911 Prank?

[t13one12]

So at around 0023 Hours on Saturday May 21, we were paged for all available man-power to our respective stations. We came to find out we were looking for a car accident. A young male caller made 4 phone calls to his friends cell phone within 7 minutes. On each call he was crying and made reference to 3 points in our fire district, saying that his car went off the road on a bad turn (didn't say what turn specifically) and that it was stuck between two trees and he couldn't get out of the car. He also mentioned not knowing where a passenger was. We searched the area for quite awhile before our search was called off. We came to find out that the kid made a prank call. My question for all of you is can he be charged with anything legally? He did not call 911 himself, but called his friends which led them to believe he was in trouble. After they searched the area themselves and found nothing, they called 911. Just wondering what he could be held accountable for.

[firenresq77]

I would think they would be able to charge him with something, just not sure what........

[firefighterox]

The only think I could think of would be filing a false report but that might be a stretch.

[shaun191]

Im sure there is something....

[nmfire]

No one filed a false report. The people who called it in were reporting what they thought was a legitimate emergency. I don't know what statute there is against telling someone else you are hurt when your're not.

[firefighterox]

Like I said it would be a stretch but isnt that what the runaway bride did? called her husband and said she was kidnapped or did she call the police. That's why i said it would be a strech. Im sure there is something they can get him on.

[BFDLT32]

Yes he can be charged. Because of his actions he caused the response of emergency personnel. Even though he did not directly cause the response he is responsible for his actions. It is similar to making a malicious false alarm.

Remember a few weeks ago where a female called the police and stated that she had been kidnapped. Latter it was all determined to be a hoax. The call was not even made to an agency in her state. She was arrested by local and federal authorities and remanded to custody while awaiting a disposition. In her case there was federal jurisdiction since her calls to another state.

[t13one12]

Funny that you mention she called another state. Our subject was in New Jersey when he was apprehended today, or so I'm told. He was there the night he made the calls, which were to friends here in New York where we got paged for the incident. We know very little details on his "detainment". The source I heard this from only knew that the police had "located" the prankster, he was not sure what if any action had been taken yet. Malicious false alarms are certainly dangerous, but I was more ticked off that I was woken out of bed for that when we had to be up for drill @ 7 the next morning. I'm a college student and 2 back-to-back days of waking up @ 7 is detrimental to my sleep patterns. :D I was normally waking up around noon at school. But then again that was scratched this morning for an MVA that we got turned around for. Tough life, but somebody has to do it :cool:

[EFD840]

BFDLT32,

Are you talking about the runaway bride? If you are, I don't recall seeing where she was charged with anything.

T13one12, at the very least the agencies involved could pursue a civl action to recover the costs of looking for the wreck. If he's a minor or for that matter, a first offender, a criminal charge isn't going to result in any real punishment.

Hit him where it hurts, in the wallet.

[reeveo]

Originally posted by EFD840
BFDLT32,

T13one12, at the very least the agencies involved could pursue a civl action to recover the costs of looking for the wreck. If he's a minor or for that matter, a first offender, a criminal charge isn't going to result in any real punishment.

Hit him where it hurts, in the wallet.

I agree. If at all possible I would sit down, figure out the costs for your department (man hours, fuel, operations, etc...) and send him a bill. :p If for no other reason than to make a paoint and get the last laugh.

[t13one12]

Only thing we could charge for is the fuel. We are 100% volunteer. Although if the town raises a suit then the Police can charge the kid for the OT they picked up that night. Almost 4 hours worth of it.

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

Pair Arraigned in Hoax That Led to Police Standoff

May 9, 2005 2:38 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (New Brunswick, NJ) A Texas woman and a New Jersey man pleaded innocent Monday to making prank phone calls to police that touched off a six-hour SWAT team standoff.

Fatin A. Ward and Wadu Jackson made brief court appearances stemming from the March 22 calls that resulted in a massive armed response to a house near Rutgers University.

Ward, 23, of Arlington, Texas, did not speak during her hearing, at which her public defender, Richard D. Barker, entered the plea. She remains in custody on $100,000 bail.

Shortly after the standoff, Ward told The Associated Press she was playing a telephone game called ``bombing'' in which people make bogus emergency calls and then see how many law enforcement officers respond.

Her mother said Ward has a history of mental illness and had been refusing to take medication.

Outside court, Barker said that despite Ward's statements ``her defense is going to be she's not guilty. There's obviously going to be more conversations about the events, and exploration of her history. Until that time, our stance is, she's not guilty. I don't know what she said she did. I don't know if what she said she did constitutes a criminal act.''

He declined to say if Ward would pursue a diminished capacity defense, and said she would be getting a private lawyer later this week.

Jackson, 20, of Irvington, has been free on bail. He had little to say to reporters.

``Ask the girl that did it. Don't ask me nothing,'' Jackson said.

Both have been indicted on two counts each of conspiracy and creating a false public alarm. They could get as much as 10 years in prison.

Authorities said Ward told a New Brunswick police dispatcher that she was a 14-year-old girl who had been raped and was handcuffed to a bed. Jackson is accused of calling police after Ward did and threatening to kill his hostage if police intervened.

Prosecutors allege the pair made a similar prank call in January, resulting in police responding twice to a New Brunswick home on unfounded reports of a shooting and a sexual assault.

The March calls resulted in a massive police response to a house in New Brunswick that lasted for six hours. The standoff ended when three teenagers who were in a third-floor apartment walked out of the house, unaware that their residence had been targeted by a prank caller. The teens were taken into custody and then released without being charged.

Ward and others are suspected of similar hoaxes on other New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina towns, according to police.

[tk1918]

I would think that they could get the kid for inducing panic. Isn't that what they did to the nitwit runaway bride?

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

Originally posted by tk1918
I would think that they could get the kid for inducing panic. Isn't that what they did to the nitwit runaway bride?

What is the statutory citation for "inducing panic"?

Can you cite some documentation that the "runaway bride" has been charged with anything?

[MrJim911]

Some states have abuse of the 911 system as a misdemeanor. But it depends on the state.

[nmfire]

Regardless of what laws there are or aren't, I can say without a soubt that his friends will not be charged with anything. They reported an emergency they though was taking place. Hell, they did exactly what they should have done.

Again, I don't know what laws apply to the nitwit that was pretending to be in an accident.

[t13one12]

His friends definately did the right thing, well to an extent. Had this been a real accident, they should have called 911 right away before taking it upon themselves to look for the kid.

On a side note, we just got yet another 911 prank. God I love sitting in the aerial for 2 hours waiting for PD to clear the building.

[nmfire]

Well, remember a lot of kids, especially teens will take it upon themselves to help their friends before the thought of 911 becomes something on the radar. For example, if you skateboarded off the roof of a house while setting your cloths on fire, how many kids do you think would call 911 when you end up with a leg facing backwards and your hair burnt off. Very few. They will however help you limp into the house, get you lots of ice, and take pictures for the internet.

[snowball]

Originally posted by TrojanHorse
The kid called his buddies and reported his problem to them. He did not tell them to call 911. The buddies actred on their own to call 911. The kid who started it all had no control over the actions of his friends. Therefore, the kid cannot be charged for anything except perhaps for telling a lie to his friends. Is that illegal? The friends believed they were reporting a true emergency, hence no crime here either.

Heck, ever been called to a structure fire as a passerby saw a large amount of smoke only to show up and see a small camp fire. Any charges there?

I'll wait till the 911 tapes are played before I judge how involved the "kid" is.;)

[dmleblanc]

The March calls resulted in a massive police response to a house in New Brunswick that lasted for six hours. The standoff ended when three teenagers who were in a third-floor apartment walked out of the house, unaware that their residence had been targeted by a prank caller.

WTF? How does a police standoff last for 6 hours when one of the parties is not even aware that it is involved in a police standoff? Or am I reading this wrong? :rolleyes:

[DrParasite]

Originally posted by dmleblanc
WTF? How does a police standoff last for 6 hours when one of the parties is not even aware that it is involved in a police standoff? Or am I reading this wrong? :rolleyes: it's a two family house. the family above was involved, the one below wasn't. and IIRC, the lower residence was filled with college students, and when it comes to college students, they can block out the entire world if it isn't directly affectin them.

go figure.

[SafetyPro]

Just saw this morning that the runaway bride was indicted yesterday in GA for one count of making a false police report and one count of making a false statement to police.

Yahoo! News - Wilbanks Indicted on False Crime Charge (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050525/ap_on_re_us/runaway_bride)

We'll have to see if it ever leads to a conviction though.

[HFRH28]

Depending on the state he could be charged with misuse of the 911 system. Examples have been set here of people misusing the system.


On a side note, I LOVE my county having Phase two wireless 911 system. We got two prank calls two nights in a row. Next day i went into the communications center, got the coordinates off the call printout and found the calls to be placed from a location in another town, and got the exact physical address of where he called from. We decided not to press charges tho, unless a third call occurred.

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

Essex charges suspect in 17 'bombings'
Phone hoaxes caused havoc
Friday, June 03, 2005
BY WILLIAM KLEINKNECHT
Star-Ledger Staff
The Texas woman whose hoax telephone call produced a six-hour standoff by the New Brunswick police two months ago told an investigator she has carried out "hundreds" of similar episodes, including many in Essex County, a prosecutor said yesterday.

Fatin Ward's alleged statement to an investigator was revealed as the 23-year-old appeared in Superior Court in Newark to face new charges that she made 17 hoax calls to authorities in Essex County between December and March.

Theodore Brown, a chief assistant Essex County prosecutor, said Ward made calls to police or fire departments in six towns, reporting serious incidents that brought a full emergency response.

"Innocent people were put in harm's way or placed in handcuffs," Brown said.

Brown said that as Ward was being interviewed by Middlesex County investigators in Fort Worth, Texas on March 30, she was asked how many times she engaged in "bombing," street slang for hoax calls to emergency responders.

"Her response was 'hundreds,'" Brown said.

With Ward standing nearby in a bright green jail outfit, her feet in irons and her hands shackled to her waist, Brown called her a flight risk and asked Judge Michael Casale for a bail of $100,000.

Casale granted Brown's request, despite the objection of public defender Susan Freedman, and added $100,000 to the $50,000 bail already holding Ward in Middlesex County.

Ward and a friend, Wadu Jackson, 20, of Irvington, have been charged with two hoax incidents in New Brunswick, including one on March 22 in which Ward claimed to be a woman handcuffed to a bed and being raped by her stepfather.

Police surrounded the house for six hours with sharpshooters training their guns on the windows. A section of the city's downtown was paralyzed, with streets closed and schools locked down, until three young people who had done nothing wrong came out with their hands raised.

Ward, who lives in Arlington, Texas, but says she grew up in Teaneck, told The Star-Ledger in a March 23 telephone interview that she made the call because Jackson had a dispute with a 16-year-old girl who lived at the home at 226 Seaman St. She said it was all part of the game of "bombing," which is promoted on telephone chat lines linked to the Internet.

After Ward's arrest in New Brunswick, the police investigation turned to a number of Essex County communities whose police have received hoax calls recently. Brown said his office was able to charge Ward with nine incidents in East Orange, two in Belleville, two in Bloomfield, two in Montclair and one each in Glen Ridge and West Orange. The complaints were signed in April and May.

Jackson is not charged in any Essex cases.

In Belleville on Jan.17, Ward told police she was being held by a man with a gun, according to one of the complaints. On Jan. 6 in Bloomfield, the story was that she was being raped and held hostage in a home on Leslie Street. She allegedly told Glen Ridge police about a shooting and domestic violence situation on Forest Avenue on Feb. 28. Four of the calls in East Orange were false reports of fires.

For 16 of the incidents, she is charged with issuing false public alarms, a third-degree crime that would typically involve no jail time for a single offense.

Prosecutors in Middlesex County have already extended a plea offer to Ward that involves prison time, and plea negotiations are expected in Essex. Casale agreed to schedule a hearing on the status of those negotiations before Ward's charges are submitted to a grand jury. She has already been indicted in Middlesex.

[firefighterox]

Jennifer Wilbanks pled no contest to her charges of miss use of the 911 system today and got 2 yrs probation.

[EFD840]

Originally posted by firefighterox
Jennifer Wilbanks pled no contest to her charges of miss use of the 911 system today and got 2 yrs probation.

Well, no, not really.

According to the national media, she pleaded guilty to making false statements to police (not abusing the 911 system) and the court appearance was yesterday (6/2), not today.

[firefighterox]

Sorry, i thought i heard on the radio today that she plead no contest to abusing the 911 system.

[parafire81]

We had a situation like this come up at the hospital I work at...

We had parents showing up in our ED looking for their kids who had supposedly been involved in an accident and had been transported here. (which of course we hadn't seen, nor had our ambulance been dispatched to) We began calling around to the sheriff offices in the surrounding counties trying to figure out if there might have been an accident that could've led to confusion as to where the patients were transported. (which of course all had been quiet)

We found out later that one of a group of kids had called his girlfriend, told her that he had been in an accident with a semi, and that although he wasn't hurt, one had been flown by helicopter to the regional trauma center, and the other 3 had been transported to our hospital. She panicked and called the parents which led them here.

We called about wether or not their might be any charges, as our SO had sent a deputy out looking for an accident scene. But, since no 911 call was ever made, it went by the wayside....although I'm sure this kid got his a$$ kicked by his parents as mad as they were when they found out what had happened.

[GeorgeWendtCFI]

'Bombing' transcripts released to media
911 calls reported hostage situation
Thursday, July 07, 2005
BY TOM HAYDON
Star-Ledger Staff
The voice sounds unmistakably like a young, frightened girl, hurt and weeping as she calls a New Brunswick police dispatcher for help.
"My mother boyfriend just raped me and he got me trapped in the bedroom," the caller said. "I'm only 14. He 38 years old. Please. He got, he got a bunch of guns. I'm bleeding. I'm bleeding all over the place," the caller said, according to transcripts of the 911 call to police.
Only authorities say the caller wasn't a girl, but a 23-year-old woman, Fatin Ward, calling from Texas to make a false report about a rape and hostage situation at a Seaman Street apartment house in New Brunswick.
In a second call made less than a minute later, a male voice tells the dispatcher that any police entering the house will be shot, according to the transcript.
The two calls on March 22, each lasting less than two minutes, set off a false alarm that sent dozens of heavily armed police officers to the apartment and shut down streets in the heart of the city for six hours.
Inside the apartment, three unsuspecting teens sat in fear until the father of two of the youths returned home and convinced them to come out. Police ordered all three youths to walk out backward and kneel on the ground, where they were handcuffed and taken away for questioning. The teens were not charged.
Ward, along with an accomplice, 20-year old Wadu Jackson of Irvington, were charged with conspiracy and initiating a false public alarm.
Authorities allege Ward was playing a game known as bombing, calling in a hoax emergency in the hopes of drawing police to a home where Jackson had a beef with one of the residents.
Ward, when contacted by The Star-Ledger the next day, admitted making the call through a telephone party line called New Jersey Raven that made it impossible to trace her phone number.
A transcript of the tape, as well as access to the recordings, were made available to The Star-Ledger after the newspaper won a court order from Superior Court Judge Frederick P. DeVesa in New Brunswick. The newspaper requested the tapes under the state's Open Public Records Act. The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office provided access to the tapes yesterday.
According to tapes of the calls, at 10:44 a.m. on Jan. 22, New Brunswick police dispatcher Rosa Burke received a call from someone asking for police at 226 Seaman St.
The caller says she is a teenager who was attacked by an older man, and he now has her trapped in a bedroom. The caller says she is hurt, handcuffed to a bed, and afraid the man is going to return to the room and find her on the cellular telephone.
Burke, reacting to the caller's claims, used her years of experience to comfort the girl and give calm, clear commands.
"Listen, listen to me now. Just pretend you're just talking to your friends from school. Okay?" Burke said.
The caller, her voice trembling, says she is afraid she will be caught with the telephone.
Burke, using the voice of a parent consoling a daughter, or a teacher calming a student, advises the caller: "Listen to me. Just leave the phone off the hook. And put it under a pillow where I could hear you."
Burke gathers more information, including the name of her attacker, who the caller identifies as Carlos Johnson. Burke checks the address of 226 Seaman St.
Then suddenly, almost imperceptibly, there's a change in the conversation.
Burke asks for the caller's phone number, and there is a pause. For a moment the caller doesn't respond, apparently thinking about what to say.
"It's a cell phone. The only thing you can call is emergency numbers and I dialed 911," the caller says in a slightly more controlled tone.
Burke keeps talking, and initiates a call to an officer.
Suddenly a man's voice is heard. "Who the (expletive deleted) you on the phone with? Hang that (expletive deleted) up," and the conversation ends 1 minute, 27 seconds after it started.
The tape recording captured Burke as her voice suddenly becomes more hurried in calling to an emergency medical technicians.
"I just lost the caller," Burke says.
Less than a minute later, a second call comes through to her from somebody claiming to be Carlos.
"Yo. Ma'am," says the caller with a deeper voice. "This, this is Carlos. My stepdaughter just called.
"Let me tell ya'll one thing. Ya'll come here, dog, I'm shootin' all ya' police officers. And you all not comin' here, and I'll kill myself. That's word. Alright? I'm letting you know this right now. I got mag guns and I'm not ready for gun play. Dog," the caller said.
Before the last words are spoken, a second person, also with a deep voice, is heard saying, "You gonna die, (expletive deleted)," and the phone goes dead.
Police immediately suspected there was a girl and two men in the house.
Sharpshooters surrounded the house and managed to evacuate all the tenants except for three people in a third-floor apartment -- the two teenage boys and the teenage girl. The girl and her brother live in the apartment and are with the girl's boyfriend.
There was no telephone in the room, and authorities said later that when the teens saw all the police, they were afraid to come out.
It wasn't until the father of the girl and her brother came home that they could be persuaded to come out.
The next day, police discovered there were similar incidents of fake 911 calls in other parts of New Jersey and other states, and linked the calls to Ward. She was arrested in her home town of Arlington, Texas, on March 24, two days after the 911 calls were made.
Jackson was arrested on the same charges on the evening of March 24 in Hartford, Conn., where he was staying with an aunt.
Although the 911 tapes recorded the voices of what sounded like two men making three threats in the Seaman Street house, only Ward and Jackson have been arrested. It is unclear whether Ward may have imitated a man's voice in one of the calls.
Both have pleaded not guilty. Jackson has been released on $10,000 bail. Ward is being held on $100,000 bail at the Middlesex County jail in North Brunswick.
Last month, she was charged with 17 similar hoax calls between December and March in Essex County. Officials in Essex County said Ward admitted making hundreds of hoax calls to police departments in New Jersey and other states.