources, Pattenden said swatting calls can also put innocent people at risk. When police blast into a home with guns out, “very horrible things could happen,” he said, adding that it’s also emotionally traumatic for the victims.

Pugash would not speculate on specifics, but said hoaxers and reckless 911-callers could face criminal charges. He asks anybody with information about the incident to contact police.

“That is dangerous. It’s reckless. And it endangers people who are in genuine emergencies.” MARK PUGASH DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS WITH TORONTO POLICE