By Shereen Siewert
A report of an active shooter inside Stevens Point Area Senior High with several people shot is one of a flurry of false threats reported nationwide, officials said.
Sarah O’Donnell, communications director for the district, told PPMW there is a slew of false alarms across Wisconsin and Minnesota on Thursday.
Officers quickly determined that the information provided was false and there was no threat at SPASH.
In Racine, the situation was similar. Police there received a 911 call at about 8:20 a.m. from a person who said he was a teacher at Washington Park High School and witnessed a shooting – in which 15 students had been shot. The caller described both the shooter and the weapon, but the school resource officer inside the school did not hear any shots fired, police said.
In addition to Stevens Point and Racine, false active shooter threats at the following Wisconsin schools were also reported, according to local officials:
- Rufus King International High School in Milwaukee
- Bradford High School in Kenosha
- LakeView Technology Academy in Pleasant Prairie
- Port Washington High School in Port Washington
- Franklin High School in Franklin
- Sheboygan South High School in Sheboygan
- Green Bay East High School in Green Bay
- Oak Creek High School in Oak Creek
- Nicolet Union High School in Glendale
- South Park Middle School in Oshkosh
In Dane County, Clerk Scott McDonell shared an update from Dane County Emergency Management which stated that calls to some local police departments appear to be automated messages.
The FBI has labeled the practice “swatting,” a term that refers to filing a false report with the aim of stoking chaos and provoking a large law enforcement response. The Milwaukee Division of the FBI shared the following statement:
“The FBI is aware of the numerous swatting incidents wherein a report of an active shooter at a school is made. The FBI takes swatting very seriously because it puts innocent people at risk. While we have no information to indicate a specific and credible threat, we will continue to work with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to gather, share, and act upon threat information as it comes to our attention. We urge the public to remain vigilant, and report any and all suspicious activity and/or individuals to law enforcement immediately.”
According to Education Week, false shooting reports that have disrupted schools across the country in recent weeks have renewed attention to school safety and communication protocols. The reports are also prompting the FBI and local law enforcement officials to investigate whether the incidents are connected.
In addition to Wisconsin dozens of schools in states including Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and Virginia have gone into lockdown since early September after local police received false calls about shootings in progress in their buildings.
School threats and false alarms don’t often make national news when they don’t result in violence, but administrators say they are a big deal for students and families trying to maintain a sense of normalcy. And the responses themselves can be dangerous.
In September in San Antonio, for example, when parents responded to a school en masse after receiving a lockdown alert some scuffled with officers outside the building as panic ensued. One man punched his fist through a window to try to enter the building, according to the Associated Press. That call was later deemed a hoax.
Unclear is whether the recent wave of calls have come from students or from people outside of the community. Many of the calls seem to be made to clusters of schools in the same state on the same day, as seen Thursday in Wisconsin.
Police have not yet identified the caller in the Stevens Point false report.
