Comment on Homicide report proves to be hoax

Police, including SWAT officers, responded en masse Tuesday night south of Vancouver Mall for a reported homicide at an apartment complex, only to find it was all a hoax, possibly organized by an angry online gamer. Officers were called to 8709 N.E. Mason Drive around 8 p.m. Vancouver Police Department spokeswoman Kim Kapp said someone called 911 using a TTY line, a kind of telecommunications device for the deaf and hard of hearing, from an out-of-state area code. It all seemed off from the start, she said, and responding officers staged nearby as officials worked to gather more information about the person referenced in the call. The report, it turned out, was bunk. The residence in question was checked and found vacant, Kapp said, and officers caught up with the supposed subject of the call. He told them he had been in some kind of argument in an online video game with someone in the United Kingdom, but it was unclear if that person made the call, Kapp said. Also, she said, the “target” was previously associated with the Mason Drive address. “Detectives will look into the incident to see if there’s any way to identify the person who called in,” Kapp said in an email.