UPDATE: New information, including additional school districts affected by the latest wave of “swatting” calls, can be found here.
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Originally posted on Tuesday, Feb. 14, at 12:18 p.m.
Police departments across the state have been dealing with numerous, unfounded threats targeting schools, according to officials.
From Chicopee to Clinton to Cohasset, some schools went on lockdown over what appeared to be a new round of hoax threats targeting school grounds, following a similar wave of reports on Monday.
“On Tuesday, 2/14/2023 at 10:15 A.M. the South Shore Regional Dispatch Center received a call from someone threatening the Cohasset Middle High School campus,” the Cohasset Police Department stated on social media. “Cohasset Police personnel were immediately dispatched to all schools and confirmed the call was in fact not credible and a hoax. This call is similar to other calls some Massachusetts schools have been getting throughout the past 48 hours.”
“Like numerous other area communities, we have received a phoned-in threat to Hingham High,” the Hingham Police Department said on Twitter. “We had several Officers nearby who checked inside & around the school and nothing was found. There is NO danger at this time. The incident remains under investigation.”
A similar response could be seen in Concord, Mass., where police cruisers lined the outside of the Middlesex School just before noontime.
In a statement, the police department said after both officers and Concord Fire Department crews arrived, first responders determined there was no threat to students.
Massachusetts State Police, which has been assisting local departments throughout the day, told 7NEWS the MSP was actively investigating the source of the threats, in addition to the individual incidents.
Tuesday’s statewide police responses came a day after a number of schools, including Amesbury High School, were the target of hoax “swatting” calls.
On Monday, Amesbury Police Chief Craig Bailey described how swatting calls like yesterday’s use a “tremendous amount of police and emergency resources, diverting those resources away from other potential emergencies.”
Other schools affected Monday included those in Chelmsford, East Boston and Charlestown.
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