Feb. 25—NEW LONDON — City police said they responded to a hoax phone call from a man who claimed he’d killed one person and held another person hostage in a home on Linden Street Sunday.

According to a news release, police received the call at 7:20 a.m.

After arriving at the home and setting up a perimeter, police said they determined the call was a “swatting call,” a type of hoax phone call used by one person to report serious crimes in order to get heavily-armed police to descend rapidly on another person’s house.

“Swatting” began as a popular prank among “mischief-making” video game players, according to cable news network CNN.

But police warned any would-be-“swatters” that the calls “create a very real and substantial risk to first responders and the general public.”

Police are asking anyone with information about the Linden Street incident to call the department’s detective bureau at (860) 447-1481, or to text NLPDTip plus the information to TIP411.