Hollywood's swatting saga continued Wednesday when an apparent prankster targeted the Los Angeles home of rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs.
Five patrol cars rushed to Diddy's $5-million mansion in Toluca Lake after an unidentified person used a 911 "Internet relay" system to report an assault with a deadly weapon, cops said.
"There was no evidence of any crime," a police source in the LAPD division that responded told the Daily News. "It could have put people at risk inside that house. What if someone came out of the house abruptly and didn't heed the officers. They might have been hurt."
A spokeswoman at Diddy's music label in New York declined to comment, but police said no celebrities were at the residence at the time of the 10:53 a.m. call.
The incident is the latest in a recent spate of hoax 911 calls that have reported armed intruders inside the homes of Ashton Kutcher, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Tom Cruise and other Hollywood A-listers.
Cyrus lives close to Combs' southern California address, records show.
Earlier this year, a 12-year-old by was charged with making fake 911 calls about threats at the homes of Bieber and Kutcher.
The juvenile allegedly placed a call last October that claimed people with guns and explosives had raided Kutcher's crib.
Authorities say that swatting epidemic is harmful because it diverts resources from important work and could lead to damaged property as well as injuries.
"It takes people and money and effort and time to roll out to prospective incidents like this, and that can be taking resources away from real incidents," LAPD spokesman Richard French said.
"It's just a huge mobilization for nothing other than satisfying someone's whim or odd sense of humor," he said. "Any time there's a swatting call, there's an investigation."
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