TV Newscaster Latest Target of SWATing Call

A series of false and malicious 911 calls targeting west coast celebrities for the past six months has now moved to the eastern part of the country. Most troubling, one of the false reports was made via a text message to a police department, perhaps the country’s first SWATing text message. Both of the two latest incidents occurred last Saturday night. In Howell (Mich.) an unknown person dialed 911 and claimed to be U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers. The impersonator said he was at home, had shot his wife and that he was now suicidal. Police responded in force, and quickly learned the call was false. Rogers happened to be in Washington (DC) at the time. That same night, Montgomery County (Virg.) police said someone sent them a text message reporting a shooting at the home of CNN newsman Wolf Blitzer. The text included Blitzer’s name and home address. Officers responded and discovered that Blitzer was not at home, and that the call was false. Police said the text message was sent through the department’s anonymous Text-A-Tip program, a third-party service that uses Canadian servers to remove the sender’s identifying information, and make it legally impossible to trace (pdf) messages.