The owner of Yellowknife Wireless in Bend can only speculate about why his business was mentioned in a call to police Saturday from someone claiming to have shot a woman at the store and would shoot responding police officers.

The call prompted a large response from local law enforcement personnel, who arrived to find the business on Greenwood Avenue closed and empty. No victim or shooter were found.

“We don’t work on weekends,” said the store’s owner, Chris Cappuccio. “The first thing I said was, this sounds like a hoax because there shouldn’t be anybody in our building.”

It was the second time in almost seven weeks that Bend Police were drawn into a high-profile investigation that proved to be a hoax. In November, they investigated an alleged robbery near Shevlin Park, and officials said Wednesday they are taking notice because these kinds of calls are rare in Deschutes County.

Bend Police let Cappuccio listen to the call that was made to nonemergency dispatch line at 7:37 a.m. He said the caller had a male voice and there was loud background noise. The dispatcher tried to ask who and where the person was, but they couldn’t get a straight answer. The caller gave the specific address to Yellowknife Wireless at 136 NW Greenwood Ave. but never used the name of the business, Cappuccio said.

And it appears the call was made over the internet, which didn’t bring up a caller ID, he said.

“It’s an anonymous thing and it’s easy to do,” Cappuccio said. “It has everything in it for people who want to cause mayhem.”

Bend Police continue to investigate the call. If the caller is found, that person could be charged with first-degree disorderly conduct, initiating a false report and improper use of a communication device.

Police believe the call could be a case of what they call “swatting,” the act of making a prank emergency call to bring armed police or SWAT teams to another person’s address.

“It sounds like swatting,” Bend Police Lt. Clint Burleigh said. “But we’re still working on it.”

The first of the recent false reports occurred Nov. 16, when Bend Police responded to a Facebook post that described a bizarre robbery near Shevlin Park. The post was written by the daughter of Bend resident Debra Connors, 57, and stated that Connors was driving alone when she thought she struck a dog in the road. Connors got out of her car and realized the dog was a stuffed animal, the post read. Then the post said two men suddenly appeared, pointed a knife at Connors, slammed her against her car and stole $4,000 from her purse before fleeing in a black van.

Police contacted Connors and discovered she lied about the incident and her daughter repeated what Connors had told her about it.

Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel considered charging Connors with the crime of initiating a false report but decided not to because the law requires that she directly initiate a report to law enforcement. Instead, law enforcement contacted her.

“She did not initiate the contact,” Hummel said Wednesday. “It is not a crime, generally speaking, to lie to law enforcement.”

The hoax phone call about Yellowknife Wireless is different because the person initiated the false report, Hummel said. Anyone responsible could be charged with a crime, he said.

Making a false report is a serious crime, Hummel said. It takes police resources away from real crimes.

More than 20 law enforcement officers responded Saturday to Yellowknife Wireless, and Bend Police arrived with an armored vehicle. The roads around the business were blocked off for about two hours as officers searched the building.

Hummel hopes the incident reminds people about the consequences to making a false report.

“We are not going to allow it to happen here,” Hummel said. “If we catch you doing it, we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7820, kspurr@bendbulletin.com