“Anti-swatting” bill could make 911 pranks a felony in West Virginia

BLUEFIELD, W. Va. (WVVA) -Lawmakers in West Virginia are setting their sights on tackling a phone prank that can put people’s lives in jeopardy, including innocent victims and the police. It’s called swatting. They hope to strike down the prank by boosting it’s severity in the criminal code. The bill has been introduced so knowingly making false reports of an emergency to law enforcement, or swatting, could soon be a felony.

The mountains in West Virginia do not serve as a barrier that keeps out the hoax known as swatting. It’s even been reported here in the Two Virginias. The Mercer County 911 Center reports receiving multiple swatting calls.

“They are calling in fake calls for the purpose of getting armed officers to respond to addresses. And when they call, they’re actually stating that a crime is being committed at that time and a lot of it is a horrific crimes like murder or bombings or domestic violence and hostage situations,” says Julie Lockhart, training coordinator for the Center.

Online gamers or streamers are often the victim of these calls, with swatters use an IP address to find your location, then create a scenario with a 911 call that would trigger a swat response. Lockhart describes swatting as a “cyber-prank,” but there’s nothing funny about it. In some cases, responding SWAT teams have mistakenly killed the swatting victim. But it creates harm even in the instances when no one is hurt. The psychological trauma is undeniable for both victims and officers.

“… Somebody you’re playing online, and all of a sudden, you have armed officers at your door, thinking something is going on…” says Lockhart, “…It’s very terrifying, not just for the victim of this swatting, but also for the officers and the first responders, so it can be, not only physically terrorizing, it can be psychologically terrorizing as well.”

Lockhart says dispatchers take every phone call seriously, but many of these calls can appear to be legitimate thanks to swatters using phony phone numbers to seem like a local caller, even if they’re somewhere else entirely. However, she says Mercer County officers are trained to approach every situation with caution.

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