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.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Pic: Reuters
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
Later on Monday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Mr Trump and said he was “grateful” for the US president’s “readiness to help protect our people’s lives”.
After criticising Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag it out”, he said he appreciated “preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine” – and added Kyiv is “working on major defence agreements with America”.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump threatens Russia with ‘severe’ tariffs’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
US
Trump is clearly fed up with Putin – but will his shift in tone force Russia to the negotiating table?
As ever, there is confusion and key questions are left unanswered, but Donald Trump’s announcement on Ukraine and Russia today remains hugely significant.
His shift in tone and policy on Ukraine is stark. And his shift in tone (and perhaps policy) on Russia is huge.
Ever since Mr Trump returned to the White House he has flatly refused to side with Ukraine over the Russian invasion.
He has variously blamed Ukraine for the invasion and blamed Joe Biden for the invasion, but has never been willing to accept that Russia is the aggressor and that Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself.
Today, all that changed. In a clear signal that he is fed up with Vladimir Putin and now fully recognises the need to help Ukraine defend itself, he announced the US will dramatically increase weapons supplies to Kyiv.
Pic: Reuters
But, in keeping with his transactional nature and in a reflection of the need to keep his isolationist “America-First” base on side, he has framed this policy shift as a multi-billion dollar “deal” in which America gains financially.
American weapons are to be “sold” to NATO partners in Europe who will then either transfer them to Ukraine or use them to bolster their own stockpiles as they transfer their own existing stocks to Kyiv.
“We’ve made a deal today,” the president said in the Oval Office. “We are going to be sending them weapons, and they are paying for them. We are manufacturing, they are going to be paying for it. Our meeting last month was very successful… these are wealthy nations.”
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What will Trump’s weapons deal mean for Ukraine?
This appears to be a clever framing of the “deal”. Firstly, America has always benefited financially by supplying weapons to Ukraine because much of the investment has been in American factories, American jobs and American supply chains.
While the details are not entirely clear, the difference now appears to be that the weapons would be bought by the Europeans or by NATO as an alliance.
The Americans are the biggest contributor to NATO, and so if the alliance is buying the weapons, America too will be paying, in part, for the weapons it is selling.
However, if the weapons are being bought by individual NATO members to replenish their own stocks, then it may be the case that the US is not paying.
NATO officials referred all questions on this issue to the White House, which has not yet provided clarity to Sky News.
It is also not yet clear what type of weapons will be made available and whether it will include offensive, as well defensive, munitions.
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Will Trump’s deal make a difference?
A key element of the package will likely be Patriot missile batteries, 10 to 15 of which are believed to be currently in Europe.
Under this deal, it is understood that some of them will be added to the six or so batteries believed to be presently in Ukraine. New ones would then be purchased from US manufacturers to backfill European stocks. A similar arrangement may be used for other weapons.
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The president also issued the Russian leader with an ultimatum, saying that Putin had 50 days to make a peace deal or else face 100% “secondary tariffs”. It’s thought this refers to a plan to tariff, or sanction, third countries that supply Russia with weapons and buy Russian oil.
This, the Americans hope, will force those countries to apply pressure on Russia.
But the 50-day kicking of the can down the road also gives Russia space to prevaricate. So, a few words of caution: first, the Russians are masters of prevarication. Second, Trump tends to let deadlines slip. And third, we all know Trump can flip-flop on his position repeatedly.
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‘Trump sides with the Ukrainian cause’
Maybe the most revealing aspect of all this came when a reporter asked Mr Trump: “How far are you willing to go if Putin sends more bombs in the coming days?”
“Don’t ask me questions like that…”
Mr Trump doesn’t really know what to do if Mr Putin continues to take him for a ride.
Mr Biden, before him, supplied Ukraine with the weapons to continue fighting.
If Mr Trump wants to end this, he may need to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to win.
But that would prolong, or even escalate, a war he wants to end now.
There’s the predicament.
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