Butt-Dial Leads To SWAT Team Response In Winnetka

The dreaded back pocket phone dial caused some chaos in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka Monday, when a man accidentally phoned his wife and the background noise led her to believe he was being held hostage.

"You know how when you sit on your phone when it's in your back pocket and it calls the last number that was dialed? His wife was the last number he'd dialed," Winnetka police Chief Joseph De Lopez told the Chicago Tribune. "The conversation led her to believe there was someone holding him hostage."

After hearing her husband's muffled voice, his wife called 911 about 5 p.m. and reported a possible hostage situation at Carlton Washburne School, where her husband worked, Fox Chicago reports.

"He was listening to music and he had, I don't know, hip-hop ... or music like that, where there were lyrics that were gangster-like," Mark Friedman, interim co-superintendent of the school district, told the Tribune. "So there were lyrics on the radio as he was driving home, and she listened to it and became concerned."

Members of the Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System, Lake County's SWAT-team, responded to the school and set up a perimeter. Donning bullet-proof vests, shields and machine guns, about 30 officers searched the building before realizing it was a false alarm, TribLocal reports.

Police told TribLocal there was no intent to deceive police, and the whole thing was a "big misunderstanding."

As for the butt-dialer, his boss said he was "embarrassed" about the whole incident.