Bonneville County Deputies respond to “swatter” call

A big hoax. That was the result of an anonymous call to the Idaho Falls Dispatch that claimed they were witnessing a stabbing at an area home around 1pm Monday. When deputies arrived at the stated address, they quickly determined that it was a hoax.

"We still responded to make sure the house was safe, that there wasn't anybody hurt there in this case," said Sergeant Bryan Lovell with the Bonneville County Sheriff's Office. "In this case, the people that they said were there were not there."

Hoax or "swatter" calls as they're sometimes called are not a super common problem for officers and deputies in Idaho, according to Lovell. One deputy that spoke with Local News 8 at the scene said he's only experienced a few in his career. However, they are still a problem as each call costs their respective department, and therefore taxpayers, money.

"We have deputies and officers responding to this scene and we're trying to prepare them as much as possible," said Rose Christopherson, a dispatcher for Idaho Falls. "So it takes a lot of resources for something that may or may not be true."

Christopherson described today and any other hoax call as frustrating, but she said with experience, many dispatchers get pretty good at identifying which calls are fake.

"When we receive the swatting call, one of the first thing that i noticed from experience and even from today's [hoax], the callers on the phone aren't very emotional," said Christopherson. She also said they gave details that are inconsistent with the event described. These red flags are often passed on to deputies as they're driving towards the scene to give them as many resources as possible.

Bryan Lovell says that deliberate hoax or swat calls are illegal and can face financial penalties "up to three times the cost of resources that responded to it."

Lovell said the Sheriff Department will be investigating today's hoax call, but they believe it was from an out of state number.