a shooting at the Miami Beach home of
Grammy-winning rapper Lil Wayne was
declared a hoax by police on Wednesday
after a search found no evidence of victims
or shots fired.
Earlier in the day Miami Beach police said
they received a call on a non-emergency
line from a person saying he had shot four
people at the home and needed assistance.
"We can say for sure it was a hoax,"
police spokesman Ernesto Rodriguez said
after a SWAT team searched the home in
an exclusive island neighborhood. "We were
unable to locate any victims or subjects."
Miami Beach police tweeted "unfortunately
this appears to be a "swatting" call,"
referring to a trend of police receiving false
emergency calls, sometimes targeting
celebrities.
Wayne's record company, Young Money,
said on Twitter he was not at home at the
time and he later tweeted that the incident
was a "prank kall."
The hoax call trend is known as "swatting"
because SWAT (Special Weapons and
Tactics) officers often are sent to the
purported crime scenes. Authorities say such
situations can be dangerous due to the risk
of a misunderstanding between police and
occupants of a building.
Swatting calls have previously sent police to
the homes of actor Ashton Kutcher and
singers Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.
Police, some wearing bullet-proof vests,
surrounded Wayne's nine-bedroom home,
which is valued at $9.2 million, and TV
images showed a SWAT truck arriving on
the scene.
Local media, citing representatives for the
rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael
Carter Jr., was not in the home at the
time of the reported incident.
In 2008 Wayne won Grammy Awards for
best rap album, best rap song, best rap
solo performance and was part of the
award-winning best rap group performance.
He has had run-ins with the law on
weapons and drug charges and went to
prison in New York in a gun case.
(Writing by David Adams; Additional
reporting by Bill Trott; Editing by Sandra
Maler)
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