Police kicked down the door of a North Toronto apartment last month after a caller warned them about a "possible murder" taking place inside.

But all they found was a guy wearing noise-cancelling headphones who had the misfortune to be working from home that day.

"I didn't hear them knocking or banging on the door saying: ‘Please open up,'" said software consultant Jason Myles, describing the incident to CTVNews.ca in a recent telephone interview.

"The first thing I heard was when they attempted to kick down the door."

The headphones drowned out the initial commotion and by the time Myles heard the kicks, it was too late for the door.

When Myles came face to face with the law, he put his hands up and found "a number of police officers pointing their weapons in my general direction."

He was handcuffed and police quickly searched his apartment, which is located in the Yonge and Lawrence area.

But there was no body to be found and the only victim was Myles, who was the unfortunate target of a prank phonecall to police.

"Immediately they knew that nobody was murdered in the apartment or about to be murdered, so they picked me up off the ground, uncuffed me, then we spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out why they were in my apartment and why they came to this address," said Myles.

They determined that someone had contacted 911 from a landline number that Myles had cancelled about two weeks before police arrived at his apartment looking for a murder that didn't occur.

Myles believes he was a victim of something called "swatting," a prank in which a caller reports a fake emergency with the intent of getting police to mobilize a SWAT team.

In this case, it wasn't a SWAT team that arrived at Myles' door, but uniformed officers, as well as firefighters and paramedics who also responded to the scene.

"They were expecting a lot of violence and therefore probably needed their assistance," said Myles, who noted that the caller told police that at least one victim was involved.

An emerging trend in Canada?

Myles read an article about a similar case that happened in British Columbia last month, and as far as he can tell, it appears that this was the exact same type of prank.

In the case targeting his Toronto apartment, it appears the prankster "spoofed" the number on the call that went into police, likely through a computer or voice-over-Internet protocol setup, which has been used in dozens of other incidents in the United States.

"Somebody spoofed that number calling 911, somehow, and what they told police on the 911 call was that they had just killed their mother and were about to kill their sister," said Myles.

"And since they spoofed that number, the number was still registered to my name and address, so that's where they came."

But he has no idea why his number was selected for use in the apparent swatting prank.

"I don't know if the number was targeted because it was recently cancelled, or whether they just targeted a number at random, or whether they had inside information as to what numbers were currently or recently in use," said Myles.

"I have no clue as to why they picked that number."

Police subsequently apologized for what had happened and made arrangements to pay for the damage to the door.

Toronto police Const. Tony Vella said that while the July 14 call was determined to be a hoax, he said that all such emergency calls have to be treated seriously.

"As soon as a call is made to police, they will always send a police car to investigate," Vella told CTVNews.ca in a recent telephone interview.

For his part, Myles has "no issues" with the way police handled the situation and was impressed by their bravery.

"They came through that door expecting a very serious situation and they came through that door anyway," Myles said.

"So I have nothing but respect for the police and for how they acted and what they did."