OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
11:55 AM – Thursday, December 28, 2023
Florida Senator Rick Scott has became the latest Republican lawmaker to fall victim to swatting.
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Police responded to calls of a shooting at Scott’s residence just after 9 p.m. on Wednesday night, but concluded it was a swatting less than 15 minutes after their arrival.
Swatting refers to when a person calls the police to report a fake incident in order to cause a SWAT team to respond to someone’s house.
The incident comes after Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) were both swatted on Christmas day.
Authorities said a man in New York called the Georgia suicide hotline and claimed he shot his girlfriend and was going to shoot himself next, giving them Greene’s address.
Police discovered it was a phony call before dispatching to the lawmakers residence and got in touch with her security detail to determine there was no threat.
According to the Rome Police Department there have been at least 18 swatting calls to Greene’s home since December of 2020.
“If we’ve been called out on a false call we could be depleting the resources from someone who truly needs an emergency response,” said Kelly Madden with the Rome Police Department. “What if that was a baby that’s choking? What if that was a burning car?”
On Wednesday, Greene also posted to her X profile, the platform previously known as Twitter, that one of her family members had also been swatted.
Representative Williams said deputies contacted him before arriving at his residence and that they left with homemade cookies and spice nuts.
Notably, all congressional lawmakers that have been swatted are Republicans running for re-election. However, it’s unclear whether the incidents are connected.
Meanwhile, at least four current or former GOP state lawmakers homes were swatted on Tuesday. Those members included State Representative Kevin Miller (R-Ohio), former Representative Rick Carfagna (R-Ohio), Senator Andrew Brenner (R-Ohio) and Attorney General Dave Yost (R-Ohio).
All of the Ohio lawmakers that were targeted supported efforts to enact a law that makes swatting a felony in the state, which went into effect earlier this year.
Authorities continue to investigate all of the incidents as well as emphasized that phony calls take away from real life threatening situations that police need to respond to instead.
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