0:05

Welcome back to It could Happen Here, a

0:07

podcast about things falling apart.

0:09

This week we have an episode that is in the

0:12

vein of what my co host Garrison Davis and I like

0:14

to call Here's a Problem, goodbye episodes.

0:17

Uh. And the problem is that there has been a

0:19

massive and as far as I can tell, unprecedented

0:21

wave of swatting incidents against

0:24

public schools and multiple states over

0:26

the last couple of weeks. Uh. And here

0:28

with me to talk about that is the person who

0:30

noticed it first. Uh, anti fascist

0:32

researcher h and community meeting

0:35

note taker Molly Conjure. Molly,

0:38

you are socialist dog mom on Twitter,

0:40

where you are a sensation with your delightful

0:43

little pups. Um and also one

0:45

of the best researchers that I know in the biz.

0:48

Welcome to the show. Great to be here.

0:51

So uh, yeah, you want

0:53

to start? Yeah. So this

0:56

has been going on, I guess for two weeks. There's

0:58

been this wave of swatting against schools

1:00

across the country. Um, and I didn't notice

1:02

it until it happened here. Um.

1:05

We had to restart this so many times. I feel like it's

1:09

great, though you should because

1:12

it happened here. I love it when you say

1:14

the name of the show and we finally get to do

1:16

it. Yeah, but you know, you know, my attention

1:19

is primarily local. So on Monday,

1:21

when every cop in the region was dispatched

1:23

to Charlottesville High School because there was a false

1:25

report of an active shooter inside

1:27

the school. Um, it was quickly

1:30

determined to be a squatting, right, so they dispatched

1:32

everybody, They locked the school down, they cleared the classrooms

1:35

with guns. You know, kids reported being terrified

1:37

of you because it was happy to them. They were just enjoying,

1:40

you know, an afternoon in high school and all

1:42

of a sudden there's a man with a rifle in their classroom.

1:45

Um. And it was quickly determined

1:47

to have been a squatting. And I was listening over the scanner

1:49

and by the time they were clearing the scene, that's

1:51

what they were calling it. So the police identified

1:53

it as a swatting, like through over the Yeah,

1:56

and I think that may have they may have arrived at

1:58

that conclusion more quickly because a

2:01

dozen other districts had it at the same time.

2:03

So across the state of Virginia, UM

2:06

districts you know, from Hampton Roads to Arlington,

2:08

Culpepper, Lynchburg, like tiny towns

2:10

in Shenandoah County, like a town with

2:13

four thousand people down you

2:15

know, in the southern part of the state. We're hit almost

2:17

exactly the same time with these hoax calls

2:20

about you know, I gotta get somebody down to the school

2:22

because there's somebody with a gun. Good

2:24

lord. It's so you know, it happened

2:26

all over the place. All of these schools were quickly cleared. No

2:28

one was hurt, thank god. Um,

2:32

but at least think you know, as the news

2:34

was coming in, I was picking, you know, picking through trying

2:36

to find the districts where this was happening, and

2:40

I was pulling up these news articles and it wasn't

2:42

just us, and it wasn't just that day.

2:46

So it's I think the earliest I

2:48

can find in this rash was

2:51

what was that two weeks ago in Texas?

2:53

A bunch of districts in Texas were hit. Uh

2:56

And the one in Houston I think is particularly grim

2:58

because the caller, the caller said,

3:00

you know, oh, ten students have already been shot there

3:02

in the classroom. It's two guys with a RS

3:05

and they gave this is one of the one

3:07

of the ones that the best described in

3:09

the media is that the caller gave a description

3:11

of the two shooters. And that's what scares

3:13

me, right, is that the cops show up with a

3:15

description in mind, they're going

3:18

to act with extreme prejudice if they see someone

3:20

who fits that description. There's

3:22

a Hispanic guy in the parking lot that

3:24

you know, it could be a risk. Yeah, well,

3:27

and that's that's the first one. Like,

3:29

when I shared your early

3:32

posts on this, people from Houston

3:34

started showing up and saying like, hey, you know,

3:36

we had something like this hit a couple of weeks

3:38

ago, and it sounds like it's the same thing. And

3:41

these are i mean, like number

3:43

one, the scale of

3:45

this, it feels unlikely that

3:47

at some level, I know, there's there's

3:49

certainly possible, an extreme

3:52

likelihood that some of these are copycats, some of

3:54

these are people falling in, but the sheer

3:56

number of them makes it seem

3:58

it's hard to believe that this would all be

4:01

unrelated, all of these calls would be unrelated

4:03

to each other. I think, you know, I don't know what

4:05

the background level of normal

4:07

splottings is, right, Like, I'm

4:09

sure to a certain degree. This is happening somewhere

4:12

all the time. You know, people are saying, oh, it's just kids who

4:14

don't want to take tests. Yeah, fifteen

4:16

schools in Minnesota were hit simultaneously yesterday.

4:19

This is and kids who don't want to take that

4:21

right simultaneously, so many

4:23

schools, And it's there is

4:25

a point there, which is you know, because people

4:27

when I started sharing this and stuff, people

4:29

like, what are we supposed to do? And the

4:32

first thing that occurs to me is

4:34

actually not a preventative measure, but is purely

4:36

just like, well, we should probably have some sort of at least

4:38

at a state level system in every state

4:40

for letting people know how many fake swatting

4:43

attempts to get schools are happening, how many

4:45

like false reports of

4:48

mass shootings at schools occur, like it

4:50

would be because otherwise

4:52

we can't tell if this is rising above the level of background.

4:54

I think it's clear this is because neither

4:57

of us can think of a time when there were

5:00

us many in such a short period of time, but

5:02

dozens a day, dozens a day,

5:04

there should be some method of keeping track

5:07

of that, because it is I I thought there's

5:09

a lesson of nine eleven rights that don't have inter

5:11

agency communication, like you know, on

5:13

Monday, when it was hitting all these schools in Virginia, some

5:15

of the early reports were quotes from local

5:17

authorities saying, we talked to the state police

5:19

and this happened to other people. It's like, well, I've already

5:22

found ten other reports. Did

5:24

the state police know about the hose? Yeah,

5:26

and it's it's this is um.

5:28

Obviously none of this is as

5:30

bad as a single actual mash

5:32

shooting at a school. But this isn't

5:35

like nothing either. It's not like you

5:37

you file a false report about I

5:39

don't know a break in and the cops drive

5:41

around a neighborhood for a while. Like. This

5:43

is kids getting guns pointed in their faces. This

5:46

is children thinking that like their friends have been

5:48

massacred. This is like parents thinking

5:50

their kids might be dead. This is this.

5:52

This is an act of violence, like doing

5:54

this as an act of violence and it ripples.

5:56

Right, The effects of this are are compound

5:59

and unfamble. You know, I've heard from

6:02

friends in the community saying, you know, I got a text from

6:04

my thirteen year old son saying, I don't know what's

6:06

happening, but I love you and even if,

6:08

even if you know, thirty minutes later the

6:11

dangerous passed and everyone knows it was a false alarm.

6:13

For that thirty minutes, those

6:16

parents thought, I thought that their kids weren't going to come

6:18

home. And you know that's a background fear of the parents have

6:20

every day when they said that. But that's the text no parent

6:22

wants to get right. You know, before we lost the recording earlier,

6:24

I was telling you about a a surgeon here

6:26

in Charletsville. She's a surgeon at EBA Hospital.

6:29

So the hospital was alerted about a possible mass

6:31

casualty incident so they could prepare their their operating

6:33

rooms. And so this woman gets the mass

6:35

casualty incident alert as she's scrubbing

6:38

in for a scheduled surgery. So

6:40

she has to walk into that. She has to walk into that

6:42

o R without her phone knowing

6:44

that her child's school, to

6:47

her knowledge in that moment, has a mass shooter inside

6:49

of it. And so she doesn't know if when she walks out

6:51

of that o R are her children

6:53

going to be in there. That's

6:56

horrific. That's horrific, and

6:58

also like that could get somebody

7:01

killed. And this is nothing care

7:03

it would not be surprising if she was less

7:05

able to properly provide care in that situation.

7:08

That's just being a person. Um.

7:11

So this is serious, very serious

7:14

and it um So yesterday a

7:16

rash of them hit Minnesota, and if

7:18

some locals in Minnesota were saying that so one of the

7:20

schools that was hit was East main Cato High School

7:23

the day before, So the day before yesterday

7:26

that at that high school, a student at

7:28

that high school attempted suicide with a firearm

7:30

in the parking lot. So kids came back

7:32

to school the day after this. You know, the students

7:35

survived in his hospitalized, but

7:37

you know they're coming to school hopefully

7:39

to you know, access counseling resources

7:42

and deal with the fact that one of their classmates

7:44

shot himself in the parking lot and suddenly they're

7:46

sheltering in place and there's cops with guns.

7:49

Just there's a baseline

7:52

reality for these students every day that

7:54

gun violence is present, and

7:56

this is just cruel to them.

8:07

One of the things that surprises me, you

8:09

and I you started was it four

8:11

days ago? Now, kind of

8:14

reporting this on your Twitter, which is where you do. You're

8:16

reporting on local news and the

8:18

anti fascist reporting as well. Um,

8:21

and so I started sharing your stuff and I we

8:24

started chatting about doing an episode. And

8:26

my suspicion, the thing I was expecting

8:28

was that like, well, we'll

8:30

probably get scooped on this, right,

8:32

Like there's probably liked vice or somebody is going to put

8:34

out something because there's just there's too damn many

8:36

of these. Um it's Thursday

8:39

now, the started Monday. I still haven't seen

8:42

any coverage of this as

8:44

a as a wave of swattings, and I'm kind

8:46

of surprised by that. There's

8:48

a few, Like, you know, regionally, people are

8:50

bringing together and doing these little quick hits about

8:52

like, oh, this happened in a dozen districts in our state.

8:54

Yeah, but I'm not I'm not seeing anyone connect

8:56

the dots nationally, and you know, and some of these

8:59

local stories are saying the local authorities are talking

9:01

to the FBI, But I don't know that there's

9:03

a cohesive nationwide investigation

9:05

into this as as a phenomenon. Regionally,

9:08

there is some indication that like these

9:11

calls are connected. So I saw an article that just came

9:13

out an hour ago in Minnesota that all

9:15

of the Minnesota calls came from the same IP address.

9:18

Ah, So this that's I

9:20

mean, that's what that's the proof we're looking for,

9:22

though, that's the evidence we're looking for. That Like, there's

9:25

a significant degree degree to which this stuff

9:27

is is coordinated. And when

9:30

I because this is something that since

9:33

you started talking about it, every

9:35

researcher I know who covers extremism

9:37

has been talking about at least a

9:39

little bit in like private conversation

9:42

signal loops. And the thing that keeps coming up is

9:44

like, is there some ship on Kiwi Farms? Is

9:46

there some ship on four chan? Is there some ship on

9:48

like these these little spaces. I

9:50

haven't seen anything nothing, So yeah,

9:54

you know, to some degree, there is the possibility

9:56

of social contagion, right, Like I found a few stories

9:58

that don't fit the pattern, specific the cases like

10:01

yesterday in Roanoke, a fourteen year old girl

10:03

was arrested for making one of these threats.

10:05

She didn't make all of them, she made this one.

10:07

Did she do this with what she inspired to do? So?

10:10

Because of this? Was it unrelated? It's hard

10:12

to say. So this at some point, even

10:14

if it did originate in one incubator,

10:17

it breaks containment. And I'm

10:19

I am certain that's

10:21

part of the intent, right, Like when

10:24

you do the benefit of if you're

10:26

thinking about because again, we don't know who

10:28

did this. We don't know what kind of ideology

10:31

or whatever or why was behind it, but

10:34

we know that a significant number of them like

10:36

occurred from a single source, which means

10:39

like something coordinated was

10:41

happening at some stage of this. That's a

10:43

reasonable conclusion to draw from the extent

10:45

information um And

10:48

I think it's just pure psychic terrorism,

10:50

right because my first thought on Monday was, is

10:52

this someone testing the fences? Is this someone timing

10:55

response times? Is someone watching local

10:57

news coverage to see what kind of equipment the police

10:59

have? That doesn't make sense

11:01

at this scale. This isn't

11:03

how you would do that, because this is going to draw

11:05

too much attention, right, And

11:08

like why would you want to know the you know, the police

11:10

capabilities in Emporia, Virginia,

11:12

which is just like three truck stops in high school,

11:14

No offense to the beautiful town of Emporia, Virginia.

11:17

It is Virginia's greatest speed trap. God

11:19

bless them. But like that

11:22

that theory immediately fell by the wayside for me because

11:24

it doesn't make sense. But it is interesting.

11:27

So I've been, you know, trying to compile follow

11:29

ups on some of these reports because the initial reporting

11:31

is vague and people use nine one one

11:34

as short cancel. They'll say a nine one one call,

11:36

But was it actually a nine one one call?

11:38

Because that makes a huge difference here, dialing

11:40

nine one one is you

11:43

know, I'm not a genius about how technology

11:45

works, but if I die INLINEE one here from my living

11:47

room, it hits my closest emergency

11:50

communications center, right, it's my local nine one one.

11:52

If these calls are being made from out of state, it

11:55

takes a high degree of technical

11:57

ability to hit a nine one one

12:00

dispatch center where you aren't. Yeah,

12:02

right, So we know we're not dealing with someone who is capable

12:05

of that. Alternatively, we

12:07

know, perhaps that this

12:09

person knows that making a false

12:11

nine one one call is a separately prosecutable

12:14

crime. Right,

12:16

So like the articles that are specific

12:18

will say that the call came in directly

12:21

to police dispatch, or the call came

12:23

in to the front desk at the sheriff's

12:25

office. So these people know well enough how

12:27

to contact the you know, the front desk at the

12:29

police department, and the name of a school that's

12:31

nearby right there. It's not it's

12:34

not so vague as as to just be dialing random

12:37

police stations and saying go to the high school. Well

12:39

no, And that also again

12:41

because we we've just mentioned I haven't

12:44

seen any evidence of this in the places

12:46

you would expect if this was the

12:48

way. It's a lot of these docksing campaigns

12:50

have gone the way a lot of Kiwi farm stuff goes the

12:52

way a lot of swatting happens, where like you

12:55

have a shipload of people openly talking

12:57

about and talking about bad things happening

12:59

to a targeted person, and then some

13:01

of those people do swattings.

13:03

Right, there's no evidence of

13:05

that, And the way in which it seems

13:08

like the bulk of these have gone

13:11

doesn't seem like the way it would happen if

13:13

you were just kind of targeting someone in a

13:15

public area and hoping that enough people

13:18

made the decision independently to make these

13:20

calls. Um. The other

13:23

My other thought too is that you know, it's sort of a limpse

13:25

of TikTok phenomenon, like they're targeting

13:27

schools with you know, woke policies

13:29

CRT gender include, they're not I mean

13:31

they hit Lynchburg, Virginia, which is Jerry Folwell

13:34

country. There's no demographic

13:36

or political consistency to the district's

13:39

being targeted well, and the right hasn't

13:41

picked this up at all. I haven't seen any kind

13:43

of like, very no one, very

13:45

few people seem to have at this point. So this

13:48

is just such a if

13:51

I if I were to guess where this is going

13:54

down, it's

13:56

some some sort of communications

13:58

platform where people have a degree of privacy.

14:01

Um, And I

14:03

don't know, if it's not testing the fences, which

14:06

at this point it seems too widespread

14:08

to be, then it may just be kind

14:12

of pure. I mean, one thing that occurs

14:14

to me is just like there's the pure accelerationist

14:16

value of of setting

14:19

up this wave and hoping that that

14:21

the copycat effect will just keep it going

14:23

for a significant period of time, of shutting

14:26

down dozens of schools around the country, of

14:28

traumatizing kids, of continually

14:30

making those schools roll the dice, because anytime

14:32

you have a cop with an a R bust into a fucking

14:34

school hyped up thinking there's a shooting, there's

14:37

a chance someone's going to get shot, right, So

14:39

there's and that's that's I mean, there have been deaths

14:41

from swattings, and that was that was but

14:44

so it happened here two days in a row. On

14:46

Tuesday, it happened in our middle school. And so like

14:49

the second time they responded, they didn't respond. Is

14:51

hot and heavy. Uh yeah.

14:53

Anytime you get, you know, cops charging into a scenario

14:55

where they think they might get to or have to, depending

14:58

on how you feel about it, use their guns,

15:00

the risk of someone being shot by accident is

15:02

pastronomical. Yeah, and I honestly

15:04

I'm kind of shocked that has it happened,

15:06

especially in the cases where you

15:08

know, the caller gives a specific

15:10

suspect description that you know, puts anybody

15:13

who vaguely meets that description at great risk.

15:16

But I think this is just you know, joker mode

15:18

nihilism. Yeah, that's

15:21

that is if I were to

15:23

like make a raw irresponsible

15:26

like public guests. Um, not that

15:28

I don't think this is actually that irresponsible, but like we

15:30

just don't know. But that's that's

15:32

what this that's the

15:35

the mo this fits best so far

15:37

is kind of raw. I want

15:39

to disrupt the system. I want to scare

15:41

people, and I want to do so in

15:43

a way. That's the problem with a mass

15:45

shooting from the perspective of someone like

15:48

this is that you're gonna die or get arrested

15:50

doing it, right, That's the way all of them end. And

15:53

so that limits the number of people who are

15:55

going to be inspired to carry out a mass shooting.

15:57

If you can show that, yeah, people

15:59

can can call in dozens of these fake

16:01

reports and some of them you know, we're going to end violently,

16:05

Uh, then maybe a bunch more

16:07

people are willing to do that, and the overall level

16:09

of disruption and chaos that you cause

16:11

is substantially higher. Right,

16:14

So it's a relatively low threshold for involvement.

16:16

Right, you don't have to be ready to die,

16:18

and maybe you won't get caught, although

16:20

I think because especially in the Minnesota case,

16:23

they're going to catch somebody. Governor Tim Waltz's

16:25

son goes to man Cato High School. No,

16:27

I mean you you you upset

16:29

the governor's son. You're gonna get Yeah,

16:31

and you did it all from a single like

16:34

And I have to suspect the

16:37

FBI is looking

16:39

at this. They never I mean, it's policy,

16:42

They're never going to confirm that until

16:44

the point at which like it becomes there's

16:46

it's a big enough story that they kind of have

16:48

to for pr reasons. But I would

16:50

be surprised if there was not an investigation

16:52

at the moment. Every couple days when one of these regional

16:55

stories comes out, you know, they'll quote the local

16:57

FBI field officing, you know, we're working

16:59

with local authority EIS to help them investing.

17:01

The FBI is absolutely investigating this nationwide.

17:03

There's no chance that they're not. Yeah, it's

17:05

it's too it's too clear of a pattern,

17:08

and it's not unprecedented, right that a couple

17:10

of years ago there was that Adam Wofin swatting

17:12

ring that those guys did go to prison for. So

17:14

it doesn't have to be a lot of guys. This

17:16

could just be a couple of people. So you know, we're

17:19

saying we're not seeing this leak out anywhere, it's not being disgusting.

17:21

Or it could just be you know, three or four guys. It

17:23

could be for four people in a discord with

17:26

some like auto dialing apps

17:28

that they've they've either coded, are

17:30

found somewhere on the internet, um,

17:32

which if they if they are using some sort

17:34

of like program to do this that's

17:36

meant for I don't know, sketchy uh

17:39

salesman or whatever. There's a decent chance that's

17:41

what brings them down, um because

17:43

all of that ship has terrible security,

17:46

but um so does discord.

17:48

I don't know, Like it'll

17:50

be interesting to see what happens here.

17:52

I think one of the questions for

17:55

from the perspective certainly of like

17:57

people listening, what can be done here?

18:00

Well? On a a local level, one thing people

18:02

can fight for and advocate for especialty,

18:05

especially if you're involved in local government, is

18:07

like I would like to know every

18:10

year, how many times the police go

18:12

to a school over a false report of a shooting?

18:15

Right? How many times are classrooms being

18:17

cleared? How many times are the cops showing up for this? Um?

18:20

Because that's important information, and that

18:22

also should tailor the way the police

18:24

are being trained for this and the

18:26

ways like the there's a number

18:29

of things that you should be doing. If you

18:31

know, hey, we had no mass shootings

18:33

this year, but the cops showed up with guns drawn forty

18:35

five times, right, that that should

18:37

inform the way you do things in the future

18:40

in order to minimize the trauma these kids go

18:42

through. That's one thing that is an immediate

18:44

thing people can take and that you can do, people

18:46

can advocate for locally. But

18:49

it's I mean, it's a tough line here, right, because you know, I

18:51

think every district is really eager not to be the

18:53

next bal day police. Of course, so

18:55

showing up hot and heavy right in there,

18:58

knocking down doors and pointing guns kids.

19:00

You know that the video that came out from that classroom

19:02

in Houston, they frisked several

19:05

children at gunpoint. I'm not sure why

19:07

that they were sitting at their desks, they were obviously not committing

19:09

a mass shooting. Or in Denver on Monday,

19:11

they evacuated the whole school onto the football field

19:13

with their hands in the air, like necessarily

19:15

horror, right, And you know, even

19:18

even as a police abolitionist and recognize

19:20

that in the system in which we currently

19:22

live, there is no response

19:25

to a school shooting that does not involve the police.

19:27

That's right where we are. But are

19:29

they are they doing this smart? Yeah?

19:32

As a as a rule, I think everyone can agree

19:34

that given the current realities of the world

19:36

we live in, if a guy is shooting up a school

19:39

or a lady, Um, it's

19:42

good for people with guns to come and stop

19:44

them, and that that's realistically going

19:46

to be the police in our current system.

19:49

But that doesn't mean we can't be like, well, okay, they

19:51

came up fifty times falsely

19:53

and traumatized all these kids by pointing

19:55

guns at them on the fucking football field. We

19:57

should change the way in which they're responding

19:59

to to these like that should

20:02

be the default. These are things people

20:04

can lobby for at a local level that will

20:06

have an impact on at least the quality of life

20:08

for kids in the schools and

20:10

for parents, you know, like you know, in All

20:13

Day there was the parent who you know slipped around

20:15

the police line and got into the school and got her kid

20:17

yesterday, no, two days two days

20:19

ago in San Antonio, they had

20:21

a you know, a hoax call. Somebody called

20:23

in swatch showed up, uh, and

20:26

parents showed up because they got the emergency

20:28

alert text. So the parking lot fills with parents. A

20:31

father punched through a window, cut

20:33

his arm up, and was hand look tackled

20:35

and handcuffed by the police because I just wanted this fucking

20:37

kid. Of course, this is gonna

20:40

keep playing out or here on Tuesday at the

20:42

middle school, you know, I was listening to my scanner. After

20:44

the you know, they cleared buildings, the police left, and

20:46

then a call came over the scanner and said, the school's

20:48

requesting that the police come back to handle

20:50

the parents because

20:52

parents are angry. Of course

20:54

they are. So how do we how do we navigate

20:56

this tension of yes,

20:59

we need police to respond if

21:01

there is a school shooting. But

21:03

how do we as community communities navigate

21:05

this space where we also don't want

21:07

them to point guns at our kids. We

21:11

don't we don't have a lot of trust and communication

21:13

with our police department. So I don't know if that's a space we

21:15

can navigate. This

21:26

is a problem that has to be adapted to. Right. There

21:28

is the potential you have this problem, right, which

21:30

is that it is apparently easy to weaponize

21:32

the reporting system for mass shootings. The

21:35

problem that's compounded by the fact that you can't

21:37

ignore the risk of a mass shooting because kids

21:39

can die, people will get killed if you are

21:41

wrong about that. At the same time,

21:44

it is unreasonable to say that every single

21:46

time one of these reports happens, if the ratio

21:48

is hundreds of false reports to one actual

21:51

shooting, every time it happens. You

21:53

go and you stick guns in the face of a bunch

21:55

of kids, and you traumatize all these parents who

21:57

wind up going crazy for understandable reasons.

21:59

They're a way there are structures that can be built

22:01

into the system to mitigate those

22:04

harms at least, and I think that is, you

22:07

know, from the perspective of who is doing this and

22:09

how can they be stopped? That is a question that will

22:11

be answered either by law

22:13

enforcement or by independent researchers.

22:15

But but that's that's a research problem, right,

22:18

that's a cracking case problem. My fear

22:20

is that the response to this will be um

22:22

putting more cops in schools. Right.

22:24

It's you know, the Coppy school doesn't stop

22:26

the school shooting. We know that from you know, empirical

22:29

evidence. Maybe in several

22:31

of these cases. You know, the news story says, you

22:33

know, Dispatch contacted the school resource

22:36

officer who said, no, I don't see anything. So

22:38

is the solution going to be put a guy in there

22:40

who can look. Yeah, and he's not gonna

22:42

do anything, but he's gonna

22:45

Charlottsville, the city of Charletsville took

22:47

our took school resource officers out of schools

22:49

last year, two years ago, time scaped

22:51

now. So my my fear is

22:53

that even people who applauded

22:56

that decision will at this point say,

22:59

maybe we should put them at Maybe we need a guy

23:01

in there with a direct line to dispatch.

23:03

Yeah, and I and maybe we do. I

23:05

don't don't think they need to have It needs to be a man

23:08

with a gun who has the ability to arrest children,

23:10

right having having a first responder

23:12

on scene at every school who can be the yes,

23:15

there actually is a shooting, or no, there's not. Maybe

23:17

a se medical training is perhaps

23:19

a different thing that could happen, rather than

23:21

let's put more armed men in schools, right

23:23

like that, That's not an inherently unreasonable

23:26

proposition. But I don't know. I don't

23:28

know that police are going to be receptive to the idea.

23:31

Let's ask some questions first, right Because as I

23:33

was listening to the scanner again, you know, I have the most

23:35

information about the two incidents

23:37

is that were in my neighborhood. Um, I

23:39

was listening to the scanner on Tuesday, and it

23:41

takes time for cops to arrive at a scene, even in a relatively

23:44

small town. By the time

23:46

they had dispatched this response to the scene.

23:48

They had already spoken to the principle over the fall.

23:51

They already knew this was not true. We'll

23:54

see, And there's another solvable problem, because

23:57

if you're if you're having guys

23:59

with guns still show up because it's policy.

24:01

When someone at the school has said no, there's not a

24:03

shooting, well that's again,

24:05

that is a problem that can be altered or

24:08

that can be fixed to mitigate harm.

24:10

That seems pretty simple, which is be like, well,

24:13

maybe if somebody at this maybe if the school's

24:15

principle says no, nothing is happening here,

24:17

you don't send the gun guys. Maybe you still

24:19

send a squad car to check it out for

24:22

die hard purposes. I'm sure we all remember

24:24

what that movie has to say about these kinds of problems.

24:27

But um, you know, I

24:29

I there's

24:32

a lot that can be done with the information

24:34

that this is a problem, And to a certain extent,

24:37

I think I'm hopeful that

24:40

once this kind of blows up, and I'm certain

24:42

this well, I'm certain that maybe even by the time this

24:44

launches, there will be some big national stories

24:47

about this, because this is this is a really substantial

24:49

problem. Very obviously is a substantial

24:52

problem. Um.

24:54

I hope that one of the things that does

24:56

is perhaps lead to the

24:59

authorities take king swatting and threats

25:01

of swatting and communities that engage in

25:03

swatting much more seriously, because by god,

25:05

they have not so far, and

25:08

it's not the laws about it are not super

25:10

consistent state to state that you know, there's

25:12

been some attempts on the federal level to make you

25:14

know, blanket legislation about this

25:16

specific because you know, it's it's illegal to make a false

25:18

report to the police, it's illegal to make, you know, a false nine

25:21

one one call, but to specifically

25:23

and intentionally weaponize an armed

25:25

police response because you hope it will hurt someone.

25:28

In most states, isn't its own crime,

25:31

right, Like, and I think in California they

25:33

have specific legislation that like, you can be

25:35

charred, like financially responsible for whatever

25:37

it costs to have that response. Like,

25:40

there's not uniform agreement

25:43

that this is a separate crime. This

25:45

is a separate harm that should be punished in a specific

25:47

way. And maybe maybe we'll get that out of this.

25:49

I don't know that that solves it, but again,

25:52

it will, Like you were saying, that this is a lower

25:54

barrier to entry crime. But

25:57

if you up the punishment, maybe the threshold

25:59

to just to do it goes up. Yeah.

26:02

Yeah, again, I think there's there's

26:04

a variety of things that can

26:06

be done. So now that we know this is a problem,

26:09

and one of the reasons why I think this is important for us

26:11

to cover on a show like this is a lot of these

26:13

are problems that can at least be mitigated at the

26:15

local level. Right, you do have power

26:17

if you're involving yourself in local politics

26:20

to do things like advocate for a system in which

26:22

you track how often this is happening, to do things

26:24

like advocate for changes in how the school

26:26

handles this sort of thing like that

26:28

is a thing that you that people can handle

26:31

locally, um,

26:33

and that is you'll get a faster response

26:35

handling it locally as well than you will trying

26:37

to advocate for some sort of big national swatting

26:40

law and you're gonna get You're going

26:42

to get faster and better results changing

26:45

local departmental policy than you will

26:47

getting any law that changes how the police be highly

26:51

unlikely. Yeah, And so

26:53

I I think this is important. I think

26:55

it's important for people to engage with this from

26:57

the perspective of, like, we don't know why

26:59

the is happening or who is doing it yet, and

27:01

it maybe a while before I'm certain we will find

27:04

out. At some point these people will get caught, but

27:06

um, it almost doesn't matter

27:09

because the system is so easy to weaponize.

27:11

The solution is to try

27:14

to find ways to make it

27:16

less harmful without reducing

27:18

the ability of people with

27:20

guns to show up if they need to to stop

27:23

someone who's murdering kids. Right, those

27:25

are the two things that need to be done, not reduce

27:27

the efficacy of the system, which is not very

27:30

good to be honest at stopping mass shootings,

27:32

and and it's pissport at that, so it would be

27:34

hard to make it worse. I will say when people

27:36

talk about, well, what happens if they well, they're bad

27:39

at it now. They're terrible at it now. So it's

27:41

not like I'm not worried

27:43

about making a change to like mitigate

27:46

the response of swattings, in this instance,

27:49

harming kids, because as it is,

27:51

the system almost never saves them when

27:53

there is an actual mass shooting. So

27:55

simply reducing the amount of time

27:57

that kids have cops pull guns on

28:00

them and these false reports. Um,

28:02

that's more of a priority to me than

28:04

anything else. Um. Yeah,

28:08

when when we're talking about the issue of swatting and I

28:10

think there again, there's just there's things that can be

28:12

done there Molly, is there anything else you wanted

28:14

to get to on this on this subject? No,

28:18

I think that covers it. I just this

28:20

is still happening. It's happening today like

28:22

it's it is still ongoing. This phenomenon

28:24

is ongoing, and I think it will continue to build until

28:27

it hits a breaking point. Like you said, I definitely

28:29

think some of these people will be caught, But

28:32

I don't know what that changes, right, Like once this breaks containment,

28:35

once people see that this is a thing that they

28:37

could do. Yeah, yeah,

28:40

do we do we deal with a wave of

28:42

this before it gets under control that

28:44

gets even bigger? Or is that

28:46

what's actually happening right now? I

28:49

don't know. And when does this When does this, I don't know

28:51

desensitize people to the idea of these

28:53

threats. Yeah, I don't know. I

28:55

don't know. But no

28:57

kids get shot. I hope no kids get

29:00

If you're a journalist and you're

29:03

trying to you

29:06

are trying to report on this in some sort of concerted

29:08

way. Uh,

29:11

you can find Molly on Twitter and socialist

29:13

stuck Mom. She's she's

29:15

riding most of your article for you.

29:17

You can stee like. But

29:20

I think there are journalists listening to this. I think it's

29:22

important to tell them ask the right

29:25

questions right, like when you're you

29:27

know, when you're getting your three questions into the press conference

29:29

with the local shriff's office, ask specifically

29:32

where did the call come in? What number

29:34

was dialed by the caller? Right?

29:38

Because I don't think these are nine one one calls. I think people

29:40

are using nine one in shorthand, So asked where the call came

29:42

from, the substance of the call, because

29:44

I think, I imagine that

29:46

some of these calls are verbatim and we just don't

29:49

know that. I think some of them are probably identical,

29:51

and we just don't have a way of It's hard to connect

29:53

the dots when the police won't tell us.

29:56

Um. So I think if you know, if journalists are listening, ask

29:59

more questions then you got in the press release.

30:02

That's critical because if there were if there was a

30:04

if there was a Virginia State like

30:06

repository where every time we get a false swatting

30:09

attempt against the school, we report

30:11

when it came in, who

30:13

was called, and what was said over the call,

30:16

right, Um, all of which are things that they could

30:18

pretty easily get because this ship is always recorded.

30:21

Um. I don't know that that's true though,

30:23

and that's that's another sort of tactical nine

30:26

one one call. But if you call

30:28

the front desk at the police station, it probably isn't.

30:30

That is a fucking good point, um.

30:32

In any case, that is another thing that could be dealt

30:35

with, because then you would at least be able to see, Oh, there's

30:37

forty swatting attempts in the state in the

30:39

last five days, and thirty

30:41

eight of them it was the exact same script.

30:43

There's probably a single source of this that we should

30:46

be like looking at, um,

30:48

and that can help not just law enforcement

30:50

who's generally bad at these sort of investigations,

30:53

but people like you who are good at

30:55

these sort of investigations and can maybe then

30:57

start doing keyword searches and figure

30:59

out where the fun this stuff is originating from, if

31:01

it's anywhere on the semi open internet. Um.

31:05

Again, things, there's a lot to be done

31:07

to respond to this problem that that doesn't

31:09

start with like throwing more

31:12

cops at it or or or whatever.

31:14

Like. There's there's a number of different problems

31:16

that this is revealed. Um,

31:18

so hopefully those get solved anyway,

31:22

Molly, you got anything else

31:24

in the plug before we go? Oh,

31:28

defund your local police department, subscribe

31:30

your local newspaper. Sure, um,

31:33

and uh yeah if

31:36

if you're at a school right now, good

31:38

good luck

31:40

those kids. Yeah,

31:42

they are really the kids

31:44

these days are dealing with a lot. Um.

31:47

I'm I'm I'm more grateful every year that

31:49

my my childhood was as uneventful as

31:51

it was, because, boy, howdy is

31:53

it rough to be a student today? And

31:56

they still have to take their test teach

31:59

your fucking tests. Yeah, they have to go to school.

32:01

They got to read The Great Gatsby while this

32:03

is going on. Unbelievable. Um,

32:07

sorry kids. It

32:13

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