Fake Sexual Assault Call Spurs Police Search At Campground

COMMERCE TOWNSHIP, MI — Oakland County authorities were at the center of a police hoax over the weekend at a local campground. Known as “swatting,” the hoax involves calling a mass police presence to a certain place under false pretenses. In this case, a woman called the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Operations Center Sunday morning and said she had been raped at the Proud Lake Camp Group in Commerce Township.

She said she was walking in an unknown location on a trail when a man sexually assaulted her and then stabbed her in the leg with the knife the threatened her with.

The woman could not verify her location and police were unable to have the cell phone “pinged” to determine her location. The call was lost before authorities were able to track her location.

According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, the woman called back and authorities attempted to have her call 911 so that her currently location could be triangulated. She had been calling a non-emergency line. According to the report, the woman refused and the call was again lost. Deputies attempted to call her phone back from dispatch, but got no answer.

Deputies, the Commerce Township Fire Department and rangers from the campground conducted a search of the entire property following the call. An off-road vehicle was brought in by the fire department and other trail-riding vehicles provided by campground personnel. Pedestrian trails, boat launches, parked motor vehicles, campsites and cabins were all searched, inconclusively.

After an extensive search, authorities were satisfied that it was a hoax or form of “swatting.” They are now looking to identify the caller.

Information was received that the victim’s cell phone had a 616 area code and that her number was returning to the west side of the state, possibly the Berrien Springs area, police said.

Swatting made headlines in 2017 when a hoax led to the fatal shooting of a 28-year-old Kansas man at the address police were sent to in a phony violent situation.

Image via Shutterstock

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