Nationally syndicated news/talk radio host Joe Pags has revealed he was the subject of a swatting attack earlier this week and hopes speaking on the issue helps others avoid and handle similar incidents.
“Swatting” is when a nefarious actor places a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.
On The Joe Pags Show on Thursday evening, Joe Pagliarulo shared that a 2:35 AM he received an alert from his home security system that there was motion outside of his house, with someone holding an AR-15.
He subsequently called 911 and made contact with a dispatcher who confirmed that a tactical unit was at his residence. The dispatcher shared that the police unit had been sent to Pagliarulo’s home after receiving a call that dogs had been shot and people were bleeding and being held hostage.
“I said, ‘None of that’s happening. Please tell them to stand down. I’ll come out with my hands up while I have you on the phone with me, and I’ll explain what’s going on,'” said The Joe Pags Show host as he recounted the situation.
He added that the officers were “nervous as hell” during the interaction due to the situation, noting that they believed they were walking into a dire situation in the middle of the night. However, some of the police officers recognized his name and voice and knew him as a conservative talk radio host.
Joe Pags posited that the incident could be tied to comments he has made about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“It turns out, according to those over on X, it looks like they might be targeting people who have said anything negative about Zelensky, about Ukraine,” he shared. “It looks like that might be what’s going on here. Because there was some Ukraine non-friend list or something that went out a year and a half, two years ago, and I was on it because I dared say, ‘Why is he stopping elections? Why is he stopping free speech? And why is he stopping worship? I was now in the dog house.”
Pagliarulo added that, due to his status as a public figure, he made a pact with the local police force to reach out to him with his private cell phone number should they be dispatched to his address again.
He remained defiant that he wouldn’t stop speaking his mind in the wake of the incident.
“It’s a scare tactic to shut me up. You’ve noticed since then I have not shut up. So it’s not going to happen, but there’s no way somebody’s family should be in harm’s way … That’s the tactic of those who don’t like my politics. It’s not ok, not by any means.”
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