Another Round of SWATing 911 Calls to Celebrities

Three Los Angeles-area celebrities were the latest victims of malicious calls to police, falsely reporting shootings at their homes and generating a heavy police response. Yesterday evening, police say callers reported incidents at the homes of singers Rihanna and Selena Gomez and actor Justin Timberlake. All the callers described shootings, two inside homes and the third on the street. Rihanna was not at home when police arrived to investigate armed men inside and a shooting victim. The call involving Gomez reported a shooting on the street, and the caller for Timberlake said four men were inside the residence and shots had been fired. Rapper Diddy was victimized Thursday in nearby Toluca Lake, police said. Police did not say if the same persons might be involved in these latest incidents. SWATing callers typically use non-emergency or TTY telephone lines to report their false incidents, and an IP-based telephone line to conceal the origin of their calls. Such incidents were rare in the U.S. until about four months ago, when a series of celebrity-based calls began. Several previous callers were identified by the FBI and successfully prosecuted. No one has been arrested in the most recent series of calls.