Oct. 22, 2022 11:45a
(WGTD)---Kenosha police have tentatively ruled out local residents as suspects in the Bradford High School active shooter hoax from last week.
Law enforcement personnel descended on the Bradford campus, LakeView Technology Academy in Pleasant Prairie, Park High School in Racine and about a dozen other schools in the state after callers claimed that gunmen had opened fire inside of the buildings. All of the calls were fake.
"We do not believe the call was made by one of our own hometown kids," said Lt. Joseph Nosalik in an email to WGTD. "I can't get into further detail because we are working on trying to figure out who made it. It's a tall task for sure, but we owe it to Kenosha to utilize every resource and partnership we have forged through the years to try," he said.
Earlier this month on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, which airs on WGTD, NPR reported that it counted 114 such calls in a three-week period alone.
This type of prank is called “swatting”. The motivation appears to be to create as much fear and panic as possible.
The NPR story cited local news reports indicating that some of the calls appeared to have originated in Africa, although the FBI said it’s possible that the perpetrators were trying to mask their true location by routing calls through a foreign country.
-0-