TRENTON — A New Jersey lawmaker who is pushing legislation to combat the trend of swatting — a prank in which anonymous callers phone-in false emergency reports to provoke a large police response — was a victim of the practice himself this weekend.

State Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester) said he was watching the Masters golf tournament and doing his taxes at home on Saturday afternoon in Washington Township when he got a call from the police.

"The person on the phone says they were calling from police dispatch and wanted to know if everything is OK at my house," Moriarty said. "I said 'Yeah, why? They said 'we have a report of a shooting at your home.'"

The dispatcher then asked Moriarty to describe what he was wearing and step outside.

"I look out my front door. There's six cop cars. They have the street closed off. They have helmets, flak jackets and rifles," Moriarty said. "I walk out and walk towards them. They motion me to keep walking towards them. The minute I walked out the door, I was still on the phone with the dispatch person, I said 'I think I've just been swatted.' It just then occurred to me what happened."

Moriarty has been quoted in several regional news outlets over the last couple weeks, including NJ Advance Media, because of his legislation to address the growing trend of swatting. There's been a string of recent incidents in New Jersey, most notably at a video game store in Clifton.

Swatting has its roots in online video game culture. Callers anonymously phone in emergencies to authorities to send them to an unsuspecting gamer's house — often while the gamer is streaming video of himself playing online.

Although phoned-in false alarms and bomb scares have been problems for emergency services for decades, the internet has made it easier to place hard to trace calls, including from overseas.

Moriarty's bill (A3877), introduced in November, would increase penalties for "false public alarm," upgrading the crime from third degree to second degree, punishable by five to ten year in prison and a fine of up to $150,000.

Assemblyman Paul Moriarty (D-Gloucester) is shown in this file photo.

"I'm thinking someone read about the bill and some sick, evil person thought it would be funny to send the police to my house on one of these false reports," Moriarty said.



Moriarty is the former mayor of Washington Township and said he knew most of the police at the scene, including the chief. It turned out the department had dealt with at least one similar call in the previous 24 hours, Moriarty said.

"If this is a practical joke, it's not funny because someone is going to get seriously hurt or perhaps killed in one of these engagements that can go very, very wrong," Moriarty said. "It's never fun to walk out your front door and have shotguns aimed at your house."

Moriarty said it could have gone a lot worse because while doing his taxes he "wasn't in a good mood to begin with."

"If the phone wasn't ringing next to me, I might not have answered it. ... And had I not, they probably would have beat down the front door," he said.

The incident will not deter Moriarity from pushing his bill. He said it's tentatively scheduled for a May hearing in an Assembly committee.

"We can increase the penalties for this stuff. We can do all that. But if the cops can't find the people it doesn't do much," Moriarty said. "The one thing I would ask is if someone knows something about this incident and the other incidents that have gone on up north and down south... come forward."

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Matt Friedman may be reached at mfriedman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattFriedmanSL. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook. e