WESTFIELD – Westfield Police released the phone number that was used last week in a prank that caused a dozen officers to rush to a home on Rita May Way after dispatch received a call from someone claiming a shooting had taken place at that address.
Westfield Police Capt. Michael McCabe said the phone number used in this “swatting” incident is (661)748-0240.
According to the FBI website, “swatting” is making a hoax call to 911 to draw a response from law enforcement, usually a SWAT team.
This particular phone number has been associated with swatting in the scam world, according to McCabe.
Someone phoned the Westfield police emergency line from (661) 748-0240 shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday night reporting that “his brother just shot his mother with a gun,” according to police records.
Officers arrived at the Rita May Way address a few minutes later to find everybody “alive and well.”
Homeowner Linda Ann Matthews said on Friday, “We were glad they were protecting us,” though she and her family knew the prank had nothing to do with them and appeared to be a random event.
An Internet search under “news” for the term “swatting” reveals that these hoaxes are happening on a regular basis throughout the country causing panic to many residents and chaos for police departments.
McCabe said these prank calls are expensive and could be potentially dangerous when officers are rushing to an alleged crime scene.
It cost taxpayers $3,900, the expenditure for overtime for the five detectives and eight Special Response Team members, to respond to the Rita May Way hoax, McCabe said.
Police departments don’t always release the phone numbers used in swatting incidents, but McCabe wanted to inform other law enforcement officials of this scheme.
While the (661)748-0240 number can sometimes be a legitimate phone number for someone placing a call using Skype, it is highly unlikely that someone making a legitimate 911 call regarding an emergency like a shooting would use a third party service to place the call, said McCabe.
According to the FBI site, “individuals who engage in this activity [can] use technology to make it appear that the emergency call is coming from the victim’s phone,” which is called spoofing. According to McCabe, this isn’t always the case since there are varying levels of technology used by swatters.
An Internet search of this 661 phone number reveals many sites providing warnings about this number. According to the FBI website, a similar call about a shooting was made to a 911 operator using the same phone number on September 3, 2013.
The phone number (661) 748-0240 is a California number that could realistically be purchased from anywhere around the world, according to examiner.com.
Making sense of the jargon:
Swatting: making a hoax call to 9-1-1 to draw a response from law enforcement, usually a SWAT team.
FBI.gov
Caller ID spoofing: deliberately falsifying the telephone number and/or name relayed as the Caller ID information to disguise the identity of the calling party.
FCC.gov
e-mail spoofing: the header of an e-mail appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source.
FBI.gov
“Spoofing” or “phishing”: frauds that attempt to make Internet users believe that they are receiving e-mail from a specific, trusted source, to convince individuals to provide personal or financial information that enables the perpetrators to commit credit card/bank fraud or other forms of identity theft.
FBI.gov
Skype: having a spoken conversation with (someone) over the Internet using the software application Skype, typically also viewing by webcam.
oxforddictionaries.com
