A fake hostage call sent San Antonio officers racing to a North Side home Sunday morning, only for police to find a young girl quietly playing Roblox inside.
Officers were dispatched shortly after 8:30 a.m. to a house on Brightwood near New Braunfels Avenue. Once they checked the scene, investigators concluded the alarming report was a hoax and confirmed the child was unharmed. Police said the girl had been warned ahead of time that someone might try to trigger a swatting incident, and they are treating the call as exactly that. It is still unclear whether anyone will face charges, according to News 4 San Antonio.
Police Response and a Growing Local Pattern
San Antonio police are not new to this kind of stunt. Local reporting notes that since mid-2022, the department has dealt with at least six similar swatting calls, a pattern that has prompted repeated warnings to residents. KSAT documented that string of incidents as officials urged people to take hoax threats seriously, even when they sound outlandish.
The problem has not been limited to neighborhoods. University campuses around Texas have also been hit. UTSA reported two swatting incidents this past August that were serious enough to trigger emergency alerts to students and staff. In the aftermath, UTSA issued detailed guidance to the campus community about how to respond if similar hoaxes happen again.
National Crackdown and Why It Matters
Federal authorities say swatting has grown from a toxic offshoot of online gaming disputes into a broader public-safety headache. In response, the FBI has created a national database to track swatting incidents and help agencies share information faster, aiming to spot patterns and identify callers before someone gets hurt. That effort has been covered in depth by CNBC.
Texas Law: Hoax Calls, Real Charges
Texas law treats this kind of prank as more than bad behavior. Sec. 42.06 of the Texas Penal Code makes it a crime to knowingly make a false report that could trigger an emergency response. In most cases it is prosecuted as a Class A misdemeanor, with the possibility of tougher penalties in certain circumstances. Those provisions are spelled out in Texas statutes…