SWAT situation in Rock Hill followed tip on escaped inmate

York County authorities surrounded a house in Rock Hill for several hours Thursday night, only to discover the home was empty.

A neighbor called police Thursday evening and said they saw someone in the unoccupied home, which is on the 2400 block of Olewoods Court, said Trent Faris, a spokesman for the York County Sheriff’s Office.

At least two dozen police cars swarmed the neighborhood, including the sheriff’s office, Rock Hill Police Department and Fort Mill Police Department. One of the Rock Hill Police bomb squad robots was brought in to enter the home.

“We brought in our SWAT team to make sure they weren’t running into something,” Faris said. “It’s easier to put a robot inside a house to take a look around before you put a human being inside a house to take a look around.”

After a search by the robot turned up nothing, SWAT officers entered and searched the home twice, again finding nothing, including no signs of forced entry.

The scene created a commotion for a couple of hours. Faris said it’s not common to call SWAT to a burglary call, but police received a tip that the person supposedly inside the home may have been Bobby Albert Camp III, a state prison inmate who walked away from his Rock Hill work site Tuesday.

For a while, authorities used a loud speaker to talk to the person they believed was in the house, and the name “Bobby” was heard several times. Faris said it wasn’t clear who provided the tip, but added that it was “very limited” information and that authorities erred on the side of caution.

A group of neighbors standing in the street near the standoff said they were told not to discuss the situation.

This story was originally published July 9, 2015 at 10:23 PM with the headline "SWAT situation in Rock Hill followed tip on escaped inmate."