Erin Derham heard the knocking first.
Another storm was raging over North Carolina, with heavy rain and wind gusts over 40 MPH bringing more damage to an area still suffering from a hurricane last year. The pounding at her door was so loud and so desperate that she thought a tree must have fallen on the house, and someone was coming to check on her family.
She rushed to the door in her pajamas, as her three kids slept upstairs and her husband, social media influencer Matt Van Swol, frantically dressed. When Derham answered the door, she found a police officer with his gun drawn. He asked her if someone inside the home had been shot.
She immediately knew what was going on. Her family was being swatted.
Swatting is a pernicious practice wherein someone calls the police to falsely report a serious crime at an innocent individual’s home, bringing police and SWAT teams to the home. Police…
