A 20-year-old Bremerton man has been arrested and charged with 10 federal felonies in connection with a crime known as “swatting,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington Nick Brown announced in a news release on Thursday.
Swatting involves making false reports to emergency services to bring a large police response to a location. Often, the caller falsely claims a victim has committed a crime, causing officers to surround or enter their home with weapons drawn.
According to legal documents, during a three-month period last year, Ashton Connor Garcia gathered personal information about his victims and then threatened them, including threats to make swatting calls that would send police to their homes.
He demanded money, credit card information, virtual money or sexually explicit photos from some of his victims, who lived in Washington, California, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the indictment said.
In some cases, he made swatting calls at the request of his friends.
“Every time Mr. Garcia is alleged to have made one of his false reports to law enforcement, he triggered a potentially deadly event – sending heavily armed police officers to an address where they mistakenly believed they would confront someone who was armed and dangerous,” Brown said in a news release Thursday.
Authorities said Garcia used fake identities and voice over internet technology to make false...
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