A 19-year-old Washington state man is due in court on Monday to face
accusations he hacked into emergency 911 systems and faked a call that
a sent SWAT team to the home of a sleeping family 750 miles away.
Police allege Randall Ellis of Mukilteo, Washington, illegally
accessed a phone system in Orange County, California and placed a bogus
emergency call that appeared to come from a residence he picked at
random. The caller reported as a teenaged drug user who had been shot
in the shoulder and that attackers were going to shoot and kill his
sister.
Shortly after the 11:30 p.m. call, SWAT officers armed with assault
rifles, dogs and a helicopter descended on Lake Forrest, California,
according to this article in The Orange County Register. The commotion woke one of the residents, who armed himself with a kitchen knife and slipped outside.
Officers eventually cuffed the resident and his wife as their two toddlers slept.
Ellis is scheduled to appear in an Orange County courtroom to answer
to charges of computer access and fraud, false imprisonment by
violence, falsely reporting a crime and assault with an assault weapon
by proxy, according to the paper. Authorities believe the teen has
falsified other 911 calls that created similar SWAT responses in
Bullhead, Arizona; Millcreek Township, Pennsylvania and in his hometown.
Authorities call the practice “SWATting” and say it’s on the rise.