Swatting investigation update, 911 call transcripts revealed
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(ABC 6 News) – It has been one week since the statewide swatting incident that rocked so many students, parents and teachers, and now that terrifying 911 call, is brought to light.
According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the number of schools being affected by fake school shooter calls continues to climb, confirming that 17 schools fell victim to the hoax.
One of these schools was Lourdes High School in Rochester.
The eerie 911 call lasted less than four minutes. The male caller, who claimed to be “John Williams,” called Rochester Police Departments non-emergency line.
“Williams” told the dispatcher that there was an active shooter inside Lourdes and that he and 30 other students were hiding in room 201, in an English classroom.
It has been one week since the statewide swatting incident that rocked so many students, parents and teachers, and now that terrifying 911 call, is brought to light.
He also claimed that six students had been shot and that the shooter was a white male carrying an AK-47. Also that he was wearing a red shirt, with blue pants, and body armor. He eventually hung up on the dispatcher.
The investigation is still ongoing, but the Minn. BCA’s Superintendent Drew Evans says, there are indications in the calls that they may have originated from a different country.
In an interview with RPD last week, they say while the call may have been fake, they were ready. Law enforcement cleared the high school of any threat in under 30 minutes.
“We’ve trained for this. We’ve trained as much as we can for this to make sure that we’re prepared for a situation like this if it were to arise,” said Lt. Ryan Lodermeier with RPD. “Of course, we hope that it never happens, but in the instance that it does we take great pride in knowing that we’ve trained to be ready for it.”
The fake school shooter call at Austin High School last week was very different than the Lourdes call.
While the caller from Lourdes was coherent to the dispatcher and was more descriptive of the “situation,” the call in Mower County was a lot of rambling. The caller continued to repeat the same sentences over and over, saying there was a suspect armed with an AK-47 inside the school and that eight students had been shot. He also indicated they had been shot outside of an English classroom, similar to the call made in Rochester. Eventually, he hung up on the dispatcher.
That call lasted just over two minutes.