Bill > A04370

This bill amends the penal law to include falsely reporting incidents in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of police officers to a particular address or location as a felony offense under the crime of falsely reporting an incident in the second degree. The bill expands the existing law to cover not just false reports of fires, explosions, or hazardous substance releases, but also false reports of incidents made to bring about a large police response. This is intended to address the growing issue of "swatting," where individuals make false emergency calls to provoke a heavily armed police response to a specific location.