‘Going to get Someone Killed’

(TNS) – Madison County Sheriff Todd Hood is warning about the trend of swatting taking place at schools nationwide. Swatting is an online harassment technique that has an end goal of sending an armed emergency response team to a victim’s location.

On Tuesday, Canastota High School received such a threat through email, as did Waterville and Frankfort – Schuyler school districts. These schools were part of the 40 schools statewide that had received such threats through email. Superintendent Shawn Bissetta said in a statement that the district contacted Canastota Village Police and allowed a search of the school out of caution. A police presence remained at the school for the rest of the day.

“They’re going to get someone killed doing this,” Hood said. “We need to find who is behind this. It’s difficult because of the many spoofing apps out there. Someone tried to give me a credit card and I said no. They later used a different line to reach me with the same offer.”

Spoofing technology allows a caller to seem like they are making the threat from inside the location, or near the location, that they are swatting. The FBI has no exact statistics on swatting incidents, which they first became aware of in 2008. Swatting incidents that have been reported have increased from 400 cases in 2011 to more than 1,000 in 2019.

In December 2017 , police accidentally killed Andrew Finch , 28, in his Kansas home after a swatting incident. Authorities sentenced the man responsible, Tyler Barriss , to 20 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in 2019.

“I don’t know the motivation behind these pranks,” Hood said. “Do these people think they’re being funny? Are they making terrorist threats?”

Hood said three weeks ago police arrested a man for making terror threats. A county deputy’s wife was working at TOPS Market in Manlius . A man who had been denied a job there began making threats and was arrested.

“He was trying to get a job and when he was denied he began making threats against store management,” Hood said. “We located his cell phone dump and he had been bragging about the guns he’d bought and what he thought the body count would be. We caught him before it happened.”

On March 30 , Rome Free Academy and Utica’s Proctor High School joined school districts in a nationwide swatting surge.

New York State Police posted on Twitter at 10:30 a.m. March 30 , saying there have been multiple incidents of unfounded “swatting” calls across the state reporting active shooters in schools. They are also investigating the source or sources of these calls.

Calls were also reported in Onondaga County , Albany and Buffalo . Similar incidents also happened in other states earlier this week, including Pennsylvania and Massachusetts .

“We are fully aware of these unfounded threats in other areas of the state. We will continue to have a regular presence in and around the schools within the City of Oneida ,” Oneida City police said in a statement.

“We encourage anyone who sees anything suspicious to please report it immediately.”

The Oneida School District issued a statement saying its staff was aware of unfounded threats made to schools across the state. The district has not received or been named in a threat; however, the district is on heightened alert due to the disturbing trend, they said.

” The Oneida City School District is aware of swatting incidents that have taken place across New York State ,” it read. “Swatting is the false report of a crime to elicit an emergency response. Several schools across the state have received external phone calls, claiming that there is an active shooter in a school. According to New York State Police , all of the threats are unfounded.”

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2023 The Oneida Daily Dispatch, N.Y.
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