Ex-Employee Reports Fake Shooting at Highland Park Home

A former employee of a Highland Park family falsely reported a shooting at the family’s home Monday, leading police to arrive with nearly 10 officers and an ambulance, according to an article in TribLocal.

The act of calling in a fake report in order to get a police response — often a SWAT team — to arrive at someone’s home is a relatively new phenomenon called “swatting.”

Anastasia Volkova, 24, of an unincorporated area near Deerfield, is accused of reporting that a family member in the 1600 block of Ridge Road shot another family member, the TribLocal article says. When police arrived, they found the home empty. Police spoke with the family who lives there, who said Volkova had been employed by them but had been fired recently. She was charged with felony disorderly conduct/filing a false police report.

You can read the full TribLocal article here.