Minutes later, police descended on the quiet neighborhood , ordering residents out of the two-story building. SWAT team members with rifles woke terrified residents screaming: “Hands up.”

The man never gave his name, but he identified the street three times, directing police to the building, which turned out to be a rooming house for Moroccan immigrants.

REVERE — Two hours before sunrise on Sunday, a man with a Boston accent dialed 911, claiming that shots were fired in a house and that his child was inside.

Now police are investigating the possibility that the 911 call was fake, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation. Police did not find a weapon, a child, or the 911 caller.


On Monday, Revere police released the 911 recording, which indicates the caller gave police an address that is similar to one in the city, but does not actually exist. The caller did not give his name and police said they could not reach him again.

Revere police released a statement outlining their account of the incident, but did not elaborate. They said the episode was still under investigation.

Meanwhile, residents and the building’s owners said they, too, want to know who made the call. They also said they feared they were treated aggressively by police because they are immigrants and Muslims. Some said they are US citizens.

“Heart attack, heart attack,” said a still-rattled Mohamed Boukidor, a 37-year-old immigrant from Morocco standing outside the building on his way to work as a parking valet in the North End. “I [was] scared. . . . Yesterday I didn’t sleep.”

John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he was concerned that the residents were singled out because of their racial and religious background.


“Obviously we’re seeing incidents like this all too frequently,” Robbins said in a telephone interview. “We hope that in this case their race and religion didn’t play a factor, but we’re concerned that it did.”

In the phone call, which police said came in around 4:30 a.m., a man said he rushed out of the dwelling and grabbed a stranger’s cellphone to report “shots being fired” in his building. He did not mention the background of the residents.

The man said he lived at “22 Francis Ave.” However, police responded to Francis Street. There is no Francis Avenue in Revere.

After reporting that he heard gunshots inside Unit 2, the man told the dispatcher he was going back inside to get his “kid,” and that he would try to call the department back from his own phone.

“Attempts were made to call back the reporting party, who did not answer,” police said in a statement Monday.

Police say that officers who responded to the scene reported “an odor of burnt gunpowder.”

After attempting to make contact with the occupants of the unit where the gunshots were reported, police said, “the lights were turned off and people were seen moving window curtains in an attempt to shut them out.”

“After numerous attempts by officers to get the residents out, including knocking on doors and the use of a loudspeaker, the occupants refused to come to the door,” police said in the statement.

At that point, according to police, the SWAT team was deployed. Occupants in the other units were removed. Police said they were taken to a community room at the Revere police station and provided with water, coffee, and food.


According to the statement, three residents in the second unit eventually came out.

Then a fourth came, and finally, a fifth, who was told by the SWAT team negotiator to call 911. That individual, Mohsine Boughlal, whom the Globe interviewed Sunday, said he had called 911 “to tell dispatchers he had done nothing wrong.”

A sixth occupant came out when “a chemical irritant was introduced into the occupied bedroom,” police said.

All six men, who were detained for hours, said that police were aggressive.

They told the Globe that their property had been unnecessarily destroyed, and that they were publicly embarrassed. They were not charged with a crime and no gun was found in the apartment. Two residents conceded they did not immediately exit the home because they were afraid.

They also said no gunfire was ever exchanged inside the building. The men, while cleaning up the mess left by the police search Sunday, questioned whether officers would have responded the same way if they were not Arab or Muslim.

On Monday, Boukidor, the parking valet who lives in Unit 2, guided a reporter through the apartment to show the damage residents said was caused by police. Doors had fist-sized holes. A window overlooking the back deck was shattered. Part of the suspended ceiling was missing.

Lifting up a pant leg, he said police handcuffed him and threw him down on the ground outside, bloodying his knee.


At the station, he said, police offered few details about what was happening.

A copy of the warrant provided by Mohamed Areslan, who owns the house with a friend, said police were searching for a firearm, ammunition, and documentation connecting the tenants to the property.

Among those who were staying in the house was the wife of Areslan’s co-owner, who had just said goodbye to a sister who is dying of cancer. On Monday, the 57-year-old woman was trying to assess the damage to the home.

“My mom just called the insurance and a lawyer,” said Kaoutar, her 30-year-old daughter, who declined to give her last name. “If something happened and they found something we’re going to say OK. But I talked to the police and they had no answer.”

Another resident, Sidi M’hammed El Idrissi, a 61-year-old who said he had been a carpenter for 32 years for the US Embassy in Morocco, said he moved to the United States four months ago. He said he was handcuffed and held for hours at the police station.

He said the raid was a far cry from how he had been treated by Americans in Morocco and showed a commendation from the ambassador for his retirement.

“I don’t speak English. We see this in the movies,” he said through an interpreter, cleaning his bifocals with tissues. “I [will] go back where I had my honor in Morocco. It’s better to go back.”


Steve Annear of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Maria Sacchetti can be reached at maria.sacchetti@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @mariasacchetti.