Girl, 8, nabbed after making 135 prank 911 calls

An 8-year-old girl was caught red-handed Thursday after weeks of making dozens of prank phone calls, including some that led officers on potentially dangerous wild goose chases.

The girl and three or four friends placed a maddening 135 phone calls. "For that car accident we sent out police, fire, ambulance apparatus. We thought it was a real accident. We're lucky we weren't delayed going to where someone was actually hurt," Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland said Thursday.

After that incident, dispatchers had the girl's phone number and didn't send out any other emergency vehicles when, for instance, she called one day to say a Queensbury business was on fire.

To catch her, sheriff's deputies and dispatchers used equipment that traces cellphone calls using satellite technology. Dispatchers traced their source with GPS equipment, then translated those coordinates onto a map of the region.

Cleveland said that sheriff's deputies in unmarked cars would drive around South Glens Falls every day, waiting for the girl to make a call. On a few days, Cleveland himself went on the hunt because he has an unmarked car and doesn't normally wear a police uniform.

Their break came Wednesday afternoon when the girl placed a call at 4 p.m. Dispatchers were able to locate the signal within 10 feet, and an unmarked sheriff's patrol happened to be in the same South Glens Falls neighborhood. Deputies knocked on the family's door and found the girl still on the phone with a 911 operator. The girl ran and hid in the bathroom. Article here.