A man called the New Orleans Police Department this weekend saying that he had shot a woman at their Broadway Street home and intended to shoot any officers who approached the house, prompting a major response from elite NOPD officers in an armored vehicle who shut down roads around the home while they investigated.

The call turned out to be a hoax: the resident of the house emerged to tell officers she was fine and unharmed, and mystified who would make such a call or why. But her daughter, who studies Internet harassment across the country, believes the prank was directed at her as part of a new but quickly growing form of of online abuse spreading dangerously into real life.

‘A bogus complaint’

The New Orleans Police Department received the call Saturday night on a non-emergency line, with a male caller telling the dispatcher that he had shot his girlfriend at a home in the 300 block of Broadway, said Commander Bobby Norton of the NOPD Special Operations Division at Wednesdays’ meeting of the NOPD ranking officers.

“He says he just shot his girlfriend and killed her, and any police that approaches the house, he’s going to kill them,” Norton said. “He gave a specific address on the house.”

Norton and Second District Commander Paul Noel had officers surround the house and close down the streets near it, but initially directed them to stay away from the home itself. Meanwhile, Norton began researching the address and discovered that there was no history of domestic-abuse or other violent-crime calls there, raising early questions about the veracity of the violent claims in the call.

“We started to kind of believe that it was going to be a bogus complaint, but obviously we can’t treat it as a bogus complaint,” Norton said.

One resident who lives near the targeted home said she went outside around 10 p.m. to wait for a cab to the French Quarter, but instead found an armed police officer in tactical gear. He first asked if she was OK, then asked if she had heard any screams or gunshots coming from the house of the supposed victim — which she had not.

Finally, Norton sent his officer up to the house in a heavily armored vehicle that would protect them if anyone began firing. Instead, the homeowner came out the front door, and assured police that she was fine.

The homeowner did not seem afraid during the ordeal, the nearby resident said, only perplexed.

“She was as surprised as we all were, standing in a bathrobe,” the resident said.

As a final precaution, Norton sent his team into the house to check it for any threats. When they confirmed that there was no evidence any crime had occurred, Norton was confident in deeming the original call a hoax.

“Dangerous” consequences

Although the entire police response took less than an hour, such a prank creates numerous problems for the city, Norton said. First, it took about 20 officers away from their normal jobs — around half of them were charged with answering routine calls around the Second District, and the other half were from the Special Operations Division, which is used for proactive work in the most dangerous parts of New Orleans.

Second, the urgency of the response demanded by such a call created what could have been a volatile situation for the residents of Broadway and Audubon streets, Norton said. False police calls have inadvertently led to tragedies elsewhere, such as in January, when the police chief of a small town in Oklahoma was shot by a homeowner while entering his residence in response to a similar fake call.

“It’s dangerous on our officers who are responding, because they’re believing there’s somebody in the house and shot and may need medical attention,” Norton said. “Now you’ve got all the officers responding, which is putting the officers in danger, and putting the citizens in danger.”

Another Broadway resident said he faced that possible danger firsthand during the incident. Around 10 p.m., he got a text from a neighbor asking why so many police were in the neighborhood. He looked outside, didn’t see any officers, and walked outside with a flashlight to see what he could find out.

A few steps down the street, the resident said, he was confronted by an armed SWAT Team member who told him to put his hands up and questioned him in detail to determine he wasn’t the person who made the original call.

“It was a fiasco. For a prank call, somebody needs to pay the price,” the man said. “The scary thing about it was, I walked around the corner in a T-shirt and something in my hand, and I could have been shot.”

‘This is a trend’

The practice of making false claims of violent acts to trick the police into armed responses against specific targets has become increasingly common in some Internet communities, where it is known as “swatting.” In one of the most highly publicized incidents, a group of video-game players broadcasting their gaming session live were the target of a hoax call in suburban Denver, and thrown to the ground by responding officers in full view of their web cameras. Supporters of those who have been outspoken in criticism of the portrayal of women in video games have been among the most frequent targets.

The victim of Saturday’s hoax initially thought the incident was just a random prank, but her daughter — who no longer lives in New Orleans — studies such online harassment and has spoken publicly against it. While she has communicated online with some of the victims of high-profiles cases, she has never personally been a target of it, nor a target of the ire of the anonymous Internet groups associated with the practice, the daughter said in an interview with Uptown Messenger on Wednesday evening.

After learning of the prank at her former home in New Orleans, the victim’s daughter said she scoured the Internet message boards where such incidents are usually planned, but did not find a mention of her name or address. Still, the incident clearly fits the practice of swatting, and her own affiliations are too strong a connection to ignore, she said.

“This is the general pattern of swatting, calling in a false, violent based report to trick the SWAT team into being deployed,” said the victim’s daughter.

In the most severe cases, hoax callers have even intentionally tried to create circumstances that could lead to tragedy. Last month, a hoax caller in New Jersey told police about a hostage situation at a game store and then — after police were assembled around the location — called the store, posing as an emergency responder, and began giving the people inside instructions that could have provoked police into using force.

“This is a trend,” the victim’s daughter said. “This is a digital abuse tactic that online harassers victimize people with.”

Police have been unable to trace the number the Saturday’s call was originally made from, but are continuing to investigate. In the short term, Norton said, there is no way to prevent similar hoaxes from occurring — police simply have to respond carefully and appropriately when threats are reported to them.

“The only thing that we can do is backtrack and hopefully find out who does this and have them arrested,” Norton said.

Swatting pranks have led to jail time in other jurisdictions, such as Orange County, Calif., where a 19-year-old hacker from Washington state was sentenced to three years in prison for a similar false report. In New Jersey, after hearing about the incident at the game store, a state lawmaker introduced legislation to increase penalties for swatting incidents beyond those already in place for false reports — and he was subsequently made the target of a swatting call at his home this week.

The Uptown victim’s daughter said people who believe they could be targeted for swatting should call their local police departments before anything happens, and ask the call to be documented at the house. That way, if they are the target of a hoax, the police can find that information among the location’s call history, and possibly respond with restraint similar to that Norton’s team used at her mother’s address.

Likewise, the victim said, the New Orleans Police Department has the opportunity to use Saturday’s incident as the catalyst for more training to prevent tragedy the next time such a prank occurs in the city. In another neighborhood, under different circumstances, she said, any number of tragic outcomes could have resulted.

“This could make some waves and raise actual awareness, meaning that the police force will be aware and ready to react to swatting as a prank and take preventive measures,” she said.