‘Swatting’ threats put dozens of WA schools on lockdown last spring; FBI investigating nationwide hoax calls

FBI investigating nationwide swatting calls

Fake threats of a shooting forced dozens of Washington schools into lockdown last spring.

Last spring, dozens of schools in Washington were put on lockdown during a string of swatting hoax calls. Our schools were just a sliver of the hundreds of schools across the nation affected by the same false emergency.

The hoax delayed actual calls for service, put families on edge, and wasted millions in law enforcement response nationwide and in Washington.

Now, the FBI is calling the hoax "coordinated" and investigating who’s responsible. They tell FOX 13 the investigation is taking them to Africa.

Swatting is when someone anonymously calls 911 to report a fake emergency that sounds serious enough to elicit a response from a SWAT team.

Captain Edgar Reinfeld with Wenatchee Police Department told FOX 13 something about the 9-11 call seemed off.

"A caller stated they were at Wenatchee High School, with a rifle and they were going to go inside and kill everyone," Reinfeld recalled. "And then in the background there was audio of shots being fired… And not one other 911 line in the room is lighting up."

Like most schools, Wenatchee High School is centered in the middle of a residential area, surrounded by homes. If there was something unusual happening, surely someone else would see it, catch wind and call 911 Reinfeld explained.

Because of WPD’s relationship with the district’s school resource officers they were able to figure out in less than 2 minutes the whole thing was a hoax. They’d been swatted.

They weren’t the only ones. Eastmont, Shelton, Pullman, Walla Walla, and Port Angeles districts were all swatted within days of each other. Students there were put on lockdown while officers responded and searched their buildings… coming up empty.

An investigation by the Washington Post looked into the same situation across the United States. In almost every state, multiple school districts were being swatted.

Students and families prayed they wouldn’t be the next national headline. Trauma centers paused surgeries to brace for victims. Millions of dollars in law enforcement response was wasted, and legitimate calls were put on the back burner. Now the F.B.I is involved.

Steve Bernd, a spokesperson with the F.B.I in Seattle says swatting has changed in the last few years.

"It has gone from people whose motivation was to create some sort of chaos for whatever reason into a financial motivation," he said. "One nefarious motivation we’ve seen a number of times has been these actors actually selling the service of a swatting call to people who are willing to pay them to do it."

WaPo reports a number of the hoax calls could be linked to numbers provided by the company "TextNow" which offers free calls using the internet as opposed to a regular phone line. Those calls have a connection to Ethiopia and for investigators working to track them it’s nearly impossible.

Bernd warns as technology advances, it’s harder for law enforcement to keep up.

The Washington State Fusion Center is collecting data on hoax swatting calls in our schools and working to aggregate that information so law enforcement agencies can get a wider scope of what’s happening.