It was the Monday night before classes were set to begin for Yale’s spring semester. Many of the students living in Bingham Hall, one of the first-year dorms on Yale’s Old Campus, had made an effort to sleep early in preparation for the next morning. Classes were beginning on a Tuesday this year because Monday, January 16, was Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
But at 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning, police descended onto Old Campus, surrounding the Bingham Hall dorms. Zach Sculin, a first-year living in Bingham, described waking that night to the sound of sirens.
“I looked out my window and saw a line of cop cars on Chapel street. There were police officers shining lights into our windows,” Sculin recalled. “I was just like, whoa, what’s happening?”
The officers began to enter the building, knocking on doors and waking students. Before long, the campus was abuzz with confusion and fright.
“Our [first-year] counselor texted us and told us to lock our doors. We didn’t know anything about what was happening,” Sculin said. “Our rooms didn’t personally get searched, but I had friends who were woken up by police searching their rooms. They were professional about it, but it was scary. People didn’t know what the hell was going on.”
Students relied on their phones to search for information about the event. At 2:30 a.m., Yale Police sent out an update to all Yale students, and Bingham Hall residents learned for the first time that the incident was likely false in nature. The police had been misled by a “swatter.”
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“Swatting” is a relatively new and informal term. Today, it is widely used by police and media outlets to refer to crimes like this one, but it isn’t recorded in many statistics as a unique category of crime. “Swatters” contact emergency services pretending to be victims or perpetrators of invented violent attacks, directing police toward their targets — often schools or private homes.
Swatting differs from the general crime of making a false report insofar as swatters seek to use emergency services as a tool to scare or victimize someone. The goal of many non-swatting crimes within the false reporting category is to incriminate a targeted individual. Swatters, however, have no interest in having their victims accused, arrested, or convicted of a crime. The goal of a swatter is simply to cause an aggressive police descent in real time.
The FBI has had “swatting” on its radar since at least 2008, but it is hard to trace the history of a crime that lacks its own reporting category; there is no nationwide count of swatting incidents. The crime gained a name of its own, distinct from general false reporting, in the context of online gaming communities.
Kevin Miller, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, has worked to sponsor legislation against swatting. He emphasized that the birth of “swatting” originally occurred in these small online circles.
“Originally, in the gaming community, it was a big joke. Because these folks that are playing from all over can actually see the people that they’re playing with face the consequences,” said Miller. “They call a fake emergency in, and then the door behind the other guy gets busted in. It was a joke to them.”
In October 2022, there was a rash of 16 swatting incidents that occurred in a single day in the state of Florida. Matt Cohen, who writes for the Tampa Bay Times, reported on the event. Cohen felt that because these calls targeted schools, there was an extra layer of fear injected into the situation.
“Sure, it’s not a real shooting. But in that moment, you think it’s real. If you’re in second grade, that’s scary as hell. Even in high school it’s scary,” Cohen said.
The suggestion of gun violence in school is a specific tactic swatters use to strike fear into students, teachers, and communities. During Yale’s Old Campus incident in January, the police descent was not the only intimidating factor. Rather, students had to contend with the fear of a real shooter in the building.
“I think the reason it scared people so much was because at first, we thought it was a student,” said Sculin, the Bingham Hall resident. “So we were thinking that there was a student in the building who was a threat. I know that some people went back home for the next few nights because they were scared.”
For other students, the late-night police entrance was itself shocking. One Bingham first year, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of his experience, spoke about waking up to officers inside his dorm.
“I just woke up around 12:30 to people screaming, ‘Put your hands where we can see them!’ At first, I couldn’t even tell it was police. I thought someone was forcing their way in to rob us,” the student said.
Once he learned that police were there to respond to a threat, it introduced a new dimension of anxiety.
“The first thing that I did was text my mom and family back home and say, ‘Police are here. I don’t know what’s going on. I love you all very much.’”
Texts like the one sent by that student, when combined with media coverage, police releases, and civilian footage, contribute to swatting’s wider effects. Swatting calls do not victimize only those in the targeted building. Rather, they create a chaotic situation that reverberates into the surrounding community.
“When a swatting call is made against a school, think of the people involved. You have the administration, the teachers, the children. They’re barricading doorways. They may be fleeing the building. The emotional toil on those kids is tremendous, and then you can add another layer: those kids all have electronics, right? They’re texting their parents, and the parents start racing toward the school. So the levels of chaos and trauma from an incident like this are very significant,” Miller said.
The police mobilization that swatting causes can have dangerous consequences even for those not in the targeted building. When police respond to a true emergency call, the speed and intensity of the response can have harmful effects. And when the call is fake, that risk is incurred on the community with no justification.
“When you have an officer that is being dispatched to what they believe is an actual shooting in progress, they’re racing to the scene. So they’re putting the public at risk unnecessarily because they’re trying to get there in a hurry,” said Miller, noting that harm to the community as a result of a police response is one of the most significant secondary consequences of swatting.
Furthermore, the mobilization of police resources in response to a potential shooting or other large-scale violent incident represents a significant financial cost to taxpayers.
“As you might imagine, when you start taking into account all of the police agencies that respond to these types of incidents, all of the officers who are called in or held overtime, it can get very expensive,” said Miller.
Depending on the area and time of the call, a significant police deployment (such as a SWAT team rollout) can cost thousands of dollars an hour. Especially in disadvantaged or rural communities, swatting calls can create a significant financial burden.
Some law enforcement experts have noted that a preponderance of swatting cases could discourage police from responding to emergency calls — even when they are serious. Professor Ted Wittenstein, who teaches in the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs and is an expert in cybersecurity and national security, noted that police agencies have already been forced to grapple with this dilemma.
“I think there is a growing awareness that you have to respond, even if you’re skeptical about the cause. You have to do your due diligence to protect the community as best you can. This is part of the challenge. You have to take everything seriously, knowing at the same time that someone may be abusing your desire to take it seriously,” said Wittenstein.
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Experts have theorized that the chaotic and fearful atmosphere created as a result of a swatting call is the ultimate goal of many swatters. When Cohen reported on the swatting phenomenon in Florida, he saw a desire for attention cited as the motivating factor behind many swatting calls.
“Swatters know that the media is going to cover something like that. They’re going to see what they did in the newspaper or on TV. They may even be able to see all of the cop cars show up,” Cohen said. “They can say, ‘Hey, look what I did!’ There’s a certain feeling of power that comes from creating that response. And that can fuel people in a very sick way.”
But sometimes the motivation of a swatting call can be distinct from a simple desire for importance. In recent years, swatting has been used to make political and hateful statements. Wittenstein noted that swatting has evolved from a dangerous online prank to an orchestrated extremist tool.
“There’s a growing recognition that this could be used against certain discriminated groups as a tool of repression. It’s a tool that extremists can use to impose their — often misguided — political beliefs about individuals or organizations,” Wittenstein said. “Given the prevalence of some of these extremist online communities, it’s also become a way that you can gain appeal or attraction among other extremists.”
Cohen saw the 16 swatting calls made against Florida schools in October as a part of this phenomenon. While the calls at first appeared to be random, over time it became clear that they were part of a larger pattern — with political motivations.
“There was a belief that because so many of the calls sounded similar, they had to be connected in some manner. And it didn’t feel like a coincidence that all of these fake school shooting threats were called in on the same day that the Parkland shooting trial started,” said Cohen. “Was there an intent to scare people on a day that was traumatic for many? It wouldn’t shock me.”
The Old Campus incident is another example of how swatting can be an instrument of hate. According to Yale Police, the swatter used anti-Black racial slurs on the phone and timed his call in order to evoke fear on the night of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday celebration. The swatting call was not only an attempt to scare students in their dorms, but also a tactic of racial intimidation that underscores swatting’s recent hateful manifestations.
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Swatting has certainly evolved from its initial conception as a “prank” played between online gamers. However, a discussion of whether the problem of swatting as a whole is new or worsening is complex. In some ways, swatting is simply a novel name for a crime that has always existed.
“The phenomenon of people abusing emergency services and police functions by targeting people or organizations or institutions, to my knowledge, is not new at all,” said Wittenstein. “I think it’s certainly been in the news more within the last decade, maybe even the last five years.”
In the early 2000s, there were a few high-profile swatting cases that helped to stir up media interest in the “novel” crime. But reports of surges in swatting have mostly occurred in the last ten years. Kevin Kolbye, a swatting expert formerly with the FBI, estimated that annual swatting incidents surged from roughly 400 in 2011 to more than 1,000 in 2019.
Whether these estimates accurately reflect the number of swatting incidents is uncertain. Ten years ago, most people had never heard of the act of targeting people through phony emergency services calls (whether it was called “swatting” or not). Heightened attention might mean that more swatting incidents are being categorized as such, causing the apparent surge in cases.
The rise in reported swatting cases may also stem from the increasing ease with which swatting calls can be carried out today. Modern tools, such as the ability to “spoof” calls or hide one’s IP address, as well as greater access to internet privacy protections, have made it easier for swatters to evade police investigation.
A number of different techniques can be used to “spoof” a call. There are even some online spoofing companies that charge a fee in return for obscuring one’s Caller ID. In 2018, 70% of all scam calls in the United States employed spoofing to falsify caller identification. In the context of a scam call, the technique is often used to make a scammer’s number appear familiar or trustworthy. But when this technology is applied to swatting calls, it can enable swatters to avoid identification and arrest.
On another level, more widespread internet use has also expanded the pool of potential swatting victims. Often, these incidents are called in against people’s private homes or workplaces, and the personal information needed to perpetrate these attacks is becoming more available for more people in the digital age.
“Personally, I think you should assume that any information that you put in emails or texts or on your social media is potentially accessible to the public, either by accident or through malicious cyber activity. That’s a function of the world we live in. There’s no such thing as 100% cybersecurity,” said Wittenstein.
However, Wittenstein again cautioned against the idea that swatting is a unique or novel phenomenon, emphasizing that modern cyber tools are simply a new mode of transmission for an old crime.
“I definitely think that cyberspace and social media and internet connectivity have magnified and accelerated this phenomenon,” said Wittenstein. “But it accelerated an underlying problem, it didn’t create a new problem. This is an issue that has long existed.”
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The debate over the appropriate response to the “swatting problem” is as complicated as the problem itself.
A number of local and national legislators have attempted to clarify the appropriate legal response to swatting. Miller, the Ohio representative, was one of the first state legislators to introduce a bill designed to stiffen swatting sentences.
“In my bill, if someone is injured as a result of a swatting incident, that’s a second-degree felony. That’s significant, and it carries significant prison time. If no one is injured, it’s a fourth-degree felony. We want folks to know that this is really serious,” said Miller. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed Miller’s legislation into law at the beginning of 2023. It will take effect in Ohio in April.
Increasing the penalties for those convicted of swatting attacks has been a popular legislative response to the problem. In 2015, Representative Katherine Clark (D-MA) sponsored a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives designed to accomplish a similar goal. While the bill did not pass, it sparked a conversation about swatting and its consequences, especially when, in an apparent act of retribution, Clark was swatted in her own home a year later. (No one was hurt in the incident.)
Miller is supportive of continued legislative efforts to bring attention to the problem. “If more states adopt legislation like this, it speaks to the importance of the issue, and it creates greater awareness of the seriousness of the crime,” he said.
Some critics of legislative approaches, however, have pointed out that anti-swatting laws mostly focus on how to punish swatters once they have been apprehended. They note that one of the factors that makes swatting such a difficult issue is that swatters are not easy to track down.
Miller admitted that modern tools make it difficult for police to find and apprehend those who perpetrate swatting incidents. “It’s not uncommon to not be able to identify the people who commit these acts, because of the technology they’re working with,” he said. “You can use spoofed numbers and other tools. My understanding is that a lot of times these calls come from other countries, as well.”
Although months have passed since the rash of swatting calls perpetrated against schools around Cohen’s office at the Tampa Bay Times, he had not heard of any police progress in finding the perpetrators of the attacks.
“I still don’t think there have been any names or arrests that have come out of those incidents. Because how do you trace where these calls come from?” Cohen wondered.
That is why, beyond punitive deterrents, one of the most popular suggested responses to swatting has been investing in technology that can be used to crack swatters’ privacy tools.
“New technologies that allow you to identify or locate those who email or call or message false information with malicious intent are very relevant,” said Wittenstein. “And developing those and pushing them into the hands of law enforcement professionals is important.”
But Wittenstein mused that the heightened focus on swatting right now might be misguided. He emphasized that, instead of focusing on this one crime, it is important to acknowledge the broader issues at play in the modern field of cybersecurity.
“Yes, swatting is serious. But is it more serious than how vulnerable you can be to all other forms of harassment online or in real life?” said Wittenstein. “Rather than focusing on this one very serious issue, it’s important to increase our awareness of all of these vulnerabilities.”
Wittenstein and other experts have found aspects of the media coverage of swatting troubling, pointing out that greater awareness about swatting may inadvertently inspire copycats.
“Sometimes there’s a risk of over-drawing attention to the problem. That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem,” Wittenstein said. “But unfortunately, when you highly publicize certain types of criminal activities, it does carry the risk of inspiring fringe individuals to want to partake.”
As a reporter, Cohen has his own concerns over how to effectively share information about swatting events without inspiring potential swatters.
“Does covering these incidents give swatters the attention that they want? But is not covering them a disservice to our readers? It’s an interesting balance. In the short term, I think it’s good to cover because some people don’t know about it,” Cohen said. “But a year or two down the road, are we going to be helping anyone by telling people, ‘Hey, cops went to X location today?’ Honestly, I don’t know.”
For its victims, swatting is a crime that robs a sense of safety from everyday life, even when no one gets injured. When the Yale Police Department released its statement at 2:30 a.m., police were still present in the building, knocking on doors. Still, the Bingham student whose room had been searched felt some relief. “When they told us that they thought it was a false incident, I was just very happy we were safe,” he said. “Because when you don’t know anything, it’s scary. You’re thinking, ‘Are people hurt?’”