Police Respond To Fake Hostage Call At Parkland Student David Hogg’s Home

on May 25, 2018 in Coral Springs, Florida.
CORAL SPRINGS, FL - MAY 25: David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, speaks to the media before particpating in a "die'-in" protest in a Publix supermarket on May 25, 2018 in... CORAL SPRINGS, FL - MAY 25: David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, speaks to the media before particpating in a "die'-in" protest in a Publix supermarket on May 25, 2018 in Coral Springs, Florida. The activists many of whom were students entered the Publix store to protest against the company's support of political candidates endorsed by the National Rifle Association who oppose gun reform. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Police responded to a phone call about a hostage situation at the family home of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student David Hogg on Tuesday morning, which turned out to be a prank, according to local reports.

ABC affiliate Local 10 News reported that the call was placed to the Broward County Sheriff’s office Tuesday morning. Police and the local fire department responded with multiple units and a police helicopter. Hogg was in Washington, D.C. with his mother to receive the RFK Human Rights award at the time of the incident, according to Local 10.

Hogg called the swatting a “distraction” from what he and his peers at the Parkland, Florida high school are “trying to fix here, which is the massive gun violence epidemic in this country,” he told Local 10.

Hogg and a few of his other peers have risen to national prominence in recent months for their advocacy work combatting gun violence. On Valentine’s Day, 17 people were murdered at Hogg’s high school when a 19-year-old former student used his personal AR-15 and other firearms to attack Stoneman Douglas High School.

In the immediate aftermath of shooting, Hogg and fellow student Emma Gonzalez emerged as the faces of a national movement, as the students founded an advocacy group and organized a national “March For Our Lives” event in Washington, D.C.

The two students have also faced unprecedented attacks from far-right conspiracists, who have insisted since the day of the shooting that Hogg and Gonzalez are “crisis actors” paid by the left to push for gun control.

The attacks on Hogg moved mainstream when Fox News host Laura Ingraham posted a tweet mocking Hogg for not getting into college. Hogg, in turn, unleashed his massive Twitter following on Ingraham’s advertisers, calling for a boycott. As advertisers began to drop the “Ingraham Angle,” Ingraham apologized for the remark and took a week off work.

Hogg and the rest of the Stoneman Douglas seniors graduated over the weekend and many are planning to take a gap year to travel state-to-state, pushing for common sense gun reform measures.

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