Deltona family targeted by swatting call involving death hoax
DELTONA, Fla. - Volusia County dispatchers received a chilling 911 call early Sunday morning from someone claiming to have shot and killed his 10-year-old brother, but it was all a hoax.
FOX 35 obtained a recording of the call. A condensed transcript of the call can be found below.
Caller: "I [inaudible] one of my dad's guns, and I think I killed my little brother."
Dispatcher: "What kind of gun is it?"
Caller: "I don't know, like a handgun."
Dispatcher: "It's a handgun?"
Caller: "Yes."
Dispatcher: "Where was he shot?"
Caller: "His chest."
Dispatcher: "What happened?"
Caller: "Me and him were, like, arguing, and he got me, like, really mad, so I didn't know what to do."
At the end of the call, the caller also threatened to take his own life.
Shortly after 2:20 a.m., deputies rushed to the Deltona home, where the caller said the alleged murder happened.
MORE HEADLINES:
- Battle to preserve Split Oak Forest unfolds in Orange County
- Central Florida hotel deaths: Lawsuit claims owner failed to maintain safe environment
- Florida mom's OnlyFans car decal leads to kids' expulsion from Christian school
- Florida fuel farm: Volusia County Council clears way for Ormond Beach development
- Wild flamingos sighted on the Space Coast for the first time in decades: 'Surreal'
When they arrived and knocked on the door, deputies say they were met by one of the residents who was shaken up at the significant VSO response. Everyone inside, including two teenagers, was alive and sleeping.
While responding to the scene, deputies quickly realized this was a result of swatting, and the call likely came from a video game player, according to an incident report.
Last July, also in Deltona, a man visiting from New Jersey came face to face with deputies' guns over a hoax 911 call someone had placed. Sheriff Mike Chitwood told FOX 35 then why these calls are so dangerous.
"The objective of these calls is either have an officer get killed, or the officer kill the person that is at the home we're responding to," he said.
According to the incident report, deputies tried calling back the caller's number multiple times, but they learned it came from an app that essentially allows the caller to disguise their real number.
No arrests have been made.