This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The bogus 911 caller who claimed to have shot his parents to death had West Valley City police and SWAT officers converging on an elderly woman's home early Tuesday morning.

WVCPD Chief Lee Russo said no one was hurt as officers entered the home to discover only its shocked 90-year-old resident, but the so-called "swatting" incident easily could have turned out otherwise.

"We are aggressively investigating the origin of the call," Russo said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference, vowing: "We're going to do everything we can" to catch the culprit.

The call came in to police dispatchers about midnight from a man claiming to have just killed his parents. He indicated he would wait for officers to arrive — with a gun.

Russo said the caller used an unspecified name associated with the address to identify himself, but police soon began to note "some discrepancies in information" and proceeded with extra caution.

Nonetheless, officers and a SWAT unit arrived at the home and, when their calls and knocks failed to elicit a response — the homeowner apparently could not hear them — managed to enter the residence without causing property damage.

Russo noted that during the incident, police responses to "multiple" other calls for help, among them a domestic violence complaint, were delayed due to a shortage of available officers.

"Swatting" is defined by the FBI as any deliberate hoax call aimed at deceiving emergency services into sending police or firefighters to another person's address.

Motives for the act can range from a prank to harassment, revenge or even crime and terrorism, to diverting public safety and law enforcement away from another location.

Twitter: @remims