WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — A 911 call last week led to the arrest of a 15-year-old in Warner Robins.
What dispatchers believed to be a man threatening to shoot his wife and then a nearby school, turned out to be a prank.
That call led to two schools being put on lockdown, officers dispatched to three different places, traffic delays and a terrified family.
"I'm gonna shoot my wife if you don't get an officer down here."
Those are the words a Houston County 911 dispatcher heard early February 18th.
"911 gets a call in reference to a person who has a gun," says Warner Robins Police Chief John Wagner.
The dispatcher asked if the person has a loaded gun and they said yes.
"At some point in time, there is a shot that sounds like there's fire," says Wagner.
The call is then disconnected.
At that point, Wagner says they had officers en route to the house on Anne Drive.
Then, when the dispatcher got the caller back on the line, he said something else.
"The high school is next."
Wagner says the two nearby schools, Northside High School and Parkwood Elementary, were put on lockdown as officers arrived at the address the caller gave the dispatcher.
"The residents of the home were terribly frightened. They don't know what's going on. Of course, we don't know what is going on either other than what is being communicated to us," says Wagner.
The call turned out to be fake.
They've arrested a 15-year-old who they believe was on the other end of the line.
Wagner says as far as they know, the family and the 15-year-old have no connection.
"You can use technology to hide, but technology also uses a footprint."
He says prank calling 911 is a misdemeanor, but threatening to shoot a school is a felony.
"You have a family now, an innocent family, that's traumatized by this whole deal of us coming in. We react the way were are trained for."
Houston County 911 Center Assistant Director Lt. Mikki Quinones says fake calls like this are a huge waste of resources.
"It ties up resources. It increases liability unnecessarily for an agency," she says. "It's taking those resources away from other calls that may be going on at the same time."
She says they have to respond if there is a credible threat.
"We take the information just like we would on any other call that we have taken and dispatch according to normal."
Wagner says calls like this are frustrating.
"The officers are not happy. They were placed in a very dangerous situation. They are that much more heightened on the violence that could be done to them, as well as what they could've placed on the family," he says.
On top of that, officers were walking into what they thought was a credible school shooting threat.
"You have now children that you're also trying to protect at the schools. We already know what's happened with the active shooters," he says. "We use a tremendous amount of resources. There's a tremendous amount of annoyance that was done because of this because now traffic is backed up."
Wagner says although it turned out to be a false alarm, no one is laughing.
"It angers me. It angers the officers that were involved with it. It angers the family," he says. "People have to understand that there's consequences to doing this and pranks are not funny, especially when we're responding with guns that are ready to go. It's just not a good thing."