DES MOINES (AP) — A Des Moines force of snipers and other heavily armed officers responded to what turned out to be an expensive hoax.
The Des Moines Register reports that someone reported around 9:40 p.m. Thursday that he’d shot his mother and was inside a home with guns and explosives.
The officers raced to the scene, set up barricades and got ready to negotiate with man inside the house. Sgt. Jason Halifax says a man who lives in the house approached one of the barricades and told officers he was trying to get home. Officers soon searched the house and found no one inside.
Halifax says most of the officers at the scene were on overtime, driving up the cost of the prank, which he says is called “SWAT-ing.”