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.
US
Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem
Stock markets around the world fell on Thursday after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs – with some economists now fearing a recession.
The US president announced tariffs for almost every country – including 10% rates on imports from the UK – on Wednesday evening, sending financial markets reeling.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
Trump tariffs latest: US stock markets tumble
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
Read more:
Do Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff numbers add up?
Tariffs about something more than economics: power
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.
But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.
Power.
Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.
Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.
Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.
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PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.
But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.
Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.
This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.
It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.
The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.
President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.
His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.
Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs
Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.
This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.
The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.
Read more:
Do Trump’s numbers on tariffs really add up?
Trump hits island home only to penguins with 10% tariffs
Could America’s traditional allies turn to China? Pic: AP
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”
Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?
Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.
In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.
When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.
And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.
America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.
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