Joplin woman's ex-boyfriend charged after harassment, swatting incident

 

Felony harassment and terrorist threat charges were filed Friday in Jasper County Circuit Court against an Indianapolis, Indiana man who allegedly made a call to Joplin Police Department that caused SWAT to be sent to his ex-girlfriend's home.

The probable cause statement says the alleged victim had recordings of her ex-boyfriend, Cordero Theodore Thomas (DOB 1990) sending her messages threatening to pay someone to rape her.

From the probable cause statement:

On November 14th, 2024, Officers with the Joplin Police Department were dispatched to a disturbance with a weapon call that occurred at a residence in the City of Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri. The information of the initial report provided to dispatch was that a domestic disturbance was transpiring in front of the residence and that a woman was in front of the residence waving a gun and threatening to kill herself. 

As officers were responding, dispatch updated the information that woman ran back inside the house. 

Based on the information that an armed subject was inside a residence and there was a threat to life, officers contained the area surrounding the residence and initiated loud hail announcements. A short time later, V1, W1, and W2 exited the residence. They were all confused and indicated that there was no such disturbance transpiring. 

V2 was contacted by phone and offered consent for officer to search the residence, which yielded no evidence of a disturbance or threat of life. I interviewed V1 and V2 in reference to this incident to determine the case of a false report that caused for the evacuation and closure of their residence. 

I asked V1 and V2 to listen to the emergency call to see if they could identify the voice of the caller. They both stated that they recognized the voice to be Cordero Thomas, who was V1’s ex-boyfriend. V1 reported she was having issues with her ex-boyfriend, Cordero Thomas, and he had a history of calling police for wellbeing checks on her when she refused to communicate with him. 

V1 continued to say that she had turned her phone off to cease communication with Cordero just moments before police responded to her residence in a manner that she described as the SWAT team was at her residence. 

V1 provided a contact number that Mr. Thomas used which was the same phone number that was used to make the report that spurred the Joplin Police response at their residence. 

When asked for evidence of communication with Mr. Thomas on the phone number that was used to make the false report, V1 provided a series of messages that showed Mr. Thomas making threats to pay someone to rape V1, that she loved “being raped”, and other such messages that V1 indicated were emotionally harmful.