The Suffern Police Department is updating the community on an incident that occured on Thursday that was reported by Monsey Scoop.
Swatting Incident
The Suffern Police Department would like to make its residents aware of an incident that occurred today, causing a large police response to the Memorial Drive/ Wayne Avenue section of the village.
At approximately 2:25 PM, our department received a call from a male party stating that he was in a residence located on Lexington Ave and that he just shot his brother with a handgun. The male went on to say that he would shoot any police officers that responded to the scene. Suffern police officers responded to the scene and along with officers from the Ramapo Police Department and the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office and set up a perimeter around the house.
Eventually, contact was made with a resident inside by telephone and two parties exited the residence and were interviewed by police. Both parties denied making the call or having any knowledge of a shooting inside the residence. The Rockland County React Team (SWAT Team) arrived on scene and entered the residence.
The residence was subsequently cleared, and no signs of a shooting, or any type of criminality were found. Upon further investigation, this incident appears to be what is referred to as a “Swatting” incident. A swatting incident is “the action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of police officers to a particular address”.
Unfortunately, these incidents are on the rise nationwide and create a dangerous situation for all involved. It should be noted that this type of false report to emergency services is both a federal and state crime and can be punishable by a prison term. The incident is currently under investigation by the Suffern Police Department’s detective bureau.
We would like to stress to our residents that based on our investigation, there is no danger to the public at this time. We would also like to thank area residents and persons travelling through this area, for their patience while we investigated this incident. Lastly, we would like to thank the Ramapo Police Department, Rockland County Sheriff’s Office and all agencies that sent personnel with the REACT Team for their assistance.
