Hollywood's swatting saga
continued Wednesday when an apparent prankster targeted the Los Angeles
home of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Five patrol cars rushed to
Diddy's $5-million mansion in Toluca Lake after an unidentified person
used a 911 "Internet relay" system to report an assault with a deadly
weapon, cops said.
"There was no evidence of any
crime," a police source in the LAPD division that responded told the
Daily News. "It could have put people at risk inside that house. What if
someone came out of the house abruptly and didn't heed the officers.
They might have been hurt."
A spokeswoman at Diddy's music
label in New York declined to comment, but police said no celebrities
were at the residence at the time of the 10:53 a.m. call.
The incident is the latest in a
recent spate of hoax 911 calls that have reported armed intruders inside
the homes of Ashton Kutcher, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Tom Cruise and
other Hollywood A-listers.
Cyrus lives close to Combs' southern California address, records show.
Earlier this year, a 12-year-old by was charged with making fake 911 calls about threats at the homes of Bieber and Kutcher.
The juvenile allegedly placed a call last October that claimed people with guns and explosives had raided Kutcher's crib.
Authorities say that swatting
epidemic is harmful because it diverts resources from important work and
could lead to damaged property as well as injuries.
"It takes people and money and
effort and time to roll out to prospective incidents like this, and that
can be taking resources away from real incidents," LAPD spokesman
Richard French said.
"It's just a huge mobilization
for nothing other than satisfying someone's whim or odd sense of humor,"
he said. "Any time there's a swatting call, there's an investigation."
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