What is ‘swatting’? The ‘prank’ terrorising US schools and baffling police
Jenna Kochenauer was heading to lunch with colleagues when a police car sped past her.
“Then I saw a second one heading in that direction and I thought, huh, I wonder what’s going on,” she says.
“I reached over and turned on my police scanner, which I carry with me, and I started hearing about a possible shooting at the school that my kids go to”.
Jenna said she didn’t panic straight away but instead just focused on finding out if her children were safe.
Southridge High School was the target of a hoax school shooting in December. Pic: Kennewick Police Department
Kennewick police department, in Washington state, had received a call about an active shooter at Southridge High School, which Jenna’s children attend.
There were gunshots, the caller said, and a man wearing all black and carrying a rifle was on the premises.
The school was quickly placed in a lockdown. Nobody could enter or leave. Police arrived within minutes.
Jenna’s youngest son was sheltering in a Spanish classroom. The teacher closed the blinds, barricaded the door and tried to keep the students calm as police swept through the school in search of the gunman.
But there never was a shooter. The call to the police was fake.
And Southridge High is not the only school in the US where this has happened.
What is swatting?
The FBI told Sky News it ‘takes swatting very seriously’
“Swatting” is when a person calls the police, pretending to report a crime, only for officers to turn up with no emergency in sight.
The term was first used by the FBI in 2008 and stems from the highly trained SWAT teams that often attend serious crimes like school shootings. The phenomenon is not distinct to the US. The UK has also recorded its share of swatting incidents, notably Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts who woke up to armed police at her door after a fake report of a gunman nearby.
It became a popular prank or harassment tactic amongst online communities, often in a way to escalate arguments, and occasionally with deadly consequences. In 2017, Andrew Finch from Kansas was shot dead at this home by police after a swatting prank between gamers went wrong.
While sometimes ending tragically, they are often one-off incidents, targeting an individual because of a grievance or some other motive.
The spree targeting US schools is being conducted on a huge scale and seems to be without a clear pattern or motivation.
Swatting calls have targeted a majority of US states
Mo Canady, head of the National Association of School Resource Officers, says the school swatting spree is ‘bizarre’
Schools have occasionally been swatted by students playing a prank.
But the latest spree, which started in the US in September 2022, has been so coordinated and affected so many states that the FBI has deemed it worthy of investigation.
“It’s pretty bizarre,” says Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), which provides training to law enforcement officers based in schools.
“We’ve been used to dealing with [bomb threats] and schools have become pretty good at it. This phenomenon of calling in an active shooter event is quite new.”
NASRO estimates this spree has so far affected 40 states, a figure that is based on based on their tracking of local news coverage.
And some of these hoaxes are even happening on the same day. On 14 September 2022, at least two schools in Texas were sent into panic after calls reported active shooters. By the end of the week, schools in Kansas, California, Illinois and Missouri had all experienced the same.
Since then, dozens of schools have been targeted, many of them being swatted within hours of each other.
In the case of Southridge High, three other high schools in the area also went into lockdown after similar calls, and eight schools in nearby Montana were forced to do the same.
“It’s your worst day, right? Those types of calls, mass shooting. We train for them, and we’re prepared for them, but we hope they never come,” says Christian Walters, commander at the Kennewick Police Department.
He tells Sky News that 24 similar “incidents” were recorded within an hour of the call in a “coordinated effort” along the West Coast, ranging from California to Alaska.
Why are schools being swatted?
James Turgal is ‘baffled’ by the swatting spree despite over 20 years experience in the FBI
“It’s not just kids making prank phone calls,” says James Turgal, a former FBI assistant director who worked in its information and technology branch.
“If you listen, and I listened to the actual caller, it’s clearly an adult who’s doing this,” he tells Sky News.
“What’s the motivation? Why would somebody do this? Are they just trying to terrorise people? Are they being paid to do it?”
Turgal, now vice president of cyber risk and strategy at Optiv Security, says the caller seemed calm, despite the terrifying situation they were supposed to be in.
“You could tell it was staged,” he says.
Turgal served in the FBI for 21 years and still finds these calls baffling and sinister.
“Somebody could be utilising this technique to do the swatting calls because they’re sitting back and looking at how fast [the police] actually respond. What is the number of officers that respond? How do they do it? But that possibility doesn’t make a lot of sense given the randomness of the states.”
There doesn’t seem to be a specific state or school district the caller is trying to gather information on.
Police in the US have been grappling with a school shooting hoax sweeping the nation
Hoax calls ‘are like putting gasoline on the fire’
While the incidents only last a few hours, the impact on the students, staff and parents caught up in them can be long-lasting.
“We’re already dealing, worldwide, with a lot of mental health issues, especially among adolescents. This is a bit like putting gasoline on the fire,” says Mo Canady, a former police lieutenant.
Canady’s organisation, NASRO, issued guidance to schools in September to deal with swatting, including being aware of the needs of vulnerable students who may find the ordeal more stressful.
The police and firefighters attending to these hoax calls also experience real emotional trauma.
“This takes a tremendous toll on officers who think they’re walking into what could be the most horrific thing they’ve ever seen in their careers,” Canady says.
Plus, these callouts are a huge drain on resources, pulling in police, firefighters and paramedics from local and state level, and leaving other areas vulnerable to crime.
Schools and communities remain defiant
Okemos High School in Michigan was a victim of swatting this week. Credit: Cody Butler/ WILX-TV
After a period of quiet over January, this week multiple schools across Michigan, Vermont and California were the latest victims of the swatting calls.
Vermont State Police said the calls are reported to have come from “VOIP phone numbers or potentially spoofed 802 numbers” and appear to be part of an “ongoing nationwide hoax”.
VoIP numbers are real phone numbers but they operate over the internet, and can be used to hide the caller’s location.
The calls were an “act of terrorism”, according to Vermont Governor Phil Scott in a statement.
The FBI told Sky News it is urging the public to stay vigilant of any suspicious behaviour.
While the motive behind the calls is a mystery, the drain on resources and emotional impact is a real issues local communities must grapple with.
Sanford High in Maine is another school to have been rocked by a hoax call. A week after the incident, students wrote an article for their online newspaper, the Spartan Times, titled ‘November 15 wasn’t a hoax to us’, referring to the day SWAT teams filled their school hunting for a shooter and students barricaded themselves inside classrooms.
“To us it was real,” it reads, “to us, our lives were in danger”.
The piece ends with a defiant statement: “We are not broken. Our community will continue to come together and thrive in times of need.”
It seems clear the US will continue to be unsettled by these random attacks, but the schools, and the services that protect them, are determined not to be defeated.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of a coup attempt after Donald Trump approved CIA operations in the country to tackle alleged drug trafficking.
Mr Trump confirmed his decision, first revealed by The New York Times, as he said large amounts of drugs were entering the US from Venezuela – much of it trafficked by sea.
“We are looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he said.
When asked why the coastguard wasn’t asked to intercept suspected drug trafficking boats, which has been a longstanding US practice, Mr Trump said the approach had been ineffective.
“I think Venezuela is feeling heat,” he said.
Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday evening. Pic: Reuters
Maduro hits back
He declined to answer whether the CIA has the authority to execute Mr Maduro, who denies accusations from Washington that he has connections to drug trafficking and organised crime.
The US has offered a $50m (£37m) reward for information leading to his arrest.
“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups?” he asked after Mr Trump’s comments on Wednesday evening, saying calls for regime change harkened back to “failed eternal wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In a message to the American people, he said in English: “Not war, yes peace. The people of the US, please.”
President Nicolas Maduro. Pic: Reuters
US targets ‘drug boats’
Mr Trump also alleged Venezuela had sent a significant number of prisoners, including individuals from mental health facilities, into the US, though he did not specify the border through which they reportedly entered.
On Tuesday, he announced America had targeted a small boat suspected of drug trafficking in waters off the Venezuelan coast, resulting in the deaths of six people.
According to the president’s post on social media, all those killed were aboard the vessel.
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Footage of the strike was released by Donald Trump on social media. Pic: Truth Social
The incident marked the fifth such fatal strike in the Caribbean, as the Trump administration continues to classify suspected drug traffickers as unlawful combatants to be confronted with military force.
War secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the strike, according to Mr Trump, who released a video of the operation.
The black-and-white footage showed a small boat seemingly stationary on the water. It is struck by a projectile from above and explodes, then drifts while burning for several seconds.
Mr Trump said the “lethal kinetic strike” was in international waters and targeted a boat travelling along a well-known smuggling route.
There has also been a significant increase in US military presence in the southern Caribbean, with at least eight warships, a submarine, and F-35 jets stationed in Puerto Rico.
A 39-year-old man died in hospital alone, miles from his family, after being detained by US immigration officials.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, who had lived in the US since he was four, fell ill while in an immigration detention centre in California.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe was well known in the local Latino community
He complained of a fever and had a persistent cough in the weeks before he died, according to his mother Lucia.
She said he was initially treated by medical staff inside the detention centre but was returned to his cell.
He was eventually taken to hospital for a scheduled surgery to remove an abscess on his buttocks, but died before he was able to have the operation.
His family were never told he was in hospital, learning of his death via a knock on the door from police.
“They’re the ones that notified us that he had passed,” his brother, Jose Ayala, told Sky News.
“We were not even aware that he was in the hospital or even had a scheduled surgery. Then we got a knock on our door a little after 5.30 one morning.
“I believe he would still be alive today if he was never detained. He got sick while in detention, and they did not seem to take care of him.”
Ismael’s brother Jose speaks to Sky News
Why was he detained?
Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death raises questions about the conditions inside the centre he was held in, and if a sudden surge of immigrants being detained by this administration has left the system stretched beyond breaking point.
He had moved to the US from Mexico with his family as a child.
He did have DACA – deferred action for childhood arrivals – status, granted to those who have arrived while under the age of 18. But this was removed in 2016, after he was convicted of drink-driving.
In August, he was arrested by immigration agents at a car wash in California where he had worked for 15 years.
He was held for five weeks at Adelanto, a privately owned, run-for-profit, immigrant detention centre. A lawyer for his family said he was, as far as they are aware, a healthy man before he was detained and had no medical need.
But Mr Ayala-Uribe’s mother, who was visiting him every eight days and speaking to him on the phone a couple of times a day, said she noticed him getting progressively unwell.
Ismael’s brother and mother, Lucia
“He started with lots of fever,” Ms Ayala said. “He said they weren’t listening to him. The last time I saw him his face was drained, he told me he was not OK, he told me he couldn’t take it any more.”
Beginning to cry, wiping away tears, she added: “I feel powerless that I couldn’t do anything to help my son.
“I never imagined I was going to bury one of my sons. It feels terrible, they took a piece of my heart away.
“I would like something to change. If we cannot save him, at least we can save others that are still inside.”
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Inside Trump’s immigration raids
ICE defends detention treatment
The cause of Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death is still under investigation.
Sky News requested comment from the company which owns the detention centre where he was held, and they deferred to ICE, the US immigration and customs enforcement agency.
In a statement, ICE said: “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.
“At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergency care.”
The Trump administration says it’s targeting criminals and people in the US illegally. But campaigners say Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death should not be viewed in isolation.
Images from Ismael’s funeral service
Since Donald Trump took office, at least 15 people have died in immigration detention.
Democrat senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote a letter to the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, asking for more information about these deaths.
The senators claimed 10 people had died between January and June, and that it was the highest rate in the first six months of any year publicly available.
Sarah Houston, a lawyer for the Immigrant Defenders Law Centre, claims immigrants are being mistreated in custody.
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ICE raids: ‘This is like Vietnam’
“This administration’s main goal is to harm, to torture individuals and to try to force them out,” she said.
“The great increase we see in human rights abuses, in deaths, is a direct result of the administration’s decision to pack these detention centres as much as they can.”
Mr Ayala-Uribe’s funeral was held this week. Dozens of extended family and friends wore t-shirts bearing his face. A mariachi band played as his casket was lowered into the ground and his mother heaved with sobs.
As they absorb their loss, the effort to carry out the biggest mass deportation operation in US history continues.
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