Police field 'swatting' call in South Berkeley

Berkeley police are investigating a fake 911 call this week that briefly caused concern at a local elementary school.

The incident began around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday when Berkeley police got a call from a man who claimed he had shot his girlfriend during an argument in a home on King Street north of Ashby Avenue.

Police immediately suspected the call was a hoax but asked the caller to come outside and wait for them on the curb.

Officers responded to the block to investigate but found nothing amiss.

The man called police again to say he would kill himself as well as police officers if they responded.

When officers checked the reported location, they found no issue.

While they were investigating the report, the Berkeley emergency dispatch center also got a call from a suicide hotline to say it had received a call describing similar circumstances.

Shortly before 3 p.m., BPD also responded to Malcolm X Elementary School, a few blocks from the false report on King, where staff members had gotten an erroneous alert from the Citizen app that a man had shot a woman during a dispute.

According to the Citizen app, it notified nearly 9,000 users about the alleged shooting, but never identified the incident as suspicious or explained that police were able to determine that it had not happened.

According to radio traffic reviewed by The Scanner, the school brought students inside and called BPD after getting the Citizen alert, in line with its safety protocols.

Berkeley police then worked quickly to coordinate with school officials and checked the area to confirm that there was no risk to students.

As a result, the school was able to release students and end the school day at the normal time.

Swatting has not been a frequent issue in Berkeley but there have been at least a handful of the hoax calls locally in recent years.

"Our goal is to never draw attention to these types of calls when possible," a BPD spokeswoman told TBS previously.