Victoria Viola, a first-year law student, was on her way to the courtroom in Barco Law School when a police officer told her to exit the building immediately. After grabbing her peers and hurrying out, Viola waited outside the building for an hour before she was sent back inside.
“After that, we just went to class,” Viola said.
After the false shooter threat at Barco Law School, students say they feel “shaken” and expressed protocol concerns. The hoax call comes in the wake of dozens of similar calls made to universities nationwide.
Malicious hoax calls to emergency services, also referred to as swatting, have recently plagued institutions across the country, beginning on Aug. 21 at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Villanova University. Over a dozen major universities, including West Virginia University, have received similar calls since.
According to Jared Stonesifer, a University spokesperson, the Barco “hoax is actively being investigated with other cases in cooperation with the FBI.”
False shooter calls are made with the intent to divert large-scale police and SWAT responder resources and often occur in “clusters,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The Educator’s School Safety Network said swatting has “a significant impact by traumatizing students and staff, consuming emergency response resources, robbing students of instructional time and undermining the perception of safety and security required for a school to function effectively.”
Swatting has exponentially increased in recent years. An ESSN report found a 546% increase in swatting incidents in the 2022-2023 school year since 2018-2019. Waves of swatting threats against universities are not uncommon, either — over 50 HBCUs received multiple bomb threats in early 2022, all committed by one minor.
A report published by the Center for Internet Security and Institute for Strategic Dialogue on Aug. 27, prior to the Barco call, attributed many of the recent “cluster” of calls to the “Purgatory” swatting group, citing commonalities between the calls. The group took responsibility for the recent wave via Telegram, according to The New York Times. Many of the hoaxes across the country targeted libraries, reminiscent of the April 2023 false shooter call at Pitt’s Hillman Library.
Angelle Derise, a first-year psychology major, said she found out about the threat through Instagram, not Pitt ENS.
“I saw it on Instagram, and the building that it was in was near my next class, so I didn’t go to class because I was scared that it was real,” Derise said.
A Connecticut native who grew up near Sandy Hook, Derise said she felt scared to even leave her room.
“It brought up memories of [the Sandy Hook shooting] for me. It did scare me a lot,” Derise said. “I was like, ‘I’m gonna stay in my dorm for the rest of the day.’”
Viola said the atmosphere while waiting outside felt “pretty bizarre.”
“Just standing there, we were like, ‘Are we waiting for something? Are we watching something, or this is a shooting about to happen?’ It did kind of shake me.”
Viola said she was concerned about a lack of an immediately clear protocol for the situation.
“There wasn’t much urgency. Once we got outside, they said that there were rumors of an active shooting, but there wasn’t any protocol,” Viola said. “We were watching them sweep the building, but we didn’t really get any information except for the text.”
Current University active shooter protocol — whether a hoax or not — advises to “shelter in place and not evacuate unless they are in the epicenter of violence,” according to Stonesifer. If in the immediate vicinity, the University has published strategies for active killer situations. Pitt Police also offers active killer training and informational videos in the event of shelter-in-place and lockdown.
Despite the threat being unfounded, Derise said she feels the rise in swatting is linked to a broader national issue surrounding gun control.
“This is America. This is the reality that we’re living in right now … we kind of just have to get used to it, and I don’t feel comfortable with that,” Derise said. “I don’t think it’s ever going to stop until someone says, ‘Put the guns down.’”
