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A call came into 911 reporting a shooting at a local high school. 911 Communications contacted the School Resource Officer, relaying that an individual had called in a shooting. The School Resource Officer and school staff immediately determined there was no active threat and identified this as a hoax call, but reported to CIS for further investigation.
The CIS detectives began investigating the hoax call, entering key pieces of information into ForceMetrics to look for additional connections or background. Upon searching the phone number used to make the 911 call in ForceMetrics, the detectives found in the history of the phone number a similar unknown 911 call made several months prior, as well as an attached address.
The CIS detectives immediately went to the associated address, and after interviewing an individual at the home, were able to obtain the first name and social media handle of the individual associated with the phone number and both 911 calls. The information gathered was relayed to the School Resource Officer, who was able to identify the suspect. CIS responded to the school, where they identified additional suspects connected to the hoax calls and conducted interviews leading to appropriate charges.
Over the past few years, hoax active shooter (also referred to as “swatting”) calls have been on the rise, tormenting schools nationwide. While these events may turn out to be a mere prank, school shootings are a very real threat that must be responded to and investigated accordingly. This ties up valuable emergency response resources and diverts them from other calls for service where there may be more pressing need.
Hoax calls often come with very little information, making it extremely difficult for police to track down the source and solve the case. Being able to rapidly piece together clues to identify the callers and hold them accountable is imperative to defusing the perceived threat, stopping repeat offenders, and freeing up resources to return them where they’re most needed.
In this case for Greensboro PD, ForceMetrics pulled related calls that led officers to an address, person, social media accounts, and more for a repeat hoax call offender. GPD reports, “The technology saved hours of time and manpower, and the connection may have never happened without ForceMetrics. That same day, officers had the student identified.”