A juvenile was charged in Bucks County on Friday with making a fake emergency call about a threat at Council Rock High School South in early October, prompting a 34-minute lockdown that led to a heavy police response.
The incident was part of a wave of swatting incidents in the summer and fall at U.S. high schools and colleges, including two false alarms at Villanova University in late August. Swatting is a hoax report to police intended to create a large-scale emergency response, often at schools and places of worship.
The Bucks County District Attorney's Office said the charges filed Friday follow an investigation by Northampton Township Police, the DA's office and the FBI. The juvenile was not identified, and the DA's office did not give details about the charges.
Bucks County Emergency Services received a 911 call at 1:42 p.m. on Oct. 1 about a crisis at Council Rock South, which is in the Holland community of Northampton Township. The call triggered an immediate lockdown at the school on Rock Way and sent police from Northampton, Lower Southampton and Newtown Township scrambling to investigate.
Authorities conducted a sweep of the building, determining there was no credible threat, and students were sent home after police gave the school district an all-clear. Newtown Township police also increased their presence at nearby Council Rock High School North.
“We live in a society that the fear of a school shooting is very real," Bucks County DA Jennifer Schorn said in a statement Friday. "It is wholly unacceptable to allow for this type of criminal conduct to go unchecked."
The hoax call made to Villanova University during orientation day on Aug. 21 sent panic across campus, leaving students and parents sheltered in buildings for several hours. The caller claimed an active shooter was on campus, resulting in the deployment of hundreds of police officers from across the region. During the chaos and an ensuing search for a gunman, false reports emerged that shots had been fired and a person was injured — a claim that allegedly came from the swatter, authorities said.
The swatting call at Villanova was one of several targeting U.S. colleges that day, including an earlier incident at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and another call that night to Bucknell University in central Pennsylvania. Villanova was hit with a second swatting call three days later, but police identified it as a hoax before sending law enforcement to the campus again.
Within a week of the first incident, researchers at the nonprofit Global Project Against Hate and Extremism linked the swatting calls to members of an online group called Purgatory. They said the group operates as part of decentralized online network that often carries out false shooter reports and bomb scares in exchange for money. Many swatting calls are placed using anonymous Voice over Internet Protocol services, which make it difficult for authorities to trace their origins.
The FBI declined to comment on Purgatory's alleged involvement. Months later, there are still no charges in the Villanova investigation.
The swatting incidents have prompted lawmakers in Pennsylvania to seek ways to give prosecutors more tools to hold perpetrators accountable. There is no current felony law in the state available for charging swatters, which leaves prosecutors reliant on federal authorities to pursue more serious charges.
State Rep. Craig Williams (R-Delaware/Chester) introduced a pair of bills in September that would make swatting a felony offense and allow courts to order people who are convicted to reimburse the state, municipalities and emergency responders for the full cost of their response to hoax calls. Williams, a former federal prosecutor, called it "absurd" that Pennsylvania hasn't made swatting a separate crime.
The Bucks County DA's office is prohibited from commenting on cases involving juveniles, but spokesperson Manuel Gamiz said Friday that offenders in swatting cases now face potential charges of false alarms to agencies of public safety or false reports to law enforcement authorities.
State Rep. Tim Briggs, the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, proposed a separate bill in October that would stop short of creating a new criminal statute for swatting. Briggs' bill would add a sentencing enhancement to the charge of terroristic threats against a school entity or institution of higher learning. The bill also would give courts the ability to order restitution for the response to hoax threats.
Williams said Friday his bills remain in the House Judiciary Committee, and he said Briggs' proposal would fall short of addressing the problem directly.
"To my mind, that comes nowhere close to treating seriously domestic terror during this dangerous moment in our nation," Williams said.