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(NewsNation) — A spate of hoax calls astir progressive shooters connected U.S. assemblage campuses is causing anxiousness among students arsenic the schoolhouse twelvemonth begins.
The calls person prompted universities to contented campuswide texts to “run, hide, fight.” Students and teachers person rushed to find cover, often cowering successful classrooms for safety. Officers person swarmed campuses seeking retired the falsified threats.
The hoax calls and mendacious alarms person deed astatine slightest 11 assemblage campuses from Arkansas to Pennsylvania.
On Monday alone, instrumentality enforcement responded to calls claiming determination were progressive shooters astatine Arkansas, Northern Arizona University, Iowa State, Kansas State, Colorado University and the University of New Hampshire. More calls were made Tuesday astatine the University of Kentucky arsenic good arsenic Central Georgia Technical College and a adjacent precocious school. The Kentucky telephone was determined to beryllium a hoax earlier an alert could beryllium issued.
The FBI said Tuesday that it was moving with instrumentality enforcement connected the swatting cases connected assemblage campuses.
We are alert of caller swatting incidents involving a fig of colleges and universities and are moving with our instrumentality enforcement partners. The FBI is seeing an summation successful swatting events crossed the country, and we instrumentality imaginable hoax threats precise earnestly due to the fact that it puts guiltless radical astatine risk. Knowingly providing mendacious accusation to exigency work agencies astir a imaginable menace to beingness drains instrumentality enforcement resources, costs thousands of dollars, and, astir importantly, puts guiltless radical astatine risk. We enactment intimately with our instrumentality enforcement partners to find their credibility, stock information, and instrumentality due investigative action. As always, we promote members of the nationalist to stay vigilant and instantly study thing they see suspicious to instrumentality enforcement.
- FBI connection to NewsNation
The question of reports began Thursday, erstwhile instrumentality enforcement successful Pennsylvania received aggregate calls astir shots purportedly fired connected Villanova's field by a antheral equipped with an AR-15-style weapon. Sounds of gunfire could beryllium heard successful the inheritance of the calls.
Two hours later, the lockdown was lifted, and the school's president denounced the “cruel hoax.”
The aforesaid day, Tennessee authorities received calls reporting an progressive shooter astatine the University of Tennessee astatine Chattanooga equipped with an AR-15-style firearm and 4 radical shot. Dispatchers reported proceeding aggregate gunshots connected the calls.
“This incidental was a transgression act, intended to beryllium disruptive and origin chaos,” the schoolhouse said successful a statement.
The University of South Carolina besides received 2 calls Sunday reporting an progressive shooter astatine the school's library, with the dependable of gunshots successful the background.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
