LEWISTON, Idaho — A 15-year-old boy from Garfield was arrested on Nov. 14 for alleged "swatting" or hoax calls to the Lewiston Police Department.
LPD says the first call was received on June 19, 2024. LPD says a person called claiming to have taken a 5-year-old child hostage at the Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center (SJRMC).
The caller said he was going to slit the 5-year-old's throat and shoot anyone who showed up. The caller then described the handgun and amount of ammunition he had with him.
Approximately nine LPD officers responded to SJRMC and placed the hospital on lockdown while officers investigated the incident. The call was determined to be a hoax after an extensive search of the facility.
LPD says the same phone number was used to call LPD dispatch on June 20 and reports that the caller said he had placed pressure cooker bombs outside the police department. The caller also said he had an accomplice outside the department who would shoot the dispatcher who took the call and made a series of lewd comments to the dispatcher.
LPD says it received six phone calls from this number between June 19 and June 21.
An investigation by Detective Zach Thomas was able to identify the suspect through a series of search warrants for information from various Electronic Service Providers such as Google.
LPD says the investigation also found that the suspect was involved in an online chat with another user and who encouraged the 15-year-old to make calls to LPD.
The second suspect provided the 15-year-old with the LPD phone number and SJRMC’s address. The suspect also coached the other user in how to use a Virtual Private Network to mask his location.
The investigation also indicated that the 15-year-old had called, or had been an accomplice to these type of "swatting" calls to the following agencies in the United States in 2024: San Marcos Police Department in Texas, Moscow Police Department in Idaho, Clarkston Police Department in Washington, Catskills Police Department in New York, Prineville Police Department in Oregon, Auburn Hills Police Department in Michigan, Orion Township Police Department in Mississippi, New Orleans Police Department in Louisiana, Chicago Police Department in Illinois, New York Police Department in New York, Houston Police Department in Texas, Honolulu Police Department in Hawaii and the Irving Police Department in Texas.
LPD says the 15-year-old also claimed in online chats that he had engaged in this activity for years and had even advertised to other users that he was willing to commit these acts for money.
LPD says it is difficult to calculate the amount of resources that were wasted by these calls, as well as how the public's safety was jeopardized while law enforcement officers were unable to carry out their duties because they were responding to these hoaxes.
Detectives also found evidence of digital tools such as sound boards that play the sound of gunshots and screams which were used to make the calls seem real to dispatchers.
Detective Thomas noted in his charging document, “Those dispatchers listen to very real calls from people experiencing the worst days of their lives. Dispatchers have had to listen to people committing suicide on the phone. Dispatchers have had to listen to other people being physically beaten and killed on the phone. Dispatchers in the moment have no way of knowing what is 'just a prank' and what is real.”
LPD says the Whitman County Sheriff's Office assisted in the arrest and in the execution of the search warrant on the 15-year-old's home.