Windsor police swarm home after prank 911 call

Windsor police responded in force Thursday afternoon to a residential neighborhood on Alden Lane after a prank 911 call reported a shooting in a home there.

Officers swarmed the quiet residential block just before 6 p.m., when elementary school-aged kids and parents were attending an evening program at the nearby Mary Agatha Furth Center.

Police showed up at the home, where a retired man and his wife live with one of their daughters and her child, after receiving a 911 call that appeared to come from the address.

The caller said a grandfather at the home had shot someone there and was “walking around with a shotgun,” Windsor Sgt. Shawn Murphy said.

“There were several people in the home,” he said. “We were able to get them out and confirm that the call was basically made up.”

The type of prank is called “SWATting,” as callers often spoof another person’s phone number in an effort to get a police SWAT team called to a home.

The homeowner, who asked that his name not be used, said the family had been getting prank calls for the past few weeks, ever since one of his grandsons had gotten into an argument online while playing the video game “Minecraft.”

But after Thursday afternoon’s experience, he said he was going to change his phone number.

“I knew I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said after describing how officers handcuffed him and placed him in the backseat of a police car while they searched his house. “But boy, was I scared.”