Police officers showed up at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s home overnight after an alleged opponent of her stance on transgender rights made a false 911 call, authorities in Georgia said Wednesday.
The “swatting” call falsely claimed that a man had been shot multiple times in a bathtub at a residence in Rome, Georgia, the city’s police department said in a report shared with CNBC.
The Rome Police Department at 1:04 a.m. ET dispatched five officers, who learned en route that they were headed to Greene’s house, the report said. They rang the doorbell and were met by the Republican congresswoman, who “assured us there was no issue,” the report said.
A spokeswoman for the department told CNBC that the officers checked Greene’s home.
Afterward, the department received a second call from a suspect using a computer-generated voice who claimed responsibility for the incident.
The suspect “explained that they were upset about Ms. Greene’s stance on ‘trans-gender youth’s rights’, and stated that they were trying to ‘SWAT’ her,” the police report said.
The department said it is working with the U.S. Capitol Police on the investigation, which remains active. The Capitol Police declined CNBC’s request for comment.
Greene, a far-right lawmaker backed by former President Donald Trump, had introduced a bill in Congress last week that would make it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors.
The legislation came amid a growing right-wing movement against those treatments that recently targeted Boston Children’s Hospital, which said last week that it is dealing with an influx of hostile calls and emails, including threats of violence.
“Right now, Congresswoman Greene’s safety is our number one concern,” Greene’s spokesman, Nick Dyer, said in a statement to CNBC.
Dyer called Greene the “victim of a political attack on her family and home” and also described it as a “violent crime,” though no violence is alleged to have occurred.
Greene first revealed being swatted in a tweet.
In an interview later Wednesday, Greene said she was startled by the police presence at her home, but decided not to carry a gun as she answered the door, “which was very out of norm for me.”
The swatter endangered both her and the officers, Greene said in the interview with “Real America’s Voice,” a conservative outlet. “Whoever this person is, they deserve to be locked up,” she said.
