Metro Phoenix schools, police grapple with new reality of traumatic threats

PHOENIX — On the morning of Sept. 25, more than 40 Scottsdale police officers rushed to Chaparral High School after a call came in that a gunman had taken hostages in a bathroom.

The officers went into classrooms and had to clear every bathroom, providing lasting school memories that students and staff never would have wished for. The threat turned out to be a hoax, with the call coming from Pakistan.

That incident wasn’t isolated.

Metro Phoenix has fallen victim this school year to a new reality of increased, oftentimes sophisticated traumatic threats that disrupt learning, drain law enforcement resources and have communities on edge.

“What you hear from parents and from staff and from others is a level of fear and frustration,” Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther told KTAR News 92.3 FM. “Frustration that there would be people who are intent on creating this level of disruption, this level of chaos and this level of trauma to our young people.”

School threats on the rise across the Valley

The day before Chaparral High School was the victim of a school threat, nearby Sequoya Elementary School was targeted and put on lockdown for a similar situation that turned out to be a hoax.

Scottsdale is seeing these traumatic threats — typically called swatting — more often than it has in history.

Since the academic year began in early August, Scottsdale police have responded to at least 25 instances of school threats. Last academic year — from August 2023 to May 2024 — the department saw 47 instances of school threats.

“We’ve seen more of that this year than we’ve seen in preceding years,” Walther said. “It has really exploded over the last month or two.”

On the west side of the Valley, Buckeye Police Chief Bob Sanders has his own swatting problem at hand.

His city, with half the population of Scottsdale, has become a breeding ground for school threats. Sanders said his department has responded to 10 threats and made four arrests this school year.

“We’ve conducted more investigations in the first two months this year than pretty much all last year,” Sanders said.

There seems to be no discrimination for Valley school threats. Phoenix, Mesa, Goodyear and Surprise are other cities that have been affected this year.

The traumatic threats are putting a strain on police forces, but the serious nature of every incident puts departments in a difficult spot in their response. An incomplete or inadequate reply could be the difference between life and death if a call does turn out to be a real situation.

“If I had 100 of these threats 100 days in a row, well the 101st day we still need to respond exactly the way we did the first 100 days because if the 101st day is real and we don’t respond in the same fashion, lives are lost,” Walther said. “Time is of the essence and so that’s why for us, it can be exhausting when you are responding multiple days in a row.”

On a federal level, authorities are monitoring ongoing school threats in the Valley.

“The FBI’s concern is that these events cause a significant strain on law enforcement resources and put both officers and the public in danger,” Kevin Smith with the FBI Field Office in Phoenix said in a statement.

What is behind the increase of school threats in the Valley?

Most of the threats have come from minors but they’re not limited to young people. Walther said the culprits are people who “want to be famous or infamous by all means.”

He’s seen an instance recently where an outside group solicited students to tell potential perpetrators their school and why they should be targeted next for a swatting incident.

“That’s just something that we’ve never seen before,” Walther said. “It was essentially a call to action … it’s unbelievable.”

The call that originated from Pakistan — and others from outside the country — has Walther believing in the possibility that bad actors are seeking to make disruptions during election season. The general election is set for Nov. 5.

“We have major elections going on and if they can continue to disrupt and sow the seeds of discontent or really undermine the very fabric of our society, especially with our young people in schools with a little bit of chaos … that’s what they’re doing,” Walther said.

The accessibility to students through social media has only exacerbated the issue.

A 17-year-old boy at Buckeye Union High School was arrested last month after he texted another student that he had seen a gun in a bathroom. The other student then posted the claim on social media, which naturally led to a greater spread of information that turned out to be false.

In another instance, a threat involving a school in Ohio was linked to Buckeye since the school name in the Midwest state had Buckeye in it. That led to more than 300 tips to police of school shooting threats, according to the Buckeye Police Department.

“What we ask parents is to be more involved with their children, monitor their social media, talk to their children about the consequences and the seriousness of when they repost or any type of communication involving school threats,” Sanders, the Buckeye police chief, said.

What can be done to stop traumatic threats?

The police officials interviewed for this story believe that on a local level, parents need to have tough discussions with their children about the consequences of school threats. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell agrees.

Her office received more than 10 cases involving school threats by minors in September.

“You need to sit your kids down and have a very, very serious conversation with them that this is not a joke,” Mitchell told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show last week.

Walther, who has an 8-year-old grandson, knows the effects a school hoax could have on those involved. The Scottsdale Police Department held a forum at Chaparral on Sept. 30 in an effort to ease the minds of parents.

NOW: The Scottsdale Unified School District is taking questions from parents, related to recent threats made to schools.

Local police say this has been an everyday problem. While threats themselves are not new, there's been an "exponential" increase, says PD. @KTAR923. pic.twitter.com/CjbOJBcFhD

— Balin Overstolz (@balin_om) October 1, 2024

“The stress is real, the call is not … that has a cascading effect,” Walther said. “It’s the young people at school, it’s the staff and the teachers at that school who are now in lockdown, who are in the dark who are in … bathrooms or in rooms with the lights turned off, the doors barricaded and they’re hiding in the corner.

“Those are stressors and events that young people are going to remember the rest of their lives, right? Because at least for a moment, they thought, ‘is this it for me?'”

Mitchell is considering a similar outreach as traumatic threats continue.

“One of the things that we’re looking at doing is a threats forum so that parents can be educated on talking to their kids,” Mitchell said. “I think parents are afraid to bring it up because they don’t want to put ideas in their kids’ heads and what I can say is you’re not likely to do that, but you are likely to stop something if they’re thinking about doing something as a prank or as a dare.”

What if traumatic threats don’t stop?

Walther is hopeful the trend will slow, but is willing to up his department’s efforts if it doesn’t or if the public doesn’t understand the seriousness of threats.

A Florida sheriff’s office perp-walked an 11-year-old accused of threatening shootings at two schools last month.

Walther said he’d consider asking the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to do the same if the climate doesn’t improve.

“There must be some accountability at the social level,” Walther said. “If that means your little Johnny is named in the media and his picture’s out there, yeah, maybe that might dissuade somebody else from doing it due to that very negative media coverage.

“So I’m all for that. If you disrupt and cause trauma at that level, then we ought to bring shame back in a whole lot of ways in our country because that seems to be absent today.”

Threats that come from outside the country are more difficult for accountability. Walther said those perpetrators are harder to track down and less can be done immediately to dispel future traumatic threats.

Sanders, who has 30 years of law enforcement experience and children in college, wants to get back to normal, day-to-day policing.

“It’s very taxing on everybody and increases stress and anxiety, especially from the perspective of a parent,” Sanders said.

Follow @DannyShapiro13