A conservative writer and his family were swatted over the weekend in a recent pattern of swatting incidents against prominent conservative public figures.
Late Saturday night, Dustin Grage’s family received roughly a dozen phone calls in a row. Normally, Grage ignores the large numbers of spam calls he receives in his position, but on Saturday night they answered the phone.
“I’m glad we didn’t [ignore the calls] this time because they ended up being calls from law enforcement,” Grage told Alpha News. “They had our phone numbers on file because we have had threats in the past. So, I’m thankful that we actually had those.”
A Minnesota-based columnist at Townhall, Grage would later learn that law enforcement was trying to get in contact with him because they had received multiple calls from a phone number which claimed to be Grage. In those calls, the person claiming to be Grage said he barricaded himself in a bedroom after armed men broke into his house and killed his family.
Grage told Alpha News that law enforcement was first suspicious about the calls because they were coming from an out-of-state phone number rather than Grage’s actual number. Additionally, gunshots were heard in the phone calls but officers responding to the situation did not hear any gunshots when they surrounded Grage’s house.
Eventually, the entire situation was deescalated after law enforcement called Grage’s wife, she answered the phone, and first responders realized the phone calls were false.
Grage’s family also received a delivery of pizzas they never ordered shortly after the swatting incident.
“Normally, with a lot of these other swatters in the country, they’re getting their doors knocked down or they’re getting doors knocked and they actually have to have a physical interaction with the law enforcement officer before anything happens,” said Grage. “We’re fortunate to have had a phone conversation before anything actually had to occur.”
Grage told Alpha News he was thankful for how well the responding law enforcement agencies handled the situation. The writer also indicated that he believes the swatting incident is connected to his social media interactions with Elon Musk.
“We do believe that this is a proxy attack on Elon Musk, going after people who he’s engaged with over the past year throughout the election,” said Grage.
Grage, who has over 78,000 followers on Musk’s X platform, regularly posts conservative political content on social media. Grage indicated multiple swatting incidents have occurred in recent nights that have targeted males who have engaged with Musk.
The writer also noted that he plans to support legislation that would increase penalties for doxxing and swatting incidents.
Discussing the incident, Grage said, “This also happened on the weekend of a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in a nearby community. There’s drunk drivers all around this night and we’re pulling a dozen officers off the road from patrols to be able to do this fake SWAT that might kill somebody. So this is a very serious matter.”
Grage said he met with Wright County Sheriff Sean Deringer who is taking the incident “very seriously.”
Luke Sprinkel contributed to this report.
Liz Collin
Liz Collin is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning investigative reporter, news anchor, and producer who cares about Minnesota. She is the producer of The Fall of Minneapolis and Minnesota v We the People documentary films, and author of the Amazon best-selling book, They’re Lying: The Media, the Left, and The Death of George Floyd. Her work has prompted important state laws. Yet perhaps most of all, Liz has been giving a voice to the truth—and helping others tell their stories—for more than 20 years.
