Bethlehem Police arrested a 20-year-old former volunteer firefighter Wednesday for allegedly calling in fake fires at a shelter.
Christopher J. Sanders admitted to making five fake calls to emergency dispatchers after staff members at New Bethany Ministries recognized his voice on 911 tapes, police say.
Fake 911 calls have become increasingly too common for local authorities. Over half a dozen prank calls have been made in the past year in Bethlehem, officials say.
In one recent case, a fake caller told dispatchers he had killed his wife and was holding his baby hostage inside an apartment.
The SWAT team was dispatched to defuse the situation, only to find out the entire report was false. Residents likened the scene to something out of a movie.
SWAT officers swarmed a home in Delaware County last week after a caller claimed to be an unstable man who had just killed his three children and was holding his wife hostage.
Authorities quickly realized the entire story was a hoax concocted by a person in Utah after arriving to the home to find the entire family safe and unaware of what had been reported.
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Such fake calls are part of a growing national trend called "swatting," where people use prepaid cell phones or caller ID spoofers to report sensational crime stories in the hope police scramble a huge response.
Bethlehem Police Lt. Mark DiLuzio calls such pranks dangerous since investigating the reports takes resources away from real crimes.
"It's not a prank, it's a crime," Lt. DiLuzio said. "If somebody calls in and says I live at 123 Main Street, it has to be taken as what it is reported as. You can't say 'Well, we don't believe you."
As for Sanders, he's expected to be charged in the coming days.
