CLEVELAND — Officers were rushing to schools across Ohio Friday when reports of shooters were called into police departments in numerous cities.
It was a scary day for thousands of students in our state as those threats were called in, and now investigators are trying to figure out if this was all a coordinated “swatting” plot.
Fake threats were called into nearly every corner of Ohio, including in Cleveland and Akron.
News 5 was already following what turned out to be false reports of shooters in a number of other cities when Cleveland Police received a call about an armed suspect outside Saint Ignatius High School just after noon Friday. The school went into lockdown as officers searched the buildings. They eventually determined everybody was safe, and the call was false. Police are still investigating.
There was also a threat called in about Garfield Community Learning Center in Akron.
While these may have all been hoaxes, they're still traumatic for students and parents as they wait to find out if everything is okay.
"This is a major disruption and obviously frustrates a lot of us, and we want to make sure someone is held accountable for it,” said a Sharonville Police official about a hoax called into Princeton High School.
News 5 reached out to the Cleveland FBI about this. We were told they take swatting incidents seriously because they put innocent people at risk. The FBI works with local law enforcement to share information and act- on threats like these.
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