Police Arrest 13-Year-Old in Texas for Phony Hostage Call

A 13-year-old boy in Texas is now in police custody for f and for several similar calls in Texas and Illinois, according to Gilroy police spokeswoman Amanda Stanford.

Detectives from the Gilroy Police Department used undisclosed investigative techniques to trace the call back to the suspect, the spokeswoman said. Authorities in Texas arrested him within the last week.

Gilroy police will seek financial restitution from the suspect’s family after he allegedly prank-called authorities and instigated a full-scale hostage response involving more than 20 units from multiple agencies on the 7700 block of Santa Barbara Dr., said Stanford.

The suspect is charged with multiple counts of prank calling police, a practice known as “swatting,” and hacking charges, Stanford said.

The Texas city where the police arrested the young suspect is not being released, she said.

Gilroy police shut down streets in the area for two hours on May 10, setting up a command post to coordinate a response to the claim that two armed men were holding a family hostage inside a home, said police spokesman Chad Gallacinao at the scene.

A remote-controlled robot was used to search the home while SWAT-trained officers were staged nearby with the heavily armored BearCat vehicle, he said.

Police found the house to be empty, said Stanford, and the actual residents were unaware of the call.

Two schools, Brownell Middle School and El Roble Elementary, were on lockdown during the incident, said Stanford.

In California, , section 148.3 of the penal code, is “imprisonment in the county jail for a period not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both that imprisonment and fine." 

The charge is a misdemeanor, but it can become a felony if the person reporting knows—or should know—that the response is “likely to cause death or great bodily injury,” according to the code.