Gates Police have arrested a Henrietta man for a so-called “SWATTING” incident; making a fake 911 call as a prank to disrupt a business.
They arrested Jason Edwards of Henrietta yesterday evening and charged him with falsely reporting an incident. They say the 34-year-old man called 911 using a false name, and claiming he was locked in a bathroom at a motel on Buffalo Road to get away from a man with a knife who was robbing him.
Gates Police surrounded the motel and took several people out of the room before their investigation showed nothing was wrong. Edwards allegedly admitted placing that call because he knew one of the people in the room and wanted to see who they were with.
He will appear in Gates Court on December 5th.
(A SWAT team was not actually sent, “SWATTING” has come to be the term used for pranking someone by trying to get police to respond to a nonexistent incident).