Eight high schools in various parts of Washington—including White Salmon—and Oregon were recently the victims of a cruel hoax that put students and staff in fear for their lives.
On the morning of Wednesday, May 10, eight high schools received an active shooter threat and were put into secure lockdown. Every student, staff, and citizen near the schools held their breath, waiting for hours on end to hear gunshots that never came. The calls were fake, but the intent behind them is the true culprit that has yet to be uncovered.
The calls were made between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., each call with a different variant of the same message. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office received a call from an unidentified person who claimed to be hiding in the bathroom at Jefferson High School while an assailant shot at them. The statement released by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office stated, “Law enforcement was not able to locate anyone injured, let alone shot, and [there was] no evidence of an armed person or any shots which had been fired.” After detailed searches led by law enforcement, the school was declared to be unharmed and not in threat of danger.
Exactly 31 minutes after the call targeting Jefferson High School was made, Central Valley High School in Spokane Valley, Washington, received a call. The caller stated that they were armed and ready to go in and start shooting. After hours of lockdown and meticulous searching by law enforcement, this too was deemed a false alarm.
Six other schools received similar threats the same day, including Stevenson High School, Pullman High School, and Ellensburg High School. At 12:48 p.m., the last call was received by the Klickitat County 911 Dispatch Center. The caller was an unidentified male who was threatening to attack Columbia High School in White Salmon. According to Klickitat County Sheriff, Bob Songer, “The male subject told the dispatcher that he was outside of Columbia High School and he was going to kill everyone he could, because of Satan.” Within twenty minutes, the school was swarming with law enforcement who spent the next two hours scouring every square inch of the school building and grounds. This ended the same as it had for every targeted school before it—with no culprit and no apparent sign of real danger.
This type of false threat is not new to law enforcement and is known as “swatting.” Swatting is the action of making a false call to emergency authorities in an attempt to bring a large amount of law enforcement to a specific address. The phenomenon has occurred nationwide; in October last year, there were reports of some calls coming from overseas, possibly through an internet account based in Ethiopia. Swatting can be used to deter police forces from the offender’s actual target, which is why Goldendale Police Department went into a proactive response as soon as the call came in. Police were sent to each Goldendale school to check for any suspicious activity in the event that the call was meant to distract police from the real location in danger. As the day finally settled to a close, not a single school targeted, or near the targeted schools, was the victim of any real danger or shootings. While this is a fact to be celebrated, it does leave many on edge, concerned by the intent of these calls.
Craig McKee, principal at Columbia High School, spoke on the matter by explaining the aftereffects of such serious and terrifying threats. “I think anytime something like that happens, I don’t know that there’s anyone who doesn’t have some kind of fear,” he said. The day after the threat to Columbia High School, masses of students chose to stay home, despite the falsity of the threat. School shootings have become a very real fear to many students, parents, and educators throughout the United States with the rates of school shootings nearly doubling over the last two decades. “It affects different students differently,” McKee admitted. “That fear does impact staff and students.”
The Marion County’s Sheriff’s Office released a statement saying the incident has reached federal eyes, and that the FBI is working closely with a detective from their department to find whoever was behind these calls. At the moment, it is unknown whether these calls were made by a single individual or a group. The FBI is keeping the details of this investigation under wraps, but Steve Brand, a public affairs officer from the FBI Field Office in Seattle, commented that, “While we do not have any information to share regarding these incidents, we are aware of the anonymous threats made against high schools around the state last week.” Brand also shared the dangers of swatting insofar as it puts both citizens and law enforcement at risk. “The community is placed in danger as responders rush to the scene, taking them away from real emergencies, and the officers are placed in danger as unsuspecting residents may try to defend themselves,” he explained.
Despite the concerning nature of these calls, the quick and efficient response made by local law enforcement eases some of the fear. The Klickitat County Sheriff’s Department, Washington State Patrol Troopers, Fire District 3, Klickitat County Department of Emergency, and several more departments promptly arrived on scene at Columbia High School to help secure the building. A local officer spoke on the incident, saying, “We respond as if it’s the real deal, even if the call is suspected to be fake.” Klickitat County, along with the other seven victim counties, had incredible response times and handled the situations with great care and seriousness. McKee was extremely grateful for the efforts provided by Klickitat County agencies, remarking, “They did a phenomenal job.”
Locally, our police department is planning to host an active shooter training drill at the end of June to reinforce the response to an active shooter threat. These drills are normally practiced twice a year, but COVID reduced that number due to the schools being shut down. Now, the department is adamant about continuing these trainings, and they plan to invite other departments from around the county to participate. A Goldendale police officer commented, “We try to do two a year, and it’s a full-on, live scenario-based training.”
In light of the swatting hoaxes that affected so many schools and communities, it is reassuring to know that law enforcement is doing all they can to prepare and prevent active shootings.