Prank phone call leads Roseville swat team to unsuspecting retirement community
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ROSEVILLE, CA (KOVR) — The Roseville Police Department swarmed the Sun City retirement neighborhood on Tuesday after reports of an active shooter.
“All the police officers with their long guns. They were closing off streets. I would say there was probably eight to 10 of them,” said Brooks, who lives in the home Roseville police were directed to.
Department spokesperson Ron Baquera said the department received a call reporting “a horrific incident” that was verified by a second caller. Baquera said the second caller ” made this incident seem even more realistic.”
With police on their way to Brooks’ home, dispatch connected with the former police officer himself.
“They said, ‘This is the police department.’ They said, ‘Is everything ok?’ They said, ‘Are you sure there’s nobody else in the house?’ I said I’m positive, and they said ok and basically told me what happened,” Brooks said.
Roseville Police were told a person with a gun was inside his home threatening to shoot.
“I realized it was a prank from the get-go because there was no shooting going on in my house,” Brooks said.
But he says the phony phone call almost went horribly wrong.
“If I hadn’t answered the phone, they have to get in there somehow and that just escalates everything. You refuse to come out of the house, you come out with something in your hands and they don’t know what it is. There’s a whole multitude of things that could go wrong,” Brooks said.
Not to mention it cost the city tremendously.
“We’re talking in the realm of thousands of dollars of resources and being shifted onto a call like this. Incidents like this are extremely dangerous and absolutely a drain on public safety resources,” Baquera said.
Roseville police say it’s tough to track down the swatting call culprits because they typically call from blocked numbers, but this is a very serious offense and they’ll continue to investigate despite those difficulties.
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