No, he didn’t. He called up and asked a question. The cops then decided to ovrblow all by themselves and make it a training exercise.
The whole thing that makes it SWATTING, as we are discusing it, is that the intent is to deliberately call up and get the person in trouble, knowing full well there is nothing wrong and no trouble. That means lying to police about the nature of it because there’s nothing going on. The point is to get a person who’s carrying in trouble and they hope maybe they get shot by the cops, for doing nothing wrong.
That is not what Cletus did. At least as far as what he wrote indicates. Asking a question is not lying to cops about a gun threat. If anything he was maybe naive to not consider an dangerously overblown response by them to his question.
OK then.
As he said, and as I would have suggested, you probably want to leave the cops out of it. Period. But you do what you want. I think Cletus has learned his lesson. Or not...
As far as cops “overblowing” things. That’s what they do. You wouldn’t blame a snake for biting you.