THE BOY WHO CRIED SWAT

Ohio Teen Faces 73 Charges for Allegedly ‘Swatting’ Cops Nationwide

The 17-year-old is accused of calling the cops and pretending to be a gunman and a kidnapper.

An Ohio teen is facing 73 felony and misdemeanor delinquency charges for allegedly “swatting”—making prank false police reports—across the country, CNN reports Wednesday. The 17-year-old, who has not been named, allegedly called police on Aug. 11 and pretended to be a Kent, New York, man who had shot his wife and was holding his son hostage with an AR-15 rifle. When police arrived at the supposed scene of the crime, they found that the family was out of town. Authorities later confirmed that the call didn’t come from New York at all; instead, it came from Mahoning County, Ohio, from a number that had been linked to similar false reports across the county. It’s not clear if anyone was injured—but just last week, a man who made a false report that led to a fatal shooting in Kansas was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Robert L. Langley Jr., the sheriff of the county where the Aug. 11 crime was reported, said he hopes the case “will dissuade others from trying this type of activity.”

NO JOKE

Man Behind Fatal Swatting Prank Gets 20 Year Sentence