Threats to schools were false, police say

Four Calgary schools went into precautionary lockdowns on Monday during what police are calling a swatting hoax.

The “possibly computer-generated” phone calls started coming in around noon, police said, claiming “various threats” against the schools.

Police confirmed Dr. E.P. Scarlett High School, Centennial High School, Bishop Pinkham School and the Annie Gale School all received threats.

Officers responded to the schools as a precaution, but the threats have been confirmed as hoaxes and were likely part of a swatting incident, police said.

Swatting is a term used for false reports of serious police incidents used to get response from police tactical units, commonly referred to as special weapons and tactics — or SWAT — teams.

Police said the investigation is ongoing, adding “specialized units” of the Calgary Police Service are looking into the hoaxes.

These types of fake emergency calls — which have the potential to turn deadly — aren’t new.

In 2017, police in Los Angeles arrested 25-yearold Tyler Barriss, accused of making swatting calls to police in Wichita, Kan. on Dec. 22 and again in Calgary two days later.

Police said Barriss’s hoax call in Wichita led to the fatal police shooting of a Kansas man.

In a more recent series of fake emergency calls, police in Illinois arrested Justin Bagley on Saturday.

The 35-year-old is charged with 10 counts of felony disorderly conduct in connection with bomb threats made to a number of locations in Taber, Alta. last week.

Kathy Macdonald, a cybersecurity and safety specialist who is also a retired Calgary police officer, told Postmedia in an earlier interview that swatting calls make for “unpredictable situations” because targets of the hoax “don’t even know what’s going on.”

“It can make it a very difficult situation for everybody,” she said. “It’s very terrifying, actually.”