logo
Cops rush to ‘shooting' at Gordon Ramsay's LA mansion after TV chef falls victim to twisted ‘swatting' prank

Cops rush to ‘shooting' at Gordon Ramsay's LA mansion after TV chef falls victim to twisted ‘swatting' prank

The Sun24-04-2025

GORDON Ramsay's home was surrounded by police after a prank caller told cops they heard gunfire in the top chef's mansion.
Ramsay is the latest California-based star to be targeted by a "swatting" scam.
The 58-year-old chef's residence was swarmed by armed cops earlier this week.
They were called at 8:40 PM on Tuesday to the chef's mansion in Bel Air.
An unknown individual told police that a gunman had opened fire at the residence.
But cops in Los Angeles quickly established that the reports were a hoax.
Neighbours confirmed that nothing had happened.
Sources have told TMZ that Ramsay was not home at the time.
Police have put it down to another "swatting" incident - a hoax call to the emergency services aimed at triggering a major response.
Ramsay has not yet commented on the events.
A probe into the incident has been launched and detectives are currently investigating.
However, no arrests have been made so far.
It makes Ramsay the latest celebrity to be targeted in a swatting prank.
What is "swatting"
Swatting is an internet prank where someone makes a hoax phone call reporting a serious crime to emergency services.
Pranks might involve calling police to a fake major incident such as a shooting or a robbery.
This can even involve a SWAT team being deployed to the property - which is where the prank get its name.
Several celebrities have been on the receiving end of such pranks over the past few years.
Earlier this month, Nicki Minaj's home was swarmed by officers responding to another fake report of a shooting.
Top Gun star Tom Cruise was also a swatting victim back in 2013.
Beverly Hills cops came to his mansion after being told there was an "armed robbery in progress."
No sign of trouble was found when police arrived.
Chris Brown, Rihanna, and Justin Bieber are among the other LA based celebs to have been on the receiving end.
But it's not just celebrities who have been victims of swatting.
Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley's South Carolina home was raided last year following a fake call.
Bomb threats and swatting callouts were also made against several of Donald Trump's cabinet picks last year.
It came following the American president's victory over Kamala Harris in November.
Sometimes these pranks can have tragic consequences.
One particularly horrific case came in 2017 when a man was shot dead by police after a hoax police report was phoned in.
Father Andrew Finch was fatally hit by the Wichita Police Department after cops were alerted of a suspected hostage situation at his house.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump raising cash off Los Angeles protest mayhem with ‘attack on the homeland' email
Trump raising cash off Los Angeles protest mayhem with ‘attack on the homeland' email

The Independent

time9 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Trump raising cash off Los Angeles protest mayhem with ‘attack on the homeland' email

The chief fundraising arm for Donald Trump 's campaign is using protests in Los Angeles to solicit donations from supporters. The Trump National Committee Joint Fundraising Committee — which has sent more than 1,000 fundraising emails since the president's inauguration — issued a 'breaking Trump alert' on Monday after three days of demonstrations in Paramount and downtown Los Angeles against a series of immigration raids. The subject line in the latest message reads: 'Looking really bad in LA!' 'ATTACK ON THE HOMELAND,' reads the message, under a photograph of Trump surrounded by the words 'BREAKING TRUMP ALERT.' The message goes on to promote the president's sweeping ban on entry into the United States from travelers and immigrants from more than a dozen countries, which takes effect Monday. 'We will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm,' the message says. 'That's why I announced the new TRUMP TRAVEL BAN…but I really need to make sure we're on the same page!' Message recipients are asked to complete a 'citizens only survey' to answer whether they support 'defending the homeland' and 'instituting a Trump travel ban to keep America safe.' Links surrounding the text of the message take supporters to a fundraising page that asks whether the recipient is an 'American citizen' or 'illegal alien' — if they choose the latter, they're told to 'end survey immediately.' 'We've seen terror attack after attack carried out by foreign visa overstayers from dangerous places,' according to the message. Joint fundraising committees — in which individual campaigns and political actions committees can join — effectively act as one-stop shops that allow donors to make large contributions shared across those entities. Campaign fundraising committees supporting the president — using his images and signature as if the messages were sent by Trump himself — have routinely relied on his scandals to raise millions of dollars. His criminal indictments — including his mugshot, which has been branded in products from T-shirts to Christmas wrapping paper — are featured in hundreds of messages. His attacks against 'activist' judges who delivered court rulings against his administration's immigration enforcement decisions are included in dozens of recent emails. Militarized law enforcement officers fired tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets and pepper spray against crowds of protesters following growing outrage against the administration's ramped-up immigration arrests. Some protesters tossed rocks and bottles or launched fireworks at law enforcement vehicles and set fire to a handful of self-driving Waymo vehicles. The president labelled demonstrators 'insurrectionists' as he defended his administration calling up the National Guard to support local law enforcement. Trump has long sought a showdown with a major Democratic-led state over a signature campaign issue, rapidly drawing the most populous county in America into the administration's plans to escalate a federal law enforcement crackdown on immigration enforcement. On his Truth Social, the president claimed Los Angeles has been 'invaded and occupied' by 'violent, insurrectionist mobs,' and directed administration officials to 'liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion.' Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops to the city without the consent of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who said the president's invocation of the National Guard without his approval was 'inflaming tensions.' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also suggested Marines at Camp Pendleton could be mobilized 'if violence continues.'

Groomed terror suspect not treated as a ‘vulnerable child', says her mother
Groomed terror suspect not treated as a ‘vulnerable child', says her mother

Powys County Times

time17 minutes ago

  • Powys County Times

Groomed terror suspect not treated as a ‘vulnerable child', says her mother

The mother of an autistic teenager who was groomed and 'brainwashed' by right-wing extremists says she was not treated as a vulnerable child before she took her own life. Rhianan Rudd, who died aged 16, had an 'obsession with Hitler', downloaded a bomb-making manual, and threatened to 'blow up' a synagogue after she was radicalised online by an American neo-Nazi. In the 18 months before she died, Rhianan was diagnosed with autism, investigated by counter-terrorism policing and MI5, and prosecuted over terrorism charges after she had been groomed and allegedly sexually exploited by extremists. Senior coroner Judge Alexia Durran concluded that she was not satisfied that Rhianan intended to end her own life at Chesterfield Coroner's Court on Monday. She said that 'missed opportunities' in Rhianan's case were 'not systemic' and she will not make a prevention of future deaths report. In an interview, Rhianan's mother, Emily Carter, said she believes the teenager's death was preventable and the agencies involved in her case need to be held accountable. Ms Carter said: 'They need to recognise that the way they dealt with things was not the correct way, because she's dead. 'I don't ever want this to happen to another family. This has been devastating. 'If I could save just one child from these people making all their changes and making sure they follow through with everything, there's justice in my eyes – my daughter didn't kill herself for no reason. 'It was just one thing after another basically, but all of them should learn from Rhianan's death, all of them.' Ms Carter said Rhianan was not treated as a vulnerable child, despite her autism diagnosis, and she does not believe her daughter was ever a threat to other people. The mother said: 'She was five foot one, weighed seven stone. She was tiny. 'I don't know what people thought she could do, but I don't believe that she was ever a threat. It was just what people would put in her head – brainwashed her, basically. 'They (the agencies) treated her as a child, but I don't believe they treated her as a vulnerable child. 'If you've got vulnerable children, you take extra steps to watch them, to look after them, to make sure they feel safe, even from themselves, and they didn't. Obviously, she's dead.' The mother said the moment 19 police officers and two detectives came to arrest her daughter at their family home was 'mind-numbing' and she felt 'violated' when officers turned her house 'upside down'. She said: 'It hurt … the fact that they thought that my daughter was some sort of massive terrorist. 'They were going to put her in handcuffs, but the handcuffs didn't go small enough. Even on the smallest ones, they just fell off her hands. That's how small she was.' The inquest heard that the police did not refer Rhianan to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which identifies victims of human trafficking or modern slavery, when they began investigating her in 2020, but the referral was made by Derbyshire County Council in April 2021. Her mother says the NRM referral should have been done 'at the very beginning' because 'they could see that she was vulnerable'. Ms Carter added that she thinks Rhianan should not have been charged, and said: 'She was a child, a vulnerable child. A child with mental health issues. 'She should have been treated as a victim more than anything.' The mother also said it 'angered' her that Rhianan was investigated by MI5 before her death and added: 'If they knew that my daughter was being groomed and sexually exploited online, and then you're investigating at that time, why did nobody come and stop it? 'Why watch a child be completely humiliated, sexualised, trafficked, brainwashed?' Speaking about her daughter's autism diagnosis, Ms Carter said Rhianan would get fixated and 'sucked into' something until it was the 'be all and end all of everything'. She said Rhianan's fixations began with My Little Pony before she became interested in German history, wanted '1940s German furniture in her bedroom', and eventually made contact with extremists on the messaging apps Telegram and Discord. Ms Carter said: 'Finding out that she'd been groomed, and the way these people talked to her … it really changed her wholeness as a person, the way she thinks, the way she feels, everything.' She said that Rhianan was a 'bubbly' girl but she became withdrawn after she was radicalised, and added that the extremists 'took away an innocent child' and 'took away her substance as a person'. She said: 'After she started talking to her so-called friend online – I thought she was talking to gamer friends and friends from school – she started withdrawing. 'She stopped talking about normal things. She wasn't very bubbly, and I'd literally have to drag her out the house.' Ms Carter said she believes Rhianan's death could have been prevented if she was placed in a mental health unit, rather than the children's home, to 'deal with her mood swings, her brain going mad'. She said: 'They don't know a child like a mother does. Even when she was at home, I would wake up two or three times throughout the night and go and check her. These houses aren't guaranteed to do that.' The mother added that it was 'scary' when she referred her daughter to Prevent but she 'knew it had to be done'. She said: 'I was hoping that it was just going to take her two or three times a week to work on her mind, unpick her head, and turn her back into Rhianan. 'Not end up with all these police officers turning up arresting her and pulling my house apart. You don't expect that at all.' The inquest heard that Rhianan took an overdose of her mother's medication after being encouraged to by the 'two competing individuals' in her mind a week before she was charged and moved to the children's home. Recalling that moment, Ms Carter said: 'I go down the stairs and Rhianan was laying on my living room floor. And I actually thought she was dead, but she wasn't. 'She basically called them (an ambulance) when she decided that she changed her mind and didn't want to die.' Ms Carter continued: 'I've made mistakes, and I want the organisations to put their hands up and admit they've made mistakes and to rectify their mistakes so it doesn't happen again. 'And then that way everybody can be happy, except me, because I've already lost my daughter.' Ms Carter described Rhianan as 'loving, kind' and a 'really beautiful soul'. She added: 'Her brother, Brandon, and Rhianan were like two peas in a pod, and he just feels completely lost without her.' Following the inquest, Ms Carter said the family's anguish was increased by hearing that Rhianan was 'let down by the police, the Prevent anti-terror programme, Derbyshire County Council and the mental health bodies'. In a statement read outside Chesterfield Coroner's Court on behalf of Ms Carter by Anna Moore of Leigh Day Solicitors, she added: 'The chief coroner has found that Rhianan was denied access to services which should have supported and protected her and, I believe, could have saved her life. 'Looking at the number of missed opportunities recognised by the coroner, it's hard to see how they cannot have had an impact on Rhianan's state of mind.'

Judge dismisses Justin Baldoni's lawsuit against 'It Ends With Us' costar Blake Lively
Judge dismisses Justin Baldoni's lawsuit against 'It Ends With Us' costar Blake Lively

The Independent

time24 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Judge dismisses Justin Baldoni's lawsuit against 'It Ends With Us' costar Blake Lively

A judge on Monday dismissed the lawsuit filed by actor and director Justin Baldoni against his 'It Ends With Us' costar Blake Lively after she sued him for sexual harassment and retaliation. U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman's decision is the latest development in the bitter legal battle surrounding the dark romantic drama that includes Lively suing Baldoni in late December. Baldoni and production company Wayfarer Studios countersued in January for $400 million, accusing Lively and her husband, 'Deadpool' actor Ryan Reynolds, of defamation and extortion. The judge ruled that Baldoni can't sue Lively for defamation over claims she made in her lawsuit, because allegations made in a lawsuit are exempt from libel claims. Liman also ruled that Baldoni's claims that Lively stole creative control of the film didn't count as extortion under California law. Baldoni's legal team can revise the lawsuit if they want to pursue different claims related to whether Lively breached a contract, the judge said. Emails seeking comment were sent to attorneys for Baldoni and Lively. 'It Ends With Us,' an adaptation of Colleen Hoover's bestselling 2016 novel that begins as a romance but takes a dark turn into domestic violence, was released in August, exceeding box office expectations with a $50 million debut. But the movie's release was shrouded by speculation over discord between Lively and Baldoni. The judge also dismissed Baldoni's defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, which had reported on Lively's sexual harassment allegations.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store