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Battling swatting is a dangerous business, as one senator found out the hard way when he got swatted after proposing anti-swatting legislation.
South Bay state Senator Ted Lieu was away from his Torrance home yesterday when he got a phone call from police asking him if he had shot his wife, according to City News Service.
"I got extremely concerned,'' Lieu told the Daily Breeze.
The call came after officials had received what turned out to be a prank call form someone pretending to be Lieu saying that he had shot his wife. As they attempted to reach him on the phone, Torrance police officers went to his home and made his wife come out of the house with her hands up.
Lieu, in the meantime, was attempting to reach his wife and worrying that someone had actually shot her.
He eventually realized that it may be a prank.
"My first thought was, 'Well, did someone else shoot my wife?' " he told the Daily Breeze. "I got quite scared. Then, my second thought was, because I am trying to do swatting legislation, this could be a swatting call."
Lieu arrived home shortly after getting the call from police, and both he and his wife are fine, if a little shaken up. Sen. Lieu recently proposed legislation that would require perpetrators of swatting to pay for the cost of law enforcement's response.
Recent victims of swatting -- in which a prank 9-1-1 call is made so law enforcement shows up at someone's house -- have included Diddy, Russell Brand and Ryan Seacrest.
