Newly reviewed records show that presidential hopeful Nikki Haley was the target of a swatting incident in late December when an anonymous person called 911 claiming to have killed his girlfriend at Ms Haley’s South Carolina home.
Authorities responded to a call on December 30th from a person who said he had shot his girlfriend and was threatening to harm himself, giving Ms Haley’s address to the operator. It was shortly deemed a fake emergency, Reuters reported. Ms Haley and her son were not at home during the time of the call; her husband was overseas.
“The incident is being investigated by all involved,” Craig Harris, the director of public safety at Kiawah Island, where Ms Haley’s home is located. South Carolina state police, the FBI and Ms Haley’s security team were informed of the event.
Representatives for Ms Haley have not responded to the incident publicly or responded to a request for comment.
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The report comes after a surge in swatting – when anonymous people use the addresses of public figures when calling 911 to report fake violent incidents, such as shootings – against public officials in recent months. Some experts have noted that swatting has become a prolific tool of political intimidation in recent years as people respond to inflammatory rhetoric.
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Earlier this month, special counsel Jack Smith and DC district court judge Tanya Chutkan, both key figures in the federal case against Donald Trump for attempts to overturn the election, were targets of swatting. Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state who barred Mr Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot, was also singled out in an incident last year.
Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said that 14 police cars, a firetruck and an ambulance appeared at his home when someone called 911 about a hoax shooting.
“Now I bolt my doors every night,” he told Reuters. “That’s the reality I’m living in.”
Jen Easterly, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal agency that is tasked with bolstering election security, was also a target of a hoax December 30th, NBC News reported earlier this week.
“One of the most troubling trends we have seen in recent years has been the harassment of public officials across the political spectrum, including extreme incidents involving swatting and direct personal threats,” Ms Easterly told NBC News.
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“These incidents pose a serious risk to the individuals, their families and, in the case of swatting, to the law enforcement officers responding to the situation. While my own experience was certainly harrowing, it was unfortunately not unique.”
Some officials have also been targets of more direct threats. On the morning of closing arguments in Trump’s New York fraud trial, a bomb squad responded to a threat directed toward the Long Island home of judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the case. – Guardian