Actress and “Defund the police” activist Alyssa Milano called 911 from her California home over the weekend, sparking a massive emergency response — over what turned out to be a teen shooting at squirrels with an air gun.
Seven Ventura County sheriff’s vehicles, a K-9 unit, a police helicopter, and a Los Angeles Fire Department unit descended on the “Charmed” star’s SoCal sprawl Sunday morning, according to the Daily Mail.
“We first noticed the helicopter circling overhead very low and knew something was going on, it’s usually such a quiet community,” one neighbor of Milano’s told the outlet. “Then we saw all the police cars parked in front of Alyssa’s home. They had their guns at the ready and seemed very serious.”
Milano, 47, and her talent-agent husband, Dave Bugliari, dialed 911 after hearing what they believed to be gunshots on their property, according to the neighbor, who was not identified by name in the report.
The couple reportedly told cops that the sound “scared their dogs,” and that responding officers should look for a man in his 40s with a long rifle.
After a roughly three-hour search, cops concluded the culprit was actually a teenager shooting an air gun at squirrels, the report said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if anyone was charged with wrongdoing.
Over the summer, Milano was one of several celebrities and politicians to voice support for the “Defund the police” movement, which gained momentum following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
A spokeswoman for Milano disputed that version of events in releasing a statement from the actress.
“On Sunday morning as we were all getting ready to watch the Giants game, our neighbor spotted ‘a man dressed in all black, walking in the woods between our properties with a gun,’” Milano recalled. “ As that is a rare sight in our parts, the neighbor was understandably alarmed and she called the police.
“We then received a call alerting us to the potential situation and that officers had been dispatched. My husband subsequently called 911 to check on when police would be arriving. While he was on the line, they arrived.”
Milano went on to praise the cops’ response, and clarify her position on policing.
“The responding officers were amazing and made my family and I feel safe and secure as we ‘sheltered in place’ until we knew exactly what was happening,” she said. “These are exactly the type of situations that police officers are trained for and should be responding to, and we will always support police having the resources they need for appropriate policing actions.
“We’d love to see equally trained non-police professionals respond to addiction and mental health crises and non-violent events so that these brave officers can do the jobs they are so good at handling, as they demonstrated this weekend.”
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