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Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said his home in Naples, Florida, was “swatted” on Wednesday night.
“Last night, while at dinner with my wife, cowards ‘swatted’ my home in Naples,” Scott wrote in a Thursday morning post on X. “These criminals wasted the time & resources of our law enforcement in a sick attempt to terrorize my family.”
Scott thanked the Naples Police Department and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office for “all they do to keep us safe.”
“Swatting” is a false report of a crime or emergency to authorities intended to draw police to a certain location.
Reached for comment, Lt. Bryan McGinn, spokesperson for Naples police, said the department’s dispatchers received a call about a shooting on its nonemergency line at approximately 9 p.m. Wednesday night. Within 15 minutes, police confirmed that “the events did not occur and the incident was a swatting event,” McGinn said, adding there is a “very much an active and ongoing investigation” into the incident.
A report associated with the swatting call said a male caller told a dispatcher that he had shot his wife with an AR-15 three times while she was sleeping. A security officer was unaware of any calls or issues at the residence upon police arrival. Officers conducted a search of the outside perimeter of the residence and found no signs of forced entry.
When the exterior search concluded, officers contacted the homeowner, who requested they search the inside the residence, but they found nothing as described by the caller.
The Collier County Sheriff’s Office referred NBC News to the Naples Police Department for comment.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has been the target of several “swatting” incidents at her home in Georgia, including on Christmas Day, police confirmed to NBC News.
“I was just swatted. This is like the 8th time. On Christmas with my family here,” Greene said in a post on X.
Major Rodney Bailey of the Rome, Georgia, police department said a person based in Rome, New York, called a suicide hotline claiming he had shot his girlfriend at Greene’s address in Georgia and threatened to kill himself next.
Police then contacted Greene’s local security liaison to let the congresswoman’s team know about the call. Her security team decided officers didn’t need to respond to her home, Bailey said. Department spokesperson Kelly Madden told The Associated Press that police canceled their response while they were on their way to Greene’s home.
False reports of shootings at Greene’s home, about 70 miles northwest of Atlanta, also were made last year. Police responded in person to those incidents and determined that the reports were fake.
