Alleged Texas White Supremacist Arrested Over Swatting Calls Against Virginia Targets

A Texas man believed to be the former leader of a white supremacist group was arrested Wednesday for allegedly conducting several swatting events in Virginia with plans to call two more in New York, federal prosecutors said.

John Cameron Denton, 26, was charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States and interstate threats to injure after he and several other co-conspirators planned multiple “swatting” calls from November 2018 to April 2019, the Department of Justice said in a news release.

Prosecutors call swatting a “harassment tactic” that involves calling emergency personnel under the false pretenses that the person involved is in “imminent danger of death or bodily harm,” Fox News reports. It has led to one fatal officer-involved shootings of the person targeted for the harassment.

Denton, allegedly a former leader of the Atomwaffen Division in Texas, planned swatting events throughout the Eastern District of Virginia,  including a cabinet official living in Northern Virginia, Old Dominion University and Alfred Street Baptist Church, according to court documents.