WASHINGTON — A teen from California was sentenced Tuesday for making hundreds of swatting calls across the nation, including some in Washington.
According to a release from the United States Department of Justice, 18-year-old Alan Filion will spend 48 months in prison.
According to the plea agreement, from approximately August 2022 to January 2024, Filion made over 375 swatting and threat calls. The agreement says he claimed to have planted bombs in specific locations and threatened to detonate them or carry out mass shootings.
The U.S. Department of Justice says Filion targeted religious institutions, high schools, colleges and universities, government officials, and numerous people.
“Filion intended his calls to cause large-scale deployment of police and emergency services units to the targeted locations,” the department wrote in a news release. “During these calls, he provided information to law enforcement and emergency services agencies that he knew to be false, such as false names, false claims that he and others had placed explosives in particular locations, false claims that he and others possessed dangerous weapons, including firearms and explosives, and false claims that he and other individuals had committed, or intended to imminently commit, violent crimes.”
In some instances, the department says armed law enforcement officers approached and entered a targeted home with their weapons drawn and detained people who lived there.
Online posts
In a post from Jan. 20, 2023, the department says Filion claimed that when he swats someone, he “usually get[s] the cops to drag the victim and their families out of the house cuff them and search the house for dead bodies.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Filion became a serial swatter for both profit and recreation. On several occasions, they say he placed posts on social media channels advertising his services and swatting-for-a-fee structure.
On Jan.18, 2024, Filion was arrested in California on Florida state charges stemming from a May 2023 threat where law enforcement said he claimed he was going to commit a mass shooting at a religious institution in Sanford.
Threatening calls
Filion also pleaded guilty to making three other threatening calls:
October 2022
The department says he made a call to a public high school in the Western District of Washington, in which he threatened to commit a mass shooting and claimed to have planted bombs throughout the school
May 2023
The department says Filion made a call to a historically black college in the Northern District of Florida, in which he claimed to have placed bombs in the walls and ceilings of campus housing that would detonate in about an hour
July 2023
The department Filion called a local police department dispatch number in the Western District of Texas, in which he falsely identified himself as a senior federal law enforcement officer, provided the federal law-enforcement officer’s home address to the dispatcher, claimed to have killed the officer’s mother, and threatened to kill any responding officers.
A team effort
The FBI and U.S. Secret Service investigated the case, with help from the Seminole County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office; the Anacortes (Washington) Police Department; the Florida Department of Law Enforcement; the California Department of Justice; the Los Angeles County (California) Sheriff’s Office; and the Volusia County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office.