David Hogg has emerged as one of the leaders of the gun reform movement after he and his peers survived the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. One only has to glance at his social media feeds to see the kind of hateful abuse gun lovers and other deplorables send his way every single day, all because he and others are speaking out, trying to save lives by advocating for common-sense gun law reforms.
Now an anonymous caller endangered Hogg’s family by alerting police to a phony hostage situation at his home. From ABC Local 10 in Florida:
Coral Springs Fire Rescue arrived at the scene to find there was no hostage situation and the call was a prank.
Hogg was not home at the time of the incident and is currently in Washington, DC with his mother to accept the RFK Human Rights award. [...]
Swatting is the action of making a prank emergency call to bring about a response of armed law enforcement officers.
Footage from Local 10’s news helicopter showed more than a dozen police vehicles on the scene.
These ‘pranks’ create extremely dangerous circumstances for the person on the other end. In Kansas, a swatting recipient was recently murdered by police responding to his home.
From CNN:
Responding to a false report of a domestic shooting and hostage situation, allegedly by a man in California, police arrived and fatally shot Finch after he opened the front door of his family's home in Wichita on December 28.
The officer shot an unarmed Andrew Finch in the doorway of his own home and did not face charges.
Can you imagine if David Hogg and his mother had been home? Having their front door kicked in, or opening the door to find a group of men with high-powered guns trained on them? Can you imagine if David Hogg himself was holding something they deemed “threatening” in his hand? Like a cell phone? This had the potential to turn deadly in a hurry and we can only hope the so-called “prankster” is quickly identified and charged with the maximum possible charges available to prosecutors.