Neoconservative presidential candidate Nikki Haley was the victim of a swatting on December 30, according to reports.
Swatting is the act of calling in a fake police report, usually about a violent crime, to a person’s home or business — prompting a heavy police response.
The caller had claimed that he shot his girlfriend and was preparing to shoot himself at Haley’s $2.4 million waterfront estate on Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
Law enforcement swarmed the home before realizing that the call was fake.
Haley was not home at the time of the incident.
In 2019, Haley was elected to Boeing’s board of directors months after leaving her post in the Trump administration. At the time, she had a net worth less than $1 million.
“Post her tenure, reports surfaced that Haley boosted her fortune eight-fold — to $8 million — after leaving the Trump administration,” the New York Post reported at the time.
Soon after, the former UN ambassador purchased the $2.4 million estate on Kiawah Island.
According to a report from Reuters, there have been at least 27 incidents of politicians, prosecutors, election officials and judges being swatted since November.
Leftist billionaire George Soros was another victim in the string of high-profile swatting earlier this month. George Washington University legal scholar Jonathan Turley’s Virginia home was swatted days before.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was swatted on Christmas. Republican Georgia State Sens. John Albers, Kay Kirkpatrick and Clint Dixon, Democrat Kim Jackson, and New York GOP Rep. Brandon Williams were also reportedly swatted on the holiday.
Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Rep. Rick Scott, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, and Rep. Kevin Miller are among the other swatting victims.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows was swatted after she removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
No suspects have been named in Haley’s case or the other swattings.
In 2017, a fake police report was called to the home of a man named Andrew Finch in Wichita, Kansas. The swatter had claimed that he had shot his father to death and was holding the rest of his family hostage.
Finch was unarmed and on his porch when he was shot by a police officer who believed that he was reaching for a gun.
The false report had been called in by serial swatter Tyler Barriss, who pleaded guilty to 51 charges of swatting in 2019 — including one count of making a false report resulting in a death.
Barriss was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2019 under a plea agreement.
“We hope that this will send a strong message about swatting, which is a juvenile and senseless practice,” U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said during a news conference following Barriss’ sentencing. “We’d like to put an end to it within the gaming community and any other context. Swatting, as I’ve said before, is not a prank.”
