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Following Sunday night’s false report of an on-campus shooting, Syracuse University joined a series of schools across New York state impacted by a recent uptick in cases of “swatting.”

The term refers to incidents when a person contacts law enforcement and falsely reports an emergency with intent to elicit a law enforcement response, according to the FBI’s definition. In a statement last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that more than 50 school districts in regions across the state, including central New York, the north country and Long Island, experienced attempted swattings on April 4 alone.

On Sunday, the Twitter account CNY911 wrote that at 10:47 p.m., the Syracuse Police Department was dispatched to SU’s campus on the report of a shooting. Nearly 18 hours later in a Monday afternoon email statement, DPS confirmed the threat was a case of swatting.

Primarily, swatting attempts to deplete law enforcement resources and cause unnecessary harm amid the response, said Lt. Matthew Malinowski, the Syracuse Police Department’s public information officer. Still, he said, SPD takes every call about a threat seriously while balancing the risks of a misinformed police response.

“You might be thinking it’s a joke, but imagine if we burst into someone’s house, and then someone gets injured or killed, or an officer gets injured or killed,” Malinowski said. “There’s just so many things that could go wrong.”

Alex Haessig, a spokesperson for DPS and campus safety services, wrote in an email statement to The D.O. on Wednesday how swatting could potentially strain emergency resources and send armed law enforcement into a hectic environment.

Haessig added that DPS’ main objective is to simultaneously cultivate a safe environment and prevent panic when there isn’t a legitimate threat. But for some students at SU, swatting threats to campus like this week’s impose a fear that law enforcement responses could be degraded by false reports and threats.

Harry Schechter, a first-year student majoring in political science, said swatting incidents like Sunday night’s case at SU could cause a state of panic among students and create an unsafe feeling around campus.

“(Law enforcement) is obviously going to respond to every single thing if there’s going to be a report, but if it happens multiple times, you may feel like they’re going to have a lax response and be like ‘Ah, it’s probably just another phony fraud thing,’” Schechter said. “When the real thing actually happens, they may not be prepared for it.”

Akosua Danso, a first-year student from Kansas, pointed to the unnecessary panic her parents would experience in the event of a falsely reported shooting because of their distance from campus. She drew a connection between Sunday’s false report of a shooting and the idiom of “the boy who cried ‘wolf.’” She said she fears cases of swatting could discredit actual emergency threats like a shooting by spreading out law enforcement’s resources.

Similar concerns are circulating at other universities in the Northeast after having also experienced incidents of swatting this week. Harvard University and the University of Pittsburgh both experienced cases of swatting on Monday, and both received student complaints about a lack of transparency with campus safety officers.

Haessig wrote that DPS constantly reviews available information from other universities’ swatting incidents to construct its procedure in determining the validity of a reported threat. DPS and other law enforcement partners’ assessment and response to a potential threat are working to be “quick and tactical,” Haessig added.

On March 31, Hochul announced a statewide “heightened monitoring” in New York, following an increase in swatting cases. The statement came four days following a school shooting in Nashville in which six people were killed.

That same day, New York’s police and education departments sent out a letter instructing school administrators across the state to review their safety procedures.

In addition to New York, at least three other states — California, Michigan and Vermont — dealt with false reports of shootings in February which created lockdowns and elicited a police response. Schools in Utah, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts also received hoax calls about shooting threats in the days following the March shooting in Nashville.

With continued reports of swatting across New York, Republican State Senator Mark Walczyk, who represents parts northern New York like Hamilton and Jefferson counties, introduced a bill which would raise the penalty for swatting from a misdemeanor to a felony, and increase jail time in state prison from up to one year to one and a half to four years.

Republican State Senator Jim Tedisco, a sponsor for the legislation who represents Saratoga County, wrote in an April 5 news release that he’s supporting the bill because of the fear and anxiety swatting spreads throughout the state for students, school staff and families.

“These contacts threatening violence in our schools is another form of terrorism which cannot be allowed to stand,” Tedisco said in the release.

Two other state legislators, Democratic Assemblywoman Marianne Buttenschon and Republican State Senator Joseph Griffo, who both represent parts of Utica and Rome, also drafted legislation which criminalizes threats of mass violence towards a school, college or university, place of worship, a gathering of at least 25 people and businesses.

In an email to The D.O., Buttenschon explained that the bills, A6383 and S1603, outline how false threats can be criminalized if made in writing, verbally communicated or expressed through any other means of communications.

Under the legislation, people aged 18 or older that make a threat of mass violence in the first degree would be fined $35,000 and sentenced to at least three years in prison, while people under the age of 18 would face a $35,000 fine and at least 10 days in a juvenile detention facility, she wrote.

Both Griffo and Buttenschon’s senate bills remain in the Senate’s Codes committees, according to the email.

“Our nation and state have seen an increase in mass violence and this legislation was created to combat this crisis,” Buttenschon’s office wrote. “I will continue to work with my colleague to stop this violence in our communities.”

Malinowski said that SPD continues to maintain constant communication with school principals and staff with New York state still on heightened awareness, but emphasized the dangers false reports of mass violence could have in the community.

“It’s no joke. I think some people think it’s funny because they’ll see it on YouTube and try to prank (their) friends,” Malinowski said. “It’s a serious offense, and it’s also where you can get the other person killed or an officer injured… There’s a lot of different pranks out there, but this wouldn’t be the one to play.”

Published on April 13, 2023 at 1:36 am

Contact Dominic: dcchiapp@syr.edu | @DominicChiappo2