March 22, 2018 – At 3:32 p.m. on Thursday, March 22, 2018, the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call from a male subject indicating that he had shot a male subject and had taken hostages at a residence in the area of US 151 and Forest Road between the cities of Beaver Dam and Columbus.
The Dodge County Sheriff responded to the scene and immediately took action to protect the public and make plans for entry to the home to rescue potential victims.
US 151 was closed from County Highway G to County Highway S for about an hour for the safety off the motoring public. Dodge County SWAT was called and responded to the scene and undertook operations to ensure the safety of occupants in the house.
The SWAT team was able to make contact with the home owner and clear the residence without incident and it was quickly confirmed there was no shooting and no hostages were taken.
Sheriff’s deputies and the SWAT team did an excellent job of utilizing their training to quickly resolve the incident in a safe and effective manner. They take their training seriously and handled this situation as smoothly as could be expected.
Their performance was supplemented also by the fantastic job of dispatchers in the communications center to coordinate the response.
It became quickly evident this was most likely what is called a SWATTING event. Currently, my detectives are in contact with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Department of Criminal Investigation as I have requested they come in to assist my office in investigating this incident.
These types of incidents are not only illegal, but they are dangerous and will not be tolerated.
The sheriff’s office and the Department of Justice will work diligently to follow leads where ever they take us. Not only do they put the motoring public in danger as our emergency responders are forced to respond in emergency mode to these incidents, but the resources that are pulled away from other areas of the county can limit the ability to respond to other emergencies.
In fact, shortly after this incident was resolved, the sheriff’s office responded to Fox Lake for a report of subjects who had fallen through the ice on the lake.
Had our deputies still been tied up on the SWATTING call, it is quite possible that our deputies would not have been able to respond as quickly to that incident and lives could have been put further in jeopardy.
The message to those who take these kinds of actions are, The Dodge County Sheriff’s Office takes SWATTING incidents very seriously and they will not be tolerated.