[chris]

A hoax emergency call from someone who claimed he had just killed his parents and was wearing a bomb sent a SWAT team to a Sarasota home in February 2012, where deputies removed two men and briefly handcuffed one before determining the entire report was invented, the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said.

The call reached dispatchers on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012, and sent deputies to the 2600 block of Botany Avenue, according to the sheriff's office. The caller said he was a 15-year-old boy who had shot and killed both of his parents, and he warned that a bomb strapped to his chest would detonate within about 20 minutes. He also threatened to kill himself and anyone who approached him.

A SWAT team surrounded the house and ordered the occupants outside. Two men who lived at the address were taken out, one of them in handcuffs, and held while investigators worked to confirm the report, the sheriff's office said. Both were cleared.

The caller had supplied a full name, a cell phone number and the Botany Avenue address. Detectives found that the name and number belonged to a real teenager who was not involved in the call and did not live at the home, according to the sheriff's office. Investigators said they believed the call had been routed over the internet, possibly through an Xbox Live connection, and disguised so that it appeared to come from a local line.

The tactic is known as "swatting," in which a caller reports a violent, fast-moving emergency to provoke a heavily armed police response at an address chosen as a target. Sheriff Tom Knight said the greatest danger was to residents who could find themselves confronted by officers because of a false report. "How someone can view this as a joke is beyond me," Knight said.

A recording of the emergency call was later published online by a 911 dispatch industry news site, where it circulated as an example of a swatting hoax.

The sheriff's office said the investigation into who placed the call was continuing. No arrest was announced.