NORFOLK, Va. — On Sept. 19, 2022, 20 schools across 18 divisions in Virginia faced swatting, according to data presented during a General Assembly legislative hearing earlier this year.
The incidents were brought up as lawmakers debated a bill to add penalties to swatting.
The rising number of incidents is highlighted in a new report examining violence in schools.
The report from the Educator's School Safety Networkfound swatting accounted for about 64 percent of all violent incidents during the 2022-2023 school year.
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Swatting is when someone calls in a false emergency, like an active shooter. They prompt large police responses and send schools into lockdown.
"It really is an attack because it is designed to traumatize people," said Dr. Amy Klinger, the group's founder and director of programs. "It's not a threat. It's an attack."
It's not just an issue for schools, but businesses and for people's homes, as well.
Virginia lawmakers wound up passing a bill to make swatting a misdemeanor punishable by a year in a jail. It can become a felony if someone is hurt or dies during a swatting incident.
"I'm a parent. This is the last thing you want to hear is there's a shooting threat at a child's school," said Don Beeler, the CEO of TDR Technology Solutions, which keeps tracks of incidents like these and tries to quantify them.
They estimate the loss of instructional time for students in Virginia cost $13 million during the last school year, which doesn't include the cost of the law enforcement response.
"This is just a massive, massive cost," said Beeler.
Beeler says many of the calls actually come from foreign groups overseas who are getting paid to make the calls.
He says his company developed technology where schools can prevent calls from going through and help reduce other calls.
"We're able to tell using pattern recognition if it's a good or bad person making the call and we can deal with that and prevent those calls from at least going to the school," said Beeler.
Klinger is hoping schools will increase awareness and training to plan not just for active shooters, but other emergencies as well.
"I think the most significant [recommendation] is to have an all hazards approach to school safety that is not just predicated on an active shooter because if that's all we focus on we actually make our schools less safe," said Klinger.
They expect swatting will continue to be an issue unless it becomes less effective at causing disruptions.
