Teen Poses As Dispatcher

Broward County (Fla.) sheriff’s deputies arrested an unnamed teenager on charges of impersonating an officer and making a false bomb threat. The youth alledgedly telephoned the county’s comm center and told a dispatcher he was a Florida Highway Patrol dispatcher. He reported an explosion at a location on the Florida Turnpike and asked for the sheriff’s bomb squad to respond. To back up his claim, he also told the dispatcher that FHP had received information about a possible bomb in a package at the sheriff’s headquarters. Apparently dispatchers were unconvinced that the caller was a dispatcher, called FHP and determined no explosion had occurred, and then FHP-Orlando called saying they had received a similar call. The teen was traced to his home in Hialeah (Fla.) and arrested.