CBC News has tracked down the young man who was mistakenly arrested by Ottawa police at gunpoint after fake email threats were sent to École secondaire catholique Garneau on Monday.

The 19-year-old was the victim of a so-called "swatting," or a hoax emergency that aims to trigger a response by heavily armed police officers.

And that's exactly what played out in a quiet Orléans neighborhood earlier this week.

CBC is not identifying the teenager because of safety concerns, but the victim is a former Garneau student who graduated in 2016 and currently works in retail.

He lives within a fifteen minute walk of the French language Catholic school on Carrière Street.

He recounted his experience to a CBC reporter in a phone call and a series of texts.

A pair of calls

The teen's ordeal began just after 6 a.m. while he was home alone and still asleep. He was roused awake by two phone calls.

He ignored the ringing of the house phone because he thought it was a telemarketer, then his cell phone rang.

"I answered and was told there was an active threat in the area," wrote the teen in a Facebook message.

"I was asked to come to the front window where they could see me. From there the lady on the phone asked me to put my coat on and proceed to open the front door … and put my hands in the air,"

When he opened the door, the teen said he saw three or four SWAT officers standing at the base of his driveway.

"They had assault rifles pointed at me," he said.

The teen said it was still dark outside at the time and when his eyes adjusted, he saw about a dozen officers surrounding his home and several patrol cars blocking the road.

Most of the officers had their guns out.

"At that moment I realized I misunderstood what the lady had said, and that I was in fact the threat," he said.

Held for 6+ hours

The teen said police ordered him to walk to the sidewalk and get down on his knees.

As the officers put handcuffs on him, they told him he was under arrest for illegal possession of a weapon and for making threats.

École secondaire catholique Garneau was closed on Monday after several teachers received email threats about a firearm.

The fraudulent messages were made to look like they came from the email account of the former student.

Law enforcement in Canada and the United States are seeing an increase in swatting incidents in the form of hoax bomb threats and active shooter 911 calls.

In the capital, a Barrhaven teen was found guilty last summer of swatting schools, shopping malls and homes across three provinces and five U.S. states.

But these swattings aren't just dangerous, they can be deadly as was the case in Kansas last December, when Wichita police mistakenly killed an unarmed man.

Despite admitting to being "scared" at the time, the former Garneau student said police acted responsibly.

"They did a great job. After all, I was an active threat until proven otherwise," he said.

Other than a complaint that police didn't provide very many details about their investigation, he felt officers treated him well.

After calling a lawyer, he was put in a cell block for more than six hours.

During that time he was given a muffin and orange juice for breakfast and a sandwich and more orange juice for lunch.

After investigators cleared him of any wrongdoing at 1:30 p.m., an officer gave him a ride home.

In the meantime, the real swatter has yet to be caught.