911

SALT LAKE CITY — Mayor Ralph Becker, Police Chief Chris Burbank and Fire Chief Kurt Cook recently announced the appointment of Scott Freitag, a Layton city councilman, as director of the newly formed Salt Lake City 911 Bureau.

The bureau combines previously independent city dispatch units into a combined agency that will handle calls for police, fire and emergency medical services. More than 70 employees are staffing the new center on a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year schedule and are expected to handle approximately 550,000 calls in the first year.

Freitag will helm the new department following 16 years of service in the Salt Lake City Fire Department, working in a variety of capacities, including as communication director and public information officer.

NORTH OGDEN -- The North Ogden Police Department is encouraging citizens to register their cell phone numbers and email addresses with the Weber County reverse notification system.

The reverse notification system alerts citizens of evacuations, missing persons and other emergency situations, according to a news release from the department. Currently, the notification system relies on a 911 database to alert residents and businesses on land line phones, but police are hoping to also reach citizens through cell phones and email.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Elizabeth Smart says a Colorado girl showed rare courage when she escaped from a kidnapper by calling 911 from a store.

LOGAN -- Northern Utah police are encouraging residents to register their cell phones with area emergency dispatch systems.

A California couple with a 2-year-old daughter is awakened late at night by heavily armed police storming their home after a false report of a shooting.

A Texas family is stunned when officers with automatic weapons respond to their house expecting a drug-fueled murderer who is demanding $50,000 in exchange for hostages.

And a Wyckoff, N.J., neighborhood is put on lock-down as the Bergen County SWAT team shoots tear gas into what proves to be a home occupied only by a cat.

In each case, the people who wound up in the crosshairs were actually victims of a dangerous and increasingly common hoax known as "swatting," so called because a bogus emergency call prompts the response of a SWAT team.

It is typically perpetrated by young, savvy computer hackers who exploit the limitations of the 911 emergency system and advances in computer technology to cover their tracks, experts and law enforcement officials say. They do it for bragging rights or revenge, but it costs taxpayers and puts innocent people at risk, experts say.