A WASHINGTON MAN stands accused of making a false emergency 911 call that sent an armed SWAT team into a sleeping California family's suburban home, reported the Orange County Register.

Last March 19 at 11:30 PM, Randall Ellis, 19, of Mukilteo, Washington, allegedly provided false caller-id information while dialing 911 emergency dispatchers, leading them to believe that the call had originated at a Lake Forest home that he'd picked out at random.

Caller-id service is provided by the telephone companies, so one might imagine that Ellis hacked into a phone company switch to perpetrate his hoax, but that's only speculation. He also might have hacked the 911 system itself. The authorities won't say how he did it.

Once he had the emergency dispatcher on the phone, Ellis allegedly posed as a frightened teenager, said that someone had overdosed on cocaine, then escalated the drama by saying that he'd been shot in the shoulder and intruders were about to go shoot his sister.

In response, the Orange County Sheriff's Office dispatched a canine unit, a SWAT team and a helicopter.

Awakened by what he thought was a prowler in his back yard and ready to protect his sleeping wife and their two children, the homeowner armed himself with a kitchen knife and went outside, where a Sheriff's SWAT team waited with loaded assault rifles.

The resident and his wife reportedly were handcuffed at gunpoint before SWAT officers figured out that the 911 call was a hoax.

The couple, identified only as Doug and Stacy B., said they didn't feel safe in their home for weeks. Doug B. is quoted as having said "It was terrifying for months afterward."

Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney's Office, said "It's not a prank. People's lives were in danger."

Ellis doesn't have a prior criminal record, but the District Attorney's office believes he also placed false 911 calls that triggered other SWAT team call-outs in Bullhead City, Arizona, Millcreek Township, Pennsylvania, and in his home town of Mukilteo, Washington.

Ellis was apprehended there last Friday, waived extradition to California on Monday, and is expected to be arraigned in Orange County Superior Court next Monday. He will be charged with unauthorised computer access, fraud, false imprisonment by violence, falsely reporting a crime and assault with an assault weapon by proxy. µ

L'INQ
Orange County Register