SWAT teams deployed in 911 telephone fraud

[Clintonista2]

awake by the wail of police sirens and the rumble of a helicopter above their suburban Southern California home. A criminal must be on the loose, they thought.

Doug Bates got up to lock the doors and grabbed a knife. A beam from a flashlight hit him. He peeked into the backyard. A swarm of police, assault rifles drawn, ordered him out of the house. Bates emerged, frightened and with the knife in his hand, as his wife frantically dialed 911. They were handcuffed and ordered to the ground while officers stormed the house.

The scene of mayhem and carnage the officers expected was nowhere to be found. Neither the Bateses nor the officers knew that they were pawns in a dangerous game being played 1,200 miles away by a teenager bent on terrifying a random family of strangers.

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While Doug and Stacey Bates were cuffed on the ground that night in March 2007, 18-year-old Randal Ellis, living with his parents in Mukilteo, Wash., was nearly finished with the 27-minute yarn about a drug-fueled murder that brought the Orange County Sheriff's Department SWAT team to the Bateses' home.

In a grisly sounding call to 911, Ellis was putting an Internet-based phone service for the hearing-impaired to nefarious use. By entering bogus information about his location, Ellis was able to make it seem to the 911 operator as if he was calling from inside the Bateses' home. He said he was high on drugs and had just shot his sister.

Picked the house at random
According to prosecutors, Ellis picked the Bates family at random, as he did with all of the 185 calls investigators say he made to 911 operators around the country.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28965633

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Ugh, what is it with these teenage brats who feel the urge to do shit like this? I hope he enjoys prison.

[MrSlayer]

1. Phoney Phone Calls to CNN are one thing but this goes to another level.

The cops might have accidentally killed this guy when he came out with the knife, and all for nothing but a stupid "joke". This imbecile should be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

[vadawg]

2. i believe hes already been sentenced

this is the pinnacle of idiocy, and for all the crap that law enforcement gets good job with dealing with what they thought was a knife wielding drug crazed killer. This could of went so bad.

[Clintonista2]

3. He got 3 years apparently