MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Myrtle Beach police responded to a call of shots fired Monday night that turned out to be a hoax.
Around 20 officers responded to a call at a house on Green Bay Trl. where a caller said a man had shot his wife and was threatening to shoot others inside his home.
“We made contact with the people who live in the house, they were very cooperative and came out, and we were able to discover at the time that there was no shooting; the call was a hoax,” Cpl. Thomas Vest with the Myrtle Beach Police Department said.
The department says that swatting, or making a fake call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about a large number of armed police officers to a particular address, is rare.
Myrtle Beach police say they have to take every call seriously.
“We respond to the information we receive. There was no indication that the information was incorrect and we’ll respond based on what we know at the time,” Vest said.
Vest says fake calls like Monday night’s don’t happen often, but when they do, they put a strain on their resources.
“We have a lot of resources allocated across the city and one benefit of being here in the city is we do have so many officers available, but a call like this is a high priority call and it does pull other officers away from patrol duties to address it,” Vest said.