ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Alexandria City Council will meet on Tuesday to talk. Among the topics up for discussion is a new ordinance that takes aim against swatting incidents.
"Swatting is dangerous and has victims," said Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson online Monday afternoon.
Swatting is when a suspect makes a prank call to authorities in an attempt to dispatch a large number of armed police to a particular address. According to Wilson, the City of Alexandria has had 25 incidents of swatting in the past four years.
The new ordinance, up for consideration Tuesday, would allow the City of Alexandria to seek reimbursement for the costs of swatting incidents, including all costs of providing law enforcement, firefighters, and emergency medical services.
"A person shall be liable to the City of Alexandria, the Virginia State Police, any volunteer emergency medical services agency, or any combination thereof for the reasonable expense of an appropriate emergency response at the time of sentencing or in a separate civil action," the proposed ordinance reads.
As for how much the person convicted of swatting could pay, the ordinance said the fee could be a flat fee or a bill by minute-by-minute accounting of the actual cost incurred. While that may seem like it could be a steep bill, the ordinance states that unless otherwise provided in the Virginia code, a person's liability may not exceed $2,500 for a particular incident that has occurred.
"This has incredible costs for our public safety agencies, in addition to the risks," said Wilson in an interview with WUSA9 Monday evening. "Our goal is that we're never in a situation where we're having to collect this, I think we want folks to realize that this is not a prank, this is not a joke, this is very serious business and places residents, as well as our public safety team at risk and diverts resources from real emergencies that exist in our community."
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