Palm Coast, FL - Deputies respond to a Palm Coast neighborhood to investigate a suspicious incident, only to find out there was nothing going on at all.
Reports from the Flagler County Sheriff's Office show that law enforcement was called sometime around 10 o'clock yesterday morning (March 3rd) by someone from DeLand.
That caller – who reportedly works for a counseling agency – told FCSO that a male had called them and reported that they drugged a female, undressed her and was performing sexual acts on her while he was under the influence of narcotics.
The narratives from FCSO show that the male sounded "high" and said he smoked marijuana. He also kept asking the reporting party a multitude of sexual questions while the caller tried to get his phone number. At one point during the call, the male stated that he was at Concord Place in Palm Coast.
He claimed that he was dropped off there by his uncle – who apparently works in construction and was identified as "Uncle Thumb" – and was waiting for him to pick him up around noon. He stated that he did not want to give his uncle's real name or phone number, as he did not want to get him in trouble.
Besides that, they were not able to get any other pertinent information out of him, but he did state that he was a 19-year-old male from the Caribbean named "Ziggy" and he locked himself in a bathroom with a backpack that had a knife. While on the phone, he told the worker that he is with a female named Catherine, whom he supposedly gave a "roofie" to.
Law enforcement responded to the area and checked all the residences, but did not find anyone suspicious in the area. FCSO wrote in their report that the call seemed to be a "swatting" type of spoof call, where someone fakes an emergency call to try and send law enforcement to a certain address for no reason.
In some swatting cases around the country, officers were sent to a residence with reports that someone was being held hostage with a gun, which usually warrants the use of a SWAT team. When officers would arrive, they would breach into a home only to find out that nothing was going on. Often times, swatting calls were used to prank someone, such as an online streamer while they were live, or scare someone as a method of retaliation.
One report from the Washington Post details an incident where a man received 20 years in prison after police shot and killed a Wichita, Kansas man during a swatting call.
Brittany Kershaw, the Public Affairs Manager for FCSO, says that the Sheriff's Office will most likely not investigate this call further, as it proved to be a scam.
