COEUR d'ALENE - Ken Gill barely stepped outside his home on Monday morning in his normally quiet Coeur d'Alene neighborhood when he spotted a police officer with his weapon drawn using Gill's minivan as a shield.

Gill quickly noticed other officers, also with guns, who were standing behind some trees in front of his house on the corner of South 10th Street and Mullan Avenue.

Not all with handguns, either, he said.

"High-powered rifles," he said. "There were rifles, scopes, the whole nine yards."

Officers made it clear that there was a man inside a residence across 10th Street from Gill's place who had a gun and was dangerous.

"They basically wanted me to get the hell out of Dodge," Gill said.

Traffic was blocked from the intersection by other officers.

But as it turned out, somebody had called in a false report. One woman who lived in the targeted multi-unit building, where the man had supposedly been holed up, said there had been a "prank call" made.

Somebody needs better friends?

Actually, according to Coeur d'Alene police Sgt. Christie Wood, a "mentally handicapped" man had apparently called authorities to report a gunman had taken four women hostage inside a home.

"Officers discovered that no assault occurred with a firearm, and there was no hostage situation," Wood said in a news release later Monday.

Police were busy with the false report for two hours, starting about 9:40 a.m. It was unclear what finally tipped police off that the report was made up.

After two hours, stuck in his house, Gill said, "I'm still a little shaken up."