JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville family says a false emergency call led to a frightening encounter with law enforcement when dozens of officers surrounded their home and ordered them outside at gunpoint Saturday evening.
The incident appears to be a case of “swatting,” a dangerous hoax in which someone falsely reports a serious crime in an effort to trigger a large police response.
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Sherika Phillips said she and her family were relaxing at home around 7:30 p.m. when they heard a voice over a megaphone coming from outside.
“Saturday around 730 p.m. I hear a loud voice over the speaker telling me to come out, me and my family come out with our hands up,” Phillips said.
When the family stepped outside, Phillips said they were met by a large police presence.
“We came out, it was so many police. This whole street, both ends blocked off. Over here blocked off, it were shooters surrounding us,” Phillips said.
Phillips said the experience was terrifying, especially for her children.
“It was so scary, and my kids was crying, they didn’t know what was going on. Nobody knew what was goin’ on,” she said.
She said officers had rifles pointed toward family members as they exited the home.
“They had rifles pointed at my babies and my babies was crying. It was a scary situation. They never seen a gun in their life and they had 30 of them pointed at them. It was, it was bad,” Phillips said.
Video captured by a neighbor’s Ring camera shows officers throughout the neighborhood and issuing warnings to residents to remain indoors.
“We’re working on an active incident just stay in the house,” an officer can be heard saying.
Phillips said she had no idea why officers were targeting her home.
“It was so scary. And later on, after they checked the house, they said it was all clear. But they gave us two different stories. First, they told us it was five hostages being held in a house and one active shooter. And then they said something about it was shots fired. We didn’t know what was going on. I’m like, shots? No. Nothing was going. We just ate dinner, and we was relaxing,” Phillips said.
She said she does not know who may have made the false report.
“No. But whoever did it will be found and I’m gonna make sure of it,” Phillips said.
According to Phillips, investigators told her the call appeared to originate from a fake number.
“They traced the number back and it came up to be like a bogus number. It was a prank call,” she said.
Phillips said her son had been livestreaming himself playing Fortnite online about four hours before officers arrived. Authorities have said swatting incidents sometimes target online gamers and streamers, with perpetrators using personal information obtained online to make false emergency reports.
While no one was physically injured, Phillips said the emotional impact remains.
“Even though they say it’s no damage is done, the door wasn’t kicked in, nobody got hurt. We left with damages, we are, we’re mentally scarred. They need to provide some type of services to help people cope with this. It’s just not no harm, no foul, no. We still gonna have to deal with this for the rest of our lives,” Phillips said.
News4JAX reached out to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office for information about the incident and is awaiting a response.