Tuesday, October 10th 2023, 5:24 pm
The Village Police Department is investigating a swatting call from over the weekend. They say they got a call that someone was shooting inside a grocery store on May Avenue.
The police department responded quickly to the call, which claimed there were shots fired at the Uptown Grocery Store. Police were told there were multiple victims.
“It definitely took him through kind of a weird process. You expect to see chaos, you expect to see people running,” Captain Matt Butcher with the Village Police Department said about the responding officer when he arrived on scene. “You expect to see something wrong.”
The responding officer verified the address with authorities before they called off additional resources, making sure they had the right place for the alleged active threat.
The Village Police Department says swatting calls can get expensive. In some cases, they even call in resources from other agencies.
“We still, in this case, took the call so seriously that we cleared that building three times,” Butcher said.
Even though there wasn’t an active threat, that doesn’t mean the investigation is over.
“We have a lot of leads to follow up on,” Butcher said. “We’re reaching out to see if this is connected in any way to active shooter-type calls.”
Making false calls to police is a crime.
“The caller was saying shots are going on right now, while the officer was on scene, and he couldn’t hear shots,” Butcher said.
If found, the caller could face charges.
“It could be across jurisdictional lines. It could potentially elevate it to more significant charges,” Butcher said.
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