How 'swatting' hoax threats cause chaos and panic

As Quaker Valley School District’s police chief, Aaron Vanatta is responsible for the well-being of 1,900 children.

But, on Wednesday, he needed to tend to a student outside his jurisdiction: his daughter, a seventh grader 40 miles away in Washington County. A morning flurry of hoax threats that triggered lockdowns, emergency measures and panic among school districts in at least eight Pennsylvania counties had left her on edge.

“She was frightened and scared because they got word at their school that this was going on,” said Vanatta, who serves as secretary of the National Association of School Resource Officers.

Across the state, the fake reports of active shooters and bomb threats rippled far and wide. The phenomenon is known as “swatting” — calling in reports about a false emergency to prompt a heavy police or SWAT team response.

It’s a whole different animal than the old-fashioned threats scrawled on a school bathroom stall.

“Frequently, it’s something like a mass shooting, a hostage situation or a barricade, something like that. People that have either watched too much TV or too many movies believe it will cause a SWAT response,” said Thor Eells, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, a center that trains police officers in special skills.

Sometimes, Eells said, swatting is a means of harassment. It could be attempted revenge over a perceived wrong. Targeting an innocent person can lead to heavily armed SWAT officers breaking down doors, barging in and aggressively detaining unsuspecting victims.

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In Wednesday’s case, shadowy threats were called into police stations and 911 centers in Allegheny, Beaver, Blair, Erie, Fayette, Lawrence, Lehigh and Mercer counties. Targeted institutions included Central Catholic and Oakland Catholic high schools in Pittsburgh and high schools in Hopewell and New Castle.

All the threats proved false. But they nevertheless set in motion an inescapable police response that jangled nerves, sucked up resources and frightened parents and students alike.

“These things create chaos,” Vanatta said.

In this modern era of endless school shootings, no police department or school district can afford to dismiss such threats. On Monday, a shooter killed three children and three adults at an elementary school in Nashville, Tenn.

Now, investigators will marshal the resources of the state police and FBI to try to flush out those responsible for the hoax calls.

The probe may take time, effort and coordination and could require search warrants, phone records and a determination of whether the calls were made across state lines.

At one time, swatting was associated with antics by video gamers.

“The gamers within their culture initially thought it was kind of a big joke. They’re holed up in a room for hours at a time. This was a way you scare the crap out of one of your competitors or one of your friends,” said Stephen R. McAllister, a law professor at the University of Kansas.

But swatting can turn deadly. McAllister knows. When he was U.S. attorney in Wichita, Kan., in 2017, his office prosecuted one of the nation’s most notorious swatting incidents that left an innocent man dead at the hands of a police officer.

Tyler Barriss, a serial swatter and video gamer, used a fake name to place hoax calls to police. He claimed that he had killed his father and was holding hostages at gunpoint.

Barriss, masking his phone number with a fake Kansas area code, gave police a Wichita address. Officers surrounded the house, not realizing that the caller had made everything up — and was actually in California.

When the unarmed resident stepped onto his porch, an officer shot and killed him. He thought the man was reaching for a weapon.

Barriss pleaded guilty to dozens of crimes and was sent to federal prison for 20 years.

Swatting incidents like the deadly episode in Wichita represent a worst-case scenario of what can happen when police are led to believe they are facing a deadly threat.

No official statistics track how often swatting happens, partly because there are no uniform laws against the hoax, making it difficult for the nation’s 18,000-plus police departments to get a handle on the breadth of the problem.

What is clear: In case after case, swatting unleashes disruption, chaos and terror.

“It’s no prank. It’s no joke,” McAllister said. “The potential consequences are so serious, and the risk to innocent people being hurt are significant.”