BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. — The family of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student activist David Hogg was the victim of a “swatting” incident Tuesday morning.
A SWAT team responded to a call just after 8:30 a.m. of a barricaded subject at Hogg’s residence. The caller said there was a person with a weapon inside of the home, Broward County Sheriff’s spokesman Joy Oglesby told CNN.
The call was later determined to be a hoax.
No one was at home at the time of the incident, Oglesby said. Hogg and his family are in Washington D.C to accept the RFK Humanitarian Award.
Swatting is usually done by computer hackers, gamers or people skilled in online and smartphone communications as a prank. They make a false report of a serious crime in progress, resulting in police making a major show of force on innocent, unsuspecting people
Swatting has been around since the early 2000s. Celebrities are often the victim.
In California alone, swatting calls have targeted the homes of actor Tom Cruise, comedian Russell Brand, Kim Kardashian and singers Rihanna and Miley Cyrus.
In many cases, they have resulted in deadly consequences. In December, a swatting case ended with a police officer fatally shooting a 28-year-old father of two standing in his front door in Wichita, Kansas.
Hogg, who survived the February 14 attack at the Parkland school where 17 students and faculty were killed in minutes, has been a vocal proponent of sane gun laws. For that, he’s been relentlessly attacked, with conspiracy theorists claiming he wasn’t actually at the shooting or that he’s a paid “crisis actor.”
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the Tuesday incident.
