August 26, 2025 • 26 mins
Things got personal this week with hoax mass shootings sweeping the country’s college campuses. Both Amy and T.J. got phone calls from loved ones fearing the worst as false phone calls were placed, claiming active shooters were on campus.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ. It
is Tuesday, August twenty sixth. It is back to school time. Parents.
A lot of us have dropped our kids off at
college campuses across the country, and I know a lot
of high school students are already back in sessions. Some
folks are getting ready to But this is a time
of excitement. It's a time of joy, a little bit
(00:22):
of anxiety as we leave our kids hopefully in safe hands,
and a series of frightening events is taking place at
college campuses across this country, and it's happening repeatedly and
far too often. TJ. You and I both got phone
calls yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, we read a lot of news, and we stay
up on a lot of news, and we've been informed
plenty over the past week, really about active shooter incidents
on several college campuses. We get those alerts from breaking
news emails. We get them from watching the news, we
(01:03):
get them from reading the news. We got these two
from family members because our family members are in very
close proximity to two college campuses where there were two
active shooter hoaxes, one my alma mater. I don't have
a family member enrolled, had niece and nephew in recent years,
(01:24):
but my sister lives in that area, my niece and
still lives up there. And of course at least a
sophomore now at the University of Colorado who was just
dropped off there officially by you last Thursday and Friday,
so we aren't talking. Onto three days after you left
her at Boulder, you get a message saying as an
(01:47):
active shooter on her campus.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah. She started facetiming me and she was a little
out of breath, and I didn't actually answer the FaceTime.
I was in the middle of something. I said, Hey,
what's going on, figuring she just wanted to ask me
for money or something, and she said, this is serious, mom,
can you call me? And she was worried, and I
get it. I sat there and prepared her. You know,
I get nervous about the Idaho murders. I talk about
(02:10):
locking your doors and making sure that everyone's responsible about
keeping the house secure, and everyone understands how important security is.
I have to admit I didn't expect to get that call.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
At this point. Right. We talked about this last week,
and if folks of you all have been keeping up,
you know, I don't know what to call it necessary
a necessarily, it's not a rash anymore. It seems like
it's gone beyond that. It's not quite an epidemic of it,
but it is a trend. It is startling, and it
is scary as hell. But we talked about it last week.
(02:42):
Thursday was the first one we heard of. All of
you all know Villanova, but Rose. We talked about it
on our podcast and episodes in our morning runs, the
news podcast that we do. We said, man, can you
imagine how apparent a loved one would feel? Can you imagine, yes,
everything's okay, but can you imagine you just dropped your
kid off and left, and then you look on the news.
(03:04):
It's the parent's worst nightmare, whether they're in elementary school,
junior high, high school, college. We said, man, imagine how
that feels for those parents, And then on Monday, you
were the parent.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I just got chills because I remember that conversation and
trying to put myself in that position. I would say, thankfully,
but maybe this is even scarily that because we had
just been reporting on these hoaxes, I didn't get immediately alarmed,
but had there not been a string of these I
would have panicked immediately, and I should have regardless, because
(03:41):
we don't know what's a hoax and what's not. And
I think maybe that's the most frightening thing about all
of this. You know, I didn't even know the term,
and I guess I'm behind the times, but swatting, I
actually asked you swatting. What's swatting? You know what?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
You'll remember, it wasn't college campuses that were initially targeted
back in the day when this first started, and I
think they charged and made examples out of some guys,
but they were sending it to people's homes, wasn't it
these jerks that were involved in like online gaming.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Look, it started back in twenty ten, and they were
targeting celebrities, they were targeting politicians, and then as recently
as last year, do you remember the long string of
swatting incidents. One teenager was involved in historically black colleges
and going after certain specific types of campuses, and he
(04:32):
was charged with making It was a dozens and dozens
of these hoax false alarms that people took seriously, because
of course you would, you have to these days. So swatting, technically,
this is the definition, it's the deliberate practice of making
a false report to police to summon law enforcement who
believe a mass shooting, a hostage situation, or a bombing
(04:54):
is taking place, therefore calling in the swat team. So
you're swatting your community.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
They did this to it was it was gamers who
are actually online playing against each other. They get into
some kind of beef and one of them would call
and swat the other persons. And there was video of these,
like the guys would be in the middle of a
game and all of a sudden, the swat team is
busting in and they, yes, they made some arrests in
that case. So swatting necessarily folks, it's you've heard of.
(05:21):
It is not necessarily new. But this string and this
this latest string of them happening on college campuses, and
you send a whole community running, tens of thousands of kids.
And on top of all this roades, yesterday was the
first day of classes.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
For a lot of no it's you know, it just
breaks my heart, and all of these calls that started
on Thursday. We don't know if one person's involved, if
multiple people are involved, whoever is responsible for some or
all of these has not been caught yet, but these
calls all have eerily similar trademarks. It's almost as if
they're following a script.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
You no, I didn't think about that until you just said,
what if there is one person? It's cool for all
of these. It's not a copycat situation.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You think about that. They call in and it's a
male voice, that's what has been reported, and they say
that a male Sometimes they say a white male with
an AR fifteen style rifle shot x amount of people,
or is shooting people right now, And a lot of
these they specifically reference the campus library, the school library.
So you again, it started on Thursday, Villanova active shooter
(06:28):
on campus, shots fired in the law school. That was
on Thursday. Villanova then also had a second scare on Sunday.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had a call on
Thursday as well. More than one hundred officers responded because
they have to, because they have to assume the worst.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
These were hours away. So this is what started, all right,
Villanova and you tea Chatnua. Yes, the one of Villanova
got a lot more attention. Is a much bigger school,
more well known school, if you will, offish to the
folks at Chattanooga, but they that was new student orientation.
They were just kids.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Running freshman orientation.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Parent there were a bunch of families on campus still,
and this is how you start your college experience. So
that got so much attention. Chattanooga didn't get as much.
But yeah, they went through hell same day hours apart
these two incidents. So we all looked and thought, well, hell,
so I'm the idiot, all right, let's move on with
our day. And then Sunday happened.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, and then Sunday happens. The University of South Carolina
two separate reports of an active shooter on campus. Both
were made by they believe police believe it was the
same person, the same male voice. They said it was
similar that included background noise and mimicked gunfire. So they
actually whoever this was up the ante and made it
(07:46):
feel and seem even more real. And look, can you
imagine you're a you're a student on campus and you
get an alert on your phone that says, run, hide,
fight an active shooter. So there are reports of students
just it's heartbreaking, running, barricading themselves, locking themselves in bathrooms,
hiding under desks, running for their lives, sheltering in place, sobbing,
(08:12):
sending desperate texts and phone calls to their parents.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I mean, you think you're gonna die, all real, You're
think you're gonna somebody's making a joke in a room somewhere,
somebody might actually be laughing at what they're doing. But literally,
people thinking they might die discus on the first day
of college, for God's sake.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So yeah, exactly, You're you're you're you're already nervous and anxious.
You're leaving your family for the first time, you're starting
off this whole new part of your life, you're adulting
for the first time. And this the worst case scenario happens.
So that's Thursday. We've had two. Sunday we had two.
Then Yesterday Monday, six more swatting calls University of Arkansas.
(08:52):
This was significant, babe. They actually they actually took the
most dramatic response. They canceled classes at the University of
Arkansas on day By the way, yes, public schools also
locked down a car and they got multiple calls about
an active shooter once again at the library. But then
they got other calls that made them end up they
ended up having to search and go through room by room,
(09:14):
floor by floor of seven separate buildings on University of
Arkansas campus in Faetteville.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think about it, how you're how Analys called you, right,
she immediately reached out to you, said something was going on,
and so what happens. Imagine the chaos. There are some
parents who wouldn't just talk through with the cop. They'll
hang up and call cops. Yes, and that is what
was happening at the University of Arkansas. There was such
(09:42):
chaos that even though there was no shooter, words starts
trickling around. Now somebody hears a door slam where they
see other people running, or it's this building, it's that building.
I thought I saw something. All these calls start coming
in and it's chaos. So it takes them hours to
just say hey, everything's a okay. And then hey, this
was a joke. I hate using the word joke, but
(10:02):
somebody did this as a hoax, and that's what that means.
And to think we rose how many times we said it.
There's something unique about a campus community, school community, high
school community. Yeah, it's all, but there's something unique about
a campus community because it sometimes they feel like they're
more a representation of a It's not just happening to
(10:25):
black folks or white folks, Hispanic folks. Of this, like,
a campus community is more of a whole than a
lot of ways I would argue in a community than
I think the country or a city or a state.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
We keep going back. We're going back to the University
of Arkansas campus this fall, We're going back to Georgia.
I mean, yes, you keep coming.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Back and doing something like this. It shakes the hell
out of a campus community. And we have been to
enough campuses and school campuses after a shooting and see
what that does to people. And even though nobody got hurt,
nobody got shot, they are shook.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah they are again. So I like, I was just
actually reading what was being sent out to students and
imagining how that must felt. So I said, South Carolina
their text, Oh no, the University of Tennessee was run, Hide, fight.
The University of Arkansas sent out avoid, deny, defend. So
you know, each campus has these instructions to students in
(11:20):
case they encounter the shooter or in case they're in
an unsafe place. Here's what you should do. Avoid, deny, defend.
That is what the University of Arkansas sent students on
the first day of school. You get that text. I
cannot imagine.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
I'm more partial to run, hide, fight. You get the idea.
They started doing this years ago because they have to.
If you need to get a message out and you
can't say, hey, you need to stay away from the
library because some one's on we got a report about that.
You need to tell people. This is what you gotta
do right now. You need to run to get away
from danger. That is option one. Then they tell you, well,
if you're not able to run, option two is hide.
(11:56):
If you're not able to do that, your last resort
is to fight and defend your life. And that is
a unfortunately we have to use it, but that one works. Run, hide, fight.
You know what that means. Yeah, you don't need nothing
else needs to be explained in order that is.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
What you should do. Iowa State University two false reports
of an active shooter at the library and then another
incident they claimed at the dormitory, one of the dormitories,
one of the residents halls. So that was at Iowa
State University on Monday. Kansas State University, they also had
a call of an active shooter at the campus library.
University of New Hampshire got a scary phone call, shots
(12:34):
fired campus library, so they know they're getting to call.
Shots have been fired. Northern Arizona University police were told
there was an active shooter again at the campus library.
And then the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I got
this call from Annalys. We were at dinner. It was
five pm in Boulder, Colorado, there were reports of an
(12:55):
active shooter at the campus library, which Annie and I
have been to multiple times the old The only reason
why I think I wasn't as panicked was because she
had already finished classes for the day and she was
back at her house, which is just shy of campus.
I mean, she is across the street from campus, but
I knew she wasn't in class. But her really good
friend Jenna was in class when it happened, and so
(13:18):
she told me. Jenna talked about the panic people running
from the classrooms, people literally hysterically trying to get out
of harm's way, and it just was so sad to
think about this beautiful campus thrown into such chaos.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
This is the same campus nearby not too long ago
that had an incident with the anti Semitic attack there.
So again you've been out. Bolder Boulder is as chill
as it gets.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yes, town, rocky mountains, gorgeous scenery, this beautiful little college
campus with shops and restaurants. It is idyllic.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
This is fear. This is trauma. But you just mentioned
something about how you were. You knew she wasn't on camp,
so you had a little relief, yes, And therein lies
the problem because part of your relief as well is
because you've been covering for the past several days that
there have been a number of hoaxes. Yes, that's in
the back of our mind, and that is the problem
because in two weeks, in three weeks, in a month
(14:18):
and six months, who knows when that there's a possibility
that somebody for real is going to step onto a
campus and try to do harm and try to shoot
a place up, and that call is going to go
in to nine one one, and the students are going
to look at their phones and see it. You know
what they're gonna do is roll their eyes and they're
gonna even if they hesitate for half a step, that
(14:39):
could be life and death. That is what this is
doing the boy who Cried Wolf? What age were we
when we learned that man? And so now here we
go another one. Ah, that's another one. Ah, it's another one. Ah,
it's another one. You talk about the hurricanes all the time.
Some people don't leave because, Ah, we've been through this before.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
It misses us every time. What are the chances this
actually is going to hit, that is.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Going to possibly what we're seeing ropes cost somebody harm
or death because what's happening right now and somebody just
hesitates half a step when they need to be haul
and ass and this thing has messed us all up.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yes, that is one serious consequence of all of this.
There are also plenty of other financial consequences, and there
are other issues that involve life or death because of
these just egregious, horrific, and unfortunately now repeated hoaxes that
we are seeing across this country. Welcome back to this
(15:45):
edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about
these series of very serious, very consequential hoaxes that are
plaguing college campuses across our country in the past few days.
This has been personal for TJ and me because it
has hit very close to home. People we love were scared.
People we loved were afraid, and frankly, we all should
(16:08):
be concerned because this technology that's out there for someone
or several people to pull off these elaborate hoaxes is
growing voice over Internet Protocol services, that's what it's called.
But it makes these hoaxes more elaborate, and it makes
them so that the people who are committing these crimes
(16:29):
or the person very difficult to catch because it's these
false numbers that can just generate phone calls. You can
change the quality of your voice, you can add background noise.
One of these callers into one of these universities, I
believe it was the University of Tennessee Chattanooga actually had
gun fire in the background to make it seem more real.
The technology is getting better and that makes these hoaxes scarier.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And look, I mean we talk about VoIP voice over
Internet protocol, but I mean a burner foam might be
simple as enough. And we're speaking on this and some
authorities have spoken on this particular thing, and so we're
not revealing any secrets necessarily with this. But how do
you catch these folks? And I'm not sure what the
penalties are, but I think they are severe. They have
(17:17):
made them more severe over the years. Is it anything
other than you know what I thought about schudeur Sanders.
You remember that prank that somebody played during the Terrible
and it turned out to be the son of a
coach sitting in a room thinking he's doing no harm,
Thinking he's doing no harm. This is funny to me?
Is someone you could be? Is someone just an idiot
(17:39):
out there thinking this is funny? A couple kids in
a room thinking this is funny. It's possible, But how nefarious?
How troubled are the people making these calls? I don't
know what to I was even debated in Robes. We
were debating should we even be doing this story.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
We've had that conversation because look, as we covered in
the national media more and more of these school shootings,
the decision was ultimately made by the newsrooms we worked
in to one time, like the first day, acknowledge who
the shooter is, but never say his name again. And
that was to make sure that we didn't give anyone
else an idea to become famous or infamous, notorious by
(18:20):
having their name live on because they are the shooter.
So we made a point not to give any glory
so to speak, or attention to the people behind the shooting.
And we really did have that conversation like should we
be covering this because we know copycats exist and if
this is one person who keeps doing it over and
over again or a small group of people, they're going
to be fueled by the fame. They're going to be
(18:42):
excited by the attention. Unfortunately, that is possibly and probably
what these people are looking for.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
They get off on looking at the television and go wow,
I did that.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yep, and that's just and that's scary because that means
it's only going to get worse. And look, when we
talk about the damage done, yes, there is signal, magnificant
emotional trauma done to anyone who is sitting in a
classroom and who has gone through these drills in high school.
Because yes, unfortunately, our kids have lived through this era
(19:11):
where they have had to learn how to handle a
potential mass shooting in a classroom setting. So they're on
edge already in a way that we never had to
be because they've been exposed to this. So now they're
extra traumatized when the worst case scenario they think is
happening in real time. But even worse, You've got now
think about this, hundreds of police officers, fire officials, emergency
(19:35):
medical EMT teams, everyone rushing to one area. Heaven forbid,
those resources are needed somewhere else. Someone has a heart attack,
there's a horrific car accident, there's whatever trauma that happens
on a daily basis, And some of these small communities
don't have emergency personnel to spare. Now they are diverted
(19:56):
to something that is non existent. Someone could die, who
act actually needs help because the resources they need are
somewhere else, trying to help out a situation that doesn't
even exist.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Uh, you said they don't have resources to spare. That
includes money. All this costs the University of Arkansas Fayetteville,
the response it takes. You're not just bringing in all
the guys who are on duty at the time, but
the time it takes, the overtime. All these things cost
money for these extra bodies. And I know it doesn't
seem like much of a deal. Every time you see
(20:30):
a police officer show up, Yeah, he just shows up.
You're a taxpayer. But this drains folks in certainly smaller communities. Yeah,
Chattanooga you think they're a wash in dough for their
law enforcement. Oh, this is horrific, tough, hope it stops.
I was looking. I did a good look before we started.
(20:50):
I'm sure you did too, to make sure there wasn't
another one today.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right, I know, I mean fingers crossed. It hasn't happened yet,
but you think about how like I know you probably
looked to two Bay. But the amount of incidents that
are happening, it's escalating in a very disturbing way. So
estimated swatting incidents jumped from four hundred in twenty eleven.
I think that's when they first started seeing it, right
(21:14):
around two thousand. I think that maybe the first one
was in two thousand and eight, but they started to
see them en mass in twenty eleven. It jumped to
one thousand incidents in twenty nineteen, and then just last year,
from January twenty twenty three to January twenty twenty four,
there were eight hundred incidents recorded at elementary, middle and
(21:36):
high schools. So it's just it's rapidly increasing in a
significant way. And now this year we're seeing what we're seeing.
Last year that California teenager admitted to making hundreds of
swatting calls targeting historically black colleges, high schools, FBI agents,
a Florida mosque. He admitted to doing it and was
(21:56):
able to do it in a large quantity with one person.
That's all. It took. One seventeen year old out of
California created all this havoc, made over one hundred phone
calls and scared the heck out of everybody. And I
don't know if that is what, perhaps is a copycat
or what triggering this new round of swatting, But God,
(22:22):
I hope they find out whoever did this, or whoever
is responsible, or however many people are responsible.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
They need to find them, make an example, throw the
book at them, and then that's will discourage others from
doing it in the future. And maybe that's all. Look, thankfully,
and I haven't seen Make sure you have either not
a single injury necessarily involved, not yet in any of
these what somebody is could potentially get hurt just running away. Hell,
a heart attack from somebody in a stressful situation. So
that hasn't happened yet, and that's a blessing. But hopefully
(22:51):
this is just a weird stretch of things that have happened,
and again, we would we have done. I don't know
what are the chances. Right on the same day, within hours,
we are getting alerts from our loved ones who are
near these campuses saying, hey, guys, this is going on.
So it's tough. I remember this, and I cannot remember. Believe.
(23:14):
I believe it's a twenty fifth anniversary University of Arkansas,
the twenty fifth anniversary to almost the day of a
shooting on campus in which a student shot and killed
a professor at Kemple Hall that you have been in
where the jursal lives in the department is. This is
a campus. It happens every now and but this is
a campus that has been shaken by violence and death before.
(23:36):
And I always remember when it was because it was
a year after I graduated, so I know it was
twenty five years ago August I think twenty ninth, two thousand.
I know this off the top of my head. Wow,
But it that I was off campus by a year
I graduated. But I, as I'm sitting here looking at you,
didn't think about it. I was shaken enough that I
(23:58):
know the date and I could probably walk you right
to the room where it happened, because I remember a
professor there in the journalist's apartment. It was a doctoral
student shot and killed him in his office on campus,
right there in the building you have been in. Yeah,
this stuff stays with you. And if that's not an
indication of it, does this stuck with me? And I
(24:21):
didn't think about it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And you weren't even there when it happened.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
No, I graduated a year later.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
But it was a building you knew, in a school
you loved, on a campus that you call home.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And that stuff just it doesn't go away. We were
on the campus of Virginia Tech. You'll never forget that one.
I think that's the worst still in this country's history.
Universities have had shootings. The worst we've seen though at school,
elementary schools, high schools really in this country. So I
know we've seen Virginia Tech. But still something about us,
(24:50):
we're still kind of programmed to not necessarily it's a
one off, Right, Virginia Tech was what year, It.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Was a long time ago. It was that long ago.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
It was so long ago. But you remember, you've all
never forget ever, Right, Parkland, all these things at some
smaller school just when it's happening on a college campus,
we're paying attention in a different way. So yeah, this
is just it. We've been rattled, and we rattled now
and thankfully everybody's okay. It was just to think that
somebody might be having fun with this when that parent
(25:25):
like you, it's terrified, but it's fun to this somebody
sitting in a room laughing. When a parent like you
and so many others are freaked out that their kid's
life is in danger and somebody might be sitting around laughing.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
With us, It's sickening. There's no other way to put it.
And yes, we were personally touched by this yesterday and
wanted to just talk it through with everyone and recognize
that while we obviously can view any of these news
reports within the perspective that there have been a series
of hoaxes, but also keeping our guards up and keeping
(25:58):
our our children alert and making sure that we have
at least communication like this is a chance for you
to talk to your kids, chance to talk to your
student about what if the worst case scenario happens, have
a plan, let them know what they should do. Have
that conversation just in case, not to scare them. But
to prepare them. And it's tough that we live in
(26:19):
these times, but we do, unfortunately, and we hope this
comes to an end, and we certainly hope they find
out who is responsible for these series of squatting hoax
phone calls because they have real consequences. Thank you all
for listening to us today. I'm Amy Robach alongside my
partner TJ. Holmes. Have a great day, everybody,
Welcome everyone to this edition of Amy and TJ. It
is Tuesday, August twenty sixth. It is back to school time. Parents.
A lot of us have dropped our kids off at
college campuses across the country, and I know a lot
of high school students are already back in sessions. Some
folks are getting ready to But this is a time
of excitement. It's a time of joy, a little bit
(00:22):
of anxiety as we leave our kids hopefully in safe hands,
and a series of frightening events is taking place at
college campuses across this country, and it's happening repeatedly and
far too often. TJ. You and I both got phone
calls yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, we read a lot of news, and we stay
up on a lot of news, and we've been informed
plenty over the past week, really about active shooter incidents
on several college campuses. We get those alerts from breaking
news emails. We get them from watching the news, we
(01:03):
get them from reading the news. We got these two
from family members because our family members are in very
close proximity to two college campuses where there were two
active shooter hoaxes, one my alma mater. I don't have
a family member enrolled, had niece and nephew in recent years,
(01:24):
but my sister lives in that area, my niece and
still lives up there. And of course at least a
sophomore now at the University of Colorado who was just
dropped off there officially by you last Thursday and Friday,
so we aren't talking. Onto three days after you left
her at Boulder, you get a message saying as an
(01:47):
active shooter on her campus.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah. She started facetiming me and she was a little
out of breath, and I didn't actually answer the FaceTime.
I was in the middle of something. I said, Hey,
what's going on, figuring she just wanted to ask me
for money or something, and she said, this is serious, mom,
can you call me? And she was worried, and I
get it. I sat there and prepared her. You know,
I get nervous about the Idaho murders. I talk about
(02:10):
locking your doors and making sure that everyone's responsible about
keeping the house secure, and everyone understands how important security is.
I have to admit I didn't expect to get that call.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
At this point. Right. We talked about this last week,
and if folks of you all have been keeping up,
you know, I don't know what to call it necessary
a necessarily, it's not a rash anymore. It seems like
it's gone beyond that. It's not quite an epidemic of it,
but it is a trend. It is startling, and it
is scary as hell. But we talked about it last week.
(02:42):
Thursday was the first one we heard of. All of
you all know Villanova, but Rose. We talked about it
on our podcast and episodes in our morning runs, the
news podcast that we do. We said, man, can you
imagine how apparent a loved one would feel? Can you imagine, yes,
everything's okay, but can you imagine you just dropped your
kid off and left, and then you look on the news.
(03:04):
It's the parent's worst nightmare, whether they're in elementary school,
junior high, high school, college. We said, man, imagine how
that feels for those parents, And then on Monday, you
were the parent.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I just got chills because I remember that conversation and
trying to put myself in that position. I would say, thankfully,
but maybe this is even scarily that because we had
just been reporting on these hoaxes, I didn't get immediately alarmed,
but had there not been a string of these I
would have panicked immediately, and I should have regardless, because
(03:41):
we don't know what's a hoax and what's not. And
I think maybe that's the most frightening thing about all
of this. You know, I didn't even know the term,
and I guess I'm behind the times, but swatting, I
actually asked you swatting. What's swatting? You know what?
Speaker 2 (03:53):
You'll remember, it wasn't college campuses that were initially targeted
back in the day when this first started, and I
think they charged and made examples out of some guys,
but they were sending it to people's homes, wasn't it
these jerks that were involved in like online gaming.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Look, it started back in twenty ten, and they were
targeting celebrities, they were targeting politicians, and then as recently
as last year, do you remember the long string of
swatting incidents. One teenager was involved in historically black colleges
and going after certain specific types of campuses, and he
(04:32):
was charged with making It was a dozens and dozens
of these hoax false alarms that people took seriously, because
of course you would, you have to these days. So swatting, technically,
this is the definition, it's the deliberate practice of making
a false report to police to summon law enforcement who
believe a mass shooting, a hostage situation, or a bombing
(04:54):
is taking place, therefore calling in the swat team. So
you're swatting your community.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
They did this to it was it was gamers who
are actually online playing against each other. They get into
some kind of beef and one of them would call
and swat the other persons. And there was video of these,
like the guys would be in the middle of a
game and all of a sudden, the swat team is
busting in and they, yes, they made some arrests in
that case. So swatting necessarily folks, it's you've heard of.
(05:21):
It is not necessarily new. But this string and this
this latest string of them happening on college campuses, and
you send a whole community running, tens of thousands of kids.
And on top of all this roades, yesterday was the
first day of classes.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
For a lot of no it's you know, it just
breaks my heart, and all of these calls that started
on Thursday. We don't know if one person's involved, if
multiple people are involved, whoever is responsible for some or
all of these has not been caught yet, but these
calls all have eerily similar trademarks. It's almost as if
they're following a script.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
You no, I didn't think about that until you just said,
what if there is one person? It's cool for all
of these. It's not a copycat situation.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You think about that. They call in and it's a
male voice, that's what has been reported, and they say
that a male Sometimes they say a white male with
an AR fifteen style rifle shot x amount of people,
or is shooting people right now, And a lot of
these they specifically reference the campus library, the school library.
So you again, it started on Thursday, Villanova active shooter
(06:28):
on campus, shots fired in the law school. That was
on Thursday. Villanova then also had a second scare on Sunday.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga had a call on
Thursday as well. More than one hundred officers responded because
they have to, because they have to assume the worst.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
These were hours away. So this is what started, all right,
Villanova and you tea Chatnua. Yes, the one of Villanova
got a lot more attention. Is a much bigger school,
more well known school, if you will, offish to the
folks at Chattanooga, but they that was new student orientation.
They were just kids.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Running freshman orientation.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Parent there were a bunch of families on campus still,
and this is how you start your college experience. So
that got so much attention. Chattanooga didn't get as much.
But yeah, they went through hell same day hours apart
these two incidents. So we all looked and thought, well, hell,
so I'm the idiot, all right, let's move on with
our day. And then Sunday happened.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, and then Sunday happens. The University of South Carolina
two separate reports of an active shooter on campus. Both
were made by they believe police believe it was the
same person, the same male voice. They said it was
similar that included background noise and mimicked gunfire. So they
actually whoever this was up the ante and made it
(07:46):
feel and seem even more real. And look, can you
imagine you're a you're a student on campus and you
get an alert on your phone that says, run, hide,
fight an active shooter. So there are reports of students
just it's heartbreaking, running, barricading themselves, locking themselves in bathrooms,
hiding under desks, running for their lives, sheltering in place, sobbing,
(08:12):
sending desperate texts and phone calls to their parents.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I mean, you think you're gonna die, all real, You're
think you're gonna somebody's making a joke in a room somewhere,
somebody might actually be laughing at what they're doing. But literally,
people thinking they might die discus on the first day
of college, for God's sake.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
So yeah, exactly, You're you're you're you're already nervous and anxious.
You're leaving your family for the first time, you're starting
off this whole new part of your life, you're adulting
for the first time. And this the worst case scenario happens.
So that's Thursday. We've had two. Sunday we had two.
Then Yesterday Monday, six more swatting calls University of Arkansas.
(08:52):
This was significant, babe. They actually they actually took the
most dramatic response. They canceled classes at the University of
Arkansas on day By the way, yes, public schools also
locked down a car and they got multiple calls about
an active shooter once again at the library. But then
they got other calls that made them end up they
ended up having to search and go through room by room,
(09:14):
floor by floor of seven separate buildings on University of
Arkansas campus in Faetteville.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think about it, how you're how Analys called you, right,
she immediately reached out to you, said something was going on,
and so what happens. Imagine the chaos. There are some
parents who wouldn't just talk through with the cop. They'll
hang up and call cops. Yes, and that is what
was happening at the University of Arkansas. There was such
(09:42):
chaos that even though there was no shooter, words starts
trickling around. Now somebody hears a door slam where they
see other people running, or it's this building, it's that building.
I thought I saw something. All these calls start coming
in and it's chaos. So it takes them hours to
just say hey, everything's a okay. And then hey, this
was a joke. I hate using the word joke, but
(10:02):
somebody did this as a hoax, and that's what that means.
And to think we rose how many times we said it.
There's something unique about a campus community, school community, high
school community. Yeah, it's all, but there's something unique about
a campus community because it sometimes they feel like they're
more a representation of a It's not just happening to
(10:25):
black folks or white folks, Hispanic folks. Of this, like,
a campus community is more of a whole than a
lot of ways I would argue in a community than
I think the country or a city or a state.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
We keep going back. We're going back to the University
of Arkansas campus this fall, We're going back to Georgia.
I mean, yes, you keep coming.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Back and doing something like this. It shakes the hell
out of a campus community. And we have been to
enough campuses and school campuses after a shooting and see
what that does to people. And even though nobody got hurt,
nobody got shot, they are shook.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah they are again. So I like, I was just
actually reading what was being sent out to students and
imagining how that must felt. So I said, South Carolina
their text, Oh no, the University of Tennessee was run, Hide, fight.
The University of Arkansas sent out avoid, deny, defend. So
you know, each campus has these instructions to students in
(11:20):
case they encounter the shooter or in case they're in
an unsafe place. Here's what you should do. Avoid, deny, defend.
That is what the University of Arkansas sent students on
the first day of school. You get that text. I
cannot imagine.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
I'm more partial to run, hide, fight. You get the idea.
They started doing this years ago because they have to.
If you need to get a message out and you
can't say, hey, you need to stay away from the
library because some one's on we got a report about that.
You need to tell people. This is what you gotta
do right now. You need to run to get away
from danger. That is option one. Then they tell you, well,
if you're not able to run, option two is hide.
(11:56):
If you're not able to do that, your last resort
is to fight and defend your life. And that is
a unfortunately we have to use it, but that one works. Run, hide, fight.
You know what that means. Yeah, you don't need nothing
else needs to be explained in order that is.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
What you should do. Iowa State University two false reports
of an active shooter at the library and then another
incident they claimed at the dormitory, one of the dormitories,
one of the residents halls. So that was at Iowa
State University on Monday. Kansas State University, they also had
a call of an active shooter at the campus library.
University of New Hampshire got a scary phone call, shots
(12:34):
fired campus library, so they know they're getting to call.
Shots have been fired. Northern Arizona University police were told
there was an active shooter again at the campus library.
And then the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I got
this call from Annalys. We were at dinner. It was
five pm in Boulder, Colorado, there were reports of an
(12:55):
active shooter at the campus library, which Annie and I
have been to multiple times the old The only reason
why I think I wasn't as panicked was because she
had already finished classes for the day and she was
back at her house, which is just shy of campus.
I mean, she is across the street from campus, but
I knew she wasn't in class. But her really good
friend Jenna was in class when it happened, and so
(13:18):
she told me. Jenna talked about the panic people running
from the classrooms, people literally hysterically trying to get out
of harm's way, and it just was so sad to
think about this beautiful campus thrown into such chaos.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
This is the same campus nearby not too long ago
that had an incident with the anti Semitic attack there.
So again you've been out. Bolder Boulder is as chill
as it gets.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yes, town, rocky mountains, gorgeous scenery, this beautiful little college
campus with shops and restaurants. It is idyllic.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
This is fear. This is trauma. But you just mentioned
something about how you were. You knew she wasn't on camp,
so you had a little relief, yes, And therein lies
the problem because part of your relief as well is
because you've been covering for the past several days that
there have been a number of hoaxes. Yes, that's in
the back of our mind, and that is the problem
because in two weeks, in three weeks, in a month
(14:18):
and six months, who knows when that there's a possibility
that somebody for real is going to step onto a
campus and try to do harm and try to shoot
a place up, and that call is going to go
in to nine one one, and the students are going
to look at their phones and see it. You know
what they're gonna do is roll their eyes and they're
gonna even if they hesitate for half a step, that
(14:39):
could be life and death. That is what this is
doing the boy who Cried Wolf? What age were we
when we learned that man? And so now here we
go another one. Ah, that's another one. Ah, it's another one. Ah,
it's another one. You talk about the hurricanes all the time.
Some people don't leave because, Ah, we've been through this before.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
It misses us every time. What are the chances this
actually is going to hit, that is.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Going to possibly what we're seeing ropes cost somebody harm
or death because what's happening right now and somebody just
hesitates half a step when they need to be haul
and ass and this thing has messed us all up.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yes, that is one serious consequence of all of this.
There are also plenty of other financial consequences, and there
are other issues that involve life or death because of
these just egregious, horrific, and unfortunately now repeated hoaxes that
we are seeing across this country. Welcome back to this
(15:45):
edition of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about
these series of very serious, very consequential hoaxes that are
plaguing college campuses across our country in the past few days.
This has been personal for TJ and me because it
has hit very close to home. People we love were scared.
People we loved were afraid, and frankly, we all should
(16:08):
be concerned because this technology that's out there for someone
or several people to pull off these elaborate hoaxes is
growing voice over Internet Protocol services, that's what it's called.
But it makes these hoaxes more elaborate, and it makes
them so that the people who are committing these crimes
(16:29):
or the person very difficult to catch because it's these
false numbers that can just generate phone calls. You can
change the quality of your voice, you can add background noise.
One of these callers into one of these universities, I
believe it was the University of Tennessee Chattanooga actually had
gun fire in the background to make it seem more real.
The technology is getting better and that makes these hoaxes scarier.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
And look, I mean we talk about VoIP voice over
Internet protocol, but I mean a burner foam might be
simple as enough. And we're speaking on this and some
authorities have spoken on this particular thing, and so we're
not revealing any secrets necessarily with this. But how do
you catch these folks? And I'm not sure what the
penalties are, but I think they are severe. They have
(17:17):
made them more severe over the years. Is it anything
other than you know what I thought about schudeur Sanders.
You remember that prank that somebody played during the Terrible
and it turned out to be the son of a
coach sitting in a room thinking he's doing no harm,
Thinking he's doing no harm. This is funny to me?
Is someone you could be? Is someone just an idiot
(17:39):
out there thinking this is funny? A couple kids in
a room thinking this is funny. It's possible, But how nefarious?
How troubled are the people making these calls? I don't
know what to I was even debated in Robes. We
were debating should we even be doing this story.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
We've had that conversation because look, as we covered in
the national media more and more of these school shootings,
the decision was ultimately made by the newsrooms we worked
in to one time, like the first day, acknowledge who
the shooter is, but never say his name again. And
that was to make sure that we didn't give anyone
else an idea to become famous or infamous, notorious by
(18:20):
having their name live on because they are the shooter.
So we made a point not to give any glory
so to speak, or attention to the people behind the shooting.
And we really did have that conversation like should we
be covering this because we know copycats exist and if
this is one person who keeps doing it over and
over again or a small group of people, they're going
to be fueled by the fame. They're going to be
(18:42):
excited by the attention. Unfortunately, that is possibly and probably
what these people are looking for.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
They get off on looking at the television and go wow,
I did that.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Yep, and that's just and that's scary because that means
it's only going to get worse. And look, when we
talk about the damage done, yes, there is signal, magnificant
emotional trauma done to anyone who is sitting in a
classroom and who has gone through these drills in high school.
Because yes, unfortunately, our kids have lived through this era
(19:11):
where they have had to learn how to handle a
potential mass shooting in a classroom setting. So they're on
edge already in a way that we never had to
be because they've been exposed to this. So now they're
extra traumatized when the worst case scenario they think is
happening in real time. But even worse, You've got now
think about this, hundreds of police officers, fire officials, emergency
(19:35):
medical EMT teams, everyone rushing to one area. Heaven forbid,
those resources are needed somewhere else. Someone has a heart attack,
there's a horrific car accident, there's whatever trauma that happens
on a daily basis, And some of these small communities
don't have emergency personnel to spare. Now they are diverted
(19:56):
to something that is non existent. Someone could die, who
act actually needs help because the resources they need are
somewhere else, trying to help out a situation that doesn't
even exist.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Uh, you said they don't have resources to spare. That
includes money. All this costs the University of Arkansas Fayetteville,
the response it takes. You're not just bringing in all
the guys who are on duty at the time, but
the time it takes, the overtime. All these things cost
money for these extra bodies. And I know it doesn't
seem like much of a deal. Every time you see
(20:30):
a police officer show up, Yeah, he just shows up.
You're a taxpayer. But this drains folks in certainly smaller communities. Yeah,
Chattanooga you think they're a wash in dough for their
law enforcement. Oh, this is horrific, tough, hope it stops.
I was looking. I did a good look before we started.
(20:50):
I'm sure you did too, to make sure there wasn't
another one today.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right, I know, I mean fingers crossed. It hasn't happened yet,
but you think about how like I know you probably
looked to two Bay. But the amount of incidents that
are happening, it's escalating in a very disturbing way. So
estimated swatting incidents jumped from four hundred in twenty eleven.
I think that's when they first started seeing it, right
(21:14):
around two thousand. I think that maybe the first one
was in two thousand and eight, but they started to
see them en mass in twenty eleven. It jumped to
one thousand incidents in twenty nineteen, and then just last year,
from January twenty twenty three to January twenty twenty four,
there were eight hundred incidents recorded at elementary, middle and
(21:36):
high schools. So it's just it's rapidly increasing in a
significant way. And now this year we're seeing what we're seeing.
Last year that California teenager admitted to making hundreds of
swatting calls targeting historically black colleges, high schools, FBI agents,
a Florida mosque. He admitted to doing it and was
(21:56):
able to do it in a large quantity with one person.
That's all. It took. One seventeen year old out of
California created all this havoc, made over one hundred phone
calls and scared the heck out of everybody. And I
don't know if that is what, perhaps is a copycat
or what triggering this new round of swatting, But God,
(22:22):
I hope they find out whoever did this, or whoever
is responsible, or however many people are responsible.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
They need to find them, make an example, throw the
book at them, and then that's will discourage others from
doing it in the future. And maybe that's all. Look, thankfully,
and I haven't seen Make sure you have either not
a single injury necessarily involved, not yet in any of
these what somebody is could potentially get hurt just running away. Hell,
a heart attack from somebody in a stressful situation. So
that hasn't happened yet, and that's a blessing. But hopefully
(22:51):
this is just a weird stretch of things that have happened,
and again, we would we have done. I don't know
what are the chances. Right on the same day, within hours,
we are getting alerts from our loved ones who are
near these campuses saying, hey, guys, this is going on.
So it's tough. I remember this, and I cannot remember. Believe.
(23:14):
I believe it's a twenty fifth anniversary University of Arkansas,
the twenty fifth anniversary to almost the day of a
shooting on campus in which a student shot and killed
a professor at Kemple Hall that you have been in
where the jursal lives in the department is. This is
a campus. It happens every now and but this is
a campus that has been shaken by violence and death before.
(23:36):
And I always remember when it was because it was
a year after I graduated, so I know it was
twenty five years ago August I think twenty ninth, two thousand.
I know this off the top of my head. Wow,
But it that I was off campus by a year
I graduated. But I, as I'm sitting here looking at you,
didn't think about it. I was shaken enough that I
(23:58):
know the date and I could probably walk you right
to the room where it happened, because I remember a
professor there in the journalist's apartment. It was a doctoral
student shot and killed him in his office on campus,
right there in the building you have been in. Yeah,
this stuff stays with you. And if that's not an
indication of it, does this stuck with me? And I
(24:21):
didn't think about it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
And you weren't even there when it happened.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
No, I graduated a year later.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
But it was a building you knew, in a school
you loved, on a campus that you call home.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And that stuff just it doesn't go away. We were
on the campus of Virginia Tech. You'll never forget that one.
I think that's the worst still in this country's history.
Universities have had shootings. The worst we've seen though at school,
elementary schools, high schools really in this country. So I
know we've seen Virginia Tech. But still something about us,
(24:50):
we're still kind of programmed to not necessarily it's a
one off, Right, Virginia Tech was what year, It.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
Was a long time ago. It was that long ago.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
It was so long ago. But you remember, you've all
never forget ever, Right, Parkland, all these things at some
smaller school just when it's happening on a college campus,
we're paying attention in a different way. So yeah, this
is just it. We've been rattled, and we rattled now
and thankfully everybody's okay. It was just to think that
somebody might be having fun with this when that parent
(25:25):
like you, it's terrified, but it's fun to this somebody
sitting in a room laughing. When a parent like you
and so many others are freaked out that their kid's
life is in danger and somebody might be sitting around laughing.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
With us, It's sickening. There's no other way to put it.
And yes, we were personally touched by this yesterday and
wanted to just talk it through with everyone and recognize
that while we obviously can view any of these news
reports within the perspective that there have been a series
of hoaxes, but also keeping our guards up and keeping
(25:58):
our our children alert and making sure that we have
at least communication like this is a chance for you
to talk to your kids, chance to talk to your
student about what if the worst case scenario happens, have
a plan, let them know what they should do. Have
that conversation just in case, not to scare them. But
to prepare them. And it's tough that we live in
(26:19):
these times, but we do, unfortunately, and we hope this
comes to an end, and we certainly hope they find
out who is responsible for these series of squatting hoax
phone calls because they have real consequences. Thank you all
for listening to us today. I'm Amy Robach alongside my
partner TJ. Holmes. Have a great day, everybody,
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