Home of Maine Secretary of State Targeted in ‘Swatting’ Call

Police are investigating a "swatting" incident targeting the home of Maine's secretary of state Saturday just days after she bumped Donald Trump off the GOP primary ballot in the state.

An unknown male called Maine State Police Friday night and claimed he had broken into the Manchester home of Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. Police searched the grounds and found nothing suspicious.

The fake emergency calls are intended to trigger a large, potentially dangerous, police response to frighten and disrupt people's lives.

Bellows was not at home at the time of the incident, she noted in a Facebook post.

The swatting attack was likely in response to Bellows' decision Thursday barring former President Donald Trump from appearing on the primary ballot in Maine, ruling that he had engaged in insurrection and therefore could not run for public office under a provision of the 14th Amendment.

Bellows called the swatting incident "unacceptable" in her social media post.

It’s "designed to scare not only me but also others into silence, to send a message," she added. "Swatting incidents have resulted in casualties although thankfully this one did not."

Bellows noted that since her ruling against Trump she and her staff have been been hit with "non-stop threatening communications."

"Dehumanizing a person is the first step in paving the way for attacks and violence against them. These dehumanizing images and threatening communications directed at me and people I love are dangerous," she wrote. "We should be able to agree to disagree on important issues without threats and violence."

Bellows is one of several politicians to be targeted with fake emergency calls intended to bring the police to their homes.

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ohio Attorney General David Yost and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., reported swatting calls placed for their residences or the residences of their family around the holidays.