Maine Woman Traumatized After Swatting Hoax, Police Response

Betsy Laford, who lives at 32 Maple Drive in Gorham, was afraid for her life claiming she could have been gunned down by officers during an apparent 'swatting' hoax police response.

At this point, you're probably wondering what swatting actually is, right? Well, according to Google, swatting is the action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.

According to WMTW, that's exactly what happened in Gorham on Saturday. Someone, and officials don't yet know who, called 911 to report that he was at the Friendly Village Trailer Park and that he had just killed a woman and he was threatening to kill himself. Police immediately responded with guns drawn, not knowing it was all a hoax.

Gorham Police Deputy Chief, Michael Nault, told reporters that it would not be easy to figure out who did this.