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Earlier in the day Miami Beach police said they received a
call on a non-emergency line from a person saying he had shot
four people at the home and needed assistance.
"We can say for sure it was a hoax," police spokesman Ernesto
Rodriguez said after a SWAT team searched the home in an
exclusive island neighborhood. "We were unable to locate any
victims or subjects."
Miami Beach police tweeted "unfortunately this appears to be a
"swatting" call," referring to a trend of police receiving false
emergency calls, sometimes targeting celebrities.
Wayne's record company, Young Money, said on Twitter he was not
at home at the time and he later tweeted that the incident was a
"prank kall."
The hoax call trend is known as "swatting" because SWAT (Special
Weapons and Tactics) officers often are sent to the purported
crime scenes. Authorities say such situations can be dangerous
due to the risk of a misunderstanding between police and
occupants of a building.
Swatting calls have previously sent police to the homes of actor
Ashton Kutcher and singers Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.
Police, some wearing bullet-proof vests, surrounded Wayne's
nine-bedroom home, which is valued at $9.2 million, and TV
images showed a SWAT truck arriving on the scene.
Local media, citing representatives for the rapper, whose real
name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was not in the home at the
time of the reported incident.
In 2008 Wayne won Grammy Awards for best rap album, best rap
song, best rap solo performance and was part of the
award-winning best rap group performance.
He has had run-ins with the law on weapons and drug charges and
went to prison in New York in a gun case.
(Writing by David Adams; Additional reporting by Bill Trott;
Editing by Sandra Maler)
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