School shooting survivor turned activist, David Hogg, was in Washington when someone called and reported a hostage situation at his Florida home. A SWAT team responded to the call and cleared the house, according to Mashable.
“Swatting” is a term used across the internet to refer to a prank phone call (that’s actually really f-cking dangerous) to the police that prompts a major response. In this case, the prankster called the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and pretended to be a hostage in Hogg’s home, the Daily Beast reported.
#BREAKING Family of Stoneman Douglas student and gun safety advocate David Hogg swatted at home https://t.co/Lgj2tyc1xx pic.twitter.com/2Z2dekNe3m
— WPLG Local 10 News (@WPLGLocal10) June 5, 2018
Hogg told CBS Miami that he didn’t know who would attempt to pull this so-called prank on him and called the act “a silly prank that’s an attempted distraction from what we are doing to here and that is to save children’s lives.”
Hogg and his mother were in Washington at the time of the swatting to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award. Hogg has been touring the United States advocating for stricter gun control laws since his graduation on Sunday, according to Mashable.
According to the Daily Beast, the sheriff’s office plans to investigate the incident because purposely calling in a false report to the police is illegal.