Lincoln Police investigate increase in swatting calls this week

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — Lincoln Police Department said it’s seeing an increase in the number of swatting calls; in the last five days, it’s responded to at least four swatting incidents.

Swatting is when someone makes a prank call to 911 to try to get a large number of law enforcement officers to a particular place.  Most of the time they’re reporting fake kidnappings or mass casualty shootings.

Former Nebraska State Senator Adam Morfeld said someone swatted his home on Christmas day.

Morfeld said he was at the airport in Chicago when he got a call from a neighbor saying police were outside of his house.   Police told him they got a call falsely saying Morfeld killed his wife and was about to kill himself. 

 Sgt. Chis Vollmer said they quickly determined all four of these incidents within the past few days were fake.

 “You definitely don’t want officers to respond to that assuming that is nothing because it would be a very bad situation if it did turn out to be something,” Vollmer said. “But at the same time, you don’t want to have a dramatic over-the-top response because the people at these locations have no idea what’s going on.”  

The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office agrees swatting calls are dangerous. 

 “It puts a huge strain on law enforcement and the poor individuals who don’t even have an idea of what’s going on,” said Chief Deputy Ben Houchin.

 Houchin said the best thing you can do if this happens to you is to stay calm. 

“Keep anybody else in the house with you calmed,” he said. “Do what we say. there’ll be plenty of time to figure out what transpires.”  

Making a false report is a crime. If a person is caught, they may face five years in prison just for doing it.  But if someone gets hurt or killed, they could face 20 years to life in prison.