SWAT Team Responds To Bogus Call, Man Says Phone Hacked: Report

CHICAGO — A SWAT team and multiple police units responded to a call of a potential murder in Old Town Wednesday, but later determined the call was unfounded and could be a part of a sometimes deadly trend called "swatting."

Chicago police said they received a call from a man who claimed he had killed his wife and three children at around 2 p.m. Wednesday, the Chicago Sun-Times first reported.

Officers and a SWAT team were dispatched to the 200 block of West Division Street but did not enter the residence. At around 4 p.m., police said a man who lived in the home arrived and walked over to them. He was put in handcuffs at first, but then released and allowed into the building.

The man was not arrested. A spokeswoman for Chicago police said investigators on the scene determined the call was "unfounded."

In an interview with the Sun-Times, the man told reporters his phone was hacked and used to make the fake call.

The spokeswoman could not confirm the incident was a case of "swatting," a trend where someone purposefully calls in a fake, urgent situation at someone else's home, sending police and SWAT teams to the residence. In 2017, swatting resulted in the shooting death of a 28-year-old man in Kansas after an online feud led another person to place a fake call about him.

In 2018, another swatting incident shut down Northwestern University's Evanston campus for a short time while police investigated a call that a man had shot his girlfriend inside a residence hall. Police later traced the fake call back to a suburb near Rockford.