The home of David Hogg, the student survivor of February's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, was subject to a vicious prank on Tuesday. Hogg's response was impressively professional.
The Broward County Sheriff's Office received a call Tuesday morning that Hogg's home had been "swatted" — a prank caller claimed there was an active hostage situation at the Hogg residence, prompting law enforcement officials to dispatch an armada of fire and rescue crews.
Hogg and his mother are currently in Washington as he receives the RFK Human Rights award for his activist work on gun control.
Hogg, who heard about the prank through a friend, responded to the swatting in a phone interview with ABC affiliate Local 10. Hogg and his fellow student activists have been victimized by right-wing extremists in the four months since the school shooting, including government officials and conservative media pundits. But Hogg isn't letting the haters stand in his way of pushing for gun safety reform.
"I think it's really a distraction from what we're trying to fix here, which is the massive gun-violence epidemic in this country," Hogg told reporter Liane Morejon. He added the incident is "evidence of the fact of how many people are trying to stop us from what we're trying to do, which is stop these kids from dying."
"There's people trying to distract from what we're trying to push here, which is the March For Our Lives Road To Change. And I want people to know, like, we're just trying to advocate for change. There's going to be people against it and always will be, but we're going to keep going no matter what. Nothing will stop us."
Hogg's neighborhood swarmed with tactical teams following the prank call, which left residents of the community extremely unsettled.
"Today, we're walking -- we're going for a walk, and we saw some helicopters here, so we're like, 'Oh my God. What's going on?'" neighbor Marcia Marques said. "We are still trying to overcome everything because everything is very difficult, but that episode made us feel more attentive."
"Two police cars, two motorcycles. We should be doing better," Courtney Keisen a Stoneman Douglas student, said. "Something like this shouldn't happen a lot."
Hogg later tweeted that he "could use a chocolate chip muffin" following the news.
He also expressed gratitude for his followers' ongoing support.
