(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A 16-year-old boy in Lake County is charged with making bogus calls to 9-1-1 from an apartment complex in unincorporated Grayslake.
Three calls were made to 9-1-1 over about three hours, beginning around 2:20 p.m. Wednesday. A caller contacted 9-1-1 and hung up, prompting a response from deputies in the 33600 block of North Royal Oak Lake that determined nothing was amiss, the Lake County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
Around 4:30 p.m., someone called and said they were being held against their will. The person also said they were injured and saw a gun, police said.
Again, deputies responded and found nothing. The next call to 9-1-1 came around 5:45 p.m., with the caller claiming they were about to be shot.
By the final time, deputies were able to pinpoint exactly which apartment the calls were coming from.
"They made entry into that apartment and they found a 16-year-old boy who admitted to making these prank telephone calls as a joke,” Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Christopher Covelli said.
"This is absolutely no joke. This takes away sheriff's deputies' ability to respond to other emergency calls for service. If we're responding to a fake call for service, that's putting the public at a major disadvantage.”
Covelli says when deputies went the the scene on the third bogus call, they could see the teenager pull the blinds back to watch authorities respond to his "swatting."