The Paulding County Sheriff’s Office is reporting that a call to 911 made this afternoon that a shooting had occurred at Wellstar Paulding Hospital was a hoax.
Per a posting on their Facebook page, the 911 call came in this afternoon, Thursday, July 27. The call noted a shooting had occurred at the hospital, and a call was put out to law enforcement. The initial call was made around 3:15 p.m., per information from the Sheriff’s Office.
The Hiram Police, Paulding County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia State Patrol all responded to the hospital campus and immediately conducted a search.
“After a search of the grounds, it was determined that no one had been shot and this was a HOAX call,” the report on Facebook noted.
The hospital falls within the jurisdiction of the Hiram Police Department, who will handle any investigation and file charges against those responsible for the hoax call.
Paulding Today has reached out to Hiram officials for more information.
They additionally posted about the incident within the last few minutes on their Facebook page.
Here’s what Hiram PD had to say:
Earlier today the Paulding County 911 Communication Center received a call from an unknown person stating that a fight was occurring at one of the entrances to Paulding Wellstar Hospital that was escalated to a shooting call. Both Hiram Police Department Officers and Paulding County Sheriff’s Office Deputies responded and were able to secure the hospital quickly where they were able to determine that the call was a hoax.
We have confirmed that this reported incident did not occur.
The incident itself is still under investigation as to who called in the initial report.
The hospital was briefly on lockdown due to the hoax call.
A Florida girl in Orlando was arrested on Thursday in a similar hoax 911 call incident. She had reported that her “14-year-old friend” was abducted which initially prompted a statewide lookout for an armed male in a white minivan, but it was later proven false.
The girl was arrested and charged with a felony and misdemeanor.
Fake 911 calls are illegal, and can come with serious consequences. It minimum it is a misdemeanor for abuse of 911, and can be a felony if the incident is more serious or causes someone’s death in the process.
